Chapter 44

Chapter 44 : Nonaggression Pact (1)

Ariti’s default expression was a smiling one.

Just from what happened during the birdcage incident, I had already seen the power that smiling face possessed.

I remembered the warm and gentle impression she gave off even in the form of a tiny fairy being used to make the rulers lower their guard before she beat them down.

“I heard those idiots told them to execute you?”

So the words Ariti said next did not hurt me at all.

Vocabulary that did not match her bright smile at all was mixed into her words, but I did not find it particularly strange.

‘Is this what a protagonist buff is?’

The biting wind of midwinter seemed to turn into a soft spring breeze around her, and I had the illusion that flower petals that did not exist were fluttering through the air as a backdrop.

“It turned out well in the end, so it is all right.”

“Unlike someone else, you do not hold grudges, do you?”

Ignoring Pan, who was glaring at me from beside her as though to ask what nonsense she was talking about, I smiled back at her.

I had jokingly called it a protagonist buff, but even without something like that, she was a person who made it clear she had lived her life loved.

Clear, pure, and able to think positively about anything—a protagonist who naturally colored her surroundings just by being beside someone.

That must have been why she had proposed trying something like negotiations with the Underfolk, despite the hostility that had existed for so many years.

It was an important episode in the Original Work, something she had committed innocently because she did not know what kind of harsh world it would bring.

In any case, there was nothing bad about making connections with the protagonist.

“Ariti, this bastard holds grudges. Badly. He still sulks about that incident and gives me a hard time over it.”

As soon as we arrived at the meeting place, Pan, who had crossed his legs on the table and was leaning back leisurely, protested as though he found it ridiculous.

“Who are you?”

I treated Pan, who was trying to slander me, like a stranger and sat down on one side of the round table.

“Who are you? Wow…… saying it like that…….”

Pan’s grumbling protest continued at length. Whether it did or not, I examined Etel sitting across from me.

Could twins resemble each other that closely?

Except for the fact that her outfit had changed to a uniform, she looked no different from Blue Etel, whom I had met above. There had been enough time for her to appear after changing clothes too.

I kicked Pan’s legs off the table, pushed them away, and sat closer. Then I propped my chin at an angle and tilted my head so the wound on my neck was more visible.

It was to test her reaction.

Under my blatant stare, Etel’s eyebrow twitched, and then she pulled her tightly set mouth into a line.

“So the outsider said to be attending the meeting was you?”

“We have met before, haven’t we?”

“As expected, we should have locked you in that birdcage and starved you to death.”

“Because you left me alive then, I am solving all sorts of problems now, am I not?”

“It will be fortunate if you do not cause all sorts of problems.”

Even the way she spoke was similar.

When I looked at her with my eyes half-lidded from sleep and suspicion mixed together, Etel quietly avoided my gaze.

She was not avoiding it because she felt guilty for actively participating in trying to kill me during the birdcage incident.

What kind of twins even resembled each other in the angle at which they avoided someone’s eyes?

But there was no way to prove it. I probably could not bring that Etel here from the Ice Castle, where she was shut in and her entry and exit could be controlled.

I lowered the arm I had been using to prop my chin and leaned back against the chair.

If she wanted to hide it, I did not particularly want to dig it up.

“Everyone knows we cannot take Riwin to the negotiation room, yes?”

At Pan’s words, Ariti looked disappointed, while Etel openly wore an expression of contempt that said I was useless.

Ahaha. I rolled my eyes and pressed at my half-closed eyes for no reason.

I had attended the meeting while fighting off the sleep pouring over me because I had to persuade them.

This negotiation was an episode I had been anticipating for quite some time.

It was an important meeting between the male lead Karon and the female lead Ariti, and from this day onward, the Original Work would be thrown into uncontrollable change.

An unemployed man who enjoyed peace VS a pathetic Underfolk dragged into war.

It was the moment when my future would be decided, with me at least able to choose between the two.

