316

Chapter 316: If Only I Could (2)

When I first heard limping footsteps from the far end of the corridor, I thought the time had come. That is… the time for some form of interrogation.

‘I thought they said we would talk tomorrow.’

[Those in power are always capricious. If it irritates you, you can simply kick everything aside and lea—ah, stop throwing chains at me!]

If I had known this would happen, perhaps I should not have sent Deathbringer away. But how could I stop him when he left to check on the Inquisitor, the Archmage, the Meister, and the others? I was just as curious about their situation.

“……?”

And so I prepared to receive a guest without Deathbringer. There was no tea or refreshments to serve, and this was not a place I could treat as freely as my own room in the first place, so it was nothing elaborate.

Scrape.

Instead, I dragged two chairs to appropriate positions before the fireplace. The room had not originally lacked a chair, but that one was a rocking chair and wholly unsuited to conversation.

‘It’s dark….’

[Why don’t you set a fire—stop throwing chains at me!]

「You need to be quiet.」

But after arranging the chairs, I saw that it was too dark.

After some thought, I used Ratel to hang my magic lantern from the ceiling. It was not as bright as an LED light, but I judged that it was better than nothing.

That judgment was not especially wrong, so I sat down in satisfaction. Step. The approaching footsteps turned away immediately afterward.

What? Why are you leaving? After going to the trouble of preparing everything, I was dumbfounded when the person turned back.

Strictly speaking, I had never been told anyone would visit me now, so I had no grounds to be angry. But baffling was still baffling. All the more so because the person did not enter another room and merely retraced the path they had taken.

[You damned brat…!]

「Go ahead and try. I don’t know how far you’ll get while the penalty for attempting to escape tightens around you.」

According to my senses, this was the only occupied room on this floor. If the person did not intend to enter another room on this floor, it naturally followed that they had most likely come here to find me.

Given what my existence meant, there was almost no room for that inference to be wrong. Whether they wanted to talk to me, monitor me, or merely deliver something, all of it could occur only after meeting me.

But now they were simply leaving? What in the world did that mean?

The absurdity of it made me rise without thinking. For the same reason, I opened the door when I would ordinarily have dismissed the matter with a simple, What was that?

Even if only out of curiosity, I stuck my head outside to see who had limped all the way here only to return without gaining anything.

“…Pasha?”

「…Ah.」

Before I recognized him, Faust, who had been tormenting Wrath as though hunting a rat, gasped first.

“…Pasha.”

The Young Lord… was it?

Unlike Pasha, I recognized him half a beat late. It could not be helped. The feature by which I remembered the Young Lord was his dark-blue hair, and the lantern’s distinctive orange glow had left that color difficult to discern.

“You’re Pasha.”

My magic lantern, on the other hand, gave off silver light rather than orange. It displayed original colors reasonably well even in darkness.

“You are Pasha, aren’t you?”

And so he easily recognized me—or rather, the identity of this body—and ran straight toward me. His leg was not sound, so he did not move quickly. Dragging it behind him, he reached me and desperately seized my forearm.

“Pasha… You are Pasha.”

Drop, drop. Large tears poured down like rain once more. I had no idea how many times I had watched someone else cry today.

I returned only an inscrutable gaze to the man standing there as though clinging to me.

“…It’s all right even if you aren’t. It doesn’t matter even if you aren’t. It doesn’t matter, so….”

“…….”

“Just for a moment. Let me stay like this for just a moment….”

Now, what was I supposed to do about this? I stood at a loss before someone who, no matter how I considered it, was an acquaintance of ‘Faust.’ Should I tell him the truth? Should I explain that this body truly belonged to the being he knew, and that I was a soul temporarily summoned because of that being?

[Brat, your strength is failing.]

「…….」

…And this person would pour countless emotions out in the process. Did I have to endure every last one of those as well?

[Your strength is failing, brat.]

「…Shut up.」

Human sensitivity was occasionally troublesome, especially in the way it arbitrarily immersed itself in problems that were not mine.

[Does it hurt? Are you sorry? Or… do you want to speak with him?]

No matter how much I tried to distance myself, my gaze inevitably turned toward certain things. Some words reached me no matter how tightly I closed my ears.

[With what right?]

In that respect, I was… uncomfortable simply facing this person. The discomfort was greater because I had crossed the enormous hurdle that was Daniel only this afternoon.

[Gretchen.]

Even the smallest amount of energy spent being swept into the emotions of an unrelated person was too burdensome at this moment.

