“Next, you make this woman your companion.”
The Queen of the School as a companion?
At the woman’s abrupt words—much like the system’s guidance that an ending of some sort would only come after an S-Battle with the Queen of the School—Erica was momentarily at a loss for words.
“The Queen’s ability to turn everything into falsehood. This woman suits the word ‘Old’ better, but her ability is no lie. Since she has no home, you could make her live at your place, so she’s much easier to take as a companion than the others.”
However, the woman continued explaining the Queen’s merits without minding Erica’s reaction. The sight of her crouching before Erica overlapped with the trio collapsed behind her, creating an eerie atmosphere.
“She possesses the ability to turn at least one or two things into falsehoods if you make the wrong choice. It would depend on how many people you allow her to take as believers, but surely, among the countless situations before you, nothing would be as useful as her ability.”
It sounded as though she knew exactly what trials lay ahead of Erica.
When she thought about how defeating the Queen distributed 30 affection points among several people, the bizarre situation of the woman who had displayed overwhelming power against the Queen—who was practically a raid boss—now explaining the merits of the woman Erica had defeated came to mind.
Amidst all that strangeness, wariness settled in Erica’s eyes. She had merely thought of her as the possessor of a role she couldn’t properly see.
“Who are you, really.”
“If you ask me that, I can only say I’m someone who mooched ice cream off you. But if I must answer to meet your expectations even slightly—”
The words that rose above the woman’s head along with her name suited her better than anything else.
[ERROR Iseuka]
The most powerful error in this world, one who overwhelmed even the Queen capable of making everything false, smiled at the helplessly sitting girl with overwhelming favor.
After that, she propped her hands on her knees and stood up. Looking up at her, Erica was struck anew by the realization—the person before her was someone far greater than her current self.
“The Student Council President was chosen by [Him], so she can gather many capable individuals as companions under the name of the Student Council without experiencing particular humiliation. But you, abandoned by [Him], are different. You must lay that proud self-esteem on the ground just to gather companions one by one.”
It was a meaningful statement, as if Erica’s conditions for gathering companions had changed due to [His] choice, but Erica, hearing it, was not particularly shaken, unlike before.
“I don’t know why you keep telling me to gather companions, but I’m fine without them.”
She didn’t need companions. In a situation where she must not give her heart to anyone, companions were more likely to become obstacles.
Since Erica didn’t fully believe she could refrain from giving her heart even to a companion, Iseuka’s urging to gather companions was little more than unnecessary words.
“You only realize you need companions when it’s too late. Let me say one thing first. The reason you must gather companions is that the Student Council President has already gathered hers. In other words, you must gather companions to oppose her. A woman who stands at the extreme in a different direction from you, already perfected after gathering countless companions.”
And Erica was not kind enough to keep listening to unnecessary words. Ignoring the woman looking down at her, Erica rose to leave, but the woman’s words caught her ankle just as she was about to head home.
Words like a curse—that she would face the Student Council President, who showed her nothing but pure, unadulterated goodwill in this world, as an enemy.
“Why are you suddenly saying something like a curse? Why would I fight her?”
Erica was not gentle enough to let such cursed, prophetic words pass quietly.
When Erica turned around in annoyance, Iseuka revealed an air of mystery and spoke words that would continue to nag at her.
“The possessor of wisdom with the sole potential in this world to reach omniscience. That wisdom will undoubtedly discover the secret you hide and come to hate you. She will move even the person you get along with the least, the one known as the strongest and most vicious of the Association, in her effort to destroy you—”
Silver lightning surged from Erica’s hand as if to say she didn’t want to hear any more. A silent demand for her to shut up.
It didn’t seem to contain the transcendent power from when she first manifested the current, but if one were hit without any preparation, it held enough force to neutralize even a powerful esper in a single blow.
But Iseuka suddenly vanished and reappeared behind Erica, embracing her tightly, both hands positioned right below Erica’s chest.
Because of just that, Erica was unable to move rashly. At the sight of Erica threatening her out of annoyance yet freezing because her opponent threatened something other than her life, Iseuka spoke kindly in a voice laced with faint amusement.
“Calling me unnie or wearing skirts aren’t particularly difficult for you. But I also know you don’t particularly like doing such things.”
The lightning that had been about to burn through Erica’s blessing from her hand died down. Because she knew what would happen if Iseuka’s hands moved even slightly higher.
Erica already knew through internet knowledge that a woman’s pleasure wasn’t something obtained so simply, but this world was a dating sim world.
Because she knew how easily pleasure could be obtained in this world, that act became a more certain threat to Erica than any other action or words.
