~Chapter 245~
After finishing my talk with Colin, we headed back.
I still feel a little dizzy.
I was walking while being carried in Dad’s arms.
When Colin had explained the cause of the supernatural phenomenon and how to solve it, Dad’s face had been serious and complicated.
But now that he was carrying me, he somehow looked strangely satisfied.
I smiled a little.
Come to think of it, maybe I’m not dizzy.
I suddenly froze.
…Do I actually want to do that spinning thing again?
And that was not all.
“Bleh.”
“What is it?”
I moved my fingers a little, hesitated, then said,
“…I want sweeets.”
“…Sweets?”
“Sweet things! Sweet!”
“I think she means something sweet, Sir Derek.”
Right, that!
As expected of my protagonist!
Dad blinked at Kan’s words, then quietly held back a laugh.
“…This is serious.”
Then his face became grave.
Kan, who had spoken, also became serious.
“Nemesia. I have candy in my pocket… but it would be better not to give it to you, right?”
I thought about it, then nodded.
“Yeah… I’ll try to endure it.”
As I said that, I remembered what Colin had told me.
My temples throbbed.
Colin’s explanation had been like this:
This single-target curse would disappear with time.
But as time passed, this part would also become younger.
He tapped his head.
“You have to overcome it. This is the ‘trial type.’”
He said I had to firmly suppress the baby-like self that would naturally rise from instinct.
If I gave control to that child self even once, I would never be able to return.
How vicious.
My memories would disappear, and the original me would disappear too.
I would become a permanent child, and my holy power could even explode out of control.
How is this any different from assassination?
The idea that I could disappear from this world…
Honestly, it still had not felt fully real.
But right now, with how badly I wanted sweets, I could feel it very clearly.
Wow, this is seriously a headache.
“Dad, when we get back to the room, clear away everything cute. Especially dolls. Don’t let them get in front of my eyes.”
“…I will remember that.”
“I’ll tell the kitchen not to prepare children’s tableware.”
“Okay.”
Since it had come to this, I had to completely avoid being treated like a child too.
I was just about to say the next thing that came to mind.
“Dad, and also—”
Sunlight fell over Dad’s shoulder.
What? Sunlight?
Light…?
In a hallway with no windows?
By the time I realized something was wrong, it was already too late.
A thin shadow stretched long across the floor.
I was definitely in Dad’s arms.
And yet, this ordinary scene was slightly, very slightly twisted.
Like something foreign had gotten stuck between strips of film.
First, the sound became distant.
As if a thick cloth had been placed over my ears.
The metallic sounds Dad made when he moved, even the sound of wind shifting, all stepped one pace away.
The air felt strange.
Then the edge of my vision folded.
“…Huh?”
Like a thin line made when paper is folded the wrong way.
One side of space was crumpled.
It was an impossible sight, but I could only stare.
Dad seemed to be saying something.
The shape of his lips looked like he was calling my name.
But the speed of his lips became very slow, then normal again.
Then slow again.
The feeling under my feet faded.
Everything’s outline blurred, and weight disappeared.
Damn it, this… isn’t an attack.
I understood the situation quickly, but there was nothing I could do.
Because I was being pulled out of the world—
No, out of this space.
My heart pounded unpleasantly.
A light appeared in front of me and formed a single hole.
Until that stretched opening swallowed me, I could not move at all.
Dad and Kan were right beside me, but both of them were getting farther away.
…That bastard is using space.
I took in a breath.
And then I realized—
I was no longer there.
In that instant, my vision went dark.
When I opened my eyes again—
I saw a pitch-black ceiling.
Everything around me was dark, and only one place was lit.
It was a lamp, almost like candlelight.
And under that light, shown in silhouette, stood an inhumanly handsome man with a smiling face.
With a beautiful smile that was almost creepy, he spoke gently.
“Hello, Master.”
Then, as if he had been waiting for this moment like a beast ready to hunt, he revealed his presence.
“No… should I call you the damned Pope who tricked me?”
It was Usher.
For some reason, his mouth and chin were covered in black blood.
His clothes were dark, so it was hard to tell, but if they had been white, they would have been soaked through with blood.
“You shouldn’t use holy power. Not that great purification ability either.”
A blade was pressed to my neck.
Usher grinned.
His eyes were darker and more twisted than I had ever seen before.
Maybe he noticed that my gaze was fixed on his mouth, because he even had the leisure to curl his lips upward.
“Ah, I look nice, don’t I? Yes. If I wanted to invite someone precious to such a poor place, I had to pay a price… Mm, that’s right. I had to fold space too, and as payment, I even offered something to Mother. Quite a lot of lifespan, actually.”
Every time he spoke, I could see that even his teeth were stained with blood.
“Taboos are really troublesome.”
Even while talking, blood kept running from him.
He looked half-broken, full of mad delight.
A truly grotesque sight.
But neither he nor I cared.
“By the way… you got younger?”
“Your doing?”
“No?”
He spread his mouth wide and laughed.
“Don’t joke. It was your doing.”
“Really. It was just one of the things I scattered around without knowing whether it would work or who it would hit. Actually… I scattered that two years ago.”
