Chapter 48
Chapter 48
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 48
Chapter Title: Incomplete Ritual
-----------------------------------------------------------------
“……”
How long had he been reading my innermost thoughts like this?
Had it been awkward that I hadn’t deliberately mentioned a single word about devil worship?
I fiddled with my cheek, embarrassed that my secrets I’d meant to keep hidden had been laid bare one by one.
‘So that’s how it was.’
Maybe the reason dream-me chose Theodore as a companion was exactly this.
Theodore paid plenty of attention to others.
His way of doing it couldn’t exactly be called smooth or thoughtful, but he bumped into people with his clumsy approach anyway.
I didn’t hate Theodore’s way of communicating at all.
‘In that case, all the more…’
I should have kept my distance.
No matter what dangers lurked, I shouldn’t have used someone like him.
Why had future-me been forced to shoot Theodore?
Had I used him up until he was no longer useful, discarded him, and that was why Arthur had glared at me with such hatred-filled eyes?
When exactly had the betrayer Arma Cruise, who mercilessly pumped bullets into her friends that day, begun her betrayal, and for what reason?
The current me knew nothing.
“Arma Cruise.”
Now Theodore was tugging at my sleeve.
As if he wanted to leave this place as quickly as possible.
That was when I spotted the contradiction in Theodore’s behavior.
“Theodore. You sure nothing’s wrong?”
“Let’s go.”
Flutter!
Just then, birds in the forest took flight all at once, as if sensing something.
I grabbed the hand of Theodore, who had twisted his arm to grip my sleeve.
‘He’s trembling…’
The moment I noticed Theodore’s oddity, his breathing grew rapid.
His chest heaved up and down with tension, like a child caught trying to do something naughty.
It was strange to say, but Theodore was suddenly afraid, like someone who had abruptly remembered something long forgotten.
Or like he had snapped to awareness and was now facing the terror right in front of him.
“What the hell is—”
“Please, let’s go! This, this is definitely… this memory…”
“What?”
Now Theodore was blindly shoving me away from the cave.
Rumble…
At that moment, I understood where Theodore’s anxiety had begun.
An ominous black aura from the cave was spreading in all directions, twisting into sinister curves.
“Did it actually succeed or something?”
No matter how much those Literature Club guys tried summoning magic, if Theodore was telling the truth, it was magic they could never succeed at.
But seeing that black smoke and Theodore’s bizarre reaction, it didn’t seem like the summoning had failed.
“Gasp! Urk.”
That was when Theodore’s abnormality truly began.
Blood started dripping from the right eye under his eyepatch, the one that had looked merely pale until moments ago.
Danger, danger—such warnings began swirling in my head.
I couldn’t comprehend what was happening.
Almost simultaneously with Theodore clutching his eye and crouching, a hot ‘reaction’ flared from the magic circle engraved near my chest.
“You, is that you?”
The magic circle reacting meant Theodore matched the condition of ‘remember no matter what.’
Not the current Theodore who could escape the taboo’s influence, but the dream Theodore.
Like with Shirley and Arthur, it was that Theodore from the future memories, right before my eyes.
But—
“Damn, the blood…”
A hot, sticky liquid poured over my shirt.
The blood that had started dripping in drops now flowed steadily, too much for the eyepatch to contain.
‘What do I do?’
Theodore’s shaking eyes scanned me and the surroundings.
The scenery, me, the scenery, then me again.
His reaction was as if he couldn’t believe he was here.
I felt like I knew who this Theodore was without even hearing his answer.
“Urk…”
At that moment, with no explosion or anything, Theodore collapsed as if struck by something.
“Theo.”
“…Gasp, gasp.”
“Why is this happening? What’s wrong with you?”
No matter how much I wiped, the blood from under Theodore’s eyepatch wouldn’t stop.
I worried he’d hate it, but I removed the eyepatch covering his eye anyway.
Blood streamed down like tears from between his artificial eye and socket.
“This… your eye, can I touch it? Is it okay to take it out?”
“Urgh…”
To stop the bleeding, I needed to see the wound, but with it being an artificial eye, I had no idea what to do.
Flustered, I hesitated while staring at Theodore’s eye, then wiped the blood with my sleeve for now.
Then Theodore lowered his head and grabbed my arm as I wiped the blood.
“Take this off.”
“Huh? What? The shirt?”
“Contamination… corruption… ahh, no.”
Theodore was nearly delirious.
The warnings blaring in my head since moments ago were getting harder to ignore.
I gave up on my initial goal and decided to get Theodore out of here first.
“Let’s get out of here, to the valley, the valley…”
“Got it, got it, so calm down.”
