Dreams come suddenly.
With my eyes closed, drifting through the unconsciousness, I regained my senses like a fish stirring the water.
It was a dark field.
In a world where the sun had not risen, the light was robbed, creating a gloomy landscape. In a place where all life had vanished, even the slightest movement was hard to find.
Turning my back on the complete silence, I took a step forward.
Corpses and armor came together to form a forest of shadows. A world where even crows did not caw was this lonely.
A man stood alone above it all.
Until I reached him, he spoke not a word. Not even his breathing could be heard, casting doubt on whether he was alive.
That was when sound was born.
“Everyone is dead.”
The tone of the man’s voice was nothing but blunt.
A dry voice fit for a colorless world.
Only then did I part my lips.
At last, warmth returned to my mouth.
“Why have you come here today?”
At that single phrase, the man’s gaze flickered toward me.
His golden pupils had now cooled to a chill.
Still, I thought his gaze resembled a flame.
In a black-and-white line drawing, it was the only hue that shone.
“Consciousness is not a fixed space. It is broader and more peculiar than you can imagine.”
“I feel like I’ve always been called to similar places before.”
The scenery that passed through my mind as I asked that was a space covered in cracks and endless darkness.
It was only natural, as it was the place I had met the man until now.
But today, I abruptly reunited with him in the field.
I couldn’t help but feel perplexed.
Of course, the man showed no particular interest in that fact. His gaze that had been directed at me shifted back to the corpses.
“I maintained it that way.”
The man’s words were always simple and clear-cut.
His speech allowed no room for argument.
Yet he didn’t explain everything.
In the end, I had to frown and pose another question.
“…But not now?”
“Delphrium is coming.”
It wasn’t the answer I wanted, but it was a testimony that bore a heavy emotion.
Fatigue and hatred, regret and despair, and a boiling flesh.
He spoke with an intensely weary expression.
“I thought I would have more time to prepare. I thought that gradually, I could somehow stop Delphrium, even you. But you turned the clock too quickly… I can feel that monster’s presence growing stronger.”
The calmly spoken words pointed in a single direction like a compass needle.
At least it wasn’t a way out.
For a moment, I found myself at a loss for words as I listened to the man’s warning.
“Having lost two retinues in succession, she must be troubled. Until now, she may have thought it was coincidence, but now her gaze will be upon you too.”
“Are you saying I have to be careful going forward?”
“No, there’s no need to be careful.”
The man finally turned his back, facing me directly.
And an assertion followed without a trace of doubt.
“It won’t change anything even if you are cautious… Can you cover the sun with your hand and escape the moonlight?”
Wasn’t that too pessimistic a thought?
Just as I was about to voice that, I had to keep my mouth shut.
The way the man’s eyes looked at me was profoundly serious.
Perhaps in the past, I might not have realized it.
But now I understood how much he had struggled.
Yet he had lost far too much.
Although I said I would walk a different path, it was by no means a path so pitiful that it could be laughed at.
That was the road the man had walked.
Instead, I threw out the question I had been harboring all along.
“Is this a battlefield?”
“Perhaps.”
That was an unusually vague answer.
I looked around at the scattered corpses. From unknown monsters to both beasts and humans, various lives lay dead.
In truth, what I truly wanted to ask was related to this.
It was far too diverse.
If they were to clash in battle, it would be hard for so many different corpses to pile up like this.
After all, it was because of the limits of species that it was hard to harmonize with one another.
What would happen if allies turned on each other, or if a certain species disregarded strategy and took unexpected actions?
Thus, it was only natural that the sight of corpses from multiple species mingled like this felt strange.
Although it would be possible to merge various species somehow, they wouldn’t be mixed up so haphazardly.
It didn’t take long for my questions to be answered.
The man provided the solution to my curiosity.
“I killed them.”
It was a confession without fluctuation.
It felt somewhat like a scene where an emotionless murderer was confessing his sins.
Perhaps that was how sudden the man’s revelation was.
I gazed at the man with slight surprise.
“All of them, huh… All my accumulated sins. It seems that all the foes in my memory are here.”
“So many?”
As I posed that question, my gaze involuntarily fell upon some of the corpses littered about.
There were many monsters and beasts, but half of the corpses lying in this field were people.
There must be at least hundreds, if not thousands.
Realizing what my gaze implied, the man replied in a blunt tone.
“Yes, so many… There were many reasons to kill. I must have forgotten them at some point.”
His calm statement pressed down on my chest.
My vision began to quiver slightly.
Did he truly have to take so many lives?
For the noble cause of saving the world.
The man silently observed me.
Every time my trembling eyes crossed over the corpses, he quietly murmured.
“That man collaborated with the Dark Cult and sold orphans. He denied it until the end, but the evidence was too clear. The bereaved families continued to believe he was innocent… while accusing me of being a murderer. And that girl was a test subject of the cult.”
One by one.
The man’s voice, enumerating the reasons someone had to die, was nothing but flat. It felt like a clergyman reading off the causes of death while examining the corpses.
It was surreal.
Yet it was rational.
Those he had to kill all had justifiable reasons.
As the man’s words grew longer, my own words dwindled.
My eyes, anxiously looking around, finally came to a halt at that moment.
Suddenly, I felt the sensation of my gaze locking onto a specific corpse.
