episode_0225

True death.

Upon hearing those words, Hermel made a sad face. I smiled as I stroked Hermel’s head.

Why is he making that face when he just said something? If it were me in the past, I would have definitely thought that, but not now.

Even if it were me, Hermel would make that kind of face if he discussed death.

“Charles wants to die… ?”

Hermel said that and looked up at me.

I deliberately smiled and shook my head to lighten the calm atmosphere.

“Fuhu… . What question do you have?”

It was a half-joking remark, but if you cut out all the context and just listen to that question, it was a question that could easily be misunderstood.

When I smiled and asked, Hermel, who had been blinking, pouted his lips and answered with a dissatisfied face.

“You know that’s not what I meant… .”

“I know. I was just joking to tell you not to worry too much.”

After saying that, I sat down on the chair and let out a long sigh as I looked at Hermel’s still uneasy face.

“Phew… . okay. If it were me in the past, I would have said yes without hesitation.”

This was sincere. Before I met Hermel, I was already a worn out and broken human being.

… No, when I think about the things I did back then. The word human would not be appropriate. I was a beast back then. The beast of ruin. A ghost that drags its surroundings down into the abyss in order to save itself.

A distorted being who committed evil, but instead of feeling guilty, felt joy in seeing humans becoming like me, and was happy that this brought him one step closer to complete death.

Because that was me.

“… … .”

Of course now… .

No, no. Even having these feelings is a luxury for me.

It is hypocrisy in itself to express regret and say things like guilt when a person has shamelessly lived an evil life.

And even thinking this way is hypocrisy. My theory was that no matter how broken I was, I would not commit hypocrisy, so I smiled faintly, pushing away all the thoughts that had come to mind.

At that time, I noticed Hermel, who had been quietly keeping his mouth shut, opening his mouth.

“If something like that happens, you’ll want to die. How painful it is to want to die but not be able to, and how much has happened in the meantime… . Because I found out everything through Charlotte’s memories.”

For a moment I was surprised that I had seen more than I expected, but then I smiled bitterly and shook my head.

“Hehe. Do you understand? Thank you. but… . Don’t try to accept my feelings like this. Wishing for one’s own death is clearly a broken human thing.”

I smiled and looked at Hermel, and Hermel nodded without saying anything.

“Okay, that’s it. hmm… . How much did you talk about? Oh yeah. I was saying that if it were me in the past, I would have done that.”

“Hmm,” I cleared my throat and looked at Hermel.

I smiled happily at Hermel, who was looking straight at me as if he had already made up his mind, and said, leaning against the back of the chair.

“Anyway, that’s what I would have done in the past. And that means that I am different now.”

“… ah. That’s right.”

I chuckled as I looked at Hermel answering with a fierce expression, then looked down at my white, lifeless hands and said.

“I have no desire to die right now. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to die like I did in the beginning of the regression. For now it’s just… . I want to live a normal life.”

I looked out the window and saw people walking around in the village below.

I could see children running around smiling and adults walking around working hard.

What I have never had in my life and what I will never have in the future.

I slowly blinked at the sight of the very peaceful mountain village, then turned my head again to look at Hermel and continued speaking.

“Of course, having already been branded a witch, I will live a life far removed from the ordinary. I guess that’s okay.”

“Umm… .”

“I am what other people say is ordinary… . So, like other people, I pursue something different from the ordinary, such as interacting with someone, living as an adventurer and accumulating achievements, or becoming a knight and accumulating achievements.”

“Anything else?”

Hermel kept tilting his head with a question mark.

It was so cute that I smiled and shrugged my shoulders.

“I just live like this and when my time comes to an end, if I close my eyes next to the person I love the most, that will be enough.”

“In the end, wishing for death isn’t the same… ?”

“It’s different. Wishing for death at the end of life and living with only eyes on death are completely different.”

“You’re saying it’s electronic now, right?”

“That’s right. Because I am now… .”

After saying that, I rested my chin and looked at Hermel.

“There is now something so precious that I cannot even compare it to something like death.”

I said these words intoxicated by the atmosphere, but my face felt itchy even after I said it, so I smiled awkwardly, touching my cheek with one hand.

Hermel also seemed to feel itchy, so he covered his face with both hands. I felt even more embarrassed when I saw that Hermel’s ears were bright red.

“Umm… . I’m a little embarrassed because I just spit out something I was only thinking about.”

“Huh… .”

Let that awkward atmosphere flow for a moment.

Hermel suddenly stood up and started putting on his top clothes.

As I was looking at Hermel, wondering what to do, my face got hot for no reason when I saw the prominent pink tip protruding from Hermel’s chest as he lifted his arms to put on clothes, so I looked out the window.

Originally, we looked at each other in a funny way, but unlike when we were children, when we coveted each other’s bodies like animals, the love that comes from a simple physical relationship has become a genuine exchange of hearts, and now it is a sight that is a little embarrassing to like. Because it was.

“… … .”

