Ch.140Drunkard (4)

What is responsibility?

The woman with a refreshed look in her eyes speaks about her purpose.

“While lying in the hospital bed, I thought about it. I’ve lived a life no different from a blind person due to my foolishness, so I should at least tie up the loose ends with my own hands in the end…”

Tears stream down her face.

Was the meaning behind them regret? Or perhaps self-loathing?

Maybe it was both, I thought.

“I know I don’t deserve it. But still, I wanted to ask you.”

It was closer to a plea than a request.

Though she was an adult swayed by blind love and bound only by longing, she wanted at least the ending to be different.

With a determination not to sacrifice today for the excuse of yesterday.

Selena’s tears were looking toward a tomorrow that would not exist.

She says.

“Please… let me end this.”

A moment of silence flows.

Where had her characteristically cold atmosphere gone?

When had her indifferent attitude shattered?

Before my eyes was only a single flower withering away.

Her haggard complexion only added to her decadence.

Adults were that pathetic.

Just as I was no different.

I could not, after all, shake off the self-portrait of some era reflected in my pupils.

In the midst of the dampness mixing with sorrow and emptiness, I give my answer.

“If that is truly your wish.”

A single phrase granting her an ending.

A faint smile colors the alcoholic’s lips.

“…Judas Snakus, you really are a good person.”

The woman tightly grips the edge of her blanket.

There is no light in her red eyes.

Nevertheless, beyond the murky surface, I am reflected.

Only I existed in Selena’s world.

“Thank you.”

It was the first time.

That someone other than her sister existed for her.

“You might think it’s disgusting… but that night at the banquet. When I said you were my first, it wasn’t a lie.”

Being this close to another person.

Dancing with a man.

Being held in someone’s arms, feeling that languid warmth.

Depending on someone other than her sister.

Everything.

“Everything. Without exception.”

“……”

“All my firsts belonged to you, Judas Snakus.”

The sinner’s confession was too precarious.

As if it would spill over at any moment.

Rustle-

The woman raised herself from the hospital bed.

She steps on the ground with staggering steps.

Though her strength hasn’t recovered. Where could she be going? The woman drapes a thin outer garment over her hospital gown.

It was woefully inadequate for breaking through the winter outside the window.

If just one layer were removed, her tender flesh would be exposed.

However.

Despite this, the alcoholic moved her legs.

Toward the outside of the pristine white hospital room.

“…I’ll be going now.”

With those words.

The woman opened the door.

I stared at her receding back for a long time.

Until the lingering afterimage disappeared forever.

By now.

It was a memory passing through three days.

***

After the conversation with the snake.

The alcoholic immediately left the academy and headed toward the headquarters of the cult.

It was their laboratory, which she had been granted access to as a collaborator.

The personal space of the one who had introduced himself as the “Puppeteer”… beyond that, it was also used as a branch of Baob.

Inside were accumulated materials and results from experiments.

In short, a warehouse of collected data.

Selena was standing at the center of such a warehouse.

“……”

Crackle, crackle-

What lingered at the tip of her nose was the acrid smell of burning.

Bright red flames leaped here and there.

The laboratory was burning in thick flames. Dark red blood was pooled thickly on the floor.

In the corridor, corpses of black magicians or chimeras were strewn about.

The sudden betrayal of an insider.

It was the alcoholic’s doing.

She was in the process of eliminating the laboratory personnel and burning the materials one by one.

Her thin breaths disappeared, mixing with the heat.

“Haah…”

The laboratory was unable to cope with the surprise attack.

Because the opponent was a professor.

Although not an ability suited for combat, Selena was still a member of Gallimar Academy.

A key position at the continent’s top educational institution.

She could handle the subjugation of a branch on her own.

Of course.

It had to be accompanied by serious injuries and exhaustion.

The woman staggers with a tattered appearance.

Even while coughing up blood that seethed in her throat, her hands methodically disposed of the materials.

Piles of documents poured down amidst the blood, corpses, and flames.

Crackle, crackle-

‘I wonder how much use this will be.’

Selena also knew.

That it was meaningless.