“May I make a statement of personal opinion? I want to attend.”

“No. Rejected.”

Pan’s firm, blade-like answer made the arm I had raised awkward.

Was the excuse he had used to drag me here in the first place not my attendance at the meeting? Was it not also to promote the fact that even an Underfolk was living well?

“It is a shame, but Chezer is right, Riwin.”

“We should not create a need for us to bear your risk.”

With even the two rulers adding opinions that differed sharply in temperature, my strength drained away.

I still opened my mouth to try persuading them, but every time I did, the three rulers took turns shutting me down in roundabout ways.

“Think about it. If you, an Underfolk, appear at the negotiation room, would the current lord Karon’s command not be absolute?”

I could not refute Pan’s words.

As long as I was Underfolk, there was no predicting how I would react to the command of that bloodless, tearless Karon.

No, even before that, it was obvious I would be interrogated about why an Underfolk was with the Surface Folk.

On top of that, I was the very person who had caused a mess during the Black Forest incident last time, and Karon had even received a report about it.

The fact that the negotiations had been hurried was also entirely due to my influence, so for me to stand in front of Karon was no different from politely asking him to wring my neck himself.

Even so, the reason I wanted to be present at the negotiation room was because the Branching Point I had created and the result of that choice would be firmly decided this time.

“If Riwin, who is Underfolk, takes Karon’s side, it means we lose our card.”

“Riwin has to become Karon’s weakness.”

“He is an opportunity to seize the initiative in the negotiations.”

“In the end, he will have to appear. They will ask for proof.”

“But we cannot let it become the same as handing Riwin over to Karon.”

“We do not know what card Karon will bring, so for now, we have to hide him.”

“I agree with that opinion.”

“I think so too.”

The three rulers, who had been talking for some time, looked at me all at once.

I had been thinking about how to intervene in the Original Work while avoiding Karon, so under that attention, I rubbed the back of my neck and opened my mouth.

“Um…… first, hair dye?”

---

Thanks to Etel’s consideration, the place I stayed was an annex of the ruler’s castle, where contact with other people would be kept to a minimum.

This place, which resembled an old-fashioned medieval castle with a luxurious garden attached, used spaces so wide that one might not notice even if someone died in a corner.

Before they migrated onto the back of the Phantasmal Species long ago, quite a few people had belonged here, but I heard that many had decreased in number when they moved to this place. Even this was said to be an increase compared with that time.

Well, thanks to that, I ended up killing time here in the annex, half-confined.

They were probably watching me in case I might, by some chance, charge into the negotiation room.

“Did I really show that much interest?”

I had only said one thing about wanting to attend, had I not?

Rolling around on the wide bed, I followed the geometric patterns on the ceiling with my eyes and checked my remaining points.

[Points Held: 28P]

[New Achievements added.]

[Achievement 〈Secret of the Gigantic Phantasmal Species?〉 achieved.]

[Achievement 〈Used to the Dark〉 achieved.]

[Achievement 〈Discovering an Ancient Civilization 2〉 achieved.]

[Achievement 〈Hypothermia〉 achieved.]

[Achievement 〈Receiving the Interest of a Major Character〉 achieved.]

…

…

[Achievement 〈Stepping into Sky’s Domain〉 achieved.]

The points I had completely drained had, before I knew it, steadily piled up into two digits.

There were also many achievements that had accumulated after I arrived at Sky’s Domain…….

The time had come.

The time for Original Work Loading, a brutal gacha from a trash game ruled by luck.

The surprising thing was this: the system was not giving me quests.

Ever since the previous Epic Quest had been thrown at me, the system had not given me any other missions aside from occasionally displaying achievements.

Whether it meant I should do whatever I wanted, or that I was still in its palm no matter how I lived as I pleased—

Or perhaps “that” Phantasmal Species was so important that everything else had become a secondary issue.

I glanced at the crow-tit running around the soft bed as though it owned the place, then rolled my eyes.

