Finishing the Ruincrest 3

Although the events on the Ruincrest layer had concluded, I hadn’t left this place yet.

You could say it was a gap period between missions, before a new one was assigned.

During that time, the Overseer usually didn’t interfere with anything, and I could quietly spend my time in Ruincrest, where the rebellion had been quelled and peace was maintained.

Breakfast was quiet.

Only the clinking of silverware could be heard.

Ah, delicious.

A meal befitting a merit family.

Perhaps because the ingredients were 100 percent natural, the meal was exceptionally luxurious compared to the usual Ark fare.

Pure 100 percent beef steak.

French fries grown under the Artificial Sun.

Fresh salad and dressing from the greenhouse.

Pure bread without sawdust or turnips.

Compared to the Nine Dragons residential zone, it was a perfect meal.

Ark meals were usually full of synthetics, artificial seasonings, and, if you were unlucky, sawdust or soy meat, but in Ruincrest, whether at the Grand Duke’s residence or the Academy, I always enjoyed mealtime quite a bit.

Of course, the fact that I wouldn’t be able to eat this anymore was truly heartbreaking.

Thanks to that, I was now wearing not Alice Arbentaine’s dress, but the Overseer’s uniform.

The uniform was just a form-fitting multi-purpose suit with a coat, though.

Countless Marlang were enjoying their meal together in the servants’ dining hall located on the outskirts of the Grand Duke’s residence, so only Taylor, Jess, me, and a few servants were here now.

We were enjoying our meal with the elegant posture and silence befitting nobles, as usual, but unfortunately, one seat was empty today.

Perdain’s seat.

Originally, Perdain should have been sitting in the center, acting haughty or finding fault, but unfortunately, Perdain was being transported to the central administration with his limbs modified into reverse joints.

Perhaps because Perdain was gone, Jess seemed to be in a consistently good mood, and Taylor didn’t seem upset either, probably because she had been treated like she didn’t exist by her father, Perdain, and because of the persecution of her mother.

To be so unpopular despite being the head of the family.

Perdain definitely deserved to die somewhere.

As the saying goes, “Cultivate yourself, regulate your family, govern the state, and bring peace to the world.” One must govern one’s family properly to govern the state. The guy who rose up to rule the Ark had messed up his own family and made them worse than strangers, so perhaps Perdain’s rebellion would have failed even without me.

“Ahem, ahem. By the way, our Alice… you’ll stay here, right?”

Jess, now the mistress and head of the Arbentaine Family, not just the lady of the house, said to me in a tone filled with warmth and joy.

Originally, the Arbentaine Family should have been completely wiped out for plotting and planning a rebellion, but the rebellion hadn’t fully functioned yet. As a reward for personally capturing Perdain, the central figure of the group, alive and sending him to the Ark Central Administration, the Arbentaine Family itself, including Jess and Taylor, was allowed to survive.

If a huge force like a merit family were eliminated in an instant, it would be difficult for the central administration to fill the gap in governance and administration, so they placed Jess in Perdain’s vacant position to maintain the existing power structure and governance.

“No, I can’t stay forever.”

“I suppose not…”

At my words, Jess and Taylor looked as if what was coming had finally arrived.

“Sister, no. Alice… are you really leaving? This house? Leaving us?”

“I think so.”

“Alice is an Overseer, after all. If a new mission comes, you’ll leave again…”

Taylor’s face became gloomy at my answer.

“…I don’t want to.”

“Taylor, Alice isn’t someone who belongs to this layer, she’s someone who does bigger things. Don’t be childish and stubborn about this…”

“That father of mine pursued The Greater Cause, but he didn’t treat me and Mom like people!”

“…”

“But Alice treated me like a person. Even when I was annoying, she didn’t have to take the liberal arts classes with me, but she did. She went to tea houses and dessert cafes with me, completely unrelated to her duties as an Overseer…!”

Taylor’s emotions seemed to explode, and tears welled up in her eyes.

“And now you’re saying goodbye? You shouldn’t have shown me warmth in the first place…!”

Oops, actually, that’s because I thought I could relax in this layer for at least eight years, playing the role of a noble lady… um, I shouldn’t say that out loud.

【The circuit is overheating with congratulations for the increase in the human’s sense of awareness.】

What a cat-like auxiliary personality.

