Chapter 140
What was responsibility?
The woman with relieved eyes recited its meaning.
"While lying in the sickbed, I thought. I've lived a life no different from a blind person due to foolishness, so I should tie up loose ends with my own hands at least at the end..."
Tears flowing down.
Was the meaning contained in them regret? Or was it self-loathing?
Perhaps it was both, I thought.
"I know I don't have the right. But I wanted to ask anyway."
It was closer to a plea than a request.
Though she was an adult swayed by blind love and bound only by longing, she hoped at least the ending would be different.
With a resolution not to betray today with yesterday as an excuse.
Selena's tears were looking at a tomorrow that wouldn't exist.
She spoke.
"Please... let me end it."
Silence flowing for a moment.
Where had her characteristically cold atmosphere gone?
Had her indifferent attitude already broken?
Only one flower was withering before my eyes.
Her haggard complexion only added decadence.
Adults were so shabby.
Just as I was no different.
I couldn't shake off the self-portrait of some era settled in my pupils after all.
I conveyed an answer amid sorrow and emptiness mixing stickily.
"If that is truly your will."
One sentence allowing the ending.
A faint smile dyed the drunkard's lips.
"...Student Yuda is really a good person."
The woman tightly grasped the edge of her blanket.
There was no light in her red eyes.
Yet I was reflected beyond the dull surface.
Only I existed in Selena's world.
"Thank you."
It was the first time.
That someone other than her younger sister existed for her.
"You may think it's disgusting... but the night we attended the banquet together. The words that you were my first were never a lie."
It was also the first time she had been this close to another person.
The first time she danced with a man.
The first time she was embraced by someone, or felt that languid body heat.
The first time she relied on someone other than her younger sister.
Everything.
"Everything. Without exception."
"......"
"All my firsts were yours."
The sinner's confession was too precarious.
As if about to spill over at any moment.
Sruruuk-.
The woman raised her body that had been lying in the sickbed.
She stepped on the ground with staggering steps.
Though her strength hadn't recovered. Where was she trying to go? The woman put on a thin outer garment over her patient gown.
It was an attire infinitely insufficient to break through the winter outside the window.
If just one layer was removed, tender flesh would be revealed.
But.
Nevertheless, the drunkard moved her legs.
Towards outside the pure white hospital room.
"...I'll be going now."
With those words.
The woman opened the door.
I watched her receding back for a long time.
Until the shimmering afterimage disappeared forever.
Before I knew it.
It was a memory passing three days.
***
After the conversation with the snake.
The drunkard immediately left the academy and headed towards the heretics' base.
It was none other than their laboratory she had been granted access to as a collaborator.
The personal space of the guy who introduced himself as [Puppeteer]... it was also used as a branch of Baob beyond that.
Inside were piled materials and results through experiments.
In a word, it was a warehouse gathering data.
Selena was standing at the center of such a warehouse.
"......"
Crackle crackle-.
What lingered at the tip of her nose was an acrid smell of gunpowder.
Bright red flames spattered here and there.
The laboratory was burning in thick flames. Dark red blood was spread thickly on the floor.
Corpses of black magicians or chimeras were strewn in the corridor.
A sudden insider's betrayal.
It was the drunkard's doing.
She was in the middle of cleaning up the laboratory personnel and burning the materials one by one.
Her faint breath disappeared mixed with the heat.
"Haa..."
The laboratory couldn't cope with the surprise attack.
Because the opponent was a professor.
Though it wasn't an ability suitable for combat, Selena was still a member of Galimar Academy.
An important position at an educational institution counted as the best on the continent.
She could handle subjugating a branch alone.
Of course.
It had to be accompanied by serious injuries and exhaustion.
The woman staggered with a tattered appearance.
While spitting out blood clots boiling in her throat, her hands steadily disposed of materials.
Piles of documents poured down amid blood and corpses and flames.
Crackle crackle-.
'Though I wonder how much use it will be.'
Selena knew too.
That it was meaningless.
