Ch.139Drunkard (3)

“What exactly was the experiment you mentioned?”

“It wasn’t a method that caused direct harm. I simply lived alongside them, analyzing the flow structure of mana, or collecting residual energy. It was closer to observation than experimentation.”

“Data collection… That’s strange then. Was there a reason you only watched? It would have been much easier if you had taken direct action. Even just kidnapping and dissection would have secured far more diverse samples. I don’t understand why you chose such a passive approach.”

“…Well. I don’t know either.”

The woman mumbles in response to the pointed question.

Perhaps it was the final line she wouldn’t cross.

All this time, the drunkard had cooperated with the dark mages, but never directly harmed the students.

She merely passed along information and data requested by the cult.

In return, she received ancient texts about resurrection or samples needed for her research.

Selena speaks.

“I never intended to get close to student Judas. I tried to think of him as just a necessary sample, but…”

The distance that had become too close.

Despite maintaining a cold attitude and always drawing a line, the boy approached her every time.

He smiled at her as if he didn’t mind her aloofness.

That smile.

“That smile… I thought it resembled Rianne’s.”

The black and white memories kept surfacing.

The drunkard would stagger.

The tightening guilt was so overwhelming that she could barely endure it without being drunk.

Her inner self was ready to shatter at the slightest trigger.

‘Did it work?’

It was intentional.

From the beginning, I had been doing things to instill guilt in Selena.

Starting with kind words, detailed consideration, close proximity, and finally a smile resembling her sister’s.

So she couldn’t escape from reality.

I had been constantly touching her inner self all this time.

“I’m sorry.”

The guilt that now filled her mind.

And at the end of it, what she faced was…

None other than the sight of me sitting in a wheelchair.

My emaciated appearance.

Pale complexion due to insufficient life force.

Yet the corners of my mouth showed no sign of distress.

My current appearance would make anyone see me as a critically ill patient.

The drunkard must not have been able to bear this reality.

“I know I don’t have the right to say this, but…”

It must have been painful to know someone was hurt because of her choices.

Especially a student who had been closest to her.

A child who had always whispered warm words to her.

The life force I had consumed turned out to be helpful at this moment.

Thanks to that, I could drive her into an even more dramatic situation.

Selena’s lips tremble.

Despair settles in the faded redness of her lips.

“…Perhaps I was projecting Rianne onto student Judas.”

“Do you mean something like this?”

Snap-!

I lightly flick my fingers.

A momentary shimmering illusion.

The next moment, instead of a blonde boy, a purple-haired girl appears sitting in the wheelchair before the woman.

It was exactly how her sister looked in her final memories.

“Ah…”

Selena is startled briefly.

But soon realizing it’s an illusion, she exhales the breath she had been holding.

The drunkard clutches the edge of the blanket tightly.

“You really know everything.”

“You’re not asking how I know your sister’s face.”

“Because I know I’m not in a position to pry into such things.”

The woman bites her trembling lips.

A silence descending into the abyss.

Though she had only been giving answers until now, this time she asks a question.

It was about the nightmare that had tormented her for the past few days.

Her pupils shake.

“May I ask just one thing?”

“Of course.”

“When I fell under student Judas’s hypnosis. The dream—no, perhaps memory—that played between my faint consciousness… were they all hallucinations created by you?”

“Yes, they were.”

During the attack.

Selena tried to stop me from running into danger and evacuate me to safety.

I put her to sleep and planted a dream in her mind.

The content was…

Memories of what would have happened if everything had gone according to the cult’s plan.

The sight of the academy trampled by disaster.

The drunkard had to wander through such hallucinations for days.

Without even realizing it was a dream.

Vomiting tears and blood over and over.

“What did you see there?”

“The collapsed academy. I was sitting in front of it. Scraping together scattered pieces of flesh, saying no, this wasn’t what I wanted, just repeating that…”

Of course.

I hid scenes like the cult’s betrayal or the truth about Rianne’s death.

So that anger and feelings of betrayal wouldn’t dilute her regret.

So she would suffer fully from her own sins.

So she couldn’t even beg for forgiveness.

I showed her only her transgressions.

“Then.”

Now it’s my turn to ask.

What did you learn from your mistakes?

“How did you feel after waking from the dream?”

“…I thought.”

Is she recalling those memories?

The woman closes her eyes tightly.

Even though it was a dream, the range of illusion I provided went beyond normal boundaries.

It would have remained in all her sensory organs—visual, tactile, olfactory… everything else.

As if she had actually experienced it.

Corpses crushed under debris.

Someone’s flesh and blood under her fingernails.

The disgusting smell of burning settling on the bridge of her nose.

The woman ruminates on these still-vivid sensations.

About those corpses that had cooled to lukewarm.

The drunkard drops her head, then squeezes out her voice.

Drip.

A watery line streams down her cheek.

It was none other than tears of relief.

“I thought… thank goodness.”

That the dream she had seen until just before wasn’t reality.

That no sacrifices had been made.

That peace still remained.

The woman couldn’t help but feel deep relief.

She muttered “thank goodness” several times.

“If things hadn’t gone according to plan… I should have worried about Rianne first, should have been devastated by the failed plan… but instead, I felt relieved that the children before me were alive, that the success of the plan was all a dream, and I found myself despicable for thinking that way…”

Her expressionless face gradually crumbles.

The truth she hadn’t been aware of until now.

The guilt she had killed off under the pretext of longing blooms again through the trigger I planted.

The budding flower of emotion that has begun to bloom can no longer be stopped.

The tears that pour down carry increasingly more weight.

“That’s when I realized.”

I…

“I loved this place… more than I thought.”

Blind love blinds one’s eyes.

Normal thinking, one’s own life, and even love that should have been directed elsewhere.

The drunkard had covered her eyelids with love for her sister.

Only after destroying everything else she had loved.

She realizes that she had loved them too.

‘How foolish.’

That must be why Selena regretted at the end.

Because she hadn’t recognized love for so long.

Fixated only on Rianne’s death, she had forgotten all the love she had developed for the academy, teachers, colleagues, students… all of them.

She had betrayed those who had become her home.

“I know. It’s too late to go back. I’ve come too far.”

The woman says.

If only she hadn’t realized anything and had thought only of her sister’s resurrection, it would have been easier.

But at the end of that endless straight line, she saw other lights.

“I’ve lost my purpose to betray… but I miss Rianne so desperately that I can’t stop…”

Selena.

You had many similarities to me.

No… you were me.

We suffered similar wounds and experienced similar brokenness.

We knew what kind of scar the longing for loss was.

‘If it were me.’

In the same situation, I probably would have been similar.

No… because I have power, perhaps I might have done something far more terrible than what she did.

To that extent, I understood you.

That’s why, even as I reproached you, I hoped your ending wouldn’t be the same as mine.

Because my ending was complete damage.

-I’m sorry.

My previous life when I became a gaming addict.

I hoped you wouldn’t let go of the world like I did.

“What do you plan to do now?”

“…If I can’t go back, I should at least stop.”

I wanted to save you.

No.

I wanted to save my past self reflected in the mirror that is you.

We sink into each other’s gazes.

“I’m going to end it all. Take responsibility for everything.”

“What do you mean by responsibility?”

“I can’t go against them anyway. Because I made a mana oath in my heart. But I should be able to tie up loose ends one last time. To punish them and myself.”

“Surely you don’t mean…”

“Yes, that’s right.”

Her moist pupils sink.

As if resigning herself completely.

You say along with your flowing tears.

“I will die.”

A calmly delivered suicide.

Her red eyes were empty with relief.