Chapter 152. Impossible to Stop
“Hmm.”
I sat blankly on top of an Indusami’s stomach, staring at my hands and arms, which had turned completely black.
Below the elbows, they looked as if they had been burned black.
Above that, chain marks remained like dark tattoos.
It really appealed to my sense of style.
The problem was that if I put even a little strength into my fingers, they turned into sharp monster claws.
At this rate, even if I recovered Lux Mea, I might not be able to use it anymore.
Still, if it was still out there somewhere, I should recover it.
Of course.
It was made from First Horn’s horn, and Pie had made the weapon for me.
[Claws of Madness have consumed too much of the Indusami’s poison! Poison has seeped into the Claws of Madness!]
“...Does this affect reality too?”
I chuckled.
“Haha. This really makes playing the game more interesting.”
“Ingwang-ssi!”
Under the sunset sky slowly sinking toward the horizon, I was lying flat on the corpse of a dead monster as it rocked with the waves and wind.
Mallyangi approached me in Jayeon’s arms.
A small thing carrying another small thing.
She was holding the key that had fallen into the sea.
The key we needed to leave this place.
It was our reward for winning the first and last intense battle we had fought inside the Isolated Sea.
A brutal fight against several Indusami.
“....”
“Father?”
Jayeon looked at me.
“Is something troubling you?”
A lot of things.
How should I even put it?
My thoughts were complicated.
It wasn’t that my desire for revenge against the Chairman was wavering.
If I had the justification and ability, I still wanted to find him, confront him, and beat him until he was exactly three hits away from death.
But this was something else.
The responsibility and obligation you felt when a hobby suddenly became work.
And the weight you started feeling from something you had enjoyed doing until now.
“Hmm~ My babies don’t need to worry about anything~”
I rubbed the soft cheeks of Mallyangi and Jayeon with my palm.
My fingertips had been modified now, so controlling my strength wasn’t easy.
My hands and arms were all like this, but for now, my fingertips were the most dangerous.
If I tried to lightly pinch someone and made even a tiny mistake...!
“Jayeon isn’t a baby....”
“Hahaha! Cute.”
“Oh, I gathered the poison separately inside my heart.”
Jayeon smiled.
“It should help with training your fingers.”
“Wow~ My daughter becomes more surprising the more I experience, huh?”
“Hehe.”
Looking at Jayeon’s bright, innocent smile, I smiled bitterly.
I think it was finally time to properly sort out the feelings I had always pushed aside.
No matter how many times I talked about resolve, determination, decisions, or whatever...
I had always quietly taken one step backward.
People really didn’t change easily.
If there was even the slightest escape route, I was always ready to run.
Sneaky.
Lazy.
Always trying to slip past things somehow!
“All right.”
I stood up.
“Should we head back?”
I took the key from Jayeon and got to my feet while pulling both of them into my arms, just like always.
...
If everything from my birth until now had existed inside the Chairman’s plan...
Then was Jayeon’s existence also part of that?
The freedom you felt inside a game.
In the end, it was only freedom inside a carefully designed framework created by the developers.
Had I lived until now believing that feeling was completely my own free will?
‘...But according to Ruin, all of these things are still mine, right?’
Everything beside me that belonged to me...
Really was mine.
The only reason I felt so anxious, empty, and heartbroken right now was because there was a man named the Chairman who possessed far too large a share of my life.
...
When I thought about it like that...
I felt a little better.
At least my entire life hadn’t been handed to me as a gift from beginning to end.
That wasn’t so bad.
“Hahaha! Student!”
The summoned old man waved at me from below as he approached in a boat.
“How are you feeling?”
Ever since the fight with the Indusami, he had been acting much friendlier toward me.
Apparently, he really liked my determination to screw over the Chairman.
I could feel a warm flow coming from him.
‘A warm flow...?’
‘I don’t think I’ve ever felt warmth from it before.’
Flow was just flow.
I had never felt heat or cold from it.
Even when I judged someone’s emotions, I was only roughly guessing based on changes in the flow.
I had never felt something like—
This person has good feelings toward me, so their flow feels warm.
Had it evolved?
Flow.
This power that I could even use in reality.
I definitely needed to refine it properly.
Trying to learn it only through game sensations in this state would cause problems.
Even if Dorfin had no talent for teaching, if she could feel the same thing I did, she should at least be able to explain this much properly.
“I should go see Dorfin.”
“After what happened?”
Pie approached me with a towel draped over her shoulders.
She had been thoroughly screwed over during this fight.
She had been watching safely from the ship...
Then fell into the water.
Come to think of it...
Back when I was a tester, I had once thought that if Super Real had intentionally sent Pie to me, I would kill her.
Pie herself hadn’t intended it...
But now that it had been confirmed that someone else’s will had brought her to me...
Now that I was certain our first meeting in the Maze Forest had been arranged by the Chairman...
Did I still feel the same way?
“It’s fine.”
“That was the Dorfin in reality.”
“And!”
I looked at Pie.
“Do family members stop seeing each other forever just because they fought once?”
“Family, my ass.... Do whatever you want.”
“What?”
“Are you upset because I didn’t call you family too?”
“Think whatever you want.”
...
I wasn’t.
Thank goodness.
Actually, something about it was...
Ah.
No.
Hmm.
Right.
If the moon looked beautiful when I watched it together with Pie...
Then.
“I’m glad the shock seems to have affected you less than expected.”
The Village Chief smiled.
“I do not know the details, but it must have been mentally painful.”
“Oh, well....”
“Yeah.”
“I suppose it was!”
“Mm!”
The Village Chief.
He had once been nothing more than the chief of a tiny village.
Then it turned out that he had connections to the black market and exceptional mission-handling abilities.
Maybe even that had been the Chairman’s doing.
Think about it.
When the Village Chief first entered the black market, I thought there was a real chance he might die if anything went wrong.
Yet he survived perfectly fine.
And now he had become an indispensable all-purpose talent.
That was basically a gift from heaven.
“Your back is okay, right?”
“Hoho! The result of never neglecting exercise!”
“See?! I told you the Village Chief had potential!”
“Of course, of course.”
I grinned.
“I always believed in you.”
Believed....
Was that belief something the Village Chief had genuinely felt toward me himself?
Or had it been planted inside him?
Was he only saying that to win my favor?
...
Once I got rid of the Chairman, would these doubts disappear too?
Until then...
I would continue with trust.
Just like I always had.
“I heard the Great Hero of Hope fought Loneliness to pass through this gate.”
“We’re getting through pretty comfortably.”
“Lucky, isn’t it?”
“I guess.”
Aien smirked.
“With how you are right now, if even one more of those monsters had appeared, you would’ve lost.”
She lightly punched me in the stomach and told me to do better.
That pure trust contained inside the grumbling of a poor kid whose life had been twisted because of me felt heavy.
You too.
If your appearance...
And all the fear and anxiety you experienced while crossing into reality...
Were nothing more than the Chairman’s tricks...
I guarantee that when the time for revenge comes, I’ll do better than I am now.
I promise.
“Levy.”
“Yesh?”
“...Mm.”
“No.”
“You don’t seem like one of them.”
“W-What?”
“What’s with that... ‘I’m so tired of you’ expression?”
“That... strangely alluring look...!”