The cult was a group of unimaginably vast scale. To the extent of having connections with various noble families.

It was obvious that the loss of just a few materials would not be much of a blow.

Just buying a little time.

A moth to the flame for that purpose.

‘Still.’

She wanted to finish her own wrongdoings herself.

She wanted to cut away at least some of that sin.

‘Is it atonement?’

The woman shook her head.

She had no intention of packaging herself with plausible words.

However.

‘The academy.’

The space that had become her new home.

An affection realized too late.

She wanted to withdraw even a little of the evil hand that would reach them.

They say spilled water cannot be gathered up, but before every day was soaked in wetness, she wanted to wipe away the dark red moisture that was spreading.

The woman moved her hands.

She did not borrow the hands of others.

Because she thought she should tie up everything herself.

The alcoholic burned, and burned, and burned everything.

“…This is the last one.”

The final remaining document.

Her hand pauses momentarily.

The outside of the yellowish paper was stained with blood and soot.

Selena’s soiled hands caress the material.

[Selena Drunkard]

The name was written on it.

It was none other than her own research record.

Transcending providence through stars and Demonic Energy.

The project name was Resurrection.

It was a record of the days when she tried to get her sister back, and the goal she had considered her whole life for a long time.

Was it because of a certain voice lingering in her ears?

Her hand wouldn’t move easily.

‘Lianne…’

If she threw this away too.

It felt as if she would truly have to accept the fact that Lianne was gone.

Her heart, which was being cut into piece by piece, held onto the woman’s sleeve.

Are you really going to give up? it asked.

Think again, it said.

Don’t you want to see that child’s smile one last time?

The piercing longing and regret whispered to her.

But.

‘I’m sorry.’

The alcoholic shook it off.

The long-held attachment she had.

With trembling eyes, she stroked the document one last time, then pushed the bundle of papers she was holding into the flames.

That moment became bone powder scattered in the wind before she could even savor it.

Cremation.

“Sister will… come to meet you soon.”

She begs for forgiveness with flowing tears.

Only now had she let that child go.

Her heart, with a hole punched through it, ripples with only a trace of emptiness.

It was over.

She had left a letter to the headmaster about the fact that she was a traitor and about her collusion with the cult.

She believed that the master would handle it properly.

On the other hand, she also felt sorry.

She had only been consumed by Lianne’s death… but he too was like family.

The memory of the days when the three of them lived together was still vivid.

-Would you like to learn magic under me?

A benefactor who had rescued a life rolling in the gutter.

All she had given him in return was betrayal.

Though her brow furrowed at the particularly bitter aftertaste, she deliberately calmed her turbulent emotions and regrets.

There would be no meaning in apologizing at the end of the path she had finally reached.

Selena turned around with resignation.

“……”

Behind her stood dark red robes.

Each aiming magic at her.

It seemed reinforcements had arrived from another branch.

The one at the forefront was an executive with whom she had occasionally built acquaintance.

“A traitor’s betrayal… I suppose you’ve belatedly awakened to guilt?”

The executive speaks with a frown.

Intensely revealed hostility.

It was an insurmountable difference in strength.

Strength already at its bottom. A body turned to rags. Even a heart throbbing with the oath of mana.

Resistance or fighting back was meaningless for the alcoholic anymore.

Not long after.

Thud-

Strength leaves her legs.

It was the woman’s limit.

As she kneels in place, the robes that followed subdue her.

Selena’s arm is violently twisted and kicks fly at her.

Nevertheless, her gaze was more serene than ever.

Slap!

The executive strikes the alcoholic’s cheek.

A momentary flash in her vision.

As she chews on the stinging pain spreading, a question follows into her ear.

It was a question as if he couldn’t understand her.

“Why did you stab us in the back? We thought our interests aligned. Didn’t you want to bring your sister back to life?”

The alcoholic answers weakly.

Due to her split lip, her pronunciation kept leaking out with blood.

“I wanted to bring her back… desperately back then. No, perhaps even until now…”

“Then I understand even less.”

Well.

It wasn’t a particularly special reason.

“…I just sobered up, that’s all.”