As if that corpse had its own gravity, I unintentionally took a step forward.
It was a corpse lying face down.
It wasn’t severely mutilated, so even from its back, I could roughly guess its build.
Familiar.
The moment that thought flashed through my mind, I staggered and collapsed on the spot.
A crack echoed in my head.
It felt like shattered glass shards were running through the vessels of my brain. For the first time in my life, I clenched my teeth against the pain I felt.
“That, that corpse… ugh!”
I couldn’t even let out a scream, only disjointed thoughts swirling in my mouth.
That corpse.
What on earth was that corpse’s identity?
The man threw an indifferent gaze at me, and my vision began to bleed red.
Blood flowed from my eyes.
As if I had seen something I shouldn’t have.
Only then did the man show a meaningful response.
“That corpse is….”
My vision swayed, and my body fell to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut.
No, was “falling” the right term?
I didn’t even feel like I was crashing into anything. I simply drifted once more.
As if dreaming, my senses faded.
It felt like the contents contained in this vessel called a body were all evaporating.
Only a voice coming from a distant place remained in my memory.
“From now on, the people you must kill.”
And I gasped awake.
In my longed-for dorm room.
Feeling the lingering pain still resonating, I clutched my water bottle. On the table beside my head was always a water bottle full of cold water.
Because it would be comfortable after a night of drinking.
As the cold water gurgled down my throat, a familiar change caught my eye in the corner of my vision.
A letter that had arrived at some point.
I sighed and checked the calendar.
Over a week’s worth of time had been erased. It meant that the personality from the future had been active for a longer period than last time.
Perhaps the aftermath of the previous call was recovering.
When I was at Perkus Manor, I had called forth the future personality in a forced manner. Because of that, he hadn’t been able to act for a while, but it seemed he had regained enough strength to use a week’s worth of time.
It wasn’t a bad thing.
Regardless, it was true his assistance was helpful.
Just as I thought that and was about to open the envelope.
Knock, knock. Someone knocked on my door.
I tilted my head curiously and looked out the window.
It was still early in the morning, with the dawn’s light not yet fully dispersed. It was rare for someone to visit me at such an early hour.
I was eager to see the content of the letter, but I couldn’t leave my guest standing there.
I yawned and got up. In just a few seconds from my lazy walk to open the door.
Standing beyond the door was the Lady Virgin Saint.
With an incredibly tired look in her eyes.
She held a folder of documents in her hand.
When I made a blank expression, the Lady Virgin Saint frowned, irritated.
“What are you doing right now? First, take this document, and if you don’t clearly explain your intentions, I won’t let you go… For heaven’s sake, Ian?”
The Lady Virgin Saint, who had been gritting her teeth while speaking, suddenly opened her eyes wide.
It was right after she locked eyes with me.
I was wearing a genuine expression of complete confusion. The moment she saw that, the Lady Virgin Saint seemed to instinctively realize.
That my other personality had returned.
No sooner had the Lady Virgin Saint grasped that fact than she broke down in tears.
“Oh, my Lord… Thank you for letting that rascal who deserves to be chewed up and spat out go away….”
“No, he hasn’t left yet… But more importantly, what’s the matter?”
Even as I raised the Lady Virgin Saint’s body while making the sign of the cross, I couldn’t suppress my anxious heart and asked again.
At this point, I had no choice but to realize.
Once again, something had happened.
While I had been unconscious, the ‘Ian Fercurus’ from the future had.
Only then did the Lady Virgin Saint regain her composure and step into the room.
As if she wanted to share some secret, she carefully closed the door and silently handed me the packet of documents.
It was as if every answer was contained within.
Even though I could have just reached out, I hesitated to move out of anxiety.
Instead, I laid out several hypotheses.
“Did you perhaps hit someone?”
Shaking her head.
Seeing the Lady Virgin Saint shake her head, I asked, my voice trembling even more.
“W-wait, did you kill someone? It must have been someone who deserved it, right?”
“No! Hurry up and take this document?!”
Today, the Lady Virgin Saint’s patience was running thin.
I immediately felt my spirit dampened by her loud voice. No further urging the Lady Virgin Saint would only result in reprimands.
At last, my hand cautiously reached for the envelope.
The sender was the Holy Kingdom’s Papal Office.
So it was the Lady Virgin Saint who had brought it to me.
Tearing open the envelope’s seal, the documents that appeared before my eyes were of a type I had never seen before.
My eyes quickly scanned the contents.
A few seconds later, the impression I held was as follows.
“…What is this?”
“It’s a document notifying you that you have been summoned to a religious trial.”
I closed my mouth tightly.
A religious trial?
So you’re saying I have been summoned as the defendant?
Emotions surged up my throat.
“No, does that make any sense?! What on earth are the charges…!”
The Lady Virgin Saint did not answer my question.
She merely gestured to the document.
I gritted my teeth and read the lengthy text with bloodshot eyes.
It didn’t take long for the passage that would clarify my questions to emerge.
‘Charges: Blasphemy (sexual harassment)’
And silence.
How long has it been since I, and the Lady Virgin Saint, had not spoken?
With a grinding sound, my teeth clenched.
“That crazy bastard, for real….”
I could only murmur while trembling my hand that held the document.
Is the personality from the future actually of any help?
Cancel that.
He was simply a bastard who wanted to torment me.
