Chapter 41: Your Gentle Despair (7)

“Akari, are you okay? Akari…!”

“Ugh, gulp, gulp, gulp!!”

I could feel the despair.

The warm despair of a magical girl.

When Emerald screamed, I vomited out the blood that was left in my throat, and Emerald stroked my cheek with a pale face.

Your hand is hot.

Maybe it was because my body temperature was low, but the warm hands characteristic of magical girls felt a little hot.

[Thankfully, it doesn’t seem like there are any major injuries. It’s possible that you suffered internal injuries, but…]

“I’m sorry. I thought you’d be safe from the monsters there…”

Looking at her expression, it seemed like she’d die any moment now.

Emerald’s face, buried in guilt, was quite pleasant to look at, but I was a little worried that she might make an extreme choice if it continued like this.

No, my despair generator!

Kkuuk-

“You came to save me, didn’t you…”

“…Ah.”

I grabbed Emerald’s sleeve tightly and pulled it weakly.

And then, with a voice that occasionally breaks off, she finishes.

Emerald’s eyes, who saw me like that, momentarily lost focus.

Oh, oh. Did I do something wrong?

Emerald, whose pupils’ highlights had faded in the dark, was not a sight to be taken lightly.

Hood thud.

“Ah, Akari… Thank you, thank you… Heuk… Huah…”

But unlike what I was worried about, soon after, the light returned to Emerald’s eyes.

And then, tears poured out like a waterfall from her wide eyes.

‘What, what’s wrong? Why is she like this?”

When she suddenly asked me to be her friend after looking at me with such disgust, I honestly thought she was teasing me.

But now that she’s crying like this, how should I put it, I’m flustered.

‘At least it doesn’t seem like she was caught, so that’s a relief.’

If she didn’t know Emerald was coming and went into a despair circuit—ugh, it’s horrible to even imagine.

My body trembled slightly as I thought about the magic bullets that had been directed at Curse being directed at me.

Anyway, is this the end of our underground exploration?

It was fun, but it’s too bad.

[Let’s go back, Emerald. It seems like it’ll be hard for us to handle this alone.]

“…Okay, May.”

Emerald lifted me up cautiously.

This is my first time being treated like this, so I feel strange.

It was a little funny to be treated as a patient when I didn’t have a single thing wrong.

“Let’s go back, Akari.”

Emerald smiled softly at me.

Yes, let’s go back.

It’s good to go back, but can you give me a little hope?

Emerald’s arm turned red as she coughed dryly at the hope that prickled her skin.

“…! Cho, just wait a moment, Akari! I’ll go to the hospital right away!”

“…Kellogg.”

A hospital, a hospital is good.

Now that Curse is gone, I guess I’ll have to stay in the hospital for the time being and suck up to people’s despair…

But more than that, there’s something I’m forgetting right now—

“Emerald, Rald.”

“Don’t say anything, Akari. It could be dangerous if you strain your body.”

“That, that…”

Even though pretending to be sick was hard work, she somehow managed to do it in order to gain Emerald’s trust.

With her arms shaking, she pointed to the lab door where Curse had come from with her index finger.

“In there, the kids…”

The humans who had chased after me to tease me and then been taken away by Curse.

If they were dead, I was going to just leave them behind, but when I focused, I could feel a faint despair inside them.

Since despair can’t arise in a corpse, I guess it’s right to see them as alive, right?

“Well, I did something good… I solved today’s case too!”

In fact, I caused the case rather than solved it, but if I hadn’t come underground, Curse would have hit me in the back of the head much more spectacularly, so it was like all the humans in this city benefited from me.

If Emerald finds out about this, won’t she be a little lenient when my true identity is revealed someday?

Anyway, I just wanted to go back and rest for today.

I’m so tired from pretending to get beaten up by Curse—Kwaang—!!!

“Emerald.”

However, as if to tease my thoughts, the sound of a wall collapsing and another voice echoed from behind Emerald.

Who is it?

No, rather… a voice that sounded familiar from somewhere.

The moment I stuck my head out while still in Emerald’s arms and tried to look at the other person, the owner of that voice suddenly came to mind.

“No way, Ruby? Ruby.”

As soon as I thought of those two letters, I naturally shrank my head that I was about to stick out.

If I get caught, I’ll die.

No, even if I don’t die, I’ll be torn apart and torn to pieces.

Emerald must have known that fact because she didn’t look back while holding me.

