Ch.5656. The Sound of Crying

Thud.

Upon returning to my room, my body felt so drained that I could barely stand.

I struggled to compose myself and sat on the bed as the Dark Spiritmaster cautiously revealed herself.

She had been by my side, witnessing everything, so she likely empathized with the emotions I was experiencing.

[…..]

That’s why the Dark Spiritmaster didn’t force conversation with me in my confused state, but simply waited patiently.

Until I reached my own conclusion.

It didn’t take as long as I expected. As always, I remained calm, methodically analyzing the current situation in silence.

As I closed my eyes, interlaced my fingers, and tried to organize my tangled thoughts, the image of Elenoa approaching me kept flickering in my mind.

“Hoo.”

I exhaled, calmed myself, and stood up, which surprised the Dark Spiritmaster.

[You recovered quickly?]

She mentioned that not even five minutes had passed. But the emotional disturbance I felt after so long seemed to last longer than I thought.

“Yes, I’m fine now.”

In the end, that was it.

The tingling sensation brought only momentary pain before I returned to my normal self.

[Well then. Just to be clear, I should ask. The current Princess Elenoa is……]

“Yes, she’s the entity from our dream who has taken over the body.”

[…..]

This much was certain, and there was no disagreement between the Dark Spiritmaster and me.

The fact that she didn’t ask if this was reality when she first saw me.

And that she didn’t respond to my code phrase as she had prepared to.

There were two reasons.

Now, this is where the problem arises.

The Dark Spiritmaster crossed her arms and asked with a hint of doubt.

[There’s no possibility that the monster called Mack that you created malfunctioned, right?]

“It definitely worked as intended. Mack devoured the nightmare and disappeared after fulfilling its role.”

The moment it consumed the dream, Mack performed its final function and vanished.

The Dark Spiritmaster looked at me with an uneasy expression before responding glumly.

[Then there’s only one answer, isn’t there? The Elenoa we originally met was the nightmare.]

“……”

[Honestly, I’m a bit surprised. You know how among evil spirits, there are those who can’t accept that they’re dead?]

Yes, I’ve seen it too many times.

And there were also evil spirits who tried to steal bodies.

[She must not have realized she was a nightmare. In the end, Mack properly consumed the nightmare. Princess Elenoa, who had her body stolen for so long, has finally found freedom.]

“……”

[We should congratulate her on returning to her rightful body.]

The Dark Spiritmaster spoke as if deliberately trying to make me accept the reality. I got up and headed toward the teapot again.

As I began reheating the tea I had prepared yesterday, I replied.

“That’s impossible.”

I too initially thought that the lively Elenoa might have been the nightmare.

But that was impossible.

[What? Impossible?]

The teapot was steaming. After slowly pouring tea into a cup and holding it, I felt its warmth seeping into my hands.

Without bothering to sit down, I took a sip to moisten my throat and answered from where I stood.

“If the Elenoa we saw was some unknown impostor, we would have noticed.”

The Dark Spiritmaster was thinking too much from a spiritmaster’s perspective.

Unfortunately, Elenoa’s case was very far removed from spirit magic.

“For that to be possible, it would have to be premised on Elenoa being possessed by something. But we didn’t see anything.”

[Ah…..]

The Dark Spiritmaster and I had repeatedly said it.

That nothing was visible in Elenoa.

Even the Saintess couldn’t properly identify the cause.

This incident surrounding Elenoa had no external involvement whatsoever.

“We need to focus on the nightmare aspect.”

[The nightmare?]

“Mack ate the nightmare. But it doesn’t know what constitutes a nightmare conceptually.”

[…So you’re saying that nightmare isn’t an absolute concept.]

“That’s right. And in this case, the concept is determined by the subject being consumed.”

As I said before, Mack is similar to an AI made of mana. It can only act according to the thought patterns we set for it.

Since we couldn’t properly define what a dream is, we only gave Mack vague information about nightmares without providing a clear definition.

It’s highly likely that it consumed what Elenoa herself defined as a nightmare.

Grip.

I feel a deep weight from what I’m holding in my hand.

Now the puzzle pieces fit together.

I admit I missed a step by being blinded by the simple solution to the problem.

But.

There’s still a way to fix this.

So I intended to put this case back on track, as twisted as it had become.

I drained the stale tea I had brewed yesterday. Looking at the now empty cup, I began boiling fresh water.

This wasn’t a case about nightmares.

This wasn’t a case of a girl being tormented by an evil spirit or monster.

This wasn’t some mysterious or eerie ghost story.

This wasn’t a convoluted trick requiring a brilliant detective, nor a case needing the supernatural powers of a spiritmaster and clergy.

This wasn’t some trivial play about saving a little girl from the clutches of evil.

This wasn’t a trial requiring Solomon’s judgment to distinguish between real and fake.

This was…

* * *

The evening party in the royal garden was more lavish than I had imagined.

Literally every noble in Greyfond had been invited, and they were all blessing the princess’s recovery.

I wondered how they would explain the nightmare story, but it was simply introduced as a childhood illness that had been cured.

And the nobles were naturally informed that I was the one who cured it.

The king had laid the groundwork before I could reveal myself as a spiritmaster.

“The final trial remains, but let’s forget about it and enjoy today.”

The king’s words to me from behind, accompanied by a smile, were quite impressive.

I had essentially already earned King Orpheus’s trust.

And since I could roughly predict what he was preparing as the final trial by recalling the game’s story, I was confident.

Nobles, clergy, knights.

Today, everyone set aside their schemes against each other and laughed together, celebrating the princess’s recovery.

“Excellent work.”

I was currently with Archmage Rockpellican. Perhaps drunk, he kept patting my shoulder, trying to persuade me to become his disciple.

