A fierce wind struck my face.
The sensation of floating and gravity simultaneously pulled my legs toward the ground.
A dizzying sense of buoyancy, coupled with the heart-sinking fear of falling.
Fortunately, my body did not crash into the ground. At some point, something began gently pulling me down instead.
Woooong.
The strange sensation of flying through the air.
On the ground, Storm Mirien was hastily waving her hands, casting magic.
In fact, this was precisely why I had chosen free fall. A calamity as powerful as her would never let a human fall helplessly.
Even if Mirien had ignored me, falling from this height would have merely resulted in a broken leg at worst.
“Ah, Actor!”
“Thank you.”
As soon as I landed, my legs trembled, so I leaned against the nearby guardrail. Mirien looked startled, her eyes darting around frantically as if checking for any injuries on my body.
This reaction confirmed my suspicion. Contrary to Selene’s concerns, Mirien would never harm me. If anything, she seemed excessively worried about causing me any injury.
“Ah, Actor… What were you thinking? You could have—”
“But it didn’t go wrong, did it?”
As I spoke, I cancelled the summoning of Storm Dragon Tempestra, who had been hovering in the air.
“Besides, you were down there. If anything happened, you’d have caught me, right? Isn’t that so?”
At my words, Mirien’s eyes wavered.
“Actor… Why… did you come here? Wh-where’s Selene?”
“Selene is outside, drawing attention elsewhere. No one will interrupt us for a while.”
A fleeting hope passed through Mirien’s eyes at my words.
After observing her self-blame earlier, I realized I needed to understand Mirien deeply.
What she currently exhibited was a kind of dependency.
Or perhaps it was a thirst for recognition.
“We have a little time. How about we talk, just the two of us?”
Actually, I had a grasp on how to deal with The Blackened Saint Selene.
For Selene, Actor was her Lord—a commanding presence, stern and strategic. Consequently, Selene is moved when I assert my authority firmly.
Then, who was Actor to Mirien?
Curiously, the clue could be found in memories from the game.
In the game, I, as the Overlord Actor, had given an artificial heart to Mirien, allowing her to prolong her brief life.
“Aren’t we beyond being this aloof with each other?”
In other words, I was her benefactor.
A person she wanted to repay in some way.
She hesitated, looking up at me with apprehension.
“B-but, I, Actor… I’m an obstacle to you…”
“No, it was a misunderstanding.”
“…”
“I only came to this tower because I wanted to talk to you. Like this.”
Mirien wouldn’t go berserk. There was no powerful calamity nearby that could threaten her life, and her skill Storm doesn’t work simultaneously with Guardian of the Thunder.
This was the only chance to face Mirien in her right mind.
“We couldn’t even face each other in The Rift, could we? Now that we have the opportunity, we should speak as people. Face-to-face. It would be better for you too.”
“Actor…”
“I heard that Tempestra was sent to rescue me, that you killed the trackers who were tailing me, and that you created the Ascension Church—all of it, I heard it was you.”
Although Mirien’s actions raised ethical questions, they were all done to help me. She went berserk because she thought Actor had abandoned her.
Selene probably faced a similar situation, but Mirien’s fear of abandonment was excessively intense.
She was, after all, called ‘a monster awakened to human emotion.’
But to me, she just looked like a powerful little kid.
‘That took long enough.’
It had only been about two months since the world transformed into Disaster Order.
Through those two months of trial and error, I realized what stance I needed to take.
As a worthy ruler, I must command the calamities. There are countless calamities remaining in the world, and I must bring them all under my command to become an overwhelming force.
The absolute ruler as mentioned in the system—no one else could fulfill that role. I’m the only one maintaining the bond from the game. If someone else were to control this Great Calamity, the world would face utter ruin.
Of course, I wouldn’t be much different.
This character isn’t someone who lacks self-awareness that badly.
Still, I at least know my place.
“Mirien, listen carefully. Every word I say now is the truth.”
She nodded dumbly, still looking dazed.
Compared to Selene, she was rather small, standing about one and a half heads shorter than me. To look her in the eyes, I had to bend my knees halfway.
“Mirien, I need you.”
“…”
“And I need Selene too. Not just one or the other but both equally. To me, you both are important. You remember too, don’t you? The memories from The Rift. We treated each other as equals, didn’t we?”
“…Yeah.”
I still find the feelings Selene and Mirien have for me to be burdensome.
