Chapter 21

Chapter 21 : What Counts as a Normal Route? (1)

An hour earlier, I had decided not to return to the castle lodgings tonight, because if I did, Pering would catch me and torment me endlessly.

‘I might as well keep the warm lights of the night market for company and pretend to work late. If I leave the lights off, no more customers should come anyway.’

Thinking that, I pushed a few chairs and tables together to make room to stretch out my legs, and I had been rather pleased with the mood it created.

The only problem was that the cursed invitation Pering had left behind was still sitting there in perfect health.

In the darkness, I sat with my arms folded and glared at the envelope.

Beyond the window, the lights of the night market flickered in a blur.

Looking at that invitation, stained the color of watered blood, made me want to throw it straight into the fire and be done with it.

“A request? I thought he’d just drag me there and say kneel, do this, offer up your neck, and that would be the end of it…….”

That only made it more unsettling.

What sort of tremendous matter was it that he was actually asking for my consent?

There was no answer to be had no matter how much I brooded, so I tried not to think about that side of things too hard.

More pressing was the question of how to spend the Points I had received for successfully protecting the children’s health and preserving the trust of the members of the forest.

I had more Points than I expected, apparently.

“Achievements?”

[Points Held: 14P]

[New achievements have been added.]

[You have achieved the achievement 〈Returned Alive from the Brink of Death〉.]

[You have achieved the achievement 〈Stepping into the Record Archive〉.]

[You have achieved the achievement 〈Carpal Tunnel Syndrome〉.]

[You have achieved the achievement 〈You Still Can’t Unlock Your Frame? Pfft!〉.]

[You have achieved the achievement 〈Received a Grand Opening Gift〉.]

[You have achieved the achievement 〈Are You a Reporter or a Stalker?〉.]

[You have achieved the achievement 〈Children Are Infinite Power Sources〉.]

[You have achieved the achievement 〈Looks Like You’ll Be Holding a Fan Signing Soon〉.]

There were still some strange achievements mixed in there, but I ignored them. I was so unused to having this many Points that I felt dazed just looking at them.

It was still vivid in my mind how, only a few weeks ago, every single Point had been precious. Back then, I only spent them after agonizing over it, weighing everything, and asking myself whether there was truly no other way.

“So I really ought to spend them, shouldn’t I?”

On the Original Work.

Watching Konu’s Frame manifest had given me a lot to think about. No, that was not all. It had made me anxious.

That gap—the natural power everyone else possessed, and I did not—had overwhelmed me so badly it left me breathless.

At the same time, I was afraid of the previous magical-circuit accident, the one probably caused by my Frame.

If I experimented blindly again and caused something dangerous to happen, would I be able to handle it?

‘It’s just text arranged in lines anyway. What am I so worried about?’

With the bustling noise of the night market behind me, I glanced at the envelope.

‘If I really am Underfolk, then this is enemy territory, isn’t it?’

Shouldn’t I at least create some sort of way out for myself?

One useless thought led into another, and I raked a hand through my hair before wiping my face.

The obsession had started with nothing more than the vague belief that if I could only manifest my Frame, then I too might be able to use whatever strange abilities they all possessed.

And in the end, it had carried me this far.

“Let’s spend it on the Original Work.”

I was still only Minor Role C, but my Contribution had been creeping upward bit by bit, so perhaps this time I might get at least one useful piece of information.

And before I knew it, that line of thinking had carried me all the way to the conclusion that I would obtain some clue, unlock my Frame, and reject Pan’s invitation while I was at it.

Ding!

[Randomly loading a scene from 〈Your Regret After Killing Me〉.]

[2 points have been deducted.]

「(Excerpt omitted)……As he crossed through the Black Forest, where the darkness had settled thick, Chezer thought this:

If that bastard who had created this damned situation ever appeared, he would feed him alive to the Phantasmal Species and have him torn to pieces.

The Black Forest was the only place within the forest’s domain he could not interfere with, and the irritation crawled over him in waves.

It had been perfect damage control.

“When exactly did that whelp take the lord’s seat?”

The dear friend who had shared centuries with him was already gone from that place. Of the friend who ought to have sneered with overwhelming elegance, there was not even a trace left to be found.

Hiding behind the hypocrisy of peace and struggling all the while, he had vanished into empty air like that. Without a single word. And had once again thrown himself into the cracks of war.

The trail led to the Black Forest. This was the only place left.

