Chapter 5

Chapter 5 : This Is a Survival Story (5)

“―――?”

Again.

The same question he had asked when he killed Woldeer.

I did not know what it meant, but the fact that he was speaking instead of stabbing me with that weapon made me decide that, for the moment at least, he did not intend to kill me right away.

But that was only my assumption.

For all I knew, that question could have meant Do you want to die? Should I kill you? Want to die? Any last words? The sort of thing one says out of courtesy before killing someone.

And so I went and did something reckless.

The moment the pressure of his foot on my shoulder loosened, I sprang up and tried to run.

If I was going to die either way, then I wanted to decorate the end on my own terms—

Why in the world had I even thought that?

Right, getting up had been fine.

The man had let me go without resistance, and instead of grabbing me again, he had simply stood there blankly, just as before.

It had looked like my chance to run, and even planting my feet and pushing off hard had not been a bad move.

WHOOOOSH. FWOOOM!

‘What is this?’

The already precarious bridge swayed violently under the force of the wind, and just as I was about to kick off and bolt, I was thrown straight into the path of that insane gust.

I flailed my arms, trying to grab onto anything to keep from falling off the flimsy bridge held together by a few ropes, but I failed.

And just like that, I fell.

“Aaaagh!”

Down into the dizzying depths of the gorge.

‘Crazy. This is insane. Have you lost your mind? Why did you try to run and end up crossing a river you can never come back from—aaaargh!’

There was no time to pay attention to the pressure of the wind crushing against my entire body, nor to the sickening sensation of free fall.

Looking up at the man on the bridge as he shrank away in an instant, all I could do was reproach myself.

Would it not have been better to just stay down and get skewered quietly?

The jagged rock walls of the gorge streaked past before my eyes.

‘What if I really die like this? Maybe this is my reward for all the desperate struggling I have done so far—a clean death. Maybe if I die, I will wake up back in my original world and go, Ah, fuck, it was all a dream.’

I was just about to shut my eyes tightly while thinking that, when from faaaar away, above the bridge, a pair of white wings so enormous they seemed capable of covering the entire gorge spread wide.

“……?”

I was not given any time to understand what I was seeing.

All I remembered was being swept up by a pure white wave rushing at me in an instant, the cold of it, and then being wrapped up and slammed onto hard ground.

“Urk!”

I rolled over and over before finally catching against the trunk of a nearby tree, and only then did my flailing stop.

It hurt.

Enough to bring back the PTSD from the traffic accident I had suffered as a child.

I could barely breathe, I was so dizzy I could not think straight, and I even coughed up a mouthful of blood.

I stayed with my face pressed into the dirt until the pain dulled. The moment I came back to myself, I clenched my teeth and forced myself upright.

My left side stabbed every time I breathed, but that was still manageable.

The greater danger was the bastard standing some distance away, slowly folding in those enormous wings that had served no purpose other than being outrageously large.

Alien, monster, madman—there was no point in quibbling over what he was.

My right to survive had already passed into his hands, so what did his identity matter? I could have thought of him not as a handsome elf but as a prince on a white horse if that would help.

This much groveling was nothing.

After fully hiding all traces of his wings, he turned his head and gave me a slow once-over from top to bottom.

There was unmistakable displeasure in that slanted gaze.

“Tch.”

Even if we did not share a language, I still recognized the sound of someone clicking their tongue.

And from the way he frowned so deeply, I could infer well enough that it meant the same thing as the one I knew.

“―――, ――?”

Whether he was angry or simply muttering to himself, he strode over and crouched right in front of me.

It was even more terrifying now that our eyes were level.

If only we had spoken the same language, I could have explained that I was grateful he had saved me. Or if nothing else, I could at least have understood why he was doing this to me.

‘Would it not be nice if this turned into a happy life in another world, System?’

I could only sigh in frustration, and then system text abruptly popped into view.

Ding!

[The Executor’s 〈!NEW!Language〉 synchronization is in progress.]

[▶▷▷▷▷▷……4.9% (Calculating remaining time)]

[Translation support will be provided temporarily.]

[▶Translate Specific Target (╶1P)]

Translation!

So it worked on people too.

