Episode 58
For a while, Irina, who had been wearing a dazed expression, began to mutter in a low voice.
"Wh-what is this memory...? Why, why have I until now..."
Kania, who had been quietly watching her, sighed and asked a question.
"So you were the one who noticed the young master's evil, Irina?"
At those words, Irina, whose eyes had been filled with confusion, slowly nodded and spoke while clenching both hands tight.
"Then... Frey tried to protect me... by... his own mother..."
"You managed to remember. The young master had to access his unconscious mind just to recall that memory."
"Ah..."
"Perhaps your memories were manipulated differently from the young master's and mine? Even when I entered this room, I didn't particularly remember anything. Well, since you've come to know the truth, there's no need for me to explain it tiresomely."
As Kania spoke calmly, Irina slumped down with a completely soulless expression.
"I didn't want to know... this kind of truth..."
"Me neither. Even right now, my guilt is so overwhelming that I want to confess everything to the young master and atone for my sins."
Looking at such Irina, Kania, who sat across from her, began to speak in a low voice.
"However, this matter must not be revealed to the young master until everything is over."
"Th-that's..."
"The young master always says he's fine, but... even in my eyes, his mental state has reached its limit. If you've spent a day with him, you'd know well."
At those words, as Irina's expression darkened recalling Frey's face when he was seeing illusions, Kania sighed as if she had expected this.
"Moreover, there are still many trials ahead for the young master to face. The first trial is barely ending... honestly, I'm afraid of what will come next."
"...Mm."
Eventually, when Kania mentioned the 'trials,' Irina lowered her head deeply and began to tremble.
"...Irina, may I ask you one favor?"
"What is it..."
When Kania, who had been staring blankly at such Irina, asked quietly, Irina answered in a voice completely drained of energy.
"Please don't resent the young master too much."
"What?"
Kania, who spoke with a bitter expression toward such Irina, let out a deep sigh and continued.
"There is no one in the entire world as pitiful as the young master. So please, don't hate him too much."
"...Ha."
Looking at Kania who was earnestly asking her not to resent him when she should be asking for help, Irina could roughly guess how lonely a fight the two had been waging all this time.
"Tell me everything you know."
"What?"
And that was why she finally reached an answer.
"I want to know the truth in even greater detail."
Whether to turn away from the truth and flee, or to accept it and become strength.
"It won't be an easy path. Every moment will become painful, and sometimes you'll have impulsive thoughts."
"I don't care."
"Have you truly resolved yourself to accompany this path?"
Looking at her, Kania asked again and again until the very end.
More than anything, this was a situation where allies were urgently needed, but knowing how great the pain would be when choosing this lonely path that no one could understand, a sense of kinship and compassion naturally manifested.
But even Kania knew inside.
"Hurry up and tell me."
That Irina, with eyes already filled with resolve, would never change her will.
"Hah..."
Having heard Irina's confirmation, Kania let out a sigh mixed with relief and resignation, and looked straight at Irina who had the same appearance as herself.
"Then, let us begin."
.
"Hah... alright, what is it this time."
After following Aria into a room and collapsing while clutching my head, I found myself in a closed, dark space that I terribly hated.
"Ugh... I hate this, I hate it."
Thanks to that, shivering as I lay on the floor, I soon chuckled and began to mutter.
"Still, it's good for mental cultivation, I suppose."
In the past, whenever I entered such a space, my hands would tremble and I'd have trouble breathing, but since I've been confined in rooms so often due to trials, those symptoms have almost disappeared.
Not only that, I was able to do mental cultivation while watching various terrible scenes, had a birthday party, and even met my mother.
Looking at that, the system's trials are indeed intended to make me stronger...
"F-Frey..."
"...Ugh."
I was trying to somehow praise the system, but my mother with fatal wounds appeared before my eyes. As expected, that system bastard is definitely something that can't be associated with.
Thanks to that, my mood became slightly unpleasant, but showing me such a scene won't break my mental. In the first place, that's just an illusion.
"Help me... Frey..."
"My mother has never once asked for help, you stupid system bastard."
Saying that, I pushed away the illusion reaching its hand toward me, and sighed as I fell into thought.
"Still... I need to quickly find out who noticed..."
Since I still haven't figured out who noticed me, I was starting to get anxious.
At the very least, I found out through the 'Mind Reading' skill that Irina and Klana were 'suspecting' me, but that was far from enough.