I looked at the gloomy Taylor and put down my silverware.

“It’s okay, Taylor.”

“…Hic, what’s okay! Besides, it’s not just Alice, Pyon is an Overseer too! I barely thought going to the Academy with you and Pyon was fun, and now I have to go alone again?”

“Taylor.”

“Don’t tell me to be stubborn! All I wanted was… just a family to share warmth with…!”

Oh dear.

What a crybaby and whiner.

But I understand.

In the past two months in this layer, Taylor had become quite attached to me, even if she didn’t show it.

Her brother was a scoundrel who tried to take advantage of her and her mother, her real father treated Taylor like a failure and didn’t even acknowledge her, and her mother wasn’t in a situation where she could fully take care of her own mental state.

So Taylor was a typical child who wanted to be loved.

Even though her body had grown, she had lacked familial warmth and love since birth, so she liked the fact that I, as her stepsister, treated her kindly.

Having someone as cute as Taylor by my side made the boring classes at Ruincrest Academy quite enjoyable.

“Then our Taylor can become an Overseer.”

“But, I’m just a student…”

As Taylor said, if she was just an Academy student, it would take a lot of time and effort to become an Overseer.

Ruincrest Academy was a gathering of the wealthy and powerful, but becoming an Overseer required even more competition and proof of ability.

It was beyond difficult, so it was natural for Taylor to be afraid.

“No, you’re not just a student. You’re the only daughter of the head of the Arbentaine Family.”

“Huh?”

“Jess has become the head of the family, and now you’re the heir to this house. Of course, you have to inherit the family’s vision.”

“….”

Perhaps she was lacking in Perdain’s eyes, but that guy, who was obsessed with the so-called The Greater Cause and neglected his family, had no right to judge others.

In my opinion, if Taylor inherited the family’s vision and worked hard, she could definitely join the ranks of Overseers like me someday.

Even in decline, the Arbentaine Family was a merit family.

Even if it had faltered for a moment due to Perdain, it possessed all kinds of wealth and power, and Taylor, as the lady of that family, would naturally inherit countless elixirs, magic books, ability potions, and the family’s vision.

“…Was Alice always like this? No, are Overseers always like this?”

“Like what?”

“Meeting and parting. If you overcome something like the Ark’s peace or crisis, you go to another place and meet new people.”

“That’s right.”

“Aren’t you lonely? Aren’t you tired of it? That’s completely a wanderer’s life.”

If you ask if I’m lonely… honestly, I always meet so many people that I don’t have time to think about it.

“Not at all.”

Of course, it’s not like I don’t have any regrets.

There were many people I had grown fond of, and this time I had become attached to Taylor and Jess to some extent.

“As long as we’re alive, we’ll take the memories we had with each other, so how can I be lonely?”

“…”

“Overseers are always busy and dealing with matters that affect the fate of the world, so there’s no time to use words like lonely. Of course, I’ll be sad to part with our Taylor. However.”

I took off the coat I was wearing with my mechanical tendril and put it on Taylor’s shoulders.

“If Taylor becomes an Overseer like me, we can travel together as colleagues.”

“…Really?”

“Traveling around all the layers, the Ark, and the world is fun too. Think about it.”

It was really time to go now.

Breakfast was over, and I had to take the newly born countless Marlang to the lower layer.

I am, after all, the Grand Governor of the lower layer.

Oh, and the red ideology that spread in the Academy… well, they’ll figure it out on their own.

The red ideology is much better than rebellious thoughts.

“Overseer-nim. No, Sister…”

“Yes?”

“Will you still be my sister?”

“You’re worried about strange things. Don’t worry. I’ll keep the name Alice Arbentaine as it is.”

Only then did Taylor’s tearful face brighten.

Comforting children is difficult now as it was then.

Especially a child who craves love.

“I’ll definitely come find you…”

Well, good luck?

★

★

★

“Our Alice’s flaw is that she’s meticulous but naive, you know~”

-Splat!

A cloud of blood.

When human flesh and blood explode from high heat, the resulting steam billows out.

It was a gruesome and horrifying sight rarely seen, but the person standing at the center was clean, without a speck of dust, let alone blood.

“Hoo-hoo-hoot, our Alice is quite clumsy, you know~ Even though she knew that so many people would die among those who participated in the rebellion, those who actively participated don’t need to be alive in the central administration, you know~”

“Sa, save…”

“Ah, no~”

-Thud!