“……”
I was not dragging out the conversation for no reason.
I had been trying to use Purification in the meantime, but I could feel what he had done to this place.
It would take much longer than usual to use it.
So he really prepared for this.
Dad and Kan were always by my side.
That meant he had needed to take a risk big enough to offer his lifespan.
“I won’t ask why you tricked me. That would be boring, right?”
“The one who got tricked is the stupid one.”
“Hahaha, right. That sounds like you, Master.”
The blade came a little closer.
“It’s nice to see you again after so long.”
His voice was kind and gentle.
But his eyes were not smiling.
“Let’s skip the boring talk. Haha… the important thing is that if I kill the Pope—if I kill you, Master—I can finally go back.”
“Can you really? Your leash is tied to me—”
“Would it be faster for you to pull out that leash and tug it? Or for my hand to move first?”
“……”
“If I just kill you, this disgusting infiltration will finally end—”
“Really? Then that’s good.”
In an instant, I grabbed Usher’s hand and pulled it hard.
My hand was small, and my strength was weak, but the blade was close enough.
Slash!
A sickening sound of skin being cut rang out.
Drip. Drip.
Blood flowed between us.
The red blood was terribly hot.
Feeling the wet, disgusting sensation at my neck, I lifted my eyes.
“What are you doing?”
There he was—
gritting his teeth, glaring like a demon whose reins had snapped.
His blade had cut his own hand.
At the moment I pulled, he had blocked it with his other hand.
“What are you doing? Kill me.”
I smiled viciously.
“You said you wanted to kill me, right? Then do it.”
Even now, I was sending a message as strongly as I could.
Because this place was still inside the Church.
Dad and Kan just need to get here.
It would be hard to summon protection in a place where even using Purification was difficult.
But if I could buy time—
then I would win.
Looking at the man who could not speak, I mocked him.
“Usher… did you seriously think I would feel guilty toward you?”
I curved my eyes prettily.
I could feel my soft, round cheeks move as I smiled.
“You’re just a vicious fanatic.”
For some reason, tears were rising.
I knew why.
The child self inside me was screaming in terror.
Save me. Get me out. I’m scared.
“…!!”
Tears fell one after another.
They were not from my own will.
While fighting the child self trying to swallow me, I kept smiling.
Showing my teeth.
To stop myself from losing reason, I deliberately smeared the blood pooled on the floor onto my hand.
“Wow, at this rate you’ll die from blood loss. Are you planning to die with me while killing me? Fine. Let’s die together. If I take the evil god cult’s second-in-command down with me, then my life has value too.”
“……”
The tears still kept pouring.
A fear that was not mine was trying to flood my mind.
The urge to cry.
The urge to be honest.
That damned child self was dragging up my true feelings.
Even so—
damn it, I had cared a little.
What happened in the ruined future had not even been real, but I had still thought well of you.
Even while knowing that the one in front of me was not that Usher—
I had almost wanted to thank you.
“…Die.”
Usher grabbed my neck with his blood-covered hand.
Like an idiot.
It would have been much easier for him to just pick up the dropped sword.
I pulled up the corner of my mouth.
“Is that really what you want?”
I was already certain.
If the one before me had truly been the fanatic Usher, then I would have died the moment I opened my eyes.
He always acted playful, but when it came to work, he finished it cleanly.
“Now I know….”
Even while coughing and choking, I did not lose my smile.
If he looked into my eyes, he would have seen a wild realization shining there like a star.
“You weren’t avoiding your place because you wanted to leave. It was because you felt like you had to.”
That question had stayed in one corner of my mind all this time.
While the supernatural phenomena had been breaking loose and going wild one after another—
why had none of the truly dangerous ones appeared?
At first, I thought it was just a warning.
And a mockery.
But then I started to wonder why nothing more dangerous had happened.
So I considered one unlikely possibility.
A sincerity that might have existed somewhere in the countless moments where you and I crossed life and death together.
Like looking for a pearl in sand, I searched for it.
“You said you wanted me to call you Dad.”
I grabbed the hand around my neck tightly.
“That stupid thing… you really meant it, didn’t you?”
The Usher in the ruined future regretted his life.
And he died as a paladin.
Then why couldn’t you do the same?
Just as Dad’s true nature stayed the same in both the ruined future and the present—
you would be the same too.
That was where my guess began.
“Actually… even though I hated the thought of seeing your face, I still wanted to see it.”
My hand was now soaked in Usher’s blood too.
“You’re a fanatic who should fail at being one.”
I spoke clearly.
“A bastard who only sticks to the stronger side. A damned bastard…”
The moment Usher’s eyes fully held me, I smiled brightly.
Praying these damned tears would stop.
“But I’ll still accept even an idiot like you.”
So surrender quietly, you bastard.
Of course, I knew this alone would not be enough.
If he were the kind of person who could be moved by a little emotional appeal, I would have tried that long ago.
What I was aiming for was carelessness.
Just one moment of carelessness.
“This body of the Pope is saying she’ll even accept the surrender of a loser fanatic like you.”
Though that surrender was probably going to sting the back of his head a little.
You damned bastard.
