The next morning. In the island forest, where fallen leaves had piled up, Deculein and Idnik were walking side by side.
“Roaming around for more than twelve hours is dangerous even for me.”
The limit of erosion was twelve hours. If one remained exposed to the Voice for longer than twelve hours, they would slowly forget their memories. Anyone would—even Idnik.
She added one more thing.
“If possible, you should move around like we do. We don’t know what might happen.”
“How many hours did the previous me last?”
“He was made at four in the afternoon and disappeared at six in the morning, so exactly fourteen hours.”
To be precise, Sylvia had disposed of him, but Idnik did not say that.
Deculein gave a small nod.
“So be it. Movement in enemy territory ought to be as covert as a sand dune.”
“What the hell…… a sand dune?”
“As a desert dune moves without anyone knowing.”
“Don’t act like you know shit.”
Rustle— rustle—
Deculein walked without a word. His gait and stride carried the perfect dignity of a noble. Watching him, Idnik suddenly felt a question come to mind.
“Can I ask you one thing?”
“I do not mind.”
“……Do you not have to meet your former fiancée?”
Just then, a small wind blew. The branches in the forest swayed.
Deculein shook his head.
“I will have to meet her.”
“Oho. And when you meet her, what—”
“I will kill her.”
“…….”
Whoooosh——
The forest was wrapped in an even stronger wind. Fallen leaves rained down like a shower.
Idnik scratched the back of her neck for no reason.
“Can you really kill her as easily as you say?”
Deculein merely nodded.
“She is a fake anyway. It is no different from killing a demon.”
“……Even if she is exactly the same as the person you loved?”
“It is because I loved her that I will kill her.”
At those words, Idnik’s eyes widened. Deculein brushed a fallen leaf from his shoulder. Then he looked back at her.
“She is the person my soul loved most.”
“…….”
A single sentence.
With only that one sentence, Idnik understood his love. She understood an emotion so vast it should have been incomprehensible.
“And yet it is a demon imitating such a person.”
Killing intent dwelled in his blue eyes.
“There is no reason not to kill it.”
A voice of true anger, resounding through the forest. Its afterglow spread like an echo.
With a rather solemn face, Idnik jerked her chin.
“……Then follow me. We’ll go to Jukaken.”
“Jukaken. Is that man still here?”
“Yeah. Poor bastard. He got trapped. You met Jukaken too?”
“Quite often. I even received a commission from him once.”
Jukaken, a leader among the Six Serpent Heads and one pillar of the underworld’s forces.
He was the one who first delivered to me the quest to kill Cielia and Yuara.
* * *
—She is the person my soul loved most.
At the center of the island stood a long, narrow house built like a lighthouse watching over all four directions.
Into the ears of Sylvia, the master of that place, Deculein’s words were carried by the magic 「Wind」.
She closed her eyes and murmured quietly.
“The person my soul loved most.”
I hope that was me.
I truly hope that was me.
Like this, Sylvia was yearning desperately. She wanted to realize Deculein perfectly, and for this island as well to grow into something “real,” so that she could live anew once more.
Together with Deculein, sharing love with him……
“Sylvi!”
Cielia tapped her on the shoulder. Sylvia flinched in surprise.
“What are you thinking about~?”
“I wasn’t thinking about anything.”
At that, Cielia smiled brightly and held out a snack.
An apple carved like a rabbit. A pleased smile rose to Sylvia’s lips.
“Thank you. I’ll enjoy it.”
“Mhm. Study hard.”
Ciel went back outside, and Sylvia looked at the grimoire on her desk. With a slightly sulky face, she picked up her pen.
She wanted to watch Deculein longer, but she still needed to study. In order to perfect this island, and to draw a new Deculein perfectly as well, she needed more certain magic and theory.
After all, the current Deculein would soon melt away and vanish.
Scratch— scratch—
As she continued writing complex formulas on the empty magic paper, Sylvia felt happiness welling up in a corner of her heart.
Deculein was here.
Ciel was here too.
The two people she loved were here.
Just that fact alone filled her heart to overflowing……
* * *
“It’s a shantytown.”
I said. It was a word that described the scene before me precisely.
“Right? I told you. There’s no one here living as well as I am.”
Idnik chimed in as well.
This was the outskirts of the island. A district where the remaining adventurers were said to live together.
Shabby buildings clung to one another, each asserting itself however it pleased, and most of the adventurers were sleeping not only in roadside stalls made of a few planks, but sprawled on the bare ground like the homeless.
“Still, you don’t get eroded here. The dirt is real, and so are the planks. ……Hey, Jukaken.”
Idnik lightly kicked one of the figures lying among the collapsed vagrants. He slowly rolled over and looked up at us.
