Nyx

“The person you spoke of, they’re right in front of me.”

It was an incredibly calm voice, but I couldn’t hide my bewilderment. After all, if there was anyone in front of Nyx right now, it was only me.

But what am I supposed to do?

“……What, what are you talking about, I’m not sure I…… understand.”

I stammered my reply. Nyx didn’t even twitch an eyebrow, as if they had naturally expected me to react this way.

“Don’t worry. It’s natural not to know. Your head must be complicated. You probably won’t understand what I’m saying. It won’t be easy to accept this as it is. It would be abnormal to understand.”

Their tone had changed 180 degrees. They didn’t let out strange ‘kih-hee-hee’ laughter like they usually did when talking, nor did they flash gloomy smiles.

Judging by the fact that they had started using informal speech the moment they answered my question, it was clear that their personality had changed, and even that changed personality was drastically different from their usual self.

Everything was just strange.

“If you could recall your memories, you’d easily understand the current situation…… but that won’t be possible right now. It’s a pity.”

It was an expression as if they knew something I didn’t. Before I could even ask what those memories were, Nyx preempted me.

“Because you returned to your original world in exchange for that.”

As soon as I heard those words, a shiver ran through my body. It felt as if all the hairs on my body stood on end, like I’d been electrocuted.

Even a fool would know what Nyx’s ‘original world’ meant just now.

The world where I was born and raised.

The world where I played this world as a game, not reality.

And it must mean the world before I was transmigrated here.

A story that the people of this world shouldn’t have known, and shouldn’t have been allowed to know, was flowing from Nyx’s lips. I felt as if my mind was slowly ceasing to function.

“Nyx, you…… just how much do you know? And how do you know it?”

“…….”

Instead of answering, Nyx stared intently at me with dull black pupils. Our gazes met. It was literally a pupil that contained nothing. Not even a shred of emotion.

“Answer me. What’s your true identity?”

Their pitch-black eyes disappeared beneath their eyelids. All their movements ceased, as if they were meditating. The thought that I shouldn’t interrupt that action instinctively came to mind, so I waited patiently for it to end.

How much time had passed? Their eyelids opened. The black eyes that had disappeared beneath them reappeared. Nyx, with open eyes, gazed in my direction. Their eyes were still devoid of emotion.

As if they had gone to ask for permission from someone, an answer flowed readily from between their lips.

“The one who collected and buried the body where the last Immortal Centipede had resided, after it disappeared.”

“……What?”

The last Immortal Centipede. As soon as I heard that phrase, something came to mind.

One of the four endings of Brightest Darkness 3, and the ‘Sacrifice’ ending, which was practically considered the true ending due to being plastered with all sorts of events and triggers.

By the time of Brightest Darkness 3, the world itself had begun to die out, its lifespan exhausted, and distorted fissures appeared across the continent.

The Immortal Centipedes were grotesque creatures that appeared through those distorted fissures.

Born from the world’s distortion, they inherently made the fissures larger, leading to an endless vicious cycle where more Immortal Centipedes would appear from within the fissures.

Thus, the story of Brightest Darkness 3 could be summarized as the protagonist, who for some reason maintained their sanity despite being parasitized by an Immortal Centipede, eliminating all the centipedes that had spread across the world.

Based on the ‘Sacrifice’ ending, the protagonist’s journey achieved great success, leaving only one Immortal Centipede.

It was the one parasitizing the protagonist’s body.

Since it was obvious that new monsters would appear as long as even one distorted entity remained in the world, the protagonist of Brightest Darkness 3 used a ‘Soul Requiem’ on themselves to eliminate the Immortal Centipede.

They chose suicide.

It was an action made possible because, after going through all sorts of events and triggers, they embraced the mission to sacrifice their own life to save other lives, even in a dying world.

And the one who collected the protagonist’s corpse, which was nothing but a husk after their soul was torn to shreds and even the Immortal Centipede had died-

“……Soul Guardian?”

It was the ‘Soul Guardian’.

An NPC who accompanied the player from the very early stages of Brightest Darkness 3, where they met the protagonist, all the way to the final stages leading to the ending, and also an NPC who allowed the player to level up.

“That’s right.”

Nyx nodded. I stumbled back, retreating. It was an action my body commanded, not my mind. The NPC from Brightest Darkness 3, that’s Nyx right in front of me?

“H-how…… how could……?”

“There’s one person who crossed over from another world right in front of me, so there’s no law saying there can’t be a second, is there?”

It was an incredibly nonchalant answer.

I forcibly squeezed my brain, which had almost completely stopped functioning, to organize my thoughts. If I put those words together, it meant I had already passed through the world of Brightest Darkness 3.

Whatever the method, after seeing the ending, I had returned to my original world, the place where I played the Brightest Darkness series like a game.

‘I’m the protagonist of Brightest Darkness 3? Why?’

But following this hypothesis created a contradiction.

I had clearly asked who the protagonist of Brightest Darkness 3 was, and Nyx said I was the protagonist. If I had transmigrated into the Brightest Darkness 3 protagonist, that answer wouldn’t have been possible.

There was clearly an original game and an original protagonist, weren’t there? Unless Nyx had misunderstood my question and given a strange answer, my existence and the original protagonist’s existence would clash.

‘……I don’t know.’

If I thought about it calmly, I felt like I might be able to figure out the contradiction, but it was absolutely not the situation for that. Far from thinking calmly, just accepting the information I had just received was overwhelming.

While I froze in place like a program that had been input with ‘This sentence is false,’ Nyx began another bombshell statement.

“You, how much have you raised your abilities? They must have risen quite a bit since you were first afflicted by the magic. What was it called again…… hmm…….”

I no longer had the strength to be surprised, so I quietly waited for their next words.