It seemed like she knew what would happen the moment Ruby saw me in her arms.

“Ruby, there are children trapped in the lab next door.”

“Really? More importantly, did you save your friend?”

“Yes, for now.”

Emerald’s eyes were trembling slightly as she looked down at me.

Her ragged breathing and the cold sweat running down her forehead clearly showed how nervous she was.

“T-then I’ll go first.”

“Wait.”

The moment Emerald was about to hurriedly walk away, Ruby called out to Emerald.

Then Emerald bit her lips.

She swallowed hard, her mouth shut like a child who had been caught doing something wrong.

“That guy here, was he a curse?”

“Yes.”

“Damn, it would have been better if I had caught you now… Anyway, you’ve had a hard time.”

“Ruby, you’ve had a hard time too.”

Fortunately, it didn’t seem like she’d been caught.

As I let out my holding breath in time with Emerald’s creaking movements, Emerald let out a sigh as well.

Like she was more nervous that Ruby had almost caught me than that damn Curse.

Growl—

‘Ah, I’m so hungry. I wanted to go back and bury my face in Tamako’s arms.

My stomach was somewhat full after eating Emerald’s despair, but—why, it felt like I was eating home-cooked food after eating delivery food.

Anyway, that’s what it felt like.

“Phew, ahaha…!”

“…Why?”

“No, no. I just thought it was strange, Akari is Akari.”

What does it mean to say that I’m like me?

Someone who can’t read the mood and makes their stomach growl because they’re hungry?

That’s not a compliment at all.

“Let’s eat together when we get back. Something really delicious.”

Hope radiating from Emerald stabbed her skin.

Yeah, whatever. Do whatever you want.

---

“…No matter how much I think about it, it’s strange.”

[Uh, what do you mean? I think the strangest thing is that Ruby came back unharmed!]

“Hey.”

Ruby sighed at Chromie’s teasing in such a strange place.

Well, that might have been strange to Chromie in the first place.

But the important thing right now wasn’t whether she was okay or not.

“You were living underground like this, and no one knew?”

The underground was where Curse was first seen in the previous world, but it was definitely not the underground of a city where people lived.

And yet, no one noticed while such a monster built a research lab that rivaled an entire city underground.

That didn’t make sense.

“So you were originally human.”

[Whoa, originally human… What do you mean?]

“It’s nothing. It’s not certain yet, so I’ll let you know when I have the answer.”

Ruby, who had been stroking the top of Chromie’s head, who had started whining next to her, stretched out her legs and relaxed her stiff body.

She should have caught her then.

Maybe it was because it was before the time she had first seen her in the previous world, but she remembered that the despair she had felt from Curse was weaker than she remembered.

“Oh, Sister…”

“Why, who else was fighting?”

Ruby turned her head at the voice from next to her.

The children who had been trapped in the lab that Emerald had mentioned.

They had been suffering from despair and were gloomy, but they soon came back to life when she had injected them with a little hopeful energy.

The problem was that they had become so cheerful that they fought each other.

“T-That! There’s one more person to save!”

“…There’s another person to save?”

There were definitely four children in the lab.

Ruby couldn’t help but tilt her head reflexively because she had already checked once more just in case.

“Who saved us!”

“… Was she someone with green hair and green eyes?”

Since Emerald told her, it could have been Emerald.

However, since Emerald returned safely, there was no need to save her.

“Well, it was dark so I couldn’t see it well, but she was my older sister with black hair and black eyes.”

“Black hair and black eyes—what?”

Trauma.

Ruby, who hated anything black, instinctively raised her voice.

Oh, I’ve acted so shamefully in front of that child.

She slowly took a deep breath and erased the image in her head.

No, it was the moment she was about to erase it.

“Oh, when I first saw her, her eyes might have been red—hyak?!”

“…”

Ruby suddenly stood up from her seat at the child’s words.

Black hair and black eyes.

However, eyes that could also turn red.

It wasn’t certain, but one thing came to mind—no, only one.

“Apocalypse, right?”

A single thought flashed through my mind.

But it didn’t make sense.

“There was a magical girl sister…”

If Apocalypse was true, Emerald, who was much more sensitive to despair than she was, would have noticed it right away.

And there was no way that Apocalypse could save humans.

‘Yeah, that can’t be. There’s no way Apocalypse is here. If there was, this city would have been ruins that day.’

Ruby murmured softly and patted the child’s head.

Trying to ignore the inexplicable anxiety in her chest.