episode_0044

“Goddess.”

A voice full of anger burst out without any attempt to hide it.

{You bastard―}

“Shut up. Before I rip it all apart.”

What is Leah’s condition?

Abel first checked the condition of Leah, who was in his arms.

His left arm was torn off from where it should have been attached to his shoulder, and his ankle was broken.

Her skin, now as pale as snow, is soaked with the red blood flowing from her head, and her breathing is faint, as if she might die at any moment.

If only he hadn’t come late.

No, I don’t really care about assumptions like that. At least this time, Leah is alive. What’s important is what happens next.

{What I’m saying―}

Boom!

Abel wrapped his magic around the head of the body possessed by the goddess and struck it with all his might.

◦ Do not tell you a disgusting voice, but you have a good time to see the heart of Leah?

Boom! Boom! Boom!

While holding Leah steady with one hand, he repeatedly slammed the head of the goddess’s body into the ground with the other. Did he forget that I was on par with him even without magic because he only dealt with weaklings?

“If you want to hang on to that damn life for even one more second, figure out the topic.”

The most important thing is Leah’s condition. Instead of dealing with this idiot, I should pick up Leah’s arm that fell to the ground and take it to Mino… Oh, and Mino is also stretched out. I had to take him to a therapist.

{How dare you ignore me—}

He must have been desperate to get what he deserved for hurting Leah.

Then I should do as you wish.

Phew!

He struck the Iceman’s stomach hard with his knee. Pieces of intestines and clumps of blood came out on his pants.

Even though it’s an ice body, the pain is still the same, and for some reason, it seems like I can’t recover because of a strange energy from having eaten something wrong, so it’s going to hurt quite a bit.

{Ugh… Ugh, Ugh.}

“Did you think I was being obedient and putting up with it? Did you think I was a completely tamed hunting dog? It seemed like that from what you were whining about earlier. Tch, that’s nonsense. I’ve been sharpening my sword ever since you killed Leah!”

After saying that, Abel kicked the body against the wall and continued laughing.

“Huh? But now there’s no reason to put up with it? So… Just sit there on that fucking throne. Okay? Don’t try to escape by wagging your useless legs. I’ll go kill you myself!”

{How dare you sacrifice something like that…!! You should have just killed him then! How dare you, a lower class person…!!}

“You’re the one who got stabbed by the lower class, but your pride is so damn high.”

Now that I’ve declared war, I have nothing more to do with this guy.

“Hey, are you there? No, you should be. Don’t pretend not to know. When I barged in earlier, I clearly saw someone else throw a sword besides me.”

Abel muttered into the air as he adjusted his grip on Leah, his fallen arm still firmly in place.

“The goddess knows what to do. She seems to have a lot to do. Put the black one next to you.”

If you really take out the lich, it’s a sword that looks exactly like Abel’s own sword. It’s probably the impostor that Mino reported last time.

It would be a lie if I had no grudge at all, but since I was trying to save Leah, I could easily make this much concession.

“…Let’s go, Leah.”

Abel jumped out of the window of the tower and spread his wings as he quickly flew towards the demon camp.

Leah slowly opened her eyes without even noticing.

*****

Everything is black before my eyes.

Is this the afterlife?

“The afterlife is a piece of shit. It’s inside your mind.”

Right. I had to sort this out too. I glared at the shape of El in front of me.

“Why are you staring at me like that? After all, I’m just an illusion you created.”

Yes. I didn’t want to admit that such evasive behavior was my true feelings, and I didn’t want to admit it to Abel’s face…

“You didn’t like it because you liked it?”

“Yeah.”

“Just talk comfortably. In the end, this is also you.”

“Ha… That’s stupid, really.”

“Why? It’s effective for organizing your mind.”

So that’s why Elle was so ambiguous.

“Correct answer.”

“Why not the Four Heavenly Kings?”

The thing in the shape of Elle made a sound like it was thinking about whether to say it or not, then muttered with a frown on its face as if to ask if it really had to say it with its own mouth.

“You… You want to do that to real people’s faces? If they find out, you’ll be a piece of shit. ”

“Eldo is a real person.”

“I am a real person. At least now, you can’t know what you’re doing to me.”

“…Isn’t that insulting?”

“I have permission.”

Is it really just my imagination? The more I talk, the more I sound like an Elle rather than a country. I wouldn’t do something like insulting the deceased even if I was allowed to. And that would be if they were my friends.

“I just think that the personality of the Elle you saw is embodied. You’re not trying to talk to me just because of that, are you? There’s something more important that you haven’t resolved.”

“…”

“What, you don’t want to say it out loud? Then I’ll do it first.”

“…I feel uneasy.”

“What?”

When I brought up a topic that the guy already knew, he shamelessly responded to what I said with an expression that showed he had no idea what was going on.

“I definitely got revenge. I killed Nia, and now I killed Belle and Anna too… I feel uneasy.”

“What, that’s such a simple question.”

“Do you know?”

“The dream I gave you. Do you want to take it out and try it?”

Why me? You are not El. Instead of making the same objection, I simply took out my silver sword. The blade was soaked in blood.

“There’s blood on it.”

“Yes, it’s your guilt. The fear of killing an innocent person.”

“That’s right, it’s fear…”

I just stared blankly down at the sky.

“I guess the guilt was greater than the relief. This is a good sign. At least you’re still shining.”

“I already destroyed my dream of saving everyone with my own hands?”

At those words, Elle made a strange expression. An expression that seemed to be looking at a child, a guilty expression, an expression that looked at a fool, and a sense of kinship.