The timing was suspicious as hell, but that was not something I could afford to think about. What good was saving points if I ended up dead?

I had to use it.

Immediately. Right now. This instant. Hurry.

[“Why did you run?”]

Subtitles.

It claimed to be translation support, but it was only a half-finished version, since it did not provide audio.

Just as holographic text had appeared when I used it on the book, subtitles now appeared somewhere in my field of vision whenever he spoke, then vanished as soon as he finished.

It was no different from subtitles in a movie or television drama.

‘The Original Work was a web novel, and this is an American drama?’

On top of that, the problem was not fully solved.

[“I am asking why you ran. Can’t you speak?”]

Strictly speaking, it was not that I could not speak. It was that I would not.

But given that it was such a miserable system that it could barely subtitle the other person’s speech for me, there was no way it was going to interpret my words for him in real time.

And subtitles appearing in front of his eyes would have been a problem in itself.

“Because I thought you were going to kill me.”

Even so, I answered out of a shallow little hope that maybe, just maybe, something would get through.

He tilted his head, then leaned in with the sort of cold expression that looked as though it might kill someone on the spot.

[“You, what language are you speaking?”]

Because my field of vision had narrowed, the first thing I noticed was how awkwardly the subtitle appeared right above the bridge of his nose before vanishing.

That was why, even in such a deadly atmosphere, I kept almost making strange expressions.

It felt as though I had jumped into the middle of a stage play or a film.

It created the illusion that everything he said was scripted dialogue.

And I, forgetting that I was only one passing extra in this bizarre genre, even started entertaining the idiotic thought that he probably was not going to kill me, even though the protagonist’s buff did not belong to me.

Why expect anything from the system that had forced me into this without even asking my opinion?

[“Then you cannot even understand what I am saying?”]

Whether he was angry at my awkward smile or simply too impatient to wait, his gaze turned even fiercer as he pressed me.

I could not very well say, I do understand, but this is a special situation—

Unable to withstand the intensity of that fixed stare, I ended up shaking my head, then nodding, then shaking it again.

‘I understand. I do.’

[“Well, whatever. I thought you were trying to escape into the gorge, but why jump when you do not even have wings? You got hurt for nothing.”]

For about 0.1 seconds, I thought he might be worrying about me.

Then I crumpled that thought up and threw it in the trash.

Who do you think got me hurt?

I was left speechless by his shamelessness.

[“I had to pull them out in a hurry, so now I am sore…… Ah! Were you really trying to die?”]

Sadly, no.

[“I went to all that trouble to save you from a phantasmal species, so why are you so frightened?”]

A phantasmal species? Was he talking about Woldeer?

I was already busy reading the subtitles before they vanished because he spoke so fast, but when he rephrased the same situation, I found myself staring at him blankly.

The expression on his face—a spoonful of annoyance, a spoonful of fatigue, and the tiniest speck of concern—was completely different from the one he had worn when he killed Woldeer.

So that had not been an attack on me. He had been saving me.

“Ha, ha…….”

A hollow laugh escaped me out of sheer disbelief.

That was not something that could be brushed aside as a mere failure of communication.

I had watched a creature I had grown attached to over the course of several days bleed out and die right in front of me, only to learn that the whole thing had happened because of a mutual misunderstanding.

When he killed Woldeer, his face had carried no hesitation whatsoever. It had felt almost mechanical, like he was killing something simply because it was something that had to be killed.

That was what the book had said too.

It had described the Black Forest’s dangerous monster and warned that if one ever encountered it, one’s heart would be stolen and one would be bewitched forever.

‘Woldeer bewitched me? And this man saved me from that?’

Then why had Woldeer obeyed me?

Why had he found paths for me, stayed beside me, tried in his own way to bring me food, and followed me into danger even though he was not supposed to leave his territory?

To me, this one, standing here muttering nonstop while idly digging at his ear, looked far more dangerous.

[“Where are you affiliated?”]

The moment I saw the subtitle, I recognized the question at once.

It was the same thing he had asked when he killed Woldeer, and the same thing he had thrown at me so casually while pinning me down on the bridge.

This was an identity check.

It was not a question I should avoid, and I ought to answer it.

But I could not.

Leaving aside the fact that he would not understand me, I did not know where I belonged either.

