Your Gentle Despair (1)
If someone asked whether I felt nothing at all when humans died, that wasn't quite true either.
After all, I had been human in my past life—how could I feel nothing?
To put it in terms of a comparison—yeah.
It was something like the feeling of dropping a snack you'd just bought from a stationery store onto the ground.
What a waste of despair. A real waste...
What the monsters were doing right now could be summed up in a single sentence: slitting open the belly of the goose that laid the golden eggs.
Humans just sat there pouring out despair like a fountain if you left them alone. Was there any real need to go and kill them?
If it were me, I'd keep them by my side for life and use them as despair feedbags.
Grurk, grurrk—
"Thanks? Do you really need to go so far as thanking me?"
If I had caught the humans and fed them myself, gratitude would have made sense. All I had done was let the ones out of the test tubes.
Ah—maybe they were thanking me for taking them out of the tubes?
...By the way, just how vast is this place, anyway.
I had thought it was wide, but even after walking for a long while there was still no end in sight.
I had told the monsters trailing after me to leave once they'd eaten a single human head each. Yet more of them kept waking up from the tubes than were leaving, so the numbers had actually grown larger than when we started.
There was even one that ate the lower half of a body instead of the head because it didn't want to leave me.
When I gave that one a thoroughly dumbfounded look, it made a little crying sound that seemed to say, It's not the head, so I don't have to leave, right?—
Oh, for crying out loud...
The greatly swollen pack of monsters cleared my path, scouted the surroundings, and the moment they heard human voices they charged in and ate them—
Wow. A night parade of a hundred demons, composed entirely of monsters~
Blink— blink— blink—
The lights had been perfectly fine until I came this way...
Monsters were aggregates of despair energy. With so many of them packed tightly together like this, the concentration of despair was considerable.
Just approaching them made the lights flicker and an eerie aura settle over everything; whether because of that or not, the atmosphere was thick enough that any human who wandered near would scream on the spot.
"Oh, from here on it's the half-and-half ones coming out."
Grurk?
Did that mean we were under the supermarket now?
I tilted my head as I peered into a tube; the monster beside me tilted its head right back at me.
"Is it strange?"
Grurrrk—
The creatures inside the tubes were every possible mixture of monster and human parts.
Only the arms were monster, or only the legs, or only the head—or the entire body was monster and only the head remained human.
It felt exactly like looking at a dog's head stuck onto a human's.
Thud!
Grurk!
"Well, if you'd rather, I don't have to let them out."
I wasn't sure about the ones with monster heads, but the ones that still had human heads were basically just humans with monster bodies attached.
They still felt despair the same way. If the human parts took a fatal wound, they still died the same way.
...Should I really leave them sealed?
Creak, creeeak—
"For now, even half of them are still kin, so let's let them out? Well... strictly speaking it isn't even half."
Still, releasing every single one I saw would leave a less unpleasant aftertaste.
I had already freed every monster I'd encountered on the way here; refusing to free only the half-breeds would have felt strange.
Crack, craaack—
I hope they don't just start screaming the second they wake up...
There were plenty of things nearby that would make an ordinary human scream and then some.
I looked down at the half-body that flopped onto the floor as its tube shattered and let out a sigh.
What was I even trembling over?
"Ugh...?"
"Have you opened your eyes?"
"What... what is this..."
"It's a relief you've come to. Do you remember what happened to you until now?"
I squatted down and looked at the half-body. Its vacant eyes blankly scanned my form.
Same reaction as last time. Because I'd forced them out of the tubes?
"Ugh, uwaaaaaaah!!!!!!!!!!"
Crunch—
"Ah."
The moment I widened my eyes at the half-body suddenly charging me, its head vanished.
Aw, what a waste. It was the first creature to show that kind of reaction; I'd wanted to watch a little longer.
I turned my head toward the monster that had eliminated the half-body's head.
Gurrurk—
"Yeah, well. Good job."
It shoved its head forward as if asking whether it had done well, but I couldn't exactly treat a monster like a pet either.
Yeah, yeah—I'll praise you with words for now, so don't shove that head in so uncomfortably, okay?