“Shirt…”
“This is driving me crazy.”
Even in his delirium, Theodore kept insisting I take off my shirt, so in the end, despite the chill of the midnight air, I stripped it off and tossed it aside.
Then I half-cocked my hammer, loaded the gun, and roughly secured the holster to my belt hook.
‘Too light. Is this guy even eating properly?’
Moving Theodore, who was barely sane and dragging his legs, turned out easier than expected.
But anyone spotting me half-naked in the middle of the night, hauling a bloodied, unconscious student, would misunderstand for sure.
“…please…”
“Yeah, what else to take off.”
What Theodore needed now was a medic to staunch his wound or a priest with divine power.
The longer he babbled nonsense in his haze, wasting time, the more dangerous it would get.
I tried not to stimulate him too much while listening to his mutterings.
“The magic circle—if I wake up again, tell them to destroy the magic circle. Why did I only remember now…”
Theodore pointed to the magic circle on my chest with the arm not held by me.
Looking closely, part of the magic circle, which had been emanating unusual heat, was damaged.
A magic circle clearly woven with Theodore’s spells, related to memory.
Its damage meant the Theodore before me had recalled part of the memory it contained.
“This? The one you wrote ‘remember no matter what’ on?”
“I’m sorry. I can’t say more than this.”
“No, apologize later. How old are you? Which Theodore are you?”
“…”
Blood tears continued streaming from Theodore’s eye socket.
And unlike moments ago when he’d meekly let me lead him, now he planted his feet and stood his ground.
“Come on, follow me. You’re bleeding too much. We need to get to the infirmary. We’ll talk after.”
“Arma Cruise. Back out of this incident.”
“This incident? The Literature Club? What’s happening with the Literature Club?”
But instead of answering, Theodore handed me the robe of his Crown of Thorns Class.
As I slipped my arms into the robe, Theodore hesitated before speaking.
“…In your words, what happens next is more important than this.”
“That doesn’t tell me anything. Be clear.”
“It’s…”
Under my urging, Theodore made a rare troubled expression.
I was just as troubled.
I wanted to press him now—were all the things I’d seen and experienced just delusions, or prophecies of what was to come?
But was it right to demand answers from someone bleeding profusely and in pain?
Fortunately, Theodore put an end to my dilemma.
“What’s to come… means your death repeating hundreds, thousands of times.”
“…What?”
“Because we realized that fact too late, you alone had to make all those painful choices for nothing.”
Repeating death.
How do you even accept a story only a madman would believe?
Whatever I was thinking, Theodore’s words continued.
“But even I, saying this, don’t know your true end. The key was always in your hands, and I merely followed Arma Cruise’s words—”
“Why? Why follow my words?”
Theodore bowed his head, making blood drip even faster, so I tilted it back.
He wiped his blood-soaked right face, contrasting his clean left, then continued dissuading me.
“The only thing I can say for sure is from the ‘past of the past.’ I followed you because you alone found a use for this eye.”
As he said ‘this eye,’ Theodore tapped his right eye socket.
“…”
I stared at his face, at a loss for words.
Because the eye Theodore said only I had found a use for no longer existed.
Moreover, I didn’t know what secret lay in the eyes of that Theodore who’d had both intact.
“That doesn’t make sense, Theodore. Who decides the use of your eye?”
“I needed someone like that.”
“Think again. No one needs someone like that.”
Even twisted in pain, Theodore gave a faint smile.
“As Arma Cruise said, you just proved the existence of souls yourself.”
It was a smile, yet why did it look so sorrowful?
The moment I recognized that subtle change as a smile, Theodore reverted to his usual expression.
Before I could ask again, Theodore spoke.
“Wasting what might be our last time in fear was foolish.”
“Theodore.”
“In the end, you chose us over weapons for the final chance. Arma Cruise, don’t fight this time. The more we fight, the stronger it gets, and your soul will shatter.”
“Fight what!”
If I let this go on, Theodore would vanish somewhere.
I grabbed him desperately.
Theodore just gazed at me silently.
〔You shall not call upon it.〕
A passage from the Genesis myth, found only in the Lichten region’s edition.
The quote about some entity with destructive power rivaling annihilation, one whose name must not be uttered—it was why Theodore couldn’t tell me more.
“Then what should I do?”
“Close your eyes. Pretend you saw nothing, and try not to get involved with us.”
“Now you say that?!”
“Recall what Sir Spencer said last.”
No sooner had Theodore finished than Shirley’s words, sunk somewhere in my mind, surfaced.
-Don’t open the door anymore. And please have sweet dreams.
At the same time, darkness fell over my vision, like blowing out a candle.