"Hah... should I buy the Mind Reading skill LV2? No, life force recovery skill is more urgent than that."
It would be quite a serious loss to buy skills worth tens of thousands of points when I'm already short on points to invest in the investment system.
However, since there are pros and cons to that extent, I should think a bit more about this...
- *Crackle!*
"Hey, really."
I was deep in thought when a loud noise started from ahead.
"Hah..."
I wondered what illusion it would show this time, but my mother was running urgently through a forest holding something.
"...Now it's even adding a story."
The system, thinking I would tremble from trauma if it threw my mother's corpse at me, seemed to have properly steeled itself since I showed a lukewarm response.
- *Crackle! Crackle!*
"Kugh."
My mother, running with wounds all over her body, urgently scattered star mana and threw her body sideways as black energy flew from behind.
"Mmm..."
My mother, who barely avoided the black energy like that, continued running somewhere.
"It can't be helped... since it's come to this..."
Running for a while like that, my mother suddenly looked down at what she was holding and began to speak.
"Mmm... Mom?"
"...Shh."
When my childhood voice was heard, I finally realized what my mother had been carrying while running.
"Our Frey, shall we play hide and seek with Mom?"
"Yeah! I want to play hide and seek!"
As young me answered brightly, my mother said with a gentle smile.
"Good, then Mom will be the seeker."
"But I want to be the seeker!"
"You already did that once last time."
When young me made a pouty expression at those words, my mother smiled and said.
"Instead, I'll let you be only the seeker from now on."
Only then did I smile, and my mother put me down and spoke.
"This time I'm going to change the rules a bit, Frey."
"Change the rules?"
"Yes, our smart Frey will understand right away. Right?"
When I nodded with shining eyes, my mother quickly began to explain the rules.
"Mom will count to 100 here, so Frey, you count to 100 while running. You understand this far, right?"
"Of course!"
When I shouted confidently, my mother stroked young me's head and continued.
"After counting to 100, don't move anymore and hide your body in something nearby. And you must never reveal yourself."
"Yeah!"
My mother, who was looking at young me still answering brightly, suddenly squeezed her eyes shut and pulled me into an embrace.
"Mom, why suddenly?"
When I asked while giggling at such behavior, my mother, who maintained silence for a moment, answered in a trembling voice.
"This game ends only when Mom finds Frey and hugs tightly like this. You understood everything?"
"I understood everything!"
"Good, if you resist with a wooden stick like last time, I'll eat you up, so be prepared."
"Hehe."
At those words, young me who laughed embarrassedly was about to run forward, but my mother, who stopped me by grabbing my arm for a moment, added in a low voice.
"I love you, my son."
"Me too!"
With those words as the end, my mother, who sent young me away, gathered star mana in her hand and walked toward the opposite direction from where she had been running, muttering.
"...So you must survive."
And the next moment, the narrow and dark room began to appear in my vision again.
"Fuck."
Having witnessed that quite convincingly made scene, I frowned and muttered.
"...Even so, it's just an illusion."
I suddenly recalled the scene from the previous dream where young me had told Irina that mom was hiding very well.
If that were true, it would explain why my memory was manipulated into a hide and seek memory.
Actually, I am guessing the truth to some extent.
Anyway, that's just an illusion. An 'illusion' the system shows to torment and pain me.
So, seeing such an illusion made with such a childish purpose has no effect on me at all.
It won't.
"Frey."
While I was thinking that, the surroundings suddenly became blurry and someone's voice began to be heard.
'Ah, I guess it's time to wake up.'
At the same time, feeling my head become clear, realizing it was time to wake from the illusion, I quietly opened my eyes.
"Did you sleep well?"
Then, someone looking down at me blankly entered my vision.
"Mmm... my head."
For some reason, looking at an existence whose identity I couldn't determine, I felt pain in my head for a moment and looked around, then chuckled and muttered.
"What, is this an illusion too?"
"What do you mean by that?"
When I said that, someone tilted their head and asked, so I pointed beyond and said.
"There's Irina wearing Kania's clothes over there, right?"
"I see."
"She's even unbuttoned the suit because it's too tight... pfft, pffft..."
Pointing at Irina who was quietly lowering her head for a while and laughing, I realized that Kania next to her was telling Irina something.
"...This is all the story the young master has experienced so far."
"Ah, ah..."
Looking at that, my expression increasingly filled with terror, I hurriedly began to approach the two sitting at the desk.
