Ch.10Chapter 10. Sometimes a Man Must Risk His Life

“Never go into the basement.”

I couldn’t possibly forget.

The woman with cloudy eyes who usually stumbled over her words—in that moment, she looked straight at me with sharp eyes and spoke in a cutting voice.

A shift in demeanor that would give even an ordinary person chills.

But if the person in question belonged to the Magic Tower, disobeying such a warning would lead to a terrible fate that couldn’t be repaid even with one’s life.

Though it was just a rumor, they said some were subjected to experiments where only their brains were kept in containers and given electrical stimulation…

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

Then who on earth?

Who could have done something to make such a dangerous person scream like that, in just one night without me noticing?

“It’s, it’s gone.”

The basement was not only unlocked but in complete disarray.

As if to show that large, heavy objects had once been there, spots where dust had been cleared were visible throughout the basement.

“Everything, it’s all gone. Everything I’ve accomplished…!”

Vivian was sitting in the middle of it all, wailing.

I couldn’t have imagined this when she was focused on her research but still showed me simple gratitude.

She just kept crying as if feeling a pain like her heart was being torn apart.

“Vivian. Are you alri—”

Taking an unconscious step forward to encourage her, seeing her pitiful state, I immediately stopped myself.

Shit, what was I trying to do?

She was potentially a madwoman, yet I was approaching to comfort her when she was emotionally unstable.

-Boom!

Of course, my hesitation lasted only a moment, but this cursed world wouldn’t even allow me the chance to escape.

Rumble—as ceiling debris blocked the stairs.

I immediately realized the cause was the woman sitting and crying in the empty room, just by meeting the gaze she directed at me.

“…It was you.”

I recognized the ferocious look in her eyes—something I’d never directly faced since coming to this world—now aimed squarely at me.

“You’re the one who prevented me from meeting my mother…!”

“No, Vivian. I didn’t—”

-Whoosh!

My attempt at an excuse was cut off by something pressing down on my body.

Had the ceiling collapsed again, burying me?

No, that wasn’t it. This was pure magical force.

Mana drawn by her emotions was pressing down on the entire area.

Not even a direct attack, just energy responding to her anger.

“Ugh, huff. Urk…!!”

But was this even possible?

As far as I knew, mana was energy that exerted physical force in response to will, and without precise control, it couldn’t be properly wielded.

It was a power that could lead to self-destruction if not handled with proper purpose and method.

That’s why only those with high intelligence aptitude were given the opportunity to learn it. Simply losing one’s mind and exerting this much power was nonsensical by this world’s common sense.

If it were possible, there was only one explanation.

The person’s capabilities would have to exist at a level beyond human.

“Tell me.”

The woman with such absurd power…

Perhaps rightfully called a monster in human skin, approached me one step and quietly spoke.

“Tell me right now. Where did you take everything that was here…”

Despite her previously passive attitude, she now displayed pure killing intent and madness.

“Tell me why you interfered with me going to see my mother…!”

She shouted at me, revealing the desperate reason she had been immersed in her research—something I couldn’t understand.

-Creak, creak.

The closer she got, the heavier the weight on my body became.

My joints twisted in pain, and my muscles tensed reflexively in defense, becoming rigid.

But even that was just futile resistance.

At this rate, I might die, my body crushed like dried fish by the overwhelming pressure she emitted.

Despite feeling the injustice of the situation, I could vividly feel my life slipping away.

Just like all the people I’d seen before…

“Vivian. Calm down.”

But I still had the will to live.

The will to live even in this miserable world.

“Please calm down, I…”

So with my mouth—the only means available to me—I struggled to speak, trying to appeal to her.

“Remember…”

Begging for my life wouldn’t work.

Someone who had lost her mind and wanted to tear apart everything in sight wouldn’t listen to alibis or logical explanations.

“Please remember who I am!”

But my name.

If it was my name, surely even she in her current state could recall it.

“You remember me, don’t you? Who I am…!”

Existence Imprinting.

The ability that makes anyone who meets me never forget my existence, regardless of who they are or what situation they’re in.

If this power was real, it could guide even someone who had lost their reason to recognize who I was.

If her previous kindness toward me was genuine, relying on this ability might help me overcome the situation…

“Housekeeper…?”

As if confirming my prediction, a question escaped her lips as she looked at me.

Belatedly recognizing me, she stiffened her eyes, and the tears flowing from them grew thicker.

“It was you, the housekeeper?”

Were those tears due to confusion about the situation, or betrayal?

Perhaps she was displaying such an attitude because she couldn’t immediately find the cause of all this trouble right in front of her.

“Was it really you, the housekeeper, who prevented me from meeting my mother…”

“No.”

But such emotional wavering had weakened the force pressing down on my body.

Finding an opening from this, I spoke my truth to her through my gradually clearing airway.

“I haven’t done anything to trouble you. And I won’t in the future.”

In a world full of people who wouldn’t listen to a word I said even if they remembered me, she was one of the few who had faced me directly and been kind.

Because she had listened to me, I had wanted to work under her for as long as possible.

“…So please, calm down, Vivian.”

If you don’t harm me, I won’t hate you either.

Hoping that my true feelings would reach her, I painfully raised my head to look her straight in the eyes, and eventually, her resolve wavered, and she began to back away.