Pyon.

No, Fira Dunhill, who no longer needed to maintain her undercover status, was weeding out the bugs of Ruincrest that Alice hadn’t dealt with.

No longer in a student’s body, and once again fully embodying her appearance as the Maggot Lady, Fira boasted an elegant and refined appearance, willingly trampling on the bugs of rebellion that Alice had missed.

Here, the bugs were, of course, those who had dreamed of rebellion and The Greater Cause with Perdain.

Of course, not everyone who conspired was the same kind of sinner.

Some may have been forced into the quagmire of rebellion, and others may have been coerced into joining The Greater Cause through threats or intimidation.

Fira had enough flexibility to turn a blind eye to those people.

But there was no mercy for those who exceeded the permissible range.

-Screech!

-Ggrraaah…!

“I hear bugs… I hear bugs… I hear bugs… I hear bugs… I hear bugs… I hear bugs… I hear bugs… I hear bugs… I hear bugs…”

“Heeik! Being eaten away, being eaten away, being eaten away!!”

“Please save me. Please save me. Please save me…”

“Our Alice is too soft-hearted, you know~ How many of those who dared to participate in the Ark’s rebellion really had unavoidable circumstances, you know?”

Fira tapped her neatly folded fan with her hand, looking down at the person being brutally eaten by bugs in the alley.

“Magnalühen, standing director of the mega corp of the Toro layer.”

Execution.

“Milia, magistrate of the Galois layer.”

Execution.

“Hindlai, Agampua, Yapallasien, Arigmencha, Malakent, Keltiai. And 39 others. You are all sentenced to death without a lawyer, you know.”

The time of execution is not enjoyable.

Fira is not a bloodthirsty killer or an execution enthusiast.

She’s just doing it because of work, but there was always a question that came to mind.

“Dogs wag their tails if you give them food, and pigs show obedience even if you just give them food and don’t clean them or take care of them. But what are you, you know?”

Pigs who eat up the Ark’s rust and the taxes of countless citizens in one gulp.

What are you lacking that you dream of rebellion?

“Does your stomach have a demon inside? Why do you still want to eat more, no matter how much you eat, you know?”

Even though the world was destroyed by a calamity and a new world called the Ark was unfolded, existing concepts and common sense were not completely shattered.

But Fira couldn’t help but sigh whenever she saw those who dreamed of rebellion.

“Tyranny… this is tyranny! This is tyranny, Overseer!”

Fira chuckled as she looked at the person who was not yet dead.

“Oh dear, I could list your charges of rebellion one by one, but…”

Fira’s fan unfolded again.

“Humans, humanity, are so difficult to manage, you know.”

Tell them to put down the persimmon, tell them to put down the pear.

When they’re full, they want their backs to be warm, and when their backs are warm, they want a comfortable life and leisure culture that they didn’t even pay attention to before.

And the same goes for you.

“Those who have risen to high positions by sucking the blood of countless people in the Ark and burdening the past and future with debt don’t even know what their desires are, and just talk about The Greater Cause or rebellion, you know.”

“Don’t you know how much unnecessary resources and materials are wasted in this Ark?! Protecting things that shouldn’t be protected, accepting things that aren’t human as human, all meaningless…!”

“How dare you judge what is meaningless, you know?”

The complaints of mega corps and nobles are all the same.

Cut off all support and supplies to the general citizens of the Ark, the commoners, and the newly incorporated alien races, and use them only for the complete Ark citizens – the nobles.

They shouted for philanthropy, peace, and love, but then they cursed it as a waste, unnecessary, and meaningless.

In the end, they praised the abolition and elimination of those things as ‘The Greater Cause,’ so Fira’s hatred for the existing upper class of the Ark was being renewed every day.

“Ah- Alice, no. Demon King-nim…”

Fira smiled as she looked somewhere.

“The world you saved by giving everything. How much meaning will it really have?”

In the girl’s eyes.

Still.

Even now.

They are ignorant and selfish.

“No, that’s not right.”

It is human to show selfish and disappointing behavior.

But at the same time, the precious people Fira wants to protect are also human, and it is also human who take courageous steps in the wilderness of ignorance.

“We can’t be disappointed and sneer at just one aspect of the ever-changing light of human history.”