“What now…….”
It was Jukaken, with a sleepy face.
I remembered him as being rather handsome, but now he was a sight beyond words. His filthy beard had not been managed at all, and his face was full of grime.
“……Deculein?!”
When the greatly startled man shouted my name, the gazes around us focused…… not quite. Perhaps because there were many adventurers here who had already given up on life, most of them were sleeping or lazing about.
“How are you…… Ah. A fake, right?”
Jukaken asked while looking at Idnik. Idnik did not answer, but he chattered on as he pleased.
“Figures. I heard that madwoman in the lighthouse was getting better by the day. That psycho bitch, she finally drew a Deculein with this much completion……”
Idnik stabbed the eyes that were sweeping me up and down.
“Keurgh!”
Jukaken clutched both eyes. The way he trembled—brrr—was quite amusing.
“You fuck, what are you doing?! That hurts like hell!”
“This one is not a fake. He’s real.”
“This crazy, he suddenly shows up…….”
Jukaken’s words broke off. His eyes red, he dug a finger into his ear and asked again.
“……What did you say? What-real? Between fake and real, which one?”
“I said he is real. This Deculein.”
“…….”
Gulp. Jukaken swallowed. He glanced furtively around him, then asked me in a low voice.
—Are you really, really real?
“Believe as you wish. And remove that filthy face. Merely looking at it is an ordeal.”
“You’re real!”
Jukaken’s hair stood on end.
“Then, if you’re here, that means a path to get outside—”
“I came to make one.”
“……Keuk!”
He clenched both fists. He bowed his head and spun around as though dancing.
It was a truly bizarre gesture.
“I thought the day would come when the sun would shine on me. I thought I’d be able to leave this crazy horror of an island.”
“I need people I can use. Do you know any?”
“Of course! Follow me. There’s a guild room!”
Jukaken ran ahead with a bright face. I watched his back, and Idnik shrugged.
“That’s how badly he wants to get off this island.”
Five minutes later.
We arrived at the guild room. This place, too, was a shack. Perhaps people lived like this during the poorest times right after the Korean War.
“Hey! The real Deculein is here! A magic professor! A genius of formula interpretation! The spear of Yukline that will strike down demons!”
In the living room of the guild room where Jukaken was making his announcement, there were exactly three people. I examined their faces.
However, one among them stood out.
Because she was too special, she was too much of a mystery.
Looking at that face, I tilted my head.
“……Professor Deculein! This is Al Los. She’ll be a bit different from the Al Los you knew, but it’s definitely her. Introduce yourselves right away.”
Alias Al Los, real name Cynthia.
Her complete main body.
“Hey, everyone! Revere Deculein!”
Al Los’s own 「Trait」, an appearance like a jewel, was perfect to my 「Aesthetic Sense」. Dazzling. Beautiful.
My gaze kept drifting in that direction, and she too looked at me.
However, her face hardened frighteningly. Gritting her teeth, she shook her head. Then she said this.
“This fucking idiot. What are you thinking, bringing a fake here? Truly fucking unbelievable, you fucker. I should’ve fucking split you open and torn out your organs, you dog-food maggot, you fuck—”
“…….”
At her words, embroidered with every manner of curse, I furrowed my brow. Jukaken went, whoa, whoa, telling her to calm down—
“Whoa? Get lost, you fucker, do you think I’m a horse—”
“Silence. I can accept that your personality was ruined from staying in a place like this for five years.”
I shook my head and cut her off.
“But why is your mouth so foul?”
“……What.”
“Is that also part of your disguise?”
In that instant, Al Los’s expression stiffened. She looked back and forth between Idnik and me, and Jukaken, fiddling with his earlobe, said,
“……He’s real. The real Deculein. He crossed the sea and came here from the continent. To kill the Voice.”
“The real Deculein?”
“Yes. This Deculein is real.”
Idnik’s affirmation.
However, Al Los’s expression shook even more violently instead.
“Then he must not be here all the more. Run—”
The moment Al Los shouted for me to run.
Craaaack──!
My neck was cut first.
Round and round……
My vision spun. My face turned over.
In that brief interval, I discovered the face of a certain man.
And I smiled faintly.
Gerek.
One of the very pitiable candidates for “the strongest in the setting,” whose entire village had been submerged by Deculein.
Our meeting after so very long ended in an instant like this.
* * *
“So that happened.”
……That, then, was how I became the third Deculein.
After the second Deculein died, the enraged Idnik turned the guild room upside down, and only belatedly explained the existence of “me” with certainty.
“Ah…… and I think it’s best not to lie. I lied because I felt bad. You’re not the third either.”
