The Gap in Plausibility
by Afuhfuihgs
I roughly pulled my hand away from Ellie’s attempt to bring it closer to her chest. Ellie seemed surprised by my reaction, as she gasped and bit her lower lip.
“Do you really think I’d want something like that?”
I asked in a low voice, and Ellie flinched, stood up, and replied with an anxious expression.
“It’s not like you can help it because of the setting. I just thought it would be nice if you felt more comfortable… I, I really mean it. I can swear on magic if you want. You can put a restriction on my heart. Even if others find out, I’ll admit it’s all my fault-“
“…Stop. Please stop, Ellie.”
I cut Ellie off because I couldn’t listen anymore. Even now that I’ve regained my memories, it’s true that I’m instinctively drawn to Ellie. But that’s because of Ross’s setting of having a crush on Ellie, not because I genuinely like Ellie.
Ellie never wanted me to be blindly drawn to her. She just wanted us to be considerate of each other. Like a one-sided relationship between friends of the opposite sex.
But it seems we’re destined not to have a normal relationship. What’s worse is that the more Ellie talks, the more my instinctive desire to devour her will grows. It was hard to suppress the sadistic urge to give in, accept her, and use Ellie as much as I wanted.
“Ro, Ross… I just wanted to be forgiven… I really didn’t have any other intentions.”
Does Ellie really not know that even if that’s the truth, I can’t accept it? After rubbing my face roughly, I looked straight at Ellie and said firmly.
“Even if I forgive you, our relationship can’t go back to what it was.”
“….”
“We shouldn’t go back to our old relationship. In the end, we’ll just hurt each other again.”
In a corner of my heart, the indelible scar left by Ellie still remains vivid. It remained so deep that it affected me even after losing my memories.
“If you really care about me, for my happiness with Luna… instead of accepting my desires, you should have forcibly pushed me away from you, even if you wanted to keep me by your side.”
“…Th, that’s.”
Tears well up in Ellie’s eyes and stream down her pale cheeks. Ellie couldn’t make any excuses for my words and realized her own contradictions, so she couldn’t make any choices. She just looked up at me with tearful eyes, like a prisoner waiting for the judge’s verdict.
“Let’s not do things that deceive the people we love. Even if we’re not caught, even if we can deceive everyone… it’s still deceiving myself to the person I love.”
Rejecting Ellie’s offer is something any man would regret for the rest of his life. The academy’s top talent, a face full of girlish loveliness, and a voluptuous body that contrasted with it were attractive enough even without Ross’s setting.
But that couldn’t overcome my feelings for Luna. Even if I don’t have indomitable courage. Ellie is best suited to have Roel by her side, not me. After all, the clumsy and impatient junior heroine learning true love is for the protagonist with a lot of experience with women.
“Roel really loves you, and I really love Luna. We’re happy when we’re together. If you really want to be forgiven by me… you can become happy with Roel like I am.”
Ellie shed tears as if she had never been so tearful before. Her face was a mess, unlike usual, but her appearance of sincerely regretting and repenting was better than ever.
I took a handkerchief out of my space storage and handed it to Ellie. Ellie wiped away her tears, took a breath, and looked up at me with a determined face. Starlight-like sparkles settled in her obsidian-like black eyes.
“Okay, I will. I’m sincerely in love with Roel Oppa-nim too. So that Ross-ssi can look at us and smile contentedly, I’m going to love him really beautifully. And we’re going to live happily ever after.”
I couldn’t help but burst out laughing at her shy confession. The joy of regaining something I had forgotten for a long time was greater than the inferiority complex churning from the bottom of my heart.
That joy was because I was reminded of Ellie in the novel, who didn’t know how to give up even after being repeatedly rejected and confessed her love to her senior diligently.
I slowly reached out and grabbed Ellie’s hand, who was still kneeling on the floor, and pulled her up. The strawberry scent wafted over me because the distance had suddenly narrowed, but strangely, I no longer felt nauseous. Rather, it was closer to comfort. That change made me smile.
Now it’s time to return to the real purpose of finding Ellie. I pulled up a chair, sat Ellie down, and sat next to her.
“You received the memories I passed on, so you must understand the situation. I need your help to make a quantum jump right away.”
Ellie nodded and rested her chin on her hand, lost in thought for a moment. She looked quite cool when she was thinking academically. Ellie tilted her head and said, as if she had finished organizing her thoughts.
“You’ve already proven in another world that the connection between Roel and you is due to plausibility, so it’s not the kind of thing that can be severed like a curse, right?”
She seemed puzzled that I came to her to solve a problem she couldn’t help with. But Ellie can help me. She just doesn’t know the method because I haven’t explained it yet.
“No, I’ve already found a way.”
“What…?”
I replied nonchalantly to Ellie, who asked back with a surprised face.
“You just have to kill me.”
“….”