“Originally, a vast dream is completed by getting covered in ink. Nothing is completely clean.”

“That’s… evasion.”

“No. It’s because they filtered out sinners who were not qualified to board the ark.”

“…”

“You admit it too, right? Or would you have taken those guys who called you a whore and were just looking for a chance to kill Abel?”

“No.”

“Right, now you have priorities.”

“Yeah. …I… am not a sinner, right? Really? ”

“Of course.”

I feel like my vision, which had been cloudy, has cleared up. At the same time, I can feel relieved and happy about getting revenge.

The blood on the blade was washed away and it began to shine silver again.

“And, this is a really stupid worry to begin with.”

“Don’t do it.”

“Do you like Abel?”

“…”

Even though it’s my mind world, that guy doesn’t disappear no matter how much I beg him to. What the heck, if it’s my mind, I should be able to control it, right?

“No matter how embarrassing it is, let’s admit what we have to admit. After doing that until now―”

“I like it! I like it!”

When I yelled at her, Elle seemed satisfied and giggled for a while before starting to speak again.

Bottle.

“But why aren’t you confessing? He likes you too. He’s showing it off. This time, when the princess is in danger, he shows up― evil!”

The reason I stabbed that guy with the hilt of the sword rather than the blade itself must have been my last respect for the master who gave me the sword. Otherwise, I would have definitely learned what intermittent explosive disorder is.

“It hurts… That’s not a normal sword, it’s a sword that originated from the spirit, so if you get hit here, it really hurts?”

“If you don’t want to get sick anymore, continue with the counseling.”

“Okay, okay.”

There was a brief commotion, but the conversation soon resumed.

“… So… Of course, when Noah was a girl, he was a girl, and he’s still a girl now, but when Leon was a boy, he was a boy. Abel might be upset… ”

I just wondered if I could love in the first place. Would it have been easier if I had been born a woman during Leon’s time? It’s an indelible fact that I have memories of a man.

“Ahem, that’s the problem.”

“…I’m serious.”

“Actually, it’s a simple question. Okay, let’s examine it one by one.”

“…”

“First of all, doesn’t Abel, whom you like so much, not know that you have TS?”

“I know…”

Wasn’t it Galvein who cast that spell in the first place? I nodded obediently.

“Did Abel himself say he didn’t care? Of course yes. If you treat him like a woman, he becomes a woman… Ah, this isn’t it. Ahem.”

“Hey.”

“Let’s skip the small stuff. Do you think of yourself as a woman?”

“…”

I looked back on my past. I wore a bra, screamed “Kyaaak!”, and called myself a woman, saying things like “I feel like a woman.”

“Looking at your expression, it’s yes.”

“But it’s true that I was once a man, and I have dating experience-”

“What the hell??”

Elle’s expression was distorted. It was the worst I’ve ever seen.

“Do you think that a goddess who played with your mind to make you love her for the purpose of abusing you and monitoring you, and in reality, you were only abused, is a relationship? You don’t have any experience, do you? You don’t have normal emotional exchanges? This should also be considered X. And if you go into detail like this, how many people are capable of dating?”

“…?”

Now that I think about it, where did that guy get his glasses and doctor’s coat? He looks more like a mad scientist than an intellectual, but I wasn’t tactful enough to mention it.

“If you look at it your way, if you look at Abel’s past life, one of them was a woman. Just think about it simply. Right now, you are a woman in body and mind, right? So you are a woman, and there is nothing strange about dating a man.”

“Is it okay to lump it all together like that…?”

“If you look closely, no one can date? There’s nothing to worry about, and if you like someone, just say you like them. But you’ve actually lived as a woman before, right?”

“…Can I really like you?”

“You already know the answer, right?”

yes.

In fact, the fact that the guy was talking to me like this right in front of my eyes means that everything was already decided in my mind.

“What… Your expression looks much better than before.”

“Is that so?”

Patch.

Sunlight suddenly entered the world that had been filled with darkness.

At the same time, I felt pain in my left shoulder, ankle, and head at the same time.

“It’s time to wake up, Noah.”

If I go towards that bright side, I’ll definitely be able to open my eyes.

But before that, there was one thing I wanted to ask the guy I would never see again if I left now that all the broken beliefs and love had been accepted and all the knots had been released.

“Are you really just a figment of my imagination? Or…”

Bam.

El’s figure pushed me hard from behind, towards the bright place.

The last lip shape is…

*****

Goodbye, my friend.

*****

Little by little.

It’s a refreshing word that’s good to stick to when you open your eyes.

The sunlight was hitting my face straight in the eye and it was too bright to open my eyes more than half-closed, so I just kept my eyes open and observed the current situation.

“Let’s go, Leah. …Please, don’t be too late…”

Still, I managed to avoid death thanks to the 10-star magic that Abel cast, but I was worried to the point where I thought it was overdone.

I thought I should like it since he cared for me that much, but before that, Abel’s face looked like it was about to cry at that very moment.

My head hurt a little and my ankle was broken, but not bad enough to kill me. Oh, is that because my arm was cut off?

Because my mind was hazy, the lock in my heart opened just enough to reveal what I was feeling.

A hazy state where I thought I would fall asleep again in a few dozen seconds. It was such an exquisite timing that I thought that perhaps some particularly vicious person had evolved into a sly one and was pushing me to confess. No, did he really push me?

I feel like it doesn’t matter anyway.

I blurted out exactly what I wanted to say.

“I like you… no, I love you. Abel.”

I’m serious, I really am.