The heretics were a group of unimaginably wide scale. To the extent of having connections with various noble families.
It was obvious that the loss of just a few materials wouldn't be much of a blow.
Just buying a little time.
A moth to the flame for that.
'Still.'
She wanted to finish her transgressions herself.
She wanted to carve out that sin even a little.
'Is it atonement?'
The woman shook her head.
She had no intention of wrapping herself in plausible words.
Just.
'Academy.'
The space that had become a new home.
Tenderness realized too late.
She wanted to withdraw the evil hand reaching for them even a little.
Though spilled water can't be gathered, before all days were dyed in wetness, she wanted to wipe away the dark red moisture spreading.
The woman moved her hands.
She didn't borrow others' hands.
Because she thought she had to tie up loose ends entirely herself.
The drunkard burned, and burned, and burned everything.
"...This is the last one."
The last remaining document.
Her hand stopped for a moment.
Blood and soot were smeared on the outside of the yellowed paper.
Selena's dirtied hand caressed the material.
[Selena Drunkard]
The name was written.
It was none other than her own research record.
Transcendence of providence through stars and magical energy.
The project name was, Revival.
It was a record of the days she tried to regain her younger sister, and the goal she considered her whole life for a long time.
Was it because of a certain voice lingering in her ear?
Her hand wouldn't move easily.
'Lianne...'
If she threw this away too.
It felt like she would really have to accept that Lianne was gone.
Her heart cutting in gradually held the woman's sleeve.
Asking if she really intended to give up.
Telling her to think again.
Asking if she didn't want to see that child's smile one last time.
Piercing longing and regret whispered.
But
'I'm sorry.'
The drunkard shook it off.
The long lingering attachment she had held.
Her wavering eyes stroked the document one last time, then pushed the bundle of papers she had held into the flames.
That moment became ash and scattered before it could even be chewed over.
Burning death.
"Big sister will... come to meet you soon too."
She begged forgiveness along with flowing tears.
Only now did she let that child go.
Only a trace of emptiness rippled in her heart with a hole pierced.
It was over.
She had left a letter to the dean about the fact that she was a traitor, and the contents of her communication with the heretics.
She believed the master would handle it properly.
On the other hand, she felt sorry too.
She had just been buried in Lianne's death... but he was no different from family too.
The memories of the times the three of them spent together were still vivid.
-Would you like to learn magic under me?
A benefactor who had saved her life rolling at the bottom.
What she had returned to him was only betrayal.
Though her brow furrowed at the particularly bitter aftertaste, she forcibly calmed her surging emotions and regret.
There would be no meaning in apologizing at the end of the path she had finally reached.
Selena turned around with resignation.
"......"
Dark red robes were standing behind.
Each aiming magic.
It seemed reinforcements had arrived from other branches.
What was at the forefront was an executive she had occasionally built acquaintance with.
"A traitor's betrayal... did you belatedly awaken to guilt?"
The executive spoke with a furrowed brow.
Terribly revealed hostility.
It was an insurmountable difference in forces.
Stamina was already hitting bottom. A body that had become a rag. Even a heart aching from the mana oath.
Resistance or fighting back was meaningless for the drunkard anymore.
Before long.
Thud-.
Strength left her legs.
It was the woman's limit.
As she knelt in place, robes that had rushed over subsequently subdued her.
Selena's arm was violently twisted and kicks flew.
Yet her gaze was unprecedentedly calm.
Slap-!
The executive struck the drunkard's cheek.
Her vision flashed momentarily.
As she chewed over the pain spreading hotly, a question flowed into her ear afterwards.
It was a question as if not understanding her.
"Why did you backstab us? We thought our interests aligned. Didn't you want to revive your younger sister?"
The drunkard answered weakly.
Because of her burst lip, pronunciation kept leaking along with blood.
"I wanted to revive her... to the point of madness then. No, perhaps even until now..."
"Then I understand even less."
Well.
It wasn't a particularly special reason.
"...Just, I sobered up."