321

Chapter 321: If Only I Could (7)

“If I hadn’t done that, none of this would ever have happened to me….”

I muttered as calmly as I could, turning away from the emotions surging inside me. The words were meant for the Archmage, but they were also a cry directed at myself.

“How could I do that?”

Let’s not resent anyone for something no one wanted, yet which could not help but happen.

If I traced all of this back to its starting point, there was ultimately my roleplay, along with the lingering attachment that had sunk so deep into me that I had gone to such lengths even in a game. If those things were going to be called sins, then it would be better to dismiss everything as nothing more than one unfortunate incident.

If an unavoidable misunderstanding was ultimately a sin, then that would make those things wrong too, so it would be better to declare all of it null and void.

The sins I committed because of that persona, whatever I lost, even the fact that I was still deceiving all of you… Let’s simply let it all pass between us under the pretext that none of it could have been helped.

Please. Let’s call it that.

“How, how could I….”

I whispered quietly as I looked at the emotions that arose at the end of that compromise.

I can’t let myself be consumed by how unfair it all was. I can’t let an irreconcilable resentment seize me by the ankles either. If I do, I may end up repeating those days that were more acrid and poisonous than cigarette smoke.

Whenever the feelings I had turned away from churned inside me, reminding myself of those facts calmed my heart again. And so I swallowed my grief once more. At least, I probably did.

“I always regretted it. Why didn’t I embrace that person back then? Lending them my arms for a little while wouldn’t have been difficult, so why didn’t I?”

But before I could repeat that I was fine, a comforting warmth took hold of my hand. It was a warmth I could not bring myself to shake off.

“Only now, after growing older, do I think I know the answer.”

Just like that, the warmth drew me closer. Its intention was clear.

“We were simply too rational. It would have been all right to be emotional once in a while. We could have cast logic and reason aside and simply wept, blamed, resented, and forgiven as we lived. But back then, we believed being rational was always best.”

Should I push her away? Or should I remain still like this? The unexpected situation made my body stiffen for a moment. In the end, that too was a choice.

With my tacit acquiescence, the Archmage’s arms enfolded me. The fur peeking out between layers of smooth cloth formed something like a cradle. It was soft and warm.

“Pay no heed to cause and effect. Do not consider who wronged whom first, and do not weigh which side bears the deeper sin.”

It was warm enough to make me cry.

“Just tell me. Tell me all the grief you have accumulated.”

I desperately tried to reason with myself. I have to refuse. She has nothing to do with this. There is truly no reason for her to bear the weight of everything inside me.

“I will take your side and accept all of it.”

But I had missed so terribly the warmth of someone embracing me without question. I had yearned so desperately for words that simply took my side.

『Trying to endure every hardship merely because your circumstances are better than someone else’s is also a form of arrogance.』

And of all times, it had not been long since I heard those words.

I stood there in a daze until, in the end, I tilted my head onto her shoulder. I finally soaked it with my tears.

“…This is all that kid’s fault.”

The truth was, I felt far too wronged to endure any more than this.

The instant the tears began to flow soundlessly, Mephistopheles sensed it.

So much for prodding at his sense of grievance. She had not expected much from the plan, though she had wondered if it might work. Its collapse left her inexplicably displeased.

—If I hadn’t done that, none of this would ever have happened to me….

The faintly echoing voice only deepened her displeasure.

Idiot. How is that your fault? She thought it all the time, but Gretchen’s thought process was utterly incomprehensible.

I can’t cut anyone else down, so I’ll cut myself down instead—what kind of thought process did someone have to follow to reach that conclusion? She did not even want to know.

『My dear, you must avenge me.』

Especially when he was neither in a position where he had no choice but to endure, nor without the strength to support him.

『Upon my bones and flesh, you must see it done.』

She ran her fingertips over her bone mask. She had begun wearing it at some point, and now it had become part of her very essence. As always, it was cold.

Clink.

When she raised her arm a little too far, the chain looped around it pulled taut and restricted her movement. The chains had appeared when, faced with the threat of death, she tried to disregard every contract and escape from the body.

[Hah, this is the worst…]

If the boy whose soul had shattered had become a perpetually ailing invalid, then she had become a prisoner of the mindscape. She could draw her spirit outside if she wished, but it meant little when all she could do was look around.

Mephistopheles ground her teeth obstinately at her predicament.

[Should I have let him abuse the ancient magic instead? No, no… Stopping him was the right choice.]