[Ignore him. Why bother saying anything?]

I glanced at Wrath’s spiritual form as it smoothly appeared. It was a rather tempting proposal. The feeling was not quite annoyance, but the desire to ignore the man was the same in the end.

[This is not something you, who were merely dragged into it, need to concern yourself with.]

“Pasha, Atya, Elya….”

[The Inquisitor said it this afternoon too. In one sense, it is true that your circumstances are better than this child’s, but that does not mean you must endure everything for him.]

“Where are you…? Where did you go…?”

I desperately wanted to ignore him.

‘…This afternoon, the boy borrowed control of the body for a short time with my permission.’

[W-wait.]

But would ignoring this man now truly count as ignoring him completely? No.

‘Then it shouldn’t be strange to try the same thing with a different person. Right?’

「……!」

[No…]

For the sake of perfect nonintervention, I chose a third option.

‘I’m going to sleep in the meantime. Handle this without causing any problems.’

「A-are you sure that’s all right…?」

‘And “without causing any problems” includes giving the Temple no grounds to pick a fight and ensuring that when I wake again, this person has no reason to confront me. Understand?’

They could sort it out among themselves.

「Yes, yes.」

‘I won’t set a particular time limit. But if Deathbringer, the Inquisitor, or anyone else from the former party returns, switch back immediately. The same goes if someone from the Temple comes. All right?’

「Yes…!」

Suddenly, the thought occurred that if this was possible, perhaps he could control the body for the entire nine years while I kept sleeping inside….

‘Then come out. Or can you only do that once I go inside?’

「J-just a moment.」

But this was hardly the situation in which to raise that subject. Resolving to discuss it later, I blinked. Wrath isn’t saying anything. I felt slightly uneasy.

「…Thank you.」

But before I could question that sense of wrongness, the world changed. A white world no longer filled with blood covered my vision.

“…I don’t know.”

It did bother me that the demon was strangely quiet about Faust going outside, but judging by Faust accepting without great reluctance, it did not seem to be a serious problem.

I pursued the ambiguous thoughts several times, then gave up. Thinking about it now was troublesome.

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[…You truly are exhausted.]

Instead, Wrath, seated on a white chair befitting the white world, whispered to me. I did not bother responding. Whether Wrath was worth answering or not, I simply lacked the strength to react to external stimulation.

[If there is something you need, you need only imagine it strongly… but you do not appear to have the room for that now. Very well, my dear Gretchen. This time, I shall show you kindness.]

A different thought briefly occurred. Daniel would be fucking furious if he learned that I could change the conscious mind at the surface and had chosen not to. It was a useless thought. I stood blankly and gazed across the vast, pure-white horizon.

Snap. At the sound of fingers clicking, part of the ground began to writhe.

[It is the nest I used in hell. Ah, perhaps it does not appeal to you. Would you prefer a bed, Gretchen?]

The undulating ground soon hardened and settled into a particular form. It resembled a lotus made from straw. Or perhaps a burrow assembled from fragments of bone.

[It is quite cozy in its own way.]

It was grotesque without being disgusting, looked uncomfortable yet safe. After thinking briefly, I simply crawled inside. Considering whether it represented Wrath’s kindness or anything else was more trouble than it was worth right now.

“…It’s narrow.”

[It could not be discovered.]

It fit exactly only if I curled up like a shrimp. Within that cramped coziness, I searched for the most comfortable position possible. Perhaps because something soft had been spread across the floor, after shifting several times, I managed to settle roughly into place.

[Still, is it not comfortable?]

Does this damned crumpled posture look comfortable to you?

I opened the eyes I had been about to close as irritation surged. Snicker. Wrath, perched at the entrance of the burrow, laughed quietly.

[If you truly disliked it, you would have come back out.]

The only reason I did not was that even crawling back out and lying down elsewhere was too troublesome… Forget it. I pushed more of the soft material beneath my neck and head and blinked.

“Hey.”

[Hmm?]

“…Never mind.”

Did it look as though I were suppressing myself that much? I swallowed the question I had been about to ask. It seemed ridiculous to ask stubbornly when I already knew the answer I would receive.

[Oh, Gretchen. Calling someone and then refusing to speak is a sin.]

“What do you want me to do about it?”

Wrath complained when I withdrew it, but why should I care? To show that I had no intention of speaking, I lowered my eyelids. [How spiteful.] Wrath clicked their tongue from where they sat outside.