"I'm sorry... Frey."
Soon, the eyes of hers that I confirmed right in front were bloodshot, her nose was red, and tear marks remained on her face.
The moment I confirmed that, all the events that had occurred began to organize one by one in my head.
The hiding place that felt somehow familiar, Kania whose reactions were different from usual for some reason, Kania who caught the things Irina used to catch when she was young, and even the forest full of memories with Irina from childhood.
"Hah, haha..."
Because of my unnecessarily fast-working head, I figured out the truth in an instant and started laughing hollowly.
"Haha... ahahaha..."
Laughing hollowly like that for a while, I asked Irina, who had her head deeply lowered, in a low voice.
"So you're the one who noticed my evil two months ago?"
"Frey, I... I was wrong... sob..."
But she was just shedding tears from her eyes and crying.
"No, you don't need to feel guilt..."
I reached out to comfort her, but...
"...Huh?"
For some reason, my hand passed through Irina's shoulder.
"W-what is this?"
Thanks to that, I was greatly flustered and hurriedly pulled my hand out from her shoulder and rubbed my hand with my other hand, and sure enough, my hands passed through each other instead of interlocking.
"...Did I die?"
"Who knows."
I was looking blankly at that sight for a while and muttering in a hollow voice, and when someone next to me responded to my words, I turned my gaze to the side.
"W-what? Who are you?"
But that existence was glowing all over so I couldn't identify who it was, and when I frowned and asked, the existence slowly opened its mouth.
"First, watch well what is happening now."
And as soon as those words ended, Kania opened her mouth, so I turned my gaze again and began to look at the two sitting at the desk.
"Irina, so are you really going to do that?"
"...Yes, there's no other way to avoid that 'curse' you speak of and be of even a little help to Frey."
"Yes, I understand. Then..."
As Irina, who had stopped crying at some point, spoke with a resolved expression, Kania began to carefully wave her hand.
"Hah...!"
Then, the massive dark mana above the room began to be sucked into Irina's body.
"Irina, I'll say again... this method involves forcibly stuffing dark mana into mana circuits that have withered from mana exhaustion, so it's quite painful..."
"No matter what happens, it'll be less than the pain Frey felt."
"Then, please endure a little."
Soon, Kania, who warned Irina once more, began to pour dark mana into Irina even faster.
"Ah...! Ugh..."
"I'm sorry. If I had used my dark mana, it would have been a little less painful."
"With your dark mana... even if you gathered it for years, it wouldn't be enough. It has to be at least the amount of dark mana up there... to succeed... ugh...!"
Irina, who absorbed dark mana like that for a while, eventually collapsed onto the desk and began to tremble.
"You don't mean... to fill the mana circuits with dark mana before the mana exhaustion period ends, to deceive the system?"
Watching that scene, I clicked my tongue as I realized their plan.
Because that kind of thing is something only Irina, who has mana exhaustion and a heaven-sent sense for mana operation, could attempt, and if something goes wrong, things could go terribly wrong.
If this dark magic ritual fails, the mana circuits in Irina's body could be permanently damaged and she could become mana-disabled.
The mana disability that mages fear more than death.
"Haaaaargh!!"
"Just endure a little more, Irina. It's almost done."
While I was thinking that, Irina in front of me suddenly began to scream terribly.
Thanks to that, I was greatly flustered and tried to run to her, but soon looking down at both hands that were still passing through each other, I realized that I couldn't help at all right now and quietly began to watch the result.
"Mmm... ugh..."
"Are you alright? Irina?"
After more time passed like that, when black smoke began to rise from Irina, Kania cautiously approached her and asked.
"This much... is nothing."
Then, Irina, whose mana circuits all over her body had turned black and were visible all over her body like blood vessels, answered while exhaling rough breaths.
"...The ritual is successful."
Then Kania sighed, sat down, and answered while wiping the cold sweat on her forehead.
"Then now, the young master and the young lady..."
The two, who caught their breath for a while, turned their eyes to the bed where I and Aria were lying, but...
- *Whoosh...*
"...Huh?"
For some reason, they were flustered as black energy from somewhere began to seep into me, who kept lying on the bed, and Aria, who was fast asleep.
"W-why isn't it being controlled?"
At that scene, Kania, who was flustered, hurriedly reached out her hand, but when the dark mana wasn't being controlled for some reason, she was flustered and began to run to the bed.
- *Boom! Boom! Boom!*
"...Hah!"
