Chapter 139
"The experiment you mentioned... what exactly was it?"
"It wasn't a method that directly harmed you. It was just living together nearby, grasping the structure of mana flow, or collecting residual energy. It was closer to observation than experiment, you could say."
"Data collection... then it's strange. Was there a reason you only needed to watch? If you had directly intervened, the process would have been much smoother. Even just kidnapping and dissecting would have secured much more diverse samples. I don't understand why you took such a passive attitude."
"...Well. I don't know either."
The woman muttered at the words pointing out the blind spot.
Was it the last line?
While cooperating with the black magicians all this time, the drunkard had never directly harmed students.
She just delivered the information and data the heretics demanded.
In return, she received ancient books on revival, or samples needed for research.
Selena spoke.
"I never intended to get close to Student Yuda either. I decided to just think of you as a necessary sample, but..."
The distance that was too close.
Though she took a cold attitude and always drew a line, the boy approached every time.
He smiled as if not minding.
That smile.
"That smile... I thought it resembled Lianne."
The times that remained in black and white kept coming to mind.
The drunkard staggered.
With guilt constantly tightening, she was driven to the point where it was difficult to endure without being drunk.
It was an inner self that would break immediately if there was even a slight trigger.
'Was it successful?'
It was an intended part.
I had been doing actions to give Selena guilt from before.
Starting with kind words, detailed consideration, close distance, and finally a smile resembling her younger sister.
So she couldn't escape from reality.
I had been constantly touching your inner self all this time.
"I'm sorry."
Guilt that filled her mind before she knew it.
What she faced at the end of that was.
None other than my appearance sitting in a wheelchair.
A haggard appearance.
A pale complexion due to insufficient life force.
Yet the mouth corners did not show it.
My current appearance was a critically ill patient to anyone who saw.
The drunkard probably couldn't endure that reality.
"I know I don't even have the right to say this, but."
The fact that someone was hurt by her choice must have been painful.
And it was the student who had been closest to her.
Because it was the child who had always whispered warm words.
It was a moment when consuming life force was helpful in its own way.
Thanks to that, I could drive her to an even more dramatic situation.
Selena's lips trembled.
Frustration settled in the redness that had faded.
"...Perhaps I, overlapped Lianne onto Student Yuda."
"Do you mean something like this?"
Tak-!
I lightly flicked my finger.
A fantasy flashing for an instant.
The next moment, before the woman's eyes was not a golden-haired boy, but a purple-haired girl sitting in a wheelchair.
It was exactly the appearance of her younger sister as she last remembered.
"Ah..."
Selena was briefly surprised.
But soon realizing it was an illusion, she exhaled the breath she had held.
The drunkard tightly grasped the edge of her blanket.
"You really don't know anything."
"You're not asking. How do I know your younger sister's face."
"Because I know I'm not in a position to pry into such things."
The woman bit her trembling lips.
Silence descending into an abyss.
Though she had only given answers so far, this time she threw one question.
It was a question about the nightmare she had suffered for the past few days.
Her pupils wavered.
"May I ask one thing?"
"Of course."
"When I fell under Student Yuda's hypnosis. The dream... no, perhaps memory that played between faint consciousness. Were they all illusions carved by Student Yuda?"
"That's right."
At the time of the attack.
Selena tried to grab me rushing towards the center of danger and evacuated me to a safe place.
I put her to sleep and simultaneously breathed in a slight dream.
The content of that was.
Memories of if everything had flowed according to the original work.
The scenery of the academy was trampled by disaster.
The drunkard had to wander in such hallucinations for days.
Without even recognizing it was a dream.
Vomiting tears and blood several times.
"What did you see there?"
"The collapsed academy. I was sitting in front of it. While scraping together scattered flesh pieces, saying no, this wasn't what I wanted, just repeating..."
Of course.
I hid scenes like the heretics backstabbing her, or the truth about Lianne's death.
So that anger and sense of betrayal wouldn't fade her regret.
So she would be tormented fully by her own sin.
So she couldn't even beg for forgiveness.
I only showed her transgressions.
"Then."
This time I asked.
What did you learn from your transgressions?
"How was it? After waking from the dream."
"...I thought."
Was she recalling the memories of that time?
The woman closed her eyes tightly.
Though it was said to be a dream, the range of illusion I provided was beyond the frame.
It would remain in all sensory organs including sight, touch, smell...
As if actually experienced.
Corpses crushed under debris.
Someone's flesh and blood stuck under fingernails.
The disgusting smell of gunpowder settling on the bridge of the nose.
The woman chewed over the still vivid sensations.
About those corpses that had cooled lukewarm.
The drunkard dropped her head, then soon squeezed out her voice.
Drip.
A line of water flowed down her cheek.
It was none other than tears of relief.
"I thought... thank goodness."
That the dream she had seen until just before wasn't reality.
That no sacrifices had occurred.
That it was still peaceful.
The woman ended up feeling deep relief.
She muttered thank goodness several times.
"If it hadn't flowed according to plan... I should have worried about Lianne first, I should have been frustrated at the failed plan... but instead I thought it was fortunate that the children before my eyes were alive, that the plan succeeding was all a dream, I was disgusted at myself for thinking that was fortunate..."
Her expressionless face gradually broke.
The true feelings she hadn't been aware of until now.
The guilt she had killed with longing as justification bloomed again through the trigger I had planted.
The flower bud of emotion that started blooming could no longer be stopped.
The weight gradually increased in her flowing tears.
"Only then did I realize."
I.
"Loved this place more than... I thought."
Blind love blinds the eyes.
Normal thinking, one's own life of course, and even love that should have been directed elsewhere.
The drunkard closed her eyelids bound by love for her younger sister.
Only after breaking everything else she had loved.
She realized she had loved them too.
'How foolish.'
That's probably why Selena regretted it in the end.
Because she hadn't realized love for a long time.
Just buried in Lianne's death, she ended up forgetting all the love she had come to have at some point for the academy, master, colleagues, students...
She betrayed those who had become home to her.
"I know. It's too late to go back. Because I've come too far."
The woman spoke.
If only she hadn't realized anything and just thought about reviving her sister, it would have been comfortable.
Because she saw other lights at the end of the endlessly continuing straight line.
"I've lost my purpose to betray... but I missed Lianne to the point of madness."
Selena.
You had many similarities to me.
No... you were me.
Because we suffered similar wounds and experienced similar brokenness.
We knew what scar longing for loss was.
'If I.'
If it was the same situation, wouldn't I have been similar?
No... because I have power, perhaps I would have done something much more terrible than what she committed.
To that extent, I understood you.
So while blaming you, I hoped the ending wouldn't be the same.
Because the ending I faced was complete damage.
-I'm sorry.
My past life when I became a game addict.
I hoped you wouldn't let go of the world like me.
"What do you plan to do now?"
"...If I can't go back, I should at least stop."
I wanted to save you.
No.
I wanted to save my past self reflected in the mirror that was you.
We sank into gazes crossing.
"I'm going to end it all. Take responsibility for everything."
"What does responsibility mean?"
"I can't go against them anyway. Because I placed a mana oath on my heart. But I should be able to tie up loose ends at least. Punishing them and myself."
"Surely you don't mean..."
"Yes, that's right."
Her pupils wet with moisture sank.
As if resigning all of herself.
You spoke along with flowing tears.
"I'll die."
Calmly conveying suicide.
Her red eyes were empty to the point of relief.