Chapter 309: Tell Them (3)
Crack.
Commandment opened her eyes to the sound of something hard breaking. Something damp immediately seeped into her open eyes. It was soft, yet mixed with individual grains that stung her eyeballs.
Startled by the prickling in her eyes, she snapped her eyelids shut. She had not even determined what the substance was, but she had no choice. Every part of her body ached and throbbed along with her eyes, drawing a groan from her for no reason.
In the end, Commandment gave up on opening her eyes and twisted her body violently. Each movement made the unpleasantly cold and viscous material press against her. It was not heavy enough to make her think her body would burst, but the pressure was enough to restrict her movements.
“Mmph.”
It even slipped little by little into her mouth and nose.
The rank scent of earth and blood. She realized where she was.
Splat!
Overcoming the pressure, she raised one hand. The mud that had buried her was flung in every direction, and her hand felt the cool air outside.
Thump!
Still in that position, Commandment braced her hand against the ground and hauled her body upward. She felt something plump, trapped between her palm and the earth, burst, but ignored it.
Being able to breathe again and feeling the sensations throughout her body grow clearer mattered more.
“Ptooey.”
Commandment spat out the dirt that had entered her mouth and surveyed the area with a glare. The terrain had been overturned, thrust upward, and chaotically transformed. By coincidence, she was inside a hollow crater that blocked her view in every direction. Several insects, presumably the ones that had been devouring her, crawled nearby.
Swatting the insects around her to death with her palm, she compared the view before her death to what she saw now. The earth had risen and pits had formed, leaving nothing resembling the earlier landscape, but her distance from the city wall behind her seemed unchanged.
In other words, there was a high probability that she had resurrected in the very spot where she had died. Commandment’s eyes narrowed.
Slide.
In the meantime, her hand reflexively stroked the place where the sword had pierced her.
She felt the fabric of her clothing, torn, burst, and riddled with holes until not one part remained intact. The holes proved that she truly had been stabbed, while the traces around them showed that insects had endlessly eaten away at her afterward.
They also proved that she had died once before—or, even if the blade itself had not killed her, that she had been in an environment where death was inevitable.
Even so, why was she breathing and continuing to think now?
…And why had the restriction on her heart—the one that had allowed her to exist as herself only while forcing her to stand as Pride’s puppet—disappeared?
Thump. Thump.
Her heart beat more sluggishly than before, yet beat freely.
Commandment found that exceedingly strange, strange enough to shatter the mask she had maintained throughout her life.
Scrape. The sword she had never released even at a moment like this dragged across the ground. That alone was no great problem. Whenever sword and ground touched, they made that same scraping sound.
What was strange was the discrepancy between the angle at which she knew she held her wrist and the distance from which the sound came. If Forbidden, with its exceptionally long rapier blade, was scraping across the ground, the sound should have come from farther away. It could not have arisen at this angle.
Commandment’s eyes moved toward her right hand.
『Always keep this by your side, my nameless sibling. So that you may receive the opportunity that should rightfully have been yours.』
The sword Forbidden, held in her right hand, no longer had anything that could be called a blade.
The moment she realized it, Commandment’s face twisted.
“…A-bel.”
A being born to suffer martyrdom, to be offered as a sacrifice. The sole person who had persuaded the arrogant creations that ignored her and forged a sword for her.
At first, his apparent pity had done nothing but displease her….
『Please, live a life of your own.』
Commandment remained silent for a long time, then finally clenched her teeth and rose.
She did not worry about anything that might be nearby. Considering the circumstances of her death, she must currently be a little over a hundred meters from the wall, but the terrain around her was a disaster.
In other words, just as she could not see the wall, the people on the wall would not be able to see her. So it was all right.
“Ah, Pride.”
Even if it was not, she would make it so.
“I will be sure to present you with your ruin.”
Because she would inevitably make it happen.
“…Ah, there are seriously so many bugs.”
Without knowing who stood on the opposite side of the crater, Commandment stepped over its rim.