‘You unfriendly system bastard, do you not know that this is exactly when a basic profile window is supposed to pop up? That is the cliché.’

Yes, I am a passing extra. My name is Iwon.

[“You ran earlier too, so why hide it? Show me your frame. I want to confirm your affiliation.”]

Frame?

It was a strange word.

A frame was, what, a border, a form, a shape, something like that, was it not?

And if I showed it, he could determine where I belonged?

I was still wondering whether it might be something like an identification card when, without warning, he frowned around the eyes and tilted his head.

I flinched instinctively.

I remembered that same expression from when he had killed Woldeer.

[“Why are you not showing me your frame?”]

At his ominous question, the contents of the scene I had loaded from the Original Work came back to me all at once.

The background of a brutal war being waged between two races.

I felt the blood drain from my face.

‘Two races…… could he be suspecting that I am the enemy?’

It was entirely possible.

Someone like me, speaking a strange language, unable to speak properly, and trying to flee in terror even after being rescued.

Even to me, I looked suspicious.

[“Now that I think about it, your hair.”]

“Ugh.”

As the atmosphere took a strange turn, I had just started measuring escape routes when he suddenly grabbed me by the hair, and I could not defend against it.

[“Were you one of the Underfolk?”]

Unknown words kept cropping up.

And I was in no position to excuse myself, explain, answer, or question anything—

“Ack!”

He yanked on my hair hard enough to tear up my scalp, and then actually ripped out a few strands and held them right in front of his eyes to inspect them again.

After full-body bruising, now I had scalp abrasions too.

What was wrong with my hair?

[“It stays black even in the sunlight.”]

Ah……

Was not that mad bastard of a male lead in the Original Work black-haired too?

I shrank back, but there was nowhere to go. A tree much bigger than me blocked the way, and before I could do anything, he discarded the hair he had pulled out without a second thought and leveled his weapon.

There was not even a preparatory motion.

Pure white crystals simply gathered from his hand and formed the weapon in an instant.

It was that white skewer that had killed Woldeer earlier.

I had wondered where he had been storing that thing, but the material had been ice to begin with?

[“Move your hair aside. Let me see your eyes.”]

With that skewer, he lightly brushed aside the bangs that hung low enough to cover half my face.

And why did he need to see my eyes—?

Swallowing the question together with my spit, I watched tensely to make sure that the skewer did not simply plunge into my forehead, my throat, or anywhere else.

[“That combination should be impossible. What are you?”]

“……?”

A person.

[“You seem too…… stupid to be one of the Underfolk.”]

Stu—pid. Ha, ha.

The word choice was so absurd that I laughed, and he nodded to himself and immediately concluded, “So, you are crazy.”

[“This is beyond what I can handle on my own. I am taking you in for unauthorized entry into a restricted area. You have no complaints, I trust.”]

It was not as though I had trespassed because I wanted to.

Still, as long as this was not summary execution, anything was fine by me.

He was even going to personally guide me out of the forest, so I had no reason to refuse.

I nodded, and he sent that terrifying white skewer flying back into the air.

[“I am asking just in case, but you did not cross through the forest, did you?”]

He pointed across the bridge.

I naturally turned my head in that direction, only to frown at the sight of Woldeer’s corpse, still clearly visible even from this distance.

[“It is not good to be bewitched by a phantasmal species. No matter what it did, it was all fake.”]

So that really had been the term he used for Woldeer.

If it was a phantasmal species, did that mean something like a dragon, a divine beast of the four directions, or a phoenix? Woldeer had certainly not looked ordinary.

When I only blinked blankly, he let out a sigh and stood up.

[“This is frustrating. You cannot speak.”]

That is what I should be saying.

[“Get up. Whatever you are, the records will tell us.”]

He did not tie me up or threaten me further.

Considering that I had already tried to run twice and been caught immediately both times, it seemed to be an act born of confidence that he could seize me again whenever he wanted.

Still clutching my aching side, I followed after him without complaint.

It seemed wiser to cooperate than to provoke him by trying to run again and end up with my neck pierced by that skewer on the spot.

If I behaved myself, maybe he would even give me a proper meal.

And then I would die.

So this was how my wish was granted.