However, when Aria, who suddenly got up, spouted star mana from her hand, Kania, who hurriedly retreated backward, asked in a voice full of tension.
"Young lady? What's wrong?"
Then, Aria, who was looking at her, raised the corner of her mouth...
- *Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!*
"Kugh!"
And began to indiscriminately pour star flashes at Kania.
"Wh-what is going on?"
And at that point, everything stopped, and I began to look around with a confused expression.
"They are lingering thoughts."
"What?"
Then, someone who had been next to me until then quietly began to speak.
"Two people who died in an accident while foolishly pursuing truth, their lingering thoughts were mixed in the dark mana, and when the dark mana disappeared, they revealed themselves."
"Th-that's..."
"Even though they're just lingering thoughts, it seems their desires haven't disappeared. Seeing that they've taken you and your sister as hosts."
"Ah..."
Understanding the situation roughly at those words, I sighed and said.
"Then did I die?"
"No, right now you've just lost control of your body."
"I see."
I nodded quietly and looked blankly at the stopped moment, and the existence next to me asked casually.
"Do you want to give up?"
When I frowned and looked to the side at those words, the existence began to speak in a gentle tone.
"From now on, everything depends solely on your choice."
"My choice?"
"Yes, everything will change according to that choice."
Saying that, the existence began to approach me, and I asked the existence with a calm expression.
"What if I give up here?"
"Eternal rest. It will probably feel quite good."
"I see."
When I nodded quietly, the existence continued in a gentle voice.
"No one will blame you. You did your best, and you have the right to..."
"What if I continue forward?"
But cutting off the words and asking again, the existence answered in a dry voice.
"It will be a continuous succession of hardships and adversity."
When I closed my eyes at those words, the existence urgently added.
"Perhaps you'll face situations even more unjust and more terrible than now... and you might meet your end without even being able to make this choice. Even so..."
"That's fine, please embrace me."
Cutting off that existence's words once again, I smiled and said.
"Let me be the seeker too."
Then, the light that had been twinkling before my eyes began to spread in all directions and began to brightly illuminate the room.
"...How did you know?"
And together with the twinkling light that spread everywhere, a woman who appeared in my view tilted her head and asked, and I approached her slowly and began to answer.
"The ceiling is full of dark mana, but for light to enter the room means that something more powerful than that energy exists above the dark mana..."
Soon, embracing my mother who appeared before me in her complete form, I concluded with a bright smile.
"Above all, when you worry about me that much, how could I not recognize you."
"You've grown up straight."
Embracing my mother for a while like that, feeling the warm warmth and the light spread everywhere seeping into me, I quietly muttered.
"I will definitely survive."
Then, my mother, who was slowly becoming fragments of light and seeping into me, chuckled and answered.
"Well, whose son are you."
Having finished those words, my mother completely seeped into my body together with the star mana filling the ceiling, and immediately after, a system window rose before me.
[First trial terminated early!]
[The following conditions have been fulfilled...]
"Bullshit."
I pushed away the system window right in front of my eyes, and feeling the surrounding scene gradually changing, I muttered quietly.
"...Where do you dare try to meddle."
.
"Y-young master! Young lady!"
When I came to my senses, a quite miserable scene was spread before my eyes.
"Ugh..."
"Please come to your senses! Please!"
Kania and Irina were lying on the floor of the half-destroyed room in tatters, Aria was approaching them while spewing dark mana, and I was surrounded by twinkling star mana.
"Please...! I beg you...!"
"Kania."
I called Kania, who was trying desperately to stop me and Aria with an earnest expression, in a low voice.
"Do you know something?"
"Yes?"
When I, who had been attacking her fiercely until just a while ago, suddenly asked in a calm voice, Kania began to show a flustered expression.
"I, you see..."
Looking at her blankly, I reached my hand upward and concluded with a gentle smile.
"...Since I was young, I've wanted to cast magic at least once."
And the next moment, the twinkling flashes that shot from my hand instantly wrapped around everything except Kania and Irina.
- *Shine...*
Then, the dark mana spread throughout the room began to be purified in an instant, and Aria, who was approaching Kania and Irina, lost consciousness and collapsed to the floor.
- *Whoosh!*
Soon, when a black sphere popped out of Aria's body and flew toward me at bullet speed, I wrapped the sword I held in my left hand with star mana and simply slashed the sphere, adding words.
"Still, the sword is more familiar to my body for now."