Erica, who wielded her blessing in an offensive form against dolls that spoke with human voices, could erase them with a single wave of her hand.
But she had never once resolved to scatter lightning carrying all manner of death at someone whose face she could clearly see.
“It may seem contradictory, but such actions aren’t quite contradictory. You simply don’t regard ordinary people as human. That’s why you feel no shame. Though one may feel shame from humiliation in front of others, there are often people who feel no shame when alone.”
Erica had concluded that the extras appearing as black silhouettes was an artificial trauma designed to make her easy to capture for the protagonist.
But it could be viewed from another perspective.
To Erica, who had never resolved to become a murderer in her life, the function of people not appearing as people could also be seen as helpful—it prevented her from viewing killing as killing, allowing her to see only obstacles before her and clear them away.
“You’re annoying.”
Erica stomped on Iseuka’s foot with her heel, but no pained groan came from behind her.
There had never been any chance that the woman who displayed transcendent power against the Queen would feel pain from Erica’s weak stomp.
“I’m not trying to threaten you right now; I’m informing you. Think ahead about what you would do if people you recognize as ‘human’ targeted you like this. I watched over you for two weeks after that incident, but you had grown too mild, too broken. To the point where you needed a companion’s help. If you find such words bothersome, I have nothing more to say.”
“Did you watch over me for two weeks, or did you monitor me? Who the hell are you?”
In the end, the woman’s words and actions were closer to advice born of concern for Erica, so Erica asked, her hostility fading.
Even if she maintained her hostility, it was clear the other would treat her nonchalantly.
“Don’t you already know who I am? Objectively and subjectively, you’re a smart person. Though I wouldn’t call you wise.”
The woman withdrew her hands from beneath Erica’s chest. With the threat gone, she could resist properly again, but Erica refrained from summoning lightning and instead answered her question.
“Yes, I know. Move the ‘i’ in Iseuka to the back and you get Seukai. And one of the people by my side is named Gim Haneul. You’re probably—Gim Haneul’s older sister, right? You’ve been helping me because he asked you to, right?”
Yes, if she couldn’t kill her, it was better to avoid unnecessary provocation and wasted strength from the start. Her power was one she couldn’t control, but in exchange, it was powerful enough to kill an opponent instantly.
It was a power she must not swing recklessly unless she felt she had to kill to survive.
“Y-yes. That’s right. You figured it out well. I thought you might not know since you surprisingly didn’t recognize me this whole time.”
“I just briefly thought you might be someone around me, so I was confused. You called it a wordplay, but it was such a simple wordplay that I thought of it first. Yet you were so similar yet so different from what I knew that I was too confused to be certain of the answer.”
She had never imagined Gim Haneul would attach his sister to watch over her. To her, he was merely a shameless wretch who had tried to capture both the Student Council President and Yu Inna.
But setting aside the nameplay, considering she had borrowed money for PC bangs and arcades several times, begging for ice cream could be seen as her taking Erica’s money in her own way, furious upon hearing her younger brother had his money taken.
…She didn’t know why Iseuka was suddenly stammering so oddly. Was there something wrong with her deduction? Erica busily turned her clever mind, but the answer never came.
“So what’s your real name? Iseuka is just a play on your younger brother’s name.”
It did say Iseuka on the system window, but it was unlikely that the older sister of someone named Gim Haneul would have such an exotic name as Iseuka.
Curious about the true name of the woman whose role she couldn’t even see, Erica turned to ask, but Iseuka’s body had already grown faint, as if she would soon disappear.
“Who knows. What you think may be right, or it may not. It is entirely up to you how you accept my identity. All I can tell you is that my name is still Iseuka.”
With those words, the woman vanished like a mirage. The movement technique of disappearing like a mirage was likely related to her ability.
Staring blankly at the spot where the woman had vanished, Erica soon hoisted the Queen of the School onto her back, just as Iseuka had said.
Whether she would truly make her a companion or not was something to think over, but if she would regret it later, it was better to take the Queen as a companion.
…Even if she considered making her a companion, she would never do an S-Battle to make her one, nor lay her pride on the ground as Iseuka had said.
Because she absolutely refused to believe that ‘that’ Student Council President would see her as an enemy. Unless she were certain she was not ‘Erica.’
Pressed down by the weight of the Queen of the School, her legs trembling, Erica forced herself to remain calm and walked down the hallway.
Perhaps Iseuka had ‘cleaned up’ on her way out, for people lay collapsed in the hallway, and there were caved-in spots here and there.
Walking through a scene better described as a natural disaster,
“I-I’m dying.”
Erica spoke of death.
For the Queen made Erica suffer as much as the weight of her title bore down upon her…..