Lingering Dream (3)
I wanted a drink of water. Even the simple act of looking at a human I had no desire to get anywhere near was exhausting enough.
“Right now… what are you…”
Lione bit her lower lip. A trembling voice slipped out from between her quivering lips.
“Is that… something an older brother should say to his sister?”
There was a faint wetness clinging to her tone. It didn’t seem like any emotion the same person who had been praying for my death moments ago should possess, so it only struck me as ridiculous.
“To call your own sister an orphan… is that something you should say?”
“Why are you acting like you’ve been hit by lightning? And why the hell would you be my sister?”
We were already half-erased from the family register anyway, and the relationship between me and Lione couldn’t possibly get any worse.
“……Why wouldn’t I be your sister?”
“There’s no way a bitch who ate her own mother and crawled out could be family.”
“………”
That last line hadn’t come from me. It was Richen’s true heart. What a pathetic mama’s boy bastard. Clinging to a mother who wasn’t even there. If he was going to live like a maniac from the start, just like me, he should have done it properly. Then he wouldn’t have swallowed every word he wanted to say and let it rot until even his heart decayed.
What a fucking mess I’ve been dumped into. The Grayans are all shit. Duke Grayan, the Grayan right in front of me, and Richen Grayan—every last one of them is utterly vile.
If I could, I’d kill them all, but one of them can’t be killed no matter what I do, and the other refuses to stay dead. Regrettably.
“S-stop talking.”
“From the day I was born, I’ve never once thought of something like you as my sister.”
Whatever I was thinking, the alcohol made the words tumble out naturally. As if they were always meant to be spoken.
Lione had been a capturable sub-heroine. She simply lacked a main route, making her one of those vague heroines without a proper ending.
She treasured family and affection far more than anyone would guess. Having never received real love since birth, she craved it all the more while never letting it show on the surface. After all, people always long for what they’ve never had.
She was the same kind of broken vermin as me, yet she strutted around just because she could swing a sword decently. I simply lacked talent, but that girl didn’t even know what love was.
At any rate, after hearing my words Lione simply froze and stared at me. Her expression neither hardened nor twisted. No tears gathered at the corners of her eyes, and her breathing stayed steady.
Lione simply looked at me.
When she remained completely silent no matter how much time passed, I rose from my seat, took a bottle from the cabinet, and returned. The entire time I moved around the room, her gaze tracked me. Ignoring it, I collapsed onto the sofa and started chugging again.
My throat burned and my stomach churned. Still, because I didn’t want to think or speak, I kept pouring alcohol down. I wanted to forget that I was living under the same sky as the woman before me. I wanted to forget that no matter how many hundreds or thousands of times I died, I would never be free.
As I drank in a daze, heat flared in my chest and my vision blurred. Even then, Lione remained standing blankly in front of me, staring.
A knock woke me. I must have dozed off. My pounding head confirmed it. My stomach churned, and every breath carried a revolting stench. No strength remained in my legs.
I had no idea how much time had passed. At least the sun was still in the sky outside. Since the only thing I’d consumed was alcohol, would starving to death reset me to the moment just before death? I had no desire to test it with my own body.
Another knock sounded.
“…Come in.”
A neat, unfamiliar butler entered and spoke in a low voice.
“Lady Lione has declared she will personally oversee your training and orders you to come out.”
“…Tell her to fuck off.”
The butler did not leave. I grabbed a glass and hurled it. Only after it struck his head did he finally exit the room.
Soon after, Lione burst in with a furious expression, two wooden swords in her hands. She strode straight up to me.
“Did you not hear me tell you to come out?”
She threw one of the wooden swords. The one I didn’t catch clattered to the floor.
“Why should I?”
“A human of the Grayan family… must not neglect training even for a single day.”
“…Bullshit.”
Lione stepped closer and swung her sword, shattering the liquor bottle I still held.
“Pick up the sword.”
Glass shards sliced into my hand, turning it into a bloody mess. When I still refused to stand, Lione kicked me.
I collapsed face-first without being able to dodge. She threw the fallen wooden sword at me again.
“Pick it up. I said pick it up.”
“…Why are you throwing a tantrum when even the duke is staying quiet?”
“Die and come back.”
“………”
“If you had simply died, it would have ended cleanly. No one would have grieved. So why—why do I have to hear those words from a worthless vermin like you!?”