-Swoosh.

As the intense force pressing down on my body gradually subsided.

Feeling the tension in my body finally release, I watched as she retreated from me, sat down, and buried her face in her hands, sobbing.

“I’m sorry.”

Beginning with an apology.

“I’m sorry, housekeeper. I…”

She painfully expressed her guilt toward me.

Just hearing that was enough to understand.

She wasn’t just a madwoman, but someone with enough compassion to feel sorry for someone else.

“…It’s okay.”

Yes, she wasn’t dangerous now.

Keeping that in mind to suppress my fear, I approached her, placed my hand on her shoulder, and spoke soothingly.

“It’s okay, so can you tell me what happened first?”

“…”

She looked up at me with empty eyes, saying nothing.

Then her gaze gradually fell, and her trembling hands moved toward her head.

“To see my mother…”

“Yes, you were researching to see your mother… right?”

“Y-yes. I’ve been researching all this time, but when I woke up, all the research materials I’d collected in the basement were gone.”

Vivian clutched her head as if unable to accept reality.

Her disheveled, uncombed hair was pulled taut in her grip, as if she might tear it out.

“I was so close to possibly seeing my mother… I’ve been researching for that all this time, and now it’s all gone…”

“…If we tell the guards, they might be able to find it soon.”

Though I didn’t know the details, if it involved her parent, it must be incredibly important to her.

Having watched her research desperately all this time, I sincerely hoped she would find her research results.

“What if the guards are in on it?”

But she seemed unable to accept even advice offered with such intentions, turning her head away from me…

“In on it? What do you mean…”

“The guards might be working with whoever stole from here. If, if they had protected this place properly, this wouldn’t have happened.”

Her voice trembled.

Looking at her face revealed through her fingers as she lowered her head, I could see her eyes shaking violently, the surrounding area bloodshot.

“Y-yes. I can’t trust anyone. Not the guards, not the empire, n-nothing is trustworthy. The only one I can trust in this world is my mother. So I need to meet her again. I can’t trust anything in this world.”

Her lips curled up in a sneer.

“Even if I have to blow up this entire empire.”

The words that followed were certainly not bravado or exaggeration.

I had realized it immediately when I encountered her madness earlier.

Whether she could actually destroy the empire or not, her will to attempt it was no lie.

“If I blow it all away, then I can find what I need in the empty space, right? My research, and whoever stole it…”

Heh, hehehe.

As her laughter leaked out timidly, a chill ran down my spine.

I knew it was wrong, but I still hesitated to speak further.

Don’t do it, wait, everything will be okay… if she felt displeasure at such words, her previous killing intent might rise again and be directed at me.

Moreover, because she remembered my name, her hatred toward me might grow even stronger.

That was something I had painfully realized during my two years in this world, receiving people’s malice.

“…I think I know who it might be.”

But if I couldn’t choose silence out of fear for my life, there was only one option.

As the only one she would listen to, I needed to find evidence of the culprit right here, in place of the guards.

“You, know who?”

“I’ve seen these traces before.”

I glanced around at the scattered items on the floor.

Inside the room where heavy, bulky objects had presumably been placed, I took out a possession from my pocket and activated its function.

A magical tool with a simple light spell embedded in it.

It was quite expensive, but as someone who worked as a porter and occasionally as a scout, it was a useful item.

“Just as I thought.”

What the tool illuminated were thin threads scattered on the floor.

When I shone light on their surface, they reflected, vaguely revealing their structure.

Unlike ordinary ropes, these weren’t spun as a single thread but were intricately twisted together like a spider’s web from multiple thin threads.

Such precise tools were handled by only a limited number of people even in the underworld, so while the range of suspects could be narrowed significantly, anyone who would reach out to a member of the Magic Tower would have substantial backing.

If a criminal organization of that scale existed within the empire rather than outside it, there was only one suspect I could deduce.

“…Blood River.”

A criminal organization said to leave rivers of blood wherever they went, true to their name.

Their base wasn’t far from here either.

Without having to go elsewhere, their headquarters was blatantly established in the “slums” on the outskirts of the empire.

“Do, do you know where they are?”

“Yes, I know their location.”

Though I wasn’t certain, we needed to go look for them right away.

I collected the wire in my hand just in case, then quietly met Vivian’s eyes at eye level and spoke softly.

“So there’s no need to rampage with the force to overturn the entire city. In fact, if you act too violently, the enemies might notice and escape.”

“…Really?”

“For the sake of fully recovering your work, that’s what we need to do.”

Her hands trembled as she lay sprawled on the floor.

That meant she hadn’t found comfort in my words, but I quietly took her hands in mine, trying to calm her somehow.

“So please be patient a little longer. I’ll stay by your side until this is all over.”

My contract period hadn’t ended yet, and despite the trouble, she hadn’t driven me away.

Yes, so there might still be a chance…

“Really, you won’t leave?”

“I won’t leave.”

Using that belief as a painkiller to endure my body’s aches, I smiled the best I could and said:

“It’s not in my nature to do nothing when a woman is crying right in front of me.”

She was one of the few women I’d come to like since arriving in this world.

Isn’t that reason enough to help her, even at the risk of my life?