……Swoooooosh.
Resistance of the air striking her at breakneck speed. Ria had come to where Ifrin's map pointed and was sprinting up a steep slope.
Had a battle already taken place deep in the mountains? The scorched and blackened slope was marked vividly by the charring of mana and flames. The mana suspended in the air was so thick that even breathing was difficult.
However, the traces of that battle grew thicker and clearer the closer she got to the ‘source.’
“……What.”
At some point, Ria’s eyes widened in shock.
Corpses.
No, calling them corpses would be generous—these ambiguous remains were buried here and there on the slope. Or rather, scattered haphazardly. As if an overfilled washing machine had exploded, all its contents flung about in shreds and left abandoned.
“…….”
Amid the fragments of what had once been humans, Ria suddenly discovered a certain face.
A conspicuous head tumbling round and round. The face of a Floating Island named.
“An Extermination Officer…….”
Had the name been Zelen?
He had been a named who would have been of some help in progressing the quest.
Ria blankly looked around her surroundings.
Torn robes, shattered staves, magic circles carved into the ground…… All manner of things remained as traces.
There was no doubt.
These were the people of the Floating Island.
……Creak.
With both fists clenched tight, Ria passed through the scene of carnage in silence and ascended the mountain path.
She ran toward a place where a more certain presence could be felt.
“……!”
Before long, she saw a single person on the cliffside ascent near the mountain peak. Ria knew who he was.
Dekurein.
The one who had caused this situation—in other words, the one who had killed every Extermination Officer—was lying collapsed on the ground, unconscious.
Rustle—
Ria slowly approached him.
Her first step swept through sand, her second trampled through pools of blood, and her third crushed organs of unknown origin.
Squelch—!
Blood sprayed from a ruptured organ and stuck to her cheek.
Without paying it any mind, she wiped it away and soon reached Dekurein’s feet. For a moment, she knelt down.
Fwoooooosh…….
Between the chilling wind rushing in and these cruel fragments of flesh, she gazed silently at him sleeping in tranquility.
She stared blankly.
A dark crimson aura consuming the area between his brows and the base of his neck. Veins bubbling with demonic energy. A body burning with such feverish heat that it seemed proteins would melt away.
“……Dekurein.”
Ria slowly thought.
This man is a villain. One beyond redemption.
Because in the end, he was set up as a villain, his ending would also be that of a villain.
Now, and in the future, he would do things befitting a villain.
“…….”
Once more, she wordlessly surveyed the scene around her.
The Floating Island’s Extermination Officers were dead.
She couldn’t even tell how many had died, how many he had killed.
And they hadn’t even died ordinary deaths.
Limbs torn asunder, organs ripped out, a massacre so thorough that not even the corpses could be recovered.
“Why.”
Ria asked Dekurein. There was no answer.
Unconscious, he slept like the dead.
Therefore, if she assessed this situation coldly, it was an opportunity.
An opportunity to kill Dekurein.
A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to kill him and stop the completion of the Lighthouse, comfortably, without any sacrifice or cost.
Rustle—.
Ria drew a small dagger from within her clothes. Its blue blade, sliding free of its sheath, shone with a vivid gleam. Her mana enveloped that steel.
「Elementalization」.
The mana-infused steel blazed fiercely.
If she plunged this into Dekurein’s heart, the mana of flame and ice and corrosion and gale would flood within him. Even his sturdy body would freeze, burn, shatter, and scatter repeatedly, before finally oxidizing into a handful of ash.
“…….”
She only needed to drive it into his heart. Only needed to plunge this dagger in.
That was all it would take.
The guilt that would crash down afterward was something she could simply feel.
She only needed to endure it alone.
Because this was all her fault. That Dekurein harbored a fiancée called ‘Yuara’ in his heart, that Yulri had lost herself and fled from Dekurein—all of it was her fault.
Perhaps even this very moment was an opportunity Ifrin had granted her.
Hurry up and kill Dekurein.
Execute the villain.
Ria gritted her teeth.
“……Kkgh.”
But why?
Ria’s small hand gripping the dagger would not move.
It merely trembled, unable to carry out the most crucial action.
“……Why.”
She had resolved to kill Dekurein, both to Ganesha and to herself.