If she was going to lose it, she should have done so earlier. Why now? Because I’d been drinking on an empty stomach? Nausea surged up my throat. Of course nothing came out.
Even so, Lione slowly approached with the wooden sword. She paused right in front of me, then raised it with trembling hands. With all her strength she brought it down on my head.
Every impact against my face produced a sickening crack. Even when I flailed my hands, the sword twisted strangely and kept hammering my skull. I couldn’t block it.
She had told me to pick up the sword.
“You fucking—fuck… why do I have to hear that kind of filth from someone like you? Trash. Failure. A vermin bastard who can’t do anything despite being the eldest son. A retard born the eldest son who can’t even inherit the position of duke… and even now you can’t swing a sword properly……”
“Wait… you crazy bitch……”
“Why do I have to hurt like this? They’re just words you spat out, so why—why does it hurt this much!?”
0.2%↑
She had lost her mind.
But this was different from usual. Instead of reviving, I saw my own head half-crushed. And above it, the crazy bitch still slamming the wooden sword down, turning my skull into pulp.
『You fucking—did you think I couldn’t do it? Did you think I couldn’t!?』
Her already swollen eyes caved in.
『Just die. Die and shut your mouth. Don’t say a single word. I don’t want to hear anything from you, so just fucking die.』
Her forehead shattered and brain matter sprayed.
『You were nothing to me. Good thing you fucking died, you son of a bitch. A vermin bastard unworthy of the Grayan name!! What? You never once thought of someone like me as your sister? Who the fuck do you think you are, deciding something like that? A vermin bastard who doesn’t know his place!』
She kept beating my already destroyed head until the wooden sword snapped. Lione picked up the other one I had thrown earlier from the floor.
『I’m glad you died! Fuck, you disgusting bastard—only you! You got to enjoy everything alone! I never even met her! Mom—there’s no way Mom, who I never met, would hate me! With that fucking mouth… this… fuuuuck… ugh, ughhh… it’s nothing, you are, you are nothing to me……』
『Brother? Wake up. Why… why can’t you get up? How rude.』
Lione stared blankly into space, then bit her lower lip. Soon her lips began to tremble violently.
『Get up.』
She prodded my ruined head with the tip of the sword. As if poking a red pancake would elicit any answer.
『Are you dead?』
Lione sank to the floor and stared blankly at my corpse. A piece of glass on the floor cut into her hand, drawing blood, but she paid it no mind and simply gazed down at my body.
Capture is currently impossible.
Only then did my eyes open again.
“Why do I have to hear those words from a worthless vermin like you!?”
Lione staggered as she raised the sword high.
“You fucking—why do I have to hear that kind of filth from someone like you.”
Just like what I had seen.
“Trash, failure, a vermin bast—ugh!?”
I snatched the wooden sword from the floor and twisted my head just enough to dodge the downward strike. Then I jabbed the tip hard into Lione’s solar plexus as she tried to raise the sword again.
She gasped and staggered. The wooden sword fell from her hand.
She didn’t look well. Her eyes were red and dark circles had formed beneath them. Not that it was any of my business.
I crawled to the wall, leaned against it, and steadied my ragged breathing. Using the wooden sword as a cane, I barely managed to stand. If I left her like this she would recover and chase me, so I kicked her in the stomach while she leaned against the wall catching her breath, then threw away the sword I was holding.
Favorability, favorability. So smashing my head raises favorability? I had no way of checking the values and no idea how to obtain it; I had zero desire to keep getting my skull caved in just to raise some numbers.
I knew that fully capturing a heroine in Endrog would let me see an ending, but…
“……I can’t stay here.”
I had no interest in the idiotic act of staying in a place like this and trying to seduce my own sister. It would be the same for both me and Richen.
I glanced at Lione, who was curled up sobbing and hiccupping, then slowly walked out of the room.
The moment I emerged, every servant in the vicinity looked at me, then turned their heads and resumed their duties. Well, there had never been a place for me here to begin with. It was my own fault for crawling back in.
I had thought I could at least rest for a little while.
I lightly shoved aside the head butler who approached chattering something and headed for the mansion’s main gate.
The sun was setting, yet the light felt blindingly bright. My eyes stung so badly that nothing registered.
I knew there was nowhere for me no matter where I went, so why had I crawled all the way back here?
Who knows. Maybe that fool Richen had believed his father and sister would welcome him warmly once he returned as a war hero.
That idiot was more than capable of thinking something that stupid.