If he had been swept in from the White Sea, then he absolutely had to still be breathing somewhere here.

“Where in the world are you. Why…… won’t you show yourself?”

The only way to stop this terrible foreboding of war was for Sek to come back to life.

Chezer clenched the ownerless red-thread earring in his hand and ground his teeth. If he showed up, he swore he would beat him half to death first.

At that moment, the wind shook the leaves of the forest, and dark black clouds rolled in beneath his feet. It was an unexpected ambu……(To be continued)」

I rubbed my eyes and checked again.

If it was Chezer, then it was Pan again. He really was such an important character in the Original Work that he was being loaded almost as often as the protagonists themselves.

And on top of that, it felt strangely unsettling to read, in plain text, a side of Pan I had never seen before. Even if he occasionally got serious, he was usually grinning in that irritatingly easygoing way.

If I could have taken a picture of this or recorded it and shown it to him later, I was sure his reaction would have been priceless. Wasn’t this the perfect black-history material?

And Sek was the author of that travel record.

“Sek is the Underworld Lord. He’s Underfolk.”

So that was why it differed from the Original Work. Karon must be the current Underworld Lord, while the Sek Pan had been searching for was the former one.

For a moment I recalled Karon’s violent, deranged temperament and nodded to myself. He absolutely looked like the sort who could have staged a coup and taken the position.

“In that case, even if Sek is already dead……”

For some reason, Pan’s obsession in the Original Work—running around searching for him with all that unresolved longing—suddenly made him look a little pitiful.

And whatever changes had twisted the Original Work, one thing was certain: the red-thread earring was also in my possession. That Phantasm Master’s Favorite Possession.

The moment I remembered the earring I had casually tucked into the travel record, cold sweat slid down my back.

Originally, it was something that ought to have gone to Pan.

Its original owner had been the Master of Phantasms.

And by another title, it had belonged to Sek, the former Underworld Lord.

“System, just what exactly have you dumped on me?”

A chill shot up from my toes, and I shook my head.

Outside, I could hear people murmuring.

I sincerely hoped that because of that thing, I would not end up entangled with the characters of the Original Work—especially Karon, or the Underworld Lord, or the male lead himself—and dragged to death’s door.

If I wanted to wreck the Original Work, I would have to meet him eventually.

But at least not now.

As that increasingly grim possibility took shape, I rubbed at my temples and, in a fit of reckless abandon, loaded the next Original Work scene on the same extravagant streak.

「(Excerpt omitted)……Blood dripped steadily from Karon’s sword. A weapon soaked through with someone’s blood flung thick dark blood in every direction, so much of it that one could have believed the blade had always been black-red to begin with.

“Say that again.”

“Th-that, I, it was…….”

“I do not keep stutterers beneath me. Are you a spy?”

“N-no!”

“The report. Again.”

Even though a pool of blood had spread thickly over the ground, Karon only sat in his chair with his chin propped on one hand. The man with his head pressed to the floor could not possibly have failed to realize that Karon was exercising the last scraps of his patience.

“She…… attempted to take her own life. Fortunately she was discovered before it was too late, so her life is not in danger, but…….”

“But?”

“A spy sent from the Surface World has been exposed.”

“So that bastard Chezer finally…….”

Slash.

Karon cut off the head of the man prostrated before him and ground his teeth.

The reason Ariti had tried to end her life was because she had learned the truth of the Surface World’s condition.

Forcing the corners of his mouth upward, Karon wiped the bloodied blade on the body of the man who had once been the former lord’s loyal dog……(To be continued)」

Good Lord.

“Wow…… that’s vicious.”

I was genuinely, sincerely grateful that I had not fallen into that side of the world, where a madman updated the bloodshed in real time.

For all that survival in the Black Forest had been dire, nothing here could compare to paradise. People’s perceptions of me had improved a great deal by now, and more and more of them even looked at me with open fondness.

The Underworld?

If I had gone there, I would probably be dead already.

Setting aside Karon’s character—that utter lack of hesitation when it came to killing man or beast alike—one thing was certain: he and Pan were not on good terms.

Pan had once been close enough with the former lord to call him a dear friend, so what in the world had happened between them?

From that earlier Original Work scene, Pan too had looked as though he was gnashing his teeth over Karon.

“Does this mean Pan is no longer a plausible suspect for the traitor?”

Every single time, the scene cut off right when it reached the interesting part, leaving me desperate for more.

So I boldly loaded the next one.