But the moment she saw Dekurein’s face, that appearance resembling Kim Woojin, her heart ached. It hurt as though being wrung dry.
“Why do you…… resemble that child.”
A distant memory she could never forget, no matter how hard she tried.
Dekurein merely resembled him; he was nothing more than a character modeled after him. Even knowing all of this.
For some reason, Ria couldn’t move her body. The instincts in her heart rejected it.
“…….”
Even so, she forcibly tightened her grip on the dagger.
Once more, she muttered inwardly.
Dekurein is dangerous.
He sought to complete the Lighthouse and bring the continent to ruin. Even if it was due to the pain of losing Yulri and the phantom of a ‘Yuara’ who didn’t even exist, she had to stop him at all costs.
The opportunity to do so was right before her eyes.
Here, Dekurein lay.
Ria put strength into the hand holding the dagger.
Grrrind──
The blade tip shook violently,
Fwoooooosh——
and the wind whipped around her body.
Under the crushing pressure that made even such a small weight feel unbearably heavy, Ria raised both hands high.
──!
Letting out a shriek she couldn’t comprehend—whether it was a scream, a sob, or a battle cry—she plunged the dagger down.
……Right at that moment.
A certain man flickered before Ria’s eyes.
That boy who smiled at her.
Kim Woojin.
——Thud!
The dagger was embedded.
It was plunged firmly into Dekurein’s heart.
Drip, drop, drip…….
From somewhere, water trickled.
Tears that had pooled on Ria’s cheeks, and scalding saliva between her gaping lips, slowly streamed down.
“Haa, haa…….”
A scorching breath pushed out by a heart that felt ready to burst.
Ria looked down at Dekurein’s chest and twisted the dagger she held.
Ssssshhh…….
However, the certain death she had prepared herself for didn’t come.
The dagger merely spun atop Dekurein’s suit. It couldn’t tear, break, or burn that magical fabric he always wore.
There at its edge, merely—grrrind───.
—scratching, as if trying to wake him, or tickle him.
The reason was simple.
The 「Elementalization」 imbued in the dagger had already scattered away.
“Hngh…….”
The moment before bringing the dagger down.
Ria had dispelled the 「Elementalization」 herself.
Yet she didn’t truly know why she had done it.
Was it an instinct she herself didn’t understand?
Or was it that lingering emotion she still couldn’t sever?
Feeling the boy called ‘Kim Woojin’ constantly surfacing in her mind, wiping away the tears pooled in her eyes…… Just as she was falling into confusion.
“A mistake, was it?”
A voice rose from below.
Ria flinched and looked down. Then she shrieked and tumbled backward, falling flat.
“Uwaaaack!”
Dekurein.
He was looking at her.
With his purplish pallid face, those two eyes still sharp and horrifying.
“……You cannot kill me with something as trifling as a dagger blade.”
He spoke.
“Pathetic. What happened to the Elementalization I taught you?”
Ria didn’t yet understand what he found pathetic.
No, her mind was blank.
A ringing screeched in her ears, and the ground beneath her feet felt ready to crumble at any moment.
“Pathetic, you say?”
Even so, Ria repeated the word. Dekurein answered as if sneering.
“Yes. You are pathetic—for missing your last chance, and for being about to miss it again.”
“……What chance.”
“The last chance you had to kill me.”
“…….”
Watching Dekurein discuss his own death while lying on the ground, Ria’s face hardened rigidly.
Was this a bluff born of the will to survive, or was he sincere……?
“Do you intend to miss this once-in-a-lifetime moment?”
Dekurein spoke again. Ria was briefly flustered, but soon regained her composure.
Thanks to Dekurein’s calmness, she too found tranquility.
“There is something I want to ask.”
“……What is it?”
“Why do you seek to complete the Lighthouse?”
To Ria’s question, Dekurein answered simply.
“You have no need to know.”
An answer that barely counted as one. Ria’s brow furrowed deeply.
“Could it be that you intend to betray His Majesty the Emperor?”
Ria asked slightly differently.
At that, Dekurein fell silent.
As if pondering, as if choosing his words, as if thinking—he remained still.
“Yes.”
He answered, looking up at the sky.
Before Ria had arrived it had been clear, but dark clouds had rolled in before she knew it. As if it would pour at any moment…….
Plip—
A raindrop touched the top of her head.
“Why?”