“Oh my, Master!”

“Ah! You’re too drunk and saying nonsense!”

His disciples hurriedly took him away. They were trying to pretend nothing happened, claiming he was talking nonsense because he was drunk. It looked pathetic.

I had no intention of becoming his disciple anyway.

[I’m already your master.]

The Dark Spiritmaster complained, seemingly annoyed. While everyone else was wearing formal attire, she alone looked like a fortune teller, making her stand out even if people wanted to ignore her.

The fortunate thing was that only I could see her.

“Where is the princess?”

[She’s at the balcony. You need to go inside the palace.]

Thanks to having sent her ahead to find Princess Elenoa, I could avoid wasting unnecessary time.

It seemed no one had noticed that the main character of this party had naturally slipped away.

I suppose at such gatherings, things are only busy at the beginning, and afterward everyone does their own thing.

I headed inside the palace. This area was reserved for high-ranking nobles, and stern knights blocked my way from the entrance.

“I don’t think you don’t know who I am.”

I thought I would naturally be allowed to pass since the king had already introduced me, but they didn’t budge.

“The princess ordered us to stop Deus Verdi if he came.”

“……”

She’s playing quite a direct hand.

Just as I was about to look for another way to avoid an unintended delay…

A massive hand landed on my shoulder. The weight and strength behind it made it hard to believe it belonged to someone who had been hospitalized until a few days ago.

Magistrate Tyrn Ol Velocus stood firmly behind me.

“Let him through.”

And he forcefully demanded that the knights comply.

The knights were bewildered that Tyrn was trying to disobey the princess’s order, but Tyrn declared, thumping his chest.

“I’ll take responsibility. If necessary, I’m fine with knocking you down right here.”

“……”

“……”

While the knights stood awkwardly, Tyrn roughly pushed me forward and positioned himself between the knights and me.

“L-Lord Tyrn!”

“This is a kind of treasonous act!”

“You must have seen the young princess’s troubled expression. This man is trying to resolve that, even if it means violating orders.”

Tyrn puffed out his chest and declared.

“That too can be seen as a twisted form of loyalty.”

I glanced at him. Tyrn looked at me briefly, then smiled with a snort and said.

“Next time, I won’t lose.”

[Ugh, I never want to fight again.]

With the peculiar encouragement from the large man, I climbed the stairs.

With each step, I felt my mind becoming clearer.

In life, one can’t always walk the right path.

In fact, the original Deus had always walked the wrong path, and Shinwoo Kim had walked more wrong paths than right ones.

But now, there was certainty within me.

I was definitely walking the right path.

I reached the dark balcony.

Below, the sound of laughter and bright lights never ceased, but strangely, they didn’t seem to reach this place.

A golden-haired girl gazing up at the unusually dark night sky, despite the scene below being more dazzling than the star-studded heavens.

“I didn’t actually know what this place was called. They say it’s a balcony. It doesn’t suit me as much as I thought.”

Elenoa Luden Griffin, who had been murmuring calmly, slowly turned to look at me.

“I thought you’d come eventually, Deus. I practiced imitating the previous Elenoa, but it wouldn’t work on you.”

A cold voice I’d never heard before.

Believing her identity had already been exposed, she wasn’t even trying to act like the previous Princess Elenoa.

In her eyes, I could see burning conviction, fierce belief in herself, and a desire for power.

And that was exactly the kingdom’s traitor I had seen in the game.

The ambitious one who tried to kill her brother, King Orpheus, and usurp the throne.

The fallen princess,

Elenoa Luden Griffin.

“How does it feel? The Elenoa you knew is dead. She’s no longer in here.”

Elenoa declared proudly with a laugh, spreading her hands.

“You wanted to save her? But what can you do? I won in the end! I did! I finally won! How about that? The one you toyed with has finally become the princess.”

Step.

“……”

Step.

“This is your defeat, Deus Verdi.”

Step.

“The princess who sought salvation from you is nowhere to be found.”

Step.

Having reached her, I silently looked at Elenoa.

With an arrogant twist of her lips, she looked up at me, gesturing with her chin as if to say “go ahead and say what you want.”

“There’s no need to go that far.”

I comfort her, telling her not to say such pointless things.

“I know everything.”

“What are you talking about……”

“You want to grumble but can’t, you want to beg but can’t, you want to wail but can’t, you want to collapse pathetically but can’t.”

“……”

“Because that was the image of the ideal being who bears the rights and duties you’ve shouldered since birth.”

“Stop talking nonsense.”

Elenoa tried to push me away, grinding her teeth, but there was no strength in her hands.

“You don’t need to hide your feelings with sharp words. If you can’t say anything else, it’s okay to choose silence.”

Before coming here, Tyrn Ol Velocus had said this.

That serving one’s lord even by violating orders is also a form of loyalty.

I couldn’t fully agree with that statement.

At least, my current actions for Elenoa, who couldn’t express her true feelings—

No, who had been made unable to express her true feelings—couldn’t be defined as loyalty.

This was a clutch play to correct my mistake.

Not a situation unfolding from the rigid positions of royalty and nobility.

But a time shared between a professor and a student.

“I’m sorry I didn’t notice.”

Elenoa still glared at me as if she would devour me at any moment, claiming I was insulting her.

But the tiny teardrops forming at the corners of her eyes.

I didn’t miss them and carefully reached out to wipe them away.

The girl’s body trembled slightly.

“Real and fake. There was actually no need to distinguish between them.”

Not a nightmare, not an evil spirit, not a monster, not a mystery, not a demon, not a case, not a ghost story.

It was none of those things.

It was just a cry.

“You too, are simply Elenoa Luden Griffin.”

What a crying girl needed was comfort and a hug.