Mephistopheles moved the hand touching her mask to its inner side. Her fingers slipped through the gap between her mouth and the mask. Longer than those of an ordinary person, they quickly reached her forehead.

She felt the raised scar left when her entire name had been torn away.

[Damn it…]

Click. The tip of her nail struck the stone fragment lodged in the middle of the scar. From time to time, it devoured her memories and corrupted her essence.

But the fragment had been altered by the ancient magic’s presence during their bargain, making it impossible to remove. There was no way to deal with it except to live while suppressing it as much as she could.

Mephistopheles found herself irrationally enraged by it.

[How did it come to this…?]

Instead of recklessly entering his body because she had been short on time, she should have found some way to hear the brat’s name and seize his body.

She brooded once more over the regret that had plagued her endlessly for the past several years, scraping the stone fragment a few times with her nail. She already knew perfectly well that it could not be removed, but at least it let her vent her anger.

[I thought there was no such thing as a human who could not be corrupted…]

No, there unquestionably was no human who could not be corrupted. But failing to anticipate that a human with such a high threshold would come was also, without doubt, her blunder.

Mephistopheles fumed over that point again and again until she finally gouged a wound into her forehead. Ash and flame billowed, then restored it.

[…Rotten bastard.]

It healed in an instant, but the sensation of ash and fire flowing over her skin and reaching her eyes was unpleasant. She took her hand away from her face.

Instead, what came to rest upon her fingers as they drummed against one another were all the things she had either concealed or simply left unsaid.

[Should I have told him everything back then…?]

When would using them be most effective? When should she unveil them to shatter Gretchen’s limits? Mephistopheles’s eyes sank into contemplation.

[I kept quiet because I thought telling him would only make him lash out at me—or fly off the handle and try to kill himself…]

In truth, what Gretchen had heard from her was only half the truth.

For example, Gretchen’s selection by the Supreme Law had not, in fact, been a coincidence. It was an inevitability deliberately created.

[No… Keeping quiet back then was still the right choice.]

If no suitable human existed, the ancient magic would intervene and make one. If a human met only some of the conditions, it would add something more and render that person wholly suitable. That was the ancient magic.

In other words, if none existed, creating one from scratch was entirely within its power. Just as it had selected a human with the right disposition and talents, then honed that human’s ability to survive by providing information in the form of a game.

[Damn it, he’s not some fragile sunfish, so why is killing himself the first thing he thinks of whenever stress piles up? Isn’t trying to vent that stress outward the obvious conclusion?]

Granted, providing the information in the form of a game had been the result of Mephistopheles persuading the ancient magic.

It had also been her idea to make the game and this world differ in small ways, using those gaps to guide him toward realizing this was reality.

If the game and this world matched perfectly, there was a high chance he would confuse reality for a game. The escape method that usually occurred to someone trapped in a game was to reach its ending, and the condition for clearing Legend of Heroes was the heinous feat of killing Satan. If he mistook reality for the game, he might die trying to kill Satan, which would violate the conditions… That mismatch had been created after she convinced the ancient magic with precisely that argument.

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She had only been able to maneuver behind the scenes because Faust had not known she could persuade the ancient magic. Had he known, he likely would have opposed it with everything he had. The boy had wanted Gretchen to believe this world was a game until the very end.

Well, his ignorance had ultimately brought them to this point.

[But if I leave him like this, his mind will stabilize…]

That did not make the present situation advantageous to her. In fact, it was extremely unfavorable.

Mephistopheles recalled Gretchen’s tenacity as he fiercely maintained his original self even now, when he had reached his limit.

If this was all she could achieve after cornering and pushing him to his current state, then once his mind stabilized again, there would be no hope at all.

[Should I kill her after all?]

She therefore needed to do something. Mephistopheles calmly examined the view of the outside world reflected in the mindscape.

—Just tell me. Tell me all the grief you have accumulated.

If that one died, would Gretchen break down by hating the outside world instead of blaming himself?

[…I don’t know. But there’s no harm in trying. I have plenty of time, anyway.]

She could not be certain. Nevertheless, Mephistopheles deliberately relaxed. She could do so because the “time remaining” as she knew it was longer than Gretchen believed.

Mephistopheles contemplated how furious Gretchen would be when, after nine years had passed, he realized a loophole in the contract meant he could not return.

She could not gauge it precisely, but it seemed certain he would be driven to bitter rage. The question now was whether that rage would turn inward or outward.