“…Ah, there are seriously so many bugs.”
I waved my hand several times at the insects that would not stop buzzing around my ears. Thinking they were all insects the Behemoth had summoned worsened my mood further.
‘Won’t these disappear?’
[What, the insects?]
‘Yeah.’
Moreover, that demon bastard was peeking into reality again. I narrowed my eyes for no reason as I looked at the figure, which had grown so dense that I could barely see through it to the other side.
[If they were made of Demonic Energy, they would be summoned creatures. These are not.]
Of course, the demon did not care about my frown in the slightest.
‘What’s the difference?’
[About the same as the difference between a sword aura and an iron sword.]
…A sword aura disappeared when the Mana imbued into it ran out, but an iron sword did not. Was that what Wrath meant? Put differently, if they were summoned creatures, they would never disappear unless someone removed them directly?
“Proving it was a demon to the end, leaving nothing but shit behind….”
[What do you expect from a beast?]
“I’m including you, you piece of shit.”
[…How offensive.]
I glanced at the demons that had died crushed between the Behemoth and me, then at the insects gnawing upon their corpses.
My Demonic Energy had recovered quite a bit. Should I burn them? The thought born of my overwhelming disgust died when I looked toward the city wall. The Meister had not given the signal to flee, so it seemed matters were proceeding in a favorable direction… and I did not want to ruin it unnecessarily.
I might only be starting a fire to kill insects, but those people might interpret it as something entirely different.
Bzzzz.
And so I crushed only the few insects that came within reach of my palm, then listened to other sounds instead. The wind circling over the wasteland, for example, or the rustle of sand grains rolling across the earth.
Rustle.
And the sound of something walking across the wasteland.
“……?”
Footsteps?
Read only on MUGEX
I listened more carefully to search for a living demon… Ah, putting it that way made it easy to confuse one with that bastard. From now on, that bastard’s title would be Wrath.
Arbitrarily changing someone else’s title in my head, I listened more closely in any case. It was to detect a living demon. But as though it had only been my imagination, all I heard were the same sounds as before—the insects and the wind.
‘Hey, did you hear anything?’
[…Hear what?]
‘A sound.’
[I’m not sure.]
Just in case, I pressed Wrath as well and focused my own ears still more, but I heard nothing after all. Faust was still hiccupping, so asking him felt inappropriate.
Was there anything I could see? The Behemoth’s presence was too overwhelming, blocking an entire side of my vision. The state of the terrain it had left behind was wretched, too.
“Hmm….”
Or had something really come for the corpse?
Suppressing my revulsion, I circled the fat bastard and examined the area again. But aside from some insects flying around, I heard nothing gnawing at or cutting up the corpse.
“Was I wrong…?”
[If you’re worried about the corpse, you need only examine the flow of Demonic Energy. Why are you bothering to move?]
One last time, I glanced toward the wall that Wrath was partially blocking from view. But considering how the Behemoth had trampled and overturned the terrain, it was difficult to believe anything could be alive there.
“…Right.”
When I followed Wrath’s advice and focused on the Demonic Energy, I detected none in motion. Bzzzz. Once I included the insects coming at my ears, mistaking the sound of those bastards seemed by far the likeliest explanation.
In the end, I turned back toward the place where I had parked the motorcycle.
“Argh.”
These insects were seriously irritating. I wished they would crawl on my skin instead of trying to shove their heads into every opening.
Shuddering at the awful sensation, I waved my hand again.
[…Why don’t you make earplugs or a hood instead?]
At that, Wrath offered a suggestion. Wrath seemed just as disgusted by the sight of the insects, for the suggestion came in an almost pleading tone.
‘…Make one?’
[You can regenerate, alter the composition of your body, and even hide your Demonic Energy. Why wouldn’t you be capable of a simple transformation?]
Was that… how it worked?
‘I can transform my body…?’
[Yes. Shouldn’t the appearance that perfectly matches the character settings you wrote make that obvious?]
‘That’s true, but….’