「(Excerpt omitted)……Jet-black shadows raced across the ground.

Karon’s crimson eyes swept over the vast battlefield. Wherever his gaze passed, screams erupted, and people dropped trembling to the ground.

Every ruler of the Surface World had already unlocked their Frames and were desperately trying not to submit to that overwhelming power.

Even while the world froze, while the earth turned over and became a sea of fire, they were still left helpless, sacrificed beneath the black flowers blooming at their feet.

It was a shadow that stole vitality. Karon’s Frame possessed a power not in the least inferior to that of the former lord. He was the one granted power over the life and death of all things that held form.

That was Karon.

Numbers did not matter. Whether a hundred or ten thousand, Karon could force all things to their knees with a single gesture, a single act of will.

Ariti was no different.

Because she believed that all of this war had begun because of her, she clutched the dry earth in her hands and swallowed back her tears.

“What is your reason for going this far? In your world, is it enough that there be only you and me? Is that your selfish conviction—that even if that world is twisted into agony, it matters not at all?”

She bit down until her lips split and bled. Ariti could not collapse.

Because she alone was capable of soothing that demon.

Even if, in the end, she herself was torn to pieces and vanished as the price……(To be continued)」

My very first thought was that it resembled the very first Original Work scene I had seen when I arrived here.

The contents felt strangely connected, yet different.

The exact scene and the dialogue were not the same, but the fact that they were in the middle of war, and the way Ariti and Karon stood opposed to one another, all felt eerily similar.

But more than that, the thing that made my eyes widen was something else entirely.

Karon’s Frame.

A shadow that stole vitality. Power over the life and death of all things that held form.

“Has the system gone mad?”

This was not the sort of system that kept handing me exactly the information I needed.

Not once, but three times in a row, it had given me useful information, and instead of relief, all I felt was growing unease.

Perhaps the reason it was suddenly being so generous was because Pan’s request was going to be so difficult that these were all pieces of information I would need just to survive it.

A chill ran through me.

I rubbed my arms and glanced around for no reason.

The flickering lights of the night market now looked more like a wildfire raging out of control.

“I should save the rest of my Points for later.”

If the worst happened, they might at least serve as a rope to pull me back out of death.

My eyes kept drifting toward the envelope lying there so quietly. Why go so far as to have Pering deliver that thing instead of coming himself?

Slowly, cautiously, I reached out and pinched the edge of the envelope between my fingers.

The envelope, dark as though it had been dredged up from deep water, gave the illusion that water was dripping from it and pooling on the floor. Of course, it could not actually be doing that.

Heeheehee.

“……?”

At first, I thought some children must be playing outside. It almost sounded like those few children I’d grown familiar with had come to visit.

Ahehehehihihih—

But the second time, I recognized it clearly as it lodged itself in my ears.

It was that same eerie laugh I had heard before in my quarters, and in Selly’s studio.

“Ah, enough. Let’s stop this already.”

Hadn’t all that pointless illusion business already been dealt with back then?

My spine prickled, and I flung Pan’s envelope away.

“What is the problem this time?”

I had not tried to bring out my Frame even once since then.

And while everyone else saw illusions, why was I the one who kept hearing sounds?

Why was it happening again when I had thought everything was resolved?

And why did this meaningless laughter keep reappearing just to interfere with my life?

Ihihihiii—No matter how many times I heard it, it always raised goosebumps.

When the laughter came again, I ended up letting out a hollow laugh of my own.

“Ha. What do you want from me?”

Or had I finally lost my mind?

Even the shadows of the people walking outside had begun to feel grotesque.

Maybe it was the auditory hallucinations, or maybe it was because I had just seen Karon’s Frame, but I was seized by the fear that those shadows might turn black and pounce on me at any moment—

I rubbed my fingers together and deliberately ignored how oversensitive I’d become to every sound.

“As if that were possible.”

I sprang to my feet. My plan to stay here tonight had been abandoned long ago. I just needed to hurry back to my quarters—

Ehehehih—

Hihaehiheuheu

Heuheuhihiii-kik

Uheuheuheu……!

Ding!

[!WARNING!]

[An abn■rmal rou▶e has been dete☆√ted]

[∴ccess the n▼rmal route○]

[!WARNING!]

[What the h (╯▔皿▔)╯]

Wh-what the h?

Frozen in place by the burst of laughter from all directions, I forgot my fear for a moment and simply stared blankly at the system’s extraordinary talent for decorative symbols.

“What are you?”