“Ah, right. ‘Level’ and ‘Experience,’ ‘Status,’ I think that’s what they were called? I heard it from God-nim when I came here, but I haven’t used it in so long that my memory was a bit hazy.”

It seemed I had to retract my statement about no longer having the strength to be surprised.

I stared blankly at Nyx, who was saying things that absolutely shouldn’t be said. For a moment, my legs gave out, and I almost collapsed to the floor, but I gritted my teeth and endured.

“You probably thought that was the process of ‘raising’ your status. But you were wrong.”

“……Wrong, you say?”

“Because it’s not a process of ‘raising,’ but a process of ‘reclaiming.'”

They spoke, intentionally emphasizing each word, making it even harder to misunderstand what they said.

“……Reclaim? What?”

What in the world was this supposed to mean? My mind simply couldn’t grasp it.

And even if I thought about it now, it didn’t seem like an answer would come. I slumped, waiting for Nyx’s next words.

“As for the reason, God-nim must have told you. If there hadn’t been magic to plummet your physical abilities to their limit, a giant dragon would have found you and killed you. That’s why they had no choice but to cast magic on you.”

It was just as they said.

God had clearly explained it that way. That they had taken away my power to prevent the World Eater from killing me. So that even knowing my existence was God’s arrangement, they would ignore me for being too insignificant.

“It wasn’t even a guess, it was a certainty. A certainty that the dragon would find you and kill you the moment you appeared here. It wasn’t even a precaution for a ‘what if’ possibility.”

“…….”

“Outwardly, you’re just a mere human, so why was God-nim so certain that ‘that guy’ would come for you if you weren’t afflicted by magic and were perfectly fine? What kind of being are you, exactly?”

I don’t know. I don’t know anything about what I was before, or what kind of being I was. There’s no way I could know, nor can I know. That was an extremely obvious fact.

I stared blankly down at my hands. Ordinary hands, nothing special. But now, they were also hands that might have committed some unknown actions in the past.

“The abilities residing in your body right now are the proof. You probably thought God-nim bestowed them upon you. Isn’t that why you came asking us to teach you magic?”

They seemed to be referring to how my Strength, Magic Power, and Divine Power had each increased by 50 when I checked them with the ability-checking orb. I barely managed to nod.

Seeing my reaction, Nyx let out a sneer.

“Wrong. It’s true that God-nim helped, but that was merely an act of ‘reclaiming’ a very small portion of what you originally possessed.”

My mind finally ceased to function. The shock was simply too great.

“You are…… *Ugh*.”

I, who had been in shock, regained my senses at the sudden, unpleasant sound. Nyx was gagging, covering their mouth.

Bright red blood gushed out between the fingers covering their mouth.

“Are you okay?!”

I rushed over. Nyx, their face deeply furrowed, wiped their mouth with a hand. *Thump, thump*, red clots fell to the floor. It wasn’t just blood; they had vomited blood clots. Several of them, at that.

“……This is why God-nim placed a ban on me. If I speak too much truth, my body can’t handle it. It was to protect me. It wasn’t blocked for no reason.”

“Then what about now?”

“I just added a little more to God-nim’s words, didn’t I? But even trying to go a little further than that ‘little bit’ immediately results in this. Well, it’s a temporary phenomenon anyway. If I shut my mouth, I’ll be fine again.”

I inwardly felt relieved and let out a sigh of relief, when a question suddenly came to mind.

“Wait a minute. When I was surprised by the ban back then…….”

“Of course, it was an act. Why are you bringing it up now? Ah, but the polite personality, not me, being surprised was real. That wasn’t an act.”

“…….”

“Speaking of the polite side, my other personality, you know? They don’t know anything. You shouldn’t tell them either. All the truth must be borne solely by me. That’s why ‘Nyx’ was split into two.”

The word ‘Nyx’ was spoken with considerable emphasis.

“It’s magic that strips the power from a being like you. Even with the Goddess’s blessing, it was impossible for a single human to bear all that backlash. But it had to succeed somehow.”

“Then you are…….”

“You can think of me as a kind of shield. A shield to prevent the main body’s soul from being damaged. The origin of the soul is over there, so as long as that side is fine, I’ll recover on my own.”

Black flames erupted in Nyx’s hand. The bloodstains on their wrist, mouth, and the floor were enveloped by the black flames and cleanly vanished.

“I’ll tell you just one more thing. There’s still a lot more to say, but I think my body is starting to get dangerous.”

“What is it?”

“Who were the two people who existed in a world much further in the past than the world where the Immortal Centipedes appeared, and then in a world much, much further in the past than that? And how were you able to maintain your sanity even after being parasitized by an Immortal Centipede?”

“……That’s incredibly complicated. Is it a riddle?”

“It’s not a riddle, I just spoke in circles. If I say it directly, my body can’t handle it. Speaking indirectly like this is the best I can do. Anyway, think about it carefully.”

With those words, Nyx’s head slumped forward.

“Nyx? Nyx!”

I quickly grabbed their shoulder. Nyx, who had lifted their head, flinched and recoiled when they saw me shaking their shoulder right in front of them.

“W-why, why are you doing this? H-perhaps…… k-k-k-kiss, if you’re trying to…… I, I’m not mentally prepared yet…… Hehe…….”

It was the polite side.

I recalled Nyx’s warning. They said the polite personality knew nothing, and I shouldn’t tell them either.

In that case, I should faithfully keep their request. I took my hand off their shoulder. Nyx was still smiling sheepishly.

“Um, by the way, when will you start learning black magic? Shall we start now?”

I gazed silently at Nyx, who was smiling gloomily, then placed my hand on their head. Their hesitation was brief. Their usual timid and gloomy smile reappeared.

I stroked their head for a long time.

For a very long time.