The remark in the middle had poked my embarrassment, but wonder overwhelmed that momentary shame and took control of my thoughts.
After all, no matter how suspicious it was that my appearance perfectly matched the settings I had written, how could my mind ever have gone as far as self-administered plastic surgery? I had simply assumed that I was selected with that coincidence included.
[The method is similar to changing Ratel. Observe the place you wish to change, then transform it with Demonic Energy.]
In any event, as though entranced, I gripped my collar and concentrated Demonic Energy into it. The stiff, upright collar began writhing and changing shape.
It stretched like slime, followed my imagination, and covered my head, becoming a hood. The cross-shaped brooch attached to the collar shifted to a suitable position and hung at roughly the same height.
‘Wait. In that case….’
Remembering the insects that had been clinging around my mouth, I moved the Demonic Energy once more. It rippled and soon became a piece of cloth covering my neck and mouth.
I disliked the feeling of something clinging to me, so it was not tight like stockings. Yet its two ends were connected, unlike a scarf. If I had to name it, it was a neck warmer.
‘…Hey, I can change not only the clothes but the body itself, right?’
[Does it even need to be said?]
‘…My hair color, and my arm too?’
[Your arm is black in the first place because we made it match your little game of make-believe.]
At that point, the meaning of this transformation struck me fully, and a single blank thought floated through my mind.
‘…Even if things go badly, at least I don’t have to worry as much about a disguise.’
[Every transformation consumes Demonic Energy, and excessive changes will misalign your senses and create discomfort. But yes, essentially.]
Of course, I had no intention of fleeing in disguise right away, so this ability would only shine once I was driven to the worst of the worst situations.
‘Ah, right.’
[What?]
‘Speaking of my appearance, what did you mean earlier when you said you read my memories?’
Partway through marveling over the right to change my appearance, I recalled something I had briefly forgotten. Wrath made a sound like ‘ah’ at my question.
[Exactly what I said.]
‘No, I mean, why did you read my memories…?’
[Because we needed to?]
‘Ah, seriously….’
Wrath did not seem unaware of why I was asking, yet the subtle way those answers were twisted was uniquely infuriating. That bastard truly did not waste the name of the demon race in the slightest.
「…We read them because we needed memories with which to disguise this place as a game. The ancient magic did not permit access to your personal information—your name, age, family, friends, or even your childhood and adolescence—so please don’t worry.」
Around then, however, the child who had stopped crying answered instead. Had they known my name if they read my memories? The question that might briefly have arisen was answered by the sentence that followed.
‘That’s… a relief, at least.’
It truly was a relief that they did not know my entire life.
My mind relaxed briefly, only to seize upon a term I had nearly let pass unnoticed.
‘What do you mean by memories to disguise this place as a game…?’
「We needed something to use as a reference when creating things like the HUD and UI. So we looked at some of the games you played.」
‘…The games I played? All of them?’
Momentarily flustered, I recalled every game I had played in the past. Mercifully, I did not remember playing many strange games. At worst, there had been a few buggy garbage games made for comedy.
But… but the problem was….
「Yes… we looked at all of them…. Ah! We also looked at the game called… ‘Legend of Heroes,’ was it? And we saw you preparing a char… acter concept? for it… Ah, that was closer to watching you than reading your memories.」
The moment Faust’s voice said the words ‘char… acter concept?’ I bit down hard on my tongue. Hearing it from Wrath and hearing it from Faust carried entirely different weight. There was nothing I could do.
「The contract selected you at a point before you began the game… Um, wh-what’s wrong?」
Thud. Faced with that immense destructive power, my knees gave way without resistance. In addition to the entire ridiculous show I had put on here, they had watched every last bit of my make-believe even before that? They had seen everything….
“I’m mortified….”
「Why? Wh-why…??」
“I want to die….”
I had been fine with that Wrath bastard knowing. Why was the thought of the child finding out so excruciatingly embarrassing?
In the end, I dropped flat onto the ground and buried my head against it.