At Idnik’s words, I furrowed my brow.
“What?”
“You’re the fifth. Gerek killed you twice more. I tried to stop him, but he said he couldn’t hold back.”
“……Where is that beast now?”
Anger rose in me for no reason.
Not once, but three times. He had crossed the line thoroughly.
Al Los said,
“We locked Gerek up.”
“But, doesn’t it not matter whether you die or not anyway? You said you’re a fake who acknowledges being fake.”
I looked at Jukaken and nodded.
“Whether real or fake, there is work to be done. In order to destroy this place, I need the help of ignorant louts such as you.”
I placed a map on the desk. Through the third, fourth, and fifth Deculeins, the magic circle had been completed by about one-tenth.
“You will draw this magic circle beneath the island.”
“Beneath it? In what way?”
At Jukaken’s question, I explained simply.
“Like moles digging tunnels.”
“Tunnels…… That’s surprisingly easy. The vigilantes don’t come underground.”
“And Idnik, you will keep watch on Sylvia.”
Idnik shrugged.
“That brat doesn’t care what we do anyway. All she cares about is that you’re completed.”
“Ah~ She really is a crazy psycho bitch. Why is a lunatic bitch like that so obsessed with a man?”
At Jukaken’s abuse, Idnik’s face twisted.
Ignoring the two of them bickering—You like men too, so don’t talk shit about my disciple—What do I care, that bitch is crazy, isn’t she—I looked at Al Los.
“Al Los.”
“……Hey. Been a while.”
“Seeing you here feels rather new.”
“Ha. I’m losing my mind too, fuck. The Voice comes for me whether I’m in my main body or a doll, so it’s my natural enemy. I came once and ended up trapped for five years.”
Al Los shook her head.
“Gerek and you both—it is rather fortunate I met you here.”
“……Well, I suppose that’s true. If we’d met outside, Gerek would’ve already torn you limb from limb. Anyway, fine, what’s my role?”
“It is simple. Guard me.”
“……Guard?”
“Yes. You will take charge of my protection.”
I removed my glove. I extended my bare hand to her. I was offering a handshake.
Al Los glanced at it suspiciously.
“Why? Why not leave it to Idnik?”
“The reason for that, and the more detailed mission, will likely be told to you by a later me in the sequence. There is no way that I at that time would fail to think what I am thinking now. Will you not shake my hand?”
“……No thanks.”
Al Los’s face returned to expressionlessness. Looking at that face, I smiled. Al Los flinched in surprise and pulled her neck back.
I, on the other hand, relaxed my posture even more gently.
“Professor, why are you smiling?”
“……Who knows.”
My voice naturally sank. My eyes did not move even an inch away from her.
“Creepy. Move.”
“…….”
Right now, Deculein’s “personality” was operating.
As though a switch had suddenly been flipped.
A very rare example, in which this damn personality acted positively upon human relations—Deculein’s personality taking a liking to someone—had appeared before my eyes.
“Al Los.”
“……What.”
Right now, the appearance of Al Los’s main body was exactly as it had been in the setting and design.
Rather, now that more time had passed and she had matured somewhat, she was even more perfect.
“Is this the first time I have faced your true form so clearly and so closely? Or is this the first time we have met like this at all?”
“……We must’ve passed by each other a few times.”
Of course, Sylvia and Julie were also remarkable beauties, but this was not a matter of ranking such things. To begin with, I was not so foolish as to judge someone by appearances.
However, I was saying that some humans in this world truly possessed an “artistic exterior.”
“Fundamentally, I like and love works of art. I can say with confidence that my sense for beauty surpasses that of any noble or royal in the world.”
“……What are you talking about all of a sudden?”
I reached out and swept my fingers through Al Los’s hair. In that instant, her entire body stiffened. Before resistance, she had frozen from surprise.
“……Flawless.”
Her shimmering hair was abnormally clean.
It was likely thanks to her Trait. A Trait unique to Al Los’s main body, keeping her always perfect even without washing.
“Uh…….”
Her mouth fell half-open. As if the situation was something she could not even have imagined, she did not even blink.
“I, who love and sponsor art more than anyone, guarantee it.”
Al Los’s Trait recorded by the system—「A Human Resembling Art」.
“Al Los.”
It did not mean she was the most beautiful in this world. It was not some tasteless, characterless development like love at first sight.
It was simply a surreal appearance, as though she resembled the most noble and mysterious work among the countless portraits in the world.
“If there exists in this world an artwork most noble and beautiful, you would be a little more beautiful than it.”
The literally “artistic” exterior of Al Los was stimulating Deculein’s personality, 「Aesthetic Sense」, more strongly than anyone else…….