“You okay?”
Kweyi’s question came as he approached leisurely, taking his time.
He glanced back and forth between Ria and Dekyurein, snickering.
Ria stood up without a word. She faced Kweyi as if shielding Dekyurein.
“…….”
Mana flared to life in her grip.
Kweyi grinned, but rather, it was Dekyurein who stopped her.
“Don’t do anything foolish.”
“……I haven’t done anything yet.”
Ria pursed her lips and looked back at Dekyurein. At that, Dekyurein raised his upper body.
“No, hey. Your body is still—”
“I’m fine.”
Pushing aside Ria, who tried to stop him, he lightly stood up on both legs. Stretching his neck and wrists, he straightened his clothes.
Truly, a miraculous regenerative ability.
Then Kweyi spoke.
“The child who interpreted the divine language. Long time no see. We’ve met before, haven’t we?”
At Kweyi’s words, Ria gulped unnecessarily.
Kweyi put on a good-natured smile.
“But why aren’t you killing Dekyurein? You could kill him easily enough even now.”
The question was quite rude, tactless, and uncomfortable.
But she couldn’t hesitate in front of the final boss.
With a determined face, Ria furrowed her brow.
“Yeah. I won’t fall for your scheme. We won’t kill each other.”
“Scheme? Ah, you don’t know. The Lighthouse is practically complete already.”
“……Huh?”
That was a bit unexpected.
No, not a bit—very unexpected.
“Now we just have to wait for the time.”
“……Time?”
“Yes. Time. The final ingredient for completion is needed.”
“What is it?”
Even Ria didn’t know about the final ingredient.
And little wonder—since the completion of the Lighthouse meant Game Over, in other words, the world’s destruction, she had never reached the moment when that final ingredient was needed.
Kweyi smiled brightly.
“Even so, that’s a secret~”
“……No. Then don’t even bring it up—”
“Starlight. Moonlight. And the light of a comet.”
The answer came from behind.
Ria’s ears perked up. She quickly turned to Dekyurein.
As if he had already fully recovered, his complexion was perfectly fine. As if he had used Cleanse in that short time, not a speck of dust clung to his clothes.
Truly pathological—no, a germaphobia beyond mere illness.
“The light of the stars, the moon, and the comet will mingle, and those otherworldly manas will harmonize to perform the final tempering of the Lighthouse.”
“…….”
“That is how the Lighthouse will be completed. No one’s will can stop it.”
Hearing his words, Ria’s eyes gradually narrowed as she looked at him. Her brow twisted fiercely.
Dekyurein twisted his lips as if mocking her.
“You’ll see for yourself what lies at the end.”
“……And here I saved you.”
“I’m certain I told you it was your last chance. You’re the one who threw it away.”
Dekyurein’s gaze swept over Ria sharply. It felt like a kitchen knife sliding down from the crown of her head to her ankles.
Dekyurein asked Kweyi,
“Kweyi. What do you intend to do with her?”
Kweyi smiled brightly.
“What do you want to do?”
Ria blinked and looked back and forth between the two of them. What the hell was going on right now.
Suddenly, I feel like I’m completely stuck between dangerous people.
Dekyurein spoke.
“If she becomes an obstacle, kill her. She said she wants to die herself.”
“What!”
Ria shrieked. Dekyurein gave a small smile.
“You’re the one who said you’d die to stop the continent’s destruction.”
“……No, that’s.”
Ria scratched the back of her neck.
The Game Over ending was, strictly speaking, a victory in itself. Because it was a rare branch of the main quest, “The Hero’s Sacrifice.”
“No.”
But Kweyi shook his head. And for some reason, he looked at Ria with benevolent eyes.
“I won’t kill her. You’re the child who interpreted the divine language. I’ve had my eye on you for a long time.”
“…….”
“Rather, I’d like it if you were with me.”
Thus, the final boss was proving that he was a “Player.”
“Yeah. That’s never going to happen, so wake up from your dream.”
“Hmm~ That’s too bad. Dekyurein agreed to come with me.”
Ria glanced sidelong at Dekyurein. Dekyurein’s expression remained unchanged.
Kweyi asked him.
“Dekyurein. Are you planning to return to the Empire?”
“Yes.”
