Chapter 28
Chapter 28
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 28
Chapter Title: What Happened at That Festival (3)
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His usually neat hair was a total mess, but there weren't many people in the academy with this kind of build and strength.
"Arthur."
I'd heard he was bedridden with illness, so why had Arthur come all the way out here?
Half surprised and half bewildered, I let him lead me out of the crowd.
"Wait, I lost Theodore."
"......"
I was just turning back to go after the missing Theodore.
...But he's sick?
Arthur wouldn't let go of my arm.
It wasn't just holding on—it was honestly a threatening grip.
"What's wrong?"
Dangerous. This is dangerous.
The thought kept running through my mind.
"......"
"Hey, that hurts."
Arthur, who was said to have chest pains accompanied by fever.
As a human, he couldn't possibly lack a heart, so maybe his case was a bit different from Theodore's.
The physical defects of the people I'd killed in that strange dream were manifesting in reality.
But the only clear cases were Theodore and Judith; there had been no changes in Shirley or Arthur.
There was only one reason I could think of.
The two I'd mentioned had been killed directly by my pulling the trigger, while the other two had died fighting each other.
Maybe the difference was that I hadn't been the decisive contributor to Arthur's cause of death—Shirley had.
"So I thought naturally they'd both be fine......"
As time passed, his palm tightened even more around my arm. I gave up trying to wriggle free and just relaxed my arm entirely.
Once it was easier to pull, his grip seemed to loosen a little.
"We need to get Theodore. We were just talking about you, actually."
I kept using Theodore as an excuse, trying to slip away from the situation as naturally as possible.
It felt like that's what I had to do.
Was this the survival instinct of a wild animal?
Arthur's unusually gloomy eyes made me want to bolt from this spot right then and there.
"...Believer."
"Waaah!"
"What?"
Arthur was mumbling something incomprehensible, his feverish eyes slightly unfocused.
At almost the same time, the parade carriage carrying Shirley, the incarnation of Aegis, began to move slowly.
Those who didn't know Shirley cheered at her dignified appearance, while those who did cackled at the sight of her looking gaunt and irritable from near-starvation.
His words were drowned out by the commotion.
But honestly, I had a pretty good guess what Arthur had said.
He was speaking from such close range—there was no way I couldn't hear it.
'Traitor? What the hell...'
One step forward, and I'd be back in the noisy festival chaos with the fireworks bursting.
But while my left side was still bathed in light, my right side was firmly held by Arthur, nearly swallowed by the shadows.
To think such polar-opposite scenes could unfold just a step apart.
Arthur kept mumbling incoherently, staring at his own feet without meeting my eyes.
'Should've loaded it earlier.'
Even if I tried loading now, it didn't seem like Arthur would wait.
Pretending to be calm, I scanned the crowd for the vanished Theodore.
Theodore was being swept along in the throng following the parade, looking troubled.
Now, there was no Enoch or Theodore around me.
All that was left was the indifferent crowd and this Arthur I didn't know, calling me a traitor.
"Look, Arthur, let go first and calm down. You seem delirious from the pain right now."
"What else are you planning to do? No, but this place..."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
His eyes kept drooping, so Arthur shook his head.
The way he clenched and unclenched his fist made him look confused himself.
Then, a sudden thought struck me.
Maybe this was an opportunity.
If Arthur knew something I hadn't figured out yet...
"You're misunderstanding something. I'm not running away, so talk to me."
"You're not looking for some way to slip out again like that?"
Every word, every little gesture was laced with anger.
The silver lining was that his reason hadn't completely flown out the window—he wasn't making any moves to act on it right away.
More precisely, it felt like a furious Arthur and a non-furious one were taking turns vying for control of his body.
"Calm down."
I took one more step into the darkness.
Stepping from the brightly garlanded path of ribbons and wreaths into the shadows made the festival's lively atmosphere feel like something unrelated to me in an instant.
"...Yes~ We bless you."
Shirley's listless voice echoed from afar.
The cadets laughed or cheered at the blessing Shirley gave as the creation god Aegis.
"Everyone~ is listening."
The creation god's blessing, drastically shortened to "We bless your futures" and "We are all here listening in full," would end with "We shall never forget that origin."
The parade carriage headed toward the central fountain, and the crowd shifted away from us bit by bit.
That's when Arthur moved.
"Urk!"
Like he was showing off his strength, he grabbed the lapel of my resisting clothes and dragged me toward the chapel.
I knew I couldn't let him take me there, but there was nothing I could do.
'Maybe a festival committee cadet...'
The parade's finale was the incarnation of Aegis, having blessed everyone at the central fountain, entering the chapel in a flower palanquin.