I pushed the blood-dripping head of the monster a little farther away with one finger.
"Really, my gown got dirty again."
If anyone asked why I was so attached to the gown, honestly I didn't know.
Why was I this obsessed with a research gown?
Grit—
"...Doctor."
Skilled enough to create Apocalypse, yet he hadn't given me so much as a single mouthful of despair, was that it?
Even this research lab built by mere humans was this splendid!
It had been a disappointment deep enough to birth a hatred that hadn't even existed before.
The reason I clung so hard to the doctor's gown was so I would never forget that hatred.
After all, promising food and then snatching it away is the worst thing you can do.
I exhaled the boiling anger as a sigh and rose to my feet.
This anger—I would definitely unleash it on that suspicious narrow-eyed bastard.
My head was spinning.
So monsters had appeared? And a considerable number of them?
It didn't make sense.
For that many monsters to show up in a small city like this was simply impossible.
And the location was—
"Akari—we have to find Akari! Akari—"
The hotel where I had booked a room for Akari to stay the night.
Monsters had appeared there.
At the place I myself had sent her, monsters.
"Snap out of it, Emerald! What's wrong with you?!"
"M-my friend... monsters at my friend's place, ugh..."
Nausea rose from deep inside.
I had come back so I would never lose the people precious to me—yet by my own mistake I had shoved a precious person straight into danger.
And after this, what kind of magical girl was I supposed to be.
What the hell—
[If it's Akari, she'll be fine, Emerald.]
"...May."
[That's why I booked the safest hotel just in case, remember? A room that can even hold off Gamma Class monsters.]
"That's... true, but..."
I slowly let out a breath at May's calm words.
Getting flustered so unlike myself and showing such a pathetic sight...
...After finally reuniting with Ruby, to let her see me like this.
I was so embarrassed I couldn't lift my head.
"So, who's this Akari again? A friend, right?"
"Yes... something like that..."
I rolled my eyes at Ruby, who spoke with a little snicker.
In the previous world Ruby would have been the one getting worked up while I calmed her down. Now the situation was completely reversed.
"I never imagined Emerald would have a friend she was this crazy about, puhah!"
"Ah, ahaha..."
"So is this friend named Akari someone you made after coming back? I never heard that name before we returned."
"Something... like that?"
A newly made friend... looking at it one way, she was a newly made friend.
Except for the tiny detail that her true identity was the Apocalypse of the previous world.
If Ruby ever found out about Akari, she would naturally explode.
Are you out of your mind, are you crazy—she would pour raw, unfiltered curses all over me.
"Introduce me later too. If it's Emerald's friend, she must be a good person."
"Ahaha... if the chance comes."
A chance like that was absolutely never going to happen.
If Ruby saw Akari, she would charge in without thinking and run her through with hope-energy blades.
"For now, let's clear out the nearby monsters as we go. I'll take the large mall over there; you take the hotel on the opposite side."
"...Ruby."
"I believe you can handle it alone, Emerald."
I steeled myself at Ruby's consideration.
Yeah. Akari was in a safe place right now.
It wouldn't be too late even if I dealt with every monster that had appeared in the city along the way.
They were only many in number—not high in rank.
"Then let's meet again after we've cleared everything! Don't get hurt!"
"Yes. Ruby, be careful not to get hurt either."
Unlike me, who had self-healing, Ruby was entirely specialized in firepower enhancement.
And her combat style was pure close combat.
Even though a single misstep could cost her life, I didn't go with her—not only because of Akari, but because I trusted her combat ability that much.
"Let's go, May."
[I've roughly finished scanning the monsters' locations. I'll quickly brief you starting from the nearby ones.]
"...Got it!"
I calmed my heart at May's composed voice.
Let's go, Emerald. Save the people, and save Akari too.
The hope circuit that had been creaking until recently began to spin with an even more vigorous sound.
Hope bloomed all the firmer the more it rose at the end of despair.
Heart firm. Gaze straight.
And at the end of that gaze was clearly—
.
.
.
—the top floor of the hotel, turned into a sea of blood dyed with people's blood.