“It might be dangerous, though?”
There was a certain degree of concern in Kweyi’s voice now.
The final boss worrying about Dekyurein—now this was a rare sight.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Really? Well, then.”
He was convinced by Dekyurein’s single remark.
“Really? Then…… Ria?”
Kweyi smiled faintly as he looked at Ria. Ria didn’t answer, sullen.
Kweyi spoke again.
“97 days.”
“……97 days?”
“Yes. A comet crashes in 97 days.”
A mere 97 days.
It was hundreds of days earlier than the main quest’s normal progression. Perhaps because the Lighthouse itself was pulling the comet.
“Do your best until then. Let’s meet again later?”
After those words, Kweyi disappeared.
Like sugar dissolving in water, his figure vanished in an instant.
“…….”
Immediately after, Ria looked up at Dekyurein. She narrowed her eyes, looking quite displeased.
“What? Kill me?”
“…….”
“Go ahead and kill me. Go ahead.”
Ria rammed her head into Dekyurein’s chest. Dekyurein shook his head.
“You just go.”
“……Where?”
“The Intelligence Bureau. They’re after me, so there’s no need for you to get involved.”
Dekyurein said.
Just now he said to kill her if she got in the way, but now he was saying something almost like concern.
What is he really thinking?
“Yeah. But more than that, what do you think about what I said?”
Ria worked up the courage and spoke casually. Since Dekyurein and Yuara wouldn’t have used honorifics with each other.
“…….”
Then Dekyurein, after silently looking at her for a moment, took a step forward.
Thud. Thud.
Walking through the underground passage, he spoke.
“You are not the Yuara I know.”
“!”
At that moment, Ria’s heart dropped.
Of course, she didn’t yet know what he intended by those words.
Whether he simply couldn’t believe that she was “Yuara,” or whether he was saying she wasn’t precisely the “Yuara I know.”
In other words, if by any chance he had already vaguely known that she was “Yuara.”
And if that was why he could distinguish between Yuara, who was merely a “former fiancée” in the game’s setting, and her current self.
In other words, if he was aware that this world was a “game.”
If he had “realized” it while living in this world.
“……No.”
Ria shook her head violently.
That couldn’t be.
Because no amount of insight or awareness could make him accept that he was merely a being inside a game.
“What are you talking about?! Let’s go together!”
Ria chased after Dekyurein, speaking casually.
“Let’s go together!”
Whatever the case, right now, it seemed right to stick by Dekyurein’s side…….
* * *
‘……Because I’m Yuara.’
When he first heard those words, he had simply been dumbfounded.
Instinct had rejected it before rational judgment could.
However, before long, he began to think it might be possible.
If the setting allowed it.
If his former fiancée, Dekyurein’s former fiancée, had died and been reincarnated as the current Ria.
If ‘that guy’ had added such a setting.
“……Miss Ria has gone out for a moment.”
In any case, that incident was now a thing of four days ago.
After meeting Ipeurin for the last time, hearing that problematic confession from Ria, and escaping the Intelligence Bureau’s encirclement, I was now recuperating for a while at the Yukeurain Mansion.
Recovering my badly broken body, even if only a little.
While leaving Ria, who claimed to be Yuara, in the mansion.
“She went out?”
“Yes. It seems she went to meet the Ganesha Adventure Party…… though we have placed surveillance on her.”
I nodded at Ren’s words.
“Continue watching what she does.”
“Yes. But, will you be alright?”
Ren glanced at the newspaper on the desk.
[Chairman Dekyurein. Plagiarism Allegations Discovered]
[Secretly Supported Disciple Ipeurin’s Sacrilegious Research…….]
[Mass Disappearance Incident Accelerating…… Culprit is Dekyurein’s Disciple, Ipeurin’s Doing.]
The newspaper was full of gossip about me. Naturally, it was all the work of Buyuseom, but there wasn’t a single word about the Cheoksalgwan massacre itself.
They must be that humiliated.
“I’m fine.”
But this was endlessly trivial.
Compared to the weight Ipeurin bore, and the weight His Majesty the Emperor would shoulder.
“But, Count. This matter of Ipeurin…… this mass disappearance incident isn’t your fault.”
Ren cautiously added a classified document.