But dismissing it as merely the connection from a game wouldn’t do—both Selene’s and Mirien’s obsession with the character Actor is immense.
Just as the game transformed into reality, the real-world me is indeed the same as Actor from the game.
From Mirien’s perspective, there would be little difference between the godlike Actor and Nam Joo-yeon, an ordinary human.
She’s showing her girl-like side even as she flinches, standing close this way.
“Mirien.”
As Selene had mentioned, the feelings Mirien harbors for me are not just simple loyalty.
She doesn’t want to be ignored, she doesn’t want hate, she doesn’t want to be an obstacle, yet she craves attention. She wants to be more helpful to Actor.
Based on these observations, the conclusion seems simple: it’s romantic affection.
“Will you become my companion again?”
However, bringing up this fact directly in front of her would be quite awkward.
So, I decided to hint at it instead.
While Selene’s ideal place was as a loyal servant, it seemed Mirien yearned to be a partner in great endeavors.
I decided to fully indulge in this game of make-believe.
“…”
Mirien’s shoulders trembled. She looked at me, meeting my eyes. Her deep blue eyes gazed intensely at my lips.
“Will you, ah… abandon me again?”
“No. Never again.”
“And you won’t… kill me?”
“Why would I? Who would be foolish enough to kill someone as formidable as you?”
Even Selene would have to consider mutual destruction when dealing with Mirien.
There’s likely no human in this world who could kill Mirien.
“Then…”
Mirien swallowed hard and asked her final question.
“Will you… hate me?”
“No, I won’t.”
With those words, Mirien hesitated before responding.
“Actor, I… I need you.”
“Same here. I need you too. So, let’s start over, alright?”
As she was casting magic, Mirien’s star-shaped pupils trembled like an earthquake.
She then tightly shut her mouth and bowed her head deeply.
Understanding her silent acceptance, I raised my hand and placed it on top of her head. A faint static electricity ran through. For a sorceress capable of unleashing tremendous lightning, this was rather adorable resistance.
“Anyway, will you cancel that skill? I might catch a cold.”
“Primarily me.”
Mirien looked startled at my words, waved her hand, and suddenly the rain stopped.
[5★ Storm Mirien cancels concentration of the skill Thunderstorm.]
As sunlight peeked through the thick clouds, I exhaled a sigh of relief.
Now that the situation was somewhat settled, I planned to take Mirien to The Abyss…
“Nam Joo-yeon!”
At that moment, someone emerged.
Short-cropped hair, leather coat.
“Jo Geon-wook?”
Indeed, it was Jo Geon-wook, a member of the Management Bureau and an Awakened One.
I wondered how he had managed to find me here, but then I noticed 3-Star Calamity Albert and a 2-Star Moss Hunter at his side.
Recalling my game memories…
Ah, those two have tracking skills.
Also, noticing now, neither Mirien nor I had bothered to conceal our movements.
Surely, with a 5-Star Calamity causing chaos downtown, there wouldn’t be many people trying to track me.
But I had underestimated Jo Geon-wook’s tenacity. Even in this unprecedented situation, he pursued me relentlessly.
And he had achieved some measure of success.
“What is that mutt doing over there?”
At that exact moment, the Hellfire Guardian dressed in a raincoat was by my side.
To the general public, this calamity is considered Actor’s pet from The Abyss, but now it follows my commands.
That alone was enough to turn Jo Geon-wook’s suspicions into certainty.
Click.
Jo Geon-wook pulled out a revolver.
A standard issue police revolver.
“Hands up, you son of a—! Have you been deceiving us all this time!”
I raised my hands.
But it wasn’t an act of surrender to Jo Geon-wook.
It was to halt the Calamity Mirien behind me.
Jo Geon-wook had his gun aimed at me, but due to the dim lighting, he hadn’t yet noticed Mirien lurking in the shadows.
Besides, Mirien had already used magic to hide herself. A 5-Star Calamity’s stealth skill is far too precise to be penetrated by a mere 3-Star Named calamity.
“Mirien, do you want to be helpful to me?”
“…”
“Yes.”
“Then this is my first command here and now.”
Instead of replying, Mirien raised her finger.
“Hey! What are you muttering over there! Get down on your knees!”
“Take that man, capture and imprison him.”
Pzzzzt!
Before I even finished speaking, an elongated black lightning bolt shot out.
This marked the true debut of Overlord Actor on Earth.