Ria asked again.
Dekurein twisted his lips in a smirk.
“Because it’s who I am.”
Because it’s me.
An incredibly arrogant thing to say, but for some reason, Ria let out a hollow laugh.
Dekurein’s words—‘Because it’s who I am’—were, when she thought of how he had been set up as a villain from the very beginning, far too clear-cut of an answer.
“So take up your dagger.”
Dekurein continued.
“Plunge it into my heart. You should be able to kill me.”
Rainwater settled on Dekurein’s face as he spoke of killing himself.
Drip, drip, drip.
The slowly flowing rainwater was unpleasant, unsuited for him.
Ria opened an umbrella. She shielded his face from the rain defiling it.
“Tell His Majesty that I have betrayed him.”
Hearing his words, Ria shook her head once more.
“We only need to stop the Lighthouse. Count, if we just stop the Lighthouse—”
“That is impossible.”
“……Why?”
Ria grew angry again.
This whole mess had happened because of that Lighthouse.
That Lighthouse was a weapon that would destroy the continent.
Just what had Kwei promised him?
“Because I am a villain.”
Dekurein turned his eyes to the dagger rolling on the ground.
“Even so, do you intend to miss this opportunity?”
“…….”
Ria put the dagger away.
“I know it’s an opportunity. Right now, I’m just thinking.”
That was all she answered.
“Why?”
Dekurein asked the reason.
Ria gave a hollow laugh.
“Because you remind me of someone I used to know, Count.”
“……Someone you used to know.”
“Yes. Isn’t it strange?”
Hugging her knees, Ria looked up at the sky.
“Just as Your Excellency looks at me and remembers an old love, I too look at Your Excellency and remember an old love.”
Dekurein and Kim Woojin.
Ria and Yuara.
“……Of course, Your Excellency is not that person. I know that.”
Ria shook her head low.
“Compared to that considerate, kind, wonderful, gentle person…… Your Excellency is too wicked, too proud, your self-esteem truly supreme.”
Plip—
Rainwater touched Ria’s face. Cold moisture seeped into the corners of her eyes.
“But every time I look at Your Excellency, I keep thinking of that friend……”
Ria turned back to Dekurein again.
He, too, was looking at her.
“I simply cannot kill you.”
That confession was as if spoken to herself.
Not to Dekurein, but to ‘Yuara’ lurking inside Ria’s body.
“……You will regret it.”
Dekurein spoke. As always, it was a grave warning.
Ria nodded as well.
“Yes. I’ll definitely regret it. The Professor has sided with Kwei, after all.”
If this ended with killing Dekurein, if all the main quests were to reach a happy ending.
Ria, who couldn’t kill him now, might also remain a villain.
If not that, then a crazy fool blinded by Dekurein’s beauty.
“But I’m thinking this.”
A faint smile rose to Ria’s lips.
“Couldn’t the opposite be possible too?”
She was thinking something.
“……The opposite?”
Dekurein asked. Ria put away the dagger she had sheathed.
“Yes.”
There were many branches in the main quest. An ending where Kwei is killed, an ending where he is persuaded, an ending where one becomes a demon and destroys the Empire, and so on…….
All kinds of endings existed.
“I’ll die in your place.”
However, among them, there definitely existed an ending called ‘Game Over.’
Ria knew.
As one of the team members who had participated in the development, she knew of that ending’s existence.
“…….”
Dekurein was silent. He merely looked at her as if she were some ignorant fool, absurd beyond words.
“I know. I sound stupid, right? Because I couldn’t kill a person who merely resembles my old love, I’m preparing to die in his place.”
“No. I’m thinking your overestimation is foolish.”
Overestimation.
From Dekurein’s perspective, that made sense.
Because he didn’t know of the existence of a ‘Player.’
In truth, the protagonist of this continent was me, the Player.
“Sure, sure~”
Ria nodded dismissively, as if scoffing at his words. Dekurein’s brow furrowed quite deeply.
“Nothing will change if someone like you dies.”
“No. There is. Clearly.”
Ria stood up. She glanced at Dekurein, then looked back up at the rain soaking her body.
“Because.”
The sky hidden by dark clouds.
The rain concealed within.
Recalling someone with the name ‘Rain,’ Ria confessed.
“Because I am Yuara.”