It seemed to be information he had obtained on his own.
“The Intelligence Bureau is currently trying to frame you as an accomplice. You’ll see.”
Mass disappearance incident.
For the past 10 days, this was what Ipeurin had been doing. Compared to 10 days ago, the frequency was now so drastic that it could be called a social phenomenon.
Tens of thousands were going missing each day.
“If you respond too late, it may become difficult. If you appeal directly to the Imperial Family, they will accept it. Why should you, Count, take the blame for Ipeurin’s unilateral actions—”
“It’s not necessary.”
I cut Ren off. I took the document he handed me. And burned it on the spot.
“This is a good opportunity for those Buyuseom bastards to realize what kind of monster their arrogance has created.”
After all, it wasn’t entirely a lie that I was an accomplice in the “mass disappearance incident,” and there were only 93 days left until the comet’s descent.
So if we were to start in earnest, now was the right time.
Ipeurin was probably adjusting the “timeline” according to her plan as well.
Though she was unbound by time and could of course do anything she pleased, she had to match our timeline to receive proper help.
Because only with the same purpose could we walk the same path.
“Ren. You just convey this to the Imperial Family.”
Thanks to that, I could help Ipeurin too.
In a way befitting the merciless and cruel notoriety of “Dekyurein of Yukeurain”—a very certain and efficient method.
“Tell them I’ve thought of a good way to make use of this mass disappearance incident.”
“……A way, you say?”
I answered Ren’s question briefly.
“I mean Jeokgwe execution. We simply need to send all of them—those who will likely overflow the detention centers—into that Canvas…….”
* * *
……At the same time.
Someone was watching from afar the scene beyond the window of the Yukeurain Mansion—that is, the sight of Dekyurein becoming an enemy to “everyone.”
“…….”
Ipeurin sat perched on the branch of a tall zelkova tree, watching Dekyurein, who was nothing but a back to her.
“……Professor.”
She swung her legs and murmured.
With a voice somehow soaked in sorrow, with a face that missed him so much.
“I didn’t know before.”
The classified document Ipeurin had also seen with her own eyes—the [Proposal for Jeokgwe Punishment] that Dekyurein had suggested to the Emperor.
The incident that had rekindled the dying embers of Jeokgwe discrimination, which had briefly subsided.
Thus, Dekyurein would continue trying to forcibly shove countless people into the Canvas.
“Back then, I thought he was just trying to use my magic.
Ipeurin had known that future long ago, but the emotions she felt now were quite different from what she had felt before ‘that incident.’
“I really thought so.”
I really thought Dekyurein was simply flailing after being driven to the edge of a cliff.
I thought he was trying to drive out and kill all his enemies.
I thought he was doing it to maintain his position.
“Now I see.”
Now, she was ashamed of having thought that way.
So ashamed, and so sorry.
She wanted to run to him right now, lean against his back, and tell him.
“……Professor really knew everything all along.”
Dekyurein had said.
That he had believed in her from the beginning until now.
That he believed in her.
“Thank you.”
As his words implied, he would help her from beginning to end.
Becoming her most reliable helper, a teacher who gave without hesitation, a lighthouse illuminating the path ahead.
Even if it was a method that made everyone hate him.
Even if the process was terribly wrong, as long as the result was right—a truly Dekyurein-like method.
“But, Professor. Did you know?”
Ipeurin murmured softly as she looked at him.
“I think every time, there’s no way I could love you more than this.”
Right now, she could only see his back; she couldn’t even face those captivating blue eyes; and this was the limit allowed to her.
“But that’s not true.”
Ipeurin continued watching.
Not wanting to waste even a moment, she didn’t take her eyes off him for a single second.
“With every minute and every second that passes, I fall more and more and more in love…….”
She murmured quietly, then hung her head low.
Barely holding back the tears threatening to spill from her reddened eyes…….
“……Huh?”
Ipeurin let out a sound she didn’t understand herself.
Her eyes widened.
“What?”
Those were the only words that came out.
“Sir Yulli?”
Sir Yulli—she who should definitely be inside the Canvas—was looking up at the Yukeurain Mansion from the outside world with a face full of resolve.
“……I didn’t know. Did Silbia get her out?”
Ipeurin murmured as such and watched her.