“By any chance…… did you deliberately go quiet to avoid contact with Karon?”

Every Original Work fragment it loaded had dealt with the incident on the day of the negotiations not because it wanted me to resolve it, but because it wanted me to avoid it…….

An uneasy feeling tugged at the back of my head.

I sprang upright. The impact sent the crow-tit tumbling under the blanket, so I grabbed it and tucked it neatly into my coat pocket.

I had cleared away every element that might distract me.

If I had purification water, I would have set it out and bowed.

Ding!

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

[2 points deducted.]

…

…

…

Yes. I completely botched it.

I spent 10 points on the gacha, but nothing usable came out of the Original Work.

Now it felt as though the system was openly interfering with me.

Otherwise, there was no way I would get nothing but useless romantic melodrama about love at first sight, pleas to let someone go, and questions like who is that man, with such impossibly brutal odds.

I had thought that if the negotiation fragments would not work, it might be better to check what kind of mess Pan caused that day and focus on that instead.

‘This…….’

I cleared my throat and spoke in a tone deliberately meant to be heard.

“At this rate, I should just charge in, grab Karon by the collar, and tell him not to live like th—”

―Ding!

[Asking whether you have multiple lives!]

I pulled up the corner of my mouth, looked at the urgent text floating in my vision, and lowered my voice.

“Hand it over.”

The letters, not yet vanished, trembled finely like a broken script, then shattered.

When I imagined the system trembling, the points I had wasted earlier became bearable.

「(Excerpt omitted)……Despite the grand title, the Underfolk delegation was made up of only a modest number of people. Karon, the Underworld Lord who had yet to receive formal succession, and his two aides were all.

The selection reflected Karon’s nature, which disliked formal, cumbersome ceremony, though given their strength, there were some who joked that even that number was excessive.

The members of the sky were wary of their visit.

Even though they were the Surface Folk with the least resistance toward Phantasmal Species and the Underfolk, the delegation’s hierarchy consisted of the three people said to be the strongest in the entire Underworld.

In addition, information on the newly replaced Underworld Lord was extremely scarce, so baseless rumors spread quickly, and as the problem with one of his two aides surfaced, the situation grew uncontrollable.

It was public opinion that might have been different had it been Sek, the former lord. The meeting of the Surface Folk rulers, who regretted his absence, continued without pause through the night……(Excerpt omitted)」

…

…

…

「(Excerpt omitted)……The pure white wing was half torn away and bleeding. The Surface Folk struggled to escape the ominous force of the Underfolk holding his wing. Fear ate away at his mind before the pain could.

“S-save……”

“Things that are not birds pretending to be birds. I wonder if they would taste good if I caught them and boiled them?”

The one who caught the Surface Folk, who fainted at those vicious words, was Ariti, who had visited because of the meeting.

“What do you think you are doing?”

“Oh my, if it is not the Ruler of the Spring. I merely saw some delicious-looking bird meat…….”

SLAP—!

The Underfolk aide’s head snapped to the side, and red blood sprayed. Four or five teeth clattered to the floor.

“You crazy…… kuh-huk.”

What pierced through the abdomen of the Underfolk, who lunged while unlocking his Frame, was Chezer, who had approached silently. He pulled out the sword he had thrust in indifferently and threw it onto the floor as though it were filthy. That sword had belonged to the Underfolk in the first place.

“Ariti. You should not deal with things like that through words.”

“……This is a mistake. You have ruined the negotiations.”

Ariti pressed her lower lip tightly and looked at Chezer with a cold expression, then took care of the injured member of the sky and left the place……(Excerpt omitted)」

“Ah…… so that was what happened?”

So that was why the negotiations, which had only been advantageous, flowed according to Karon’s will.

Wars could break out over trivial reasons too.

“Shouldn’t that bastard be the one confined?”

Looking up at the canopy of the frilled bed, I thought for a moment.

As expected, I had to eliminate the cause first.