Although I was looking out the window, I couldn’t really see anything because the body of Hermel I had just seen kept flashing before my eyes.

As I was just looking at the blurry scenery, my hearing became more sensitive, and I heard the rustling sound of Hermel putting on his clothes especially loudly.

Let’s do that for a while. After hearing the creaking sound coming from the poorly maintained bed, I turned my attention back to Hermel.

As I looked at Hermel sitting on the edge of the bed, I cleared my throat and opened my mouth to try to lighten the awkward atmosphere a little.

“… Hmm. Hermel.”

Hermel also trembled and answered, probably because he was embarrassed by the situation just now.

“Huh!? Uh, uhh. Why did you call me?”

“That… . Well, do you have any more questions?”

“Uh… .”

Hermel trailed off for a moment, touched the corners of his mouth to catch his breath, and then looked at me with calm eyes and carefully opened his mouth.

“I saw Charles’ memories, but there were some parts I didn’t understand… .”

“Yes. Which part do you not understand?”

“Charles has changed a lot since he met me. You said you weren’t just trying to die, but that you wanted to die at the end of a peaceful life. Right?”

Although it was a little different, it wasn’t wrong, so I nodded.

“Then there was no need for it to end like that and be called a witch, a derogatory term?”

Rather than a reprimand asking why he made that choice, it was closer to expressing his regret over why he had no choice but to meet that end.

I could have been a little happier. She is called the hero Charlotte, not a witch, and could have been included in the ranks of characters in folk tales. No, it would have been possible to continue the family in a truly ordinary way.

Hermel was looking at me with eyes full of such meaning.

“Definitely… . It wouldn’t be unreasonable to think so. You know the conditions for regression, and you have the power to avoid it altogether, so why did you choose that worst outcome?”

At my words, Hermel frowned and chewed his lip, as if he was remembering what happened in the Bneron Mountains.

If you do that wrong, your lips will be torn… . Thinking that, I stood up and gently pressed Hermel’s lips with my hand to stop him from chewing, and smiled.

“You’ve already seen how the plan worked, so I won’t go into detail and just point out the main points.”

“Ah, yes.”

I continued my explanation while looking at Hermel, who nodded.

“Because I thought that regression could not be broken through ordinary methods. To be exact… . I had no choice but to do that in order to deceive the world and end the regression.”

“Deceiving the world… ?”

Hermel looked up at me with a puzzled look at my words, which seemed to be shocking in many ways, and I sat down next to Hermel with a grin.

“There are many conditions for regression, but if you put them together, they can be broadly divided into two conditions. Charlotte La Rochelle must be evil, and evil must be defeated by justice and die. There are two ways:”

Evil should not win, nor should it survive. Evil is a stepping stone for the protagonist, and his existence is completed through defeat and death before justice.

These are the laws of this world established based on all the information gathered so far. It was a rule imposed on me, a condition forced upon me.

“So, in order to deceive the world, it was necessary to satisfy the two conditions mentioned first. To instill in everyone the perception that Charlotte is evil and to make them think that she was defeated by justice and died.”

“So is that the method you chose?”

I nodded at those words.

“That’s right. Simply doing evil deeds like running afoul of the city government would not be evil, but would only make you look like a neighborhood gangster or an ordinary evil woman, so I committed such a thing because I really needed to be seen as ‘evil’ itself.”

“If something goes wrong, it could have regressed again.”

I smiled vaguely, recalling the altar beneath the Bneron Mountains that I saw in the episode where I lived as a fugitive.

“It was a plan that included all of that.”

After saying that, I stretched out my arms.

“Anyway, there was a need to let people know that it was I who caused such a huge disaster, and the choice I made for that… . These were evil deeds that were deliberately committed one by one, leaving behind evidence one by one, designed to make my presence known.”

“… … .”

“In the end, the people who found out that I was the one who caused the disaster… . No, I began to see Charlotte La Rochelle as a great evil, and I came to think that in order to prevent that disaster, Charlotte La Rochelle had to die.”

“And it was I who defeated that evil… . What do you mean?”

“That’s right. Originally, it was going to end with someone coming and cutting me down and me falling off a cliff… but… . After meeting Hermel, I completely changed that part.”

I laughed and said, leaning my head on Hermel’s shoulder.

“Anyway… . A few days after Hermel left to stop Charlotte, the disaster disappeared without any warning, and people who saw it naturally thought this. ‘The hero Hermel defeated Charlotte.’ In other words, everyone who knows about Charlotte’s existence will recognize that she is dead.”

After drinking water to quench my dry throat, I continued speaking.

“People’s perception is becoming more solid, and according to that perception, the world recognizes that Charlotte lived as an evil person and was defeated and died by a hero who supported justice. Now that her role is over, she is about to start the next episode.◦@ ◦

I grinned.

“But it can’t be done. ‘Charlotte La Rochelle’ may be dead, but ‘I’ am alive here.”

No, maybe someone other than me has already become Charlotte and moved on to the next episode.

Well, it’s a good story to me.