I smiled silently at Ellie’s expression, which seemed to have stopped thinking for a moment beyond embarrassment.
The reason why I, who had finally become a little more normal with Ellie, was trying to die at Ellie’s hands was, of course, to use quantum jump.
That was the way to escape Roel’s setting of stealing everything I experienced.
Ellie grabbed my hand and asked, as if she was trying to persuade me with an anxious face, thinking that I was thinking of suicide.
“…Wh, what on earth are you talking about? Yo, you barely extended your life with the help of the Saintess-nim, right? B, but you’re saying you’re going to die by my hands…?”
“Yeah.”
As I said to Raellan before, I found a way to break the connection with Roel. Thanks to regaining the essence of the author, I know how plausibility worked, and how the settings connected to Roel and me are working.
“Do you remember being attacked by Roel in the passage to another world and almost dying?”
“Yes, I remember. The concept of a passage to another world was so interesting that I wanted to study it separately.”
“At that time, I barely escaped death and was able to wake up a few days later. And when Roel from another world came to find me, I got a clue to break free from the setting.”
Ellie looked at me with a troubled gaze. She doesn’t seem to realize what the clue is yet. After giving her some time to think, Ellie, who had been pondering over what I had said, suddenly widened her eyes.
“Co, could it be… the reason why Roel came to find you a few days later?”
“That’s right, Roel in that world said. He sensed me for a moment, but he couldn’t sense me because I was on the verge of death, so he couldn’t come right away. That was the clue to solve the problem.”
If my heart stops completely and I die, the connection with Roel will be severed. I shrugged my shoulders as if it was nothing to Ellie’s anxious eyes.
“I’m not going to die completely. I’m just going to stop my heart for a moment to create the perfect opportunity to use quantum jump.”
“…You know that people die when their hearts stop, right?”
“Yeah, so I’m just going to stop my heart for a moment.”
At my nonchalant answer, Ellie slapped the back of the hand she was holding with a *chalssak-* sound.
“You idiot! If your heart stops, you won’t be able to use quantum jump! You don’t want to pass on your experiences to Roel, so you’re going to take such a dangerous gamble? It’s safer to persuade Roel instead. I’ll help you persuade him diligently too.”
I shook my head at Ellie’s eyes, as if telling me to think again.
“Quantum jump is the most important thing for me right now. It’s also difficult for Roel to get stronger right away. If it’s you, you can find a way to use quantum jump even if my heart stops.”
If Ellie’s magic and my magic engineering knowledge are combined, we will be able to find a way to not die even if my heart stops. But Ellie was not easily persuaded, perhaps because it was a matter related to my death.
“Of course, there are many ways to stop the heart for a while. There are also several curses that can put the opponent in a state of suspended animation. But no matter what magic you use, you can’t keep your heart stopped for more than a day. Even if you use magic, you’ll really die.”
“That’s why I said. I’m just going to stop my heart for a moment.”
Ellie frowned and shook her head.
“Even if you gain abilities with quantum jump, you’ll be reconnected to Roel if you make your heart beat again… then it’ll be a waste of time.”
“No, it’s not a waste of time.”
Ellie tilted her head at my immediate answer. She was wondering if she had missed something, so I decided to explain it kindly.
“Ross can’t beat Roel no matter what he does. No matter what he learns, Roel quickly catches up. But you know that that setting isn’t the complete reason why plausibility worked, right?”
Ellie nodded slightly and replied in a bitter voice.
“The reason why plausibility worked was to allow Roel to experience the inferior emotions that Roel couldn’t experience… through the connection with you. By creating a plausible reason related to the existing setting.”
“That’s right, Roel was able to get all the emotions and experiences that I felt. Even in another world, he killed Luna in front of the magic engineer Ross to gain the emotions of endless despair, anger, and pain. To use the emotions he gained from Ross in battle.”
The scene I saw in my dream was the memory of the magic engineer Ross. The terminal connected by quantum jump showed me the memories with Roel through a dream.
I took Ellie’s book that was on the table, turned the page, and drew a picture on a blank page.
My drawing skills aren’t very good, but a stick figure is enough to explain the situation roughly.
“Thanks to regaining the essence of the author, I can know how plausibility worked. The key to the plausibility that worked on me and Roel is ‘real-time’.”
“Real-time…?”
“The emotions and experiences I’m feeling right now are being passed on to Roel as they are. Not past experiences or emotions… but the ones from now. If the desperate emotions I felt in the past continue to flow into Roel, plausibility will rather hinder Roel.”
The plausibility created for the progress of the story does not hinder the protagonist. That’s why I was able to find out that the condition of our connection is ‘real-time’.
“Thanks to reading the flow of plausibility, I was able to realize what I had been misunderstanding all along.”
Looking at Ellie, who was looking at me with a puzzled expression, I raised the corners of my mouth and replied in a confident voice.
“Roel didn’t get the essence of magic engineering.”
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