Vibrant stained-glass light poured down from the chapel's high windows onto the incarnation's head, with the black lily class choir lined up on either side singing hymns.
Once the song ended, the incarnation lit the first candle, and they passed the flame to each other, snuffing it out unexpectedly—that was the holy fire ceremony, the parade's conclusion.
-Bang!
But my hopes were dashed quickly.
The chapel's interior, which should have been lavishly decorated last year, was barren.
It had to be because someone had died here just days ago—they must've changed the venue for the holy fire ceremony.
I hadn't been interested in the festival anyway, and I'd been quarantined in the infirmary right up until it started, so there was no way I could've known ahead of time.
-Creak!
As soon as we entered the chapel, Arthur snatched my holstered pistol.
Disarmed in an instant, I raised both hands to show I had no intention of attacking, hoping the barrel wouldn't turn toward me.
'Now I'm really screwed.'
Even my last resort against a swordless Arthur had been taken.
But Arthur's state after grabbing the holster was odd.
It was like he was holding something he'd taken himself, yet not of his own will—he kept gripping and releasing it.
"That thing..."
"......"
I almost added "handle it carefully," but decided against it, not wanting to provoke him unnecessarily.
Even without me saying anything, Arthur looked confused enough.
'Yeah, as long as he doesn't load it...'
But as if reading my thoughts, Arthur slowly drew the gun from the holster.
Very slowly, with trembling hands, he even managed to find the bullets inside and began loading—just as I'd feared.
He turned the lever, opened the barrel, and chambered the two rounds.
'Damn it...'
I'd hoped a guy with no reason to handle guns might not know how to load it, but no such luck.
"I... shouldn't have... trusted you......"
-Click.
The words were contradictory, but his hands moved clumsily yet skillfully somehow.
Like he'd watched someone else's actions and mimicked them perfectly.
After loading, Arthur carefully turned the lever to lock the barrel shut, then rubbed it with his fingertips.
Having watched that too, I went from suspicion to certainty about what kind of Arthur was standing before me.
"What do you know, Arthur? Where did you come from?"
That habit of rubbing the lever after securing the barrel had started when my older sister, Ruin Cruise, first gave me the gun.
The day I received it, I was so tense holding a weapon that could kill, sweat kept pouring from my hands.
After that, I'd turn the lever to open the barrel, then wipe the sweat-slick lever with my finger—and it became a habit.
For Arthur to mimic that meant...
'He's seen me shoot before.'
I'd gotten permission to fire it for self-defense at the academy, but the first time I'd actually loaded and fired it was during the beast attack two days ago.
Even if Arthur had watched me closely then, mimicking the lever-wiping habit would've been impossible.
When I was loading, he'd been looking back, and a beast stood between us.
Unless he had some superpower to see from the beast's backside, Arthur couldn't have seen me loading that day.
"Well. I have questions for you too."
-Clack.
Arthur slowly aimed the barrel at me.
Not just that—he pressed it against my forehead like he was shoving it in.
'It's certain. He's seen me shoot multiple times.'
My pistol had a short barrel and poor accuracy.
I knew that as its owner, but for Arthur, who used swords and magic rather than guns, to know it was highly unnatural.
Arthur spoke again.
"How we came back to Aegis Academy."
Coming back implied we'd left once.
But hearing that gave me a strange sense of dissonance.
Leave the academy? I'd never even considered it.
No matter where we'd been born, we all had to live at Aegis Academy.
An image of flickering candlelight and tolling bells flashed through my mind.
"And you're... scheming to slip away alone again... No, enough......"
"Just one thing."
The hammer was already cocked; pulling the trigger would fire it.
In a last-stand mindset, I showed him my open palms and stared Arthur straight in the eye.
"You called me a traitor. For me to have betrayed you means we were together at some point before, right?"
Any appearance of calm was pure bravado.
Staring at Arthur, who showed no sign of relaxing his grip on the trigger, I felt my heartbeat quicken.
"Ha."
Arthur let out an incredulous laugh, pulling up one corner of his mouth.
"Funny joke. [Rebel Sharpshooter] Arma Cruise."
-Boom! Pop!
At the same moment Arthur spoke, the grand finale fireworks of the festival burst in brilliant succession.
-We shall never forget that origin.
Shirley's voice carried from afar.
The Aegis procession parade was nearing its end.
Strangely, it all felt unreal, and in that moment of losing myself to her voice...
What do you call it when time stretches endlessly in the face of mortal danger?
I read regret, fear, and remorse in Arthur's expression as he moved to pull the trigger.
'Fear...?'
-Bang!
That was the full account of the festival incident.
I could recover the memories that had flown from the shock only because Machina Christie, desperate to save me right before my eyes, broke the academy rules and used divine power.