[Then may you have pleasant dreams.]

At least Wrath offered me a blessing at the end. It was a rather fucked-up thing to do. Who did that bastard think had left me like this?

Is this all right? Faust asked himself as the souls changed places. Is it truly all right for me to do this?

[…]

But it was too late to withdraw. The world changed after one final, enigmatic look from the demon. I don’t know. It felt as though Gretchen had whispered those words after going inside.

“I miss you….”

But regrettably, Faust could no longer pay attention to his words. The moment his mind fully awakened, dozens—hundreds—of pieces of information surged in from the body he wore and threw him into confusion.

“Please….”

The sounds of the night spreading through the silence, the scent of the wind seeping in, the warmth of the person touching him, the dark-blue world filling his vision.

Hhhk. Before the flood of sensation that was no different from violence, Faust stuttered through his breathing. He did not know whether it was proper breathing. A spiritual body had no need to breathe.

“——”

Ah. Was this thing passing through his throat air? Was breath something so cool and clear?

He reached through memories impossibly distant and continued those unfamiliar actions. For a moment, he forgot that the person before him was the one he had longed so desperately to see.

The boy first had to contend with how sensitive a true body was and how overwhelming it was to stand in the world with physical substance.

“Are—are you all right…?”

Ah. To live and breathe was something this immense.

“Are you all right…?”

Faust instinctively pulled his hands up and covered his ears. He closed his eyes as well.

To calm himself, he had to control the flood of sensation. To control it, he had to concentrate. But to concentrate, he had to escape from those senses.

『Brat, what are you doing here?』

『…I can’t sleep.』

More precisely, he lacked the confidence to maintain a lucid mind within this immense flood. The boy forced himself toward silence even as he held his breath.

『Because of tomorrow’s test?』

『Yes.』

Like that—one, two, three.

『Do what you always do. What are you worried about? You’ve always done well.』

『But… what if I make a mistake? And I lose points because of it… What if I even fail…?』

Four, five, six.

『Even if you make a spectacular mistake, I don’t think your score could possibly fall low enough for you to fail… But saying that won’t reassure you, will it? You keep thinking, Can I really pass? Everyone says I’m good, but is that true? Honestly, I don’t think so. I think I’m hopelessly inadequate… Things like that.』

『H-how did you…?』

Seven, eight, nine.

『But listen. It’s all right. It’s all right, Faust. You’re allowed to make mistakes. There’s no chance you’ll fail, but even if you do, it doesn’t matter. Whether you pass the test or not, you have always been a younger brother we are proud of.』

Ten.

『So don’t burden yourself with the belief that you absolutely must do well. That anxiety will only make things harder for you. Perhaps the compulsion itself might drive you to make more mistakes.』

『Gunya Hyung….』

『Put your mind at ease. Tell yourself it’s fine to fail, that being eliminated wouldn’t matter. Whatever mistake you make, whoever defeats you, your parents, your siblings, and I will always support you. You know that, don’t you? That no one will rebuke you even if you don’t do well.』

Faust resumed the breath that had stopped. His ragged breathing began to settle into its ordinary, quiet rhythm.

『Yes. You truly are all right. You will be all right.』

At the same time, the surrounding sounds—which had been crushed and broken until only the fact that something had been heard remained—began entering his ears properly.

『You’ll be all right, Faust….』

“Breathe. You have to breathe.”

At last, that desperately pleading voice reached him.

“Please, just breathe….”

When had the man fallen to his knees? Before the world he could finally perceive properly, the boy raised his head. The dark-blue hair, like the night itself, entered his eyes first.

“I have to call—I have to bring someone….”

“Hyung.”

It was a color that remained even in a world where so much had broken and disappeared, a color that still made the boy’s world meaningful.

“……?”

“Gunya Hyung.”

The boy placed a hand upon the dark blue embracing him. He felt his allotted lifespan drain through the cracks in his soul, but it hardly mattered. He felt sorry toward Gretchen, but the boy still did not affirm his own life.

“I’m sorry.”

“…You.”

“I’m truly sorry.”

Yes. His life still held no value. There was no meaning in allowing a life that sacrificed thousands merely to continue.

“I couldn’t protect anyone….”

But if even that worthless life possessed a reason to keep living, it was probably all of you.

“I couldn’t protect… anyone….”

Because you were such brilliant stars and such a brilliant night. Because you were people who granted salvation even to a fool like him. All I can do is choke on my tears.