[My dear Gretchen… How many years will it take before you hold me dear as well?]

Then what she had to do now was ensure that direction would be outward.

[Well, before that, I must keep your shell from being stripped away.]

Mephistopheles narrowed her eyes and temporarily withdrew the translation magic cast on the body and the illusory magic cast over its lips.

I never wanted to kill people in the first place. I hate fighting monsters too. Why should I have to fight? Why should I have to risk my life fighting? I’m scared too. I’m so exhausted I could die, so why should I?

This is all that kid’s fault. If not for that child, none of this would have happened to me. If that kid hadn’t dragged me into this just because they were suffering, I would never have had to suffer like this.

But fuck, the kid had to be a child. A little kid. I can’t even get angry, so what the hell is this? What the hell am I supposed to do?

Why did the cause of all this have to be someone so young that it was difficult even to blame them? Why did it have to be a kid who watches my every expression the moment I speak and bows their head in apology at the slightest thing…?

I can’t even resent a kid like that without restraint. When they’re so small they don’t even reach past my shoulder, when they have those round, chubby cheeks, it’s so damn hard to get angry….

And goddamn it, because we even share a body, I can’t swear whenever I please. I want to shout at the kid and ask why it had to be me, why they did something like this. If I could at least go somewhere no one else was around and scream every curse I knew, it might make me feel a little better.

But hell, the kid watches everything I do. If I get angry and swear, they’re bound to hear every word. It’s obvious they’ll hear it all, bow their head to the floor, and cry. So I can’t even cry or get angry about any of this.

If the brat were at least some shameless little shit who brazenly blamed me instead, I could curse them to their face. Why did it have to be a kid with a conscience, a kid capable of guilt…? Why did it have to be a kid too stubbornly earnest to ever take the easy way out, who only ever apologized to me…?

That damn brat, seriously….

That demonic son of a bitch is no different. I can’t blame a demon for having no humanity, but why did its attribute have to be Wrath? That bastard is the root cause of everything, so why does getting angry only give it what it wants? I’m already pissed enough that no matter what I say, the bastard doesn’t listen to a damn word….

Fuck. Fuck, everything is shit. All of it is fucking shit.

I’m the victim here, yet I have to watch myself around that kid. The kid isn’t even a cause I can resent with a clear conscience. And the real culprit just cackles when I get angry, while I’m the only one who suffers for it… It’s so fucking unfair. All of it.

The same goes for all of you. I know I was the one who ■■■ first, but even so, how could you only ■■ on that? I wanted to ■■ you properly too. I wanted to ■■ ■■ly too. But because you were the first to ■■■■ me, I couldn’t even ■■ it out and had to keep ■■ing only the ■■ I had ■■.

I don’t want to ■■■ either. It hurts that I still have to keep ■■ing even now, but I feel like if I completely ■, you’ll ■■ me again… Like you’ll ■■ me even if I don’t ■■….

This is all your fault.

“It’s all your fault….”

Once the words burst free and began pouring out in a rapid stream, the Archmage silently patted the Demon Knight’s back.

Every so often, she heard words she had never encountered in her life, but she let them pass. The Demon Knight spoke so quickly, his words muddled by tears, that even words she knew were difficult to make out properly. She assumed she had simply failed to understand them.

“I like all of you. I do, and I love your warmth and kindness… But I still hate how impenetrable you are. I hate it more than anything. How can people be like that? How can you decide on a single side of someone and refuse to see anything else?”

Rather than fixate on the words she had failed to hear, she tried to understand the wounds the Demon Knight must have accumulated one after another.

His childlike whining felt somewhat unfamiliar, but that was all right. Before a truly agonizing wound, children and adults ultimately became the same.

“It might have been better if you weren’t kind people. If you weren’t, then your blindness in seeing only that single side wouldn’t have hurt me either.”

And because of that—because everyone was equal before a truly agonizing wound.

“I know this all could have been resolved if I just hadn’t ■■■. But, but that isn’t my fault. Wanting to ■■, even if only inside ■■, isn’t such a terrible sin….”

“Yes, you are right. That is not your fault.”

“It was so hard for me too….”

“There is absolutely no fault of yours in what has happened to you.”

The Archmage gently stroked the head of the person writhing in pain.

“I—I didn’t want to be the Demon Knight either….”

“You truly did your very best.”

They had taken far too long a road to reach this point, but at last, they were touching.