Chapter 7

Chapter 7 : He Who Wishes to Die Shall Live (2)

Running through the forest consumed an enormous amount of stamina.

“I am already at rock bottom.”

I had long since folded up and thrown away any hope that I might survive for several more days. A day? If I lasted even half a day, that would be fortunate.

Even by any rational standard, this had been reckless, but now that I had been dragged all the way down to the bottom, all I could feel was hollow at the result brought on by a single wrong judgment.

So was this my future after all? To be caught like this, dragged away, roughly dealt with, and then die.

“――!”

Peeeeep.

The sharp sound of a whistle rang out from somewhere not far away.

My feet had long since stopped moving properly under their growing weight, and my mind had started weighing survival against death.

I bit my lip and spat out a curse.

“……This is so damn miserable.”

My legs hurt, I was out of breath, my head felt foggy, I had been frustrated without end, I had compromised on staying alive, and the knife I had stolen had vanished long ago.

My vision wavered at the thought that before long, neither the will nor the strength that had kept me fleeing out of sheer spite would remain.

A massive tree root loomed in my sight, the one I had been hiding behind.

I had gnawed on things like that and still clawed my way into staying alive—

I shook my head hard to throw off the useless thoughts, and once the sound faded, I got up and forced myself to move again.

For no reason, the day I first woke up here came back to me.

Back then too, I had walked and walked through a forest thick with this same green canopy.

Just as my vision began to blur and whiten at the edges, and I thought I was going to faint like this—

“―, ―――.”

I let my guard down.

At the sound above my head and the force yanking me upward, my eyes flew open.

I was dragged away without even managing to resist once.

More precisely, I was hauled up hanging in the air.

Clutched by the back of the neck and thrown straight upward, I landed sprawled precariously across a thick branch.

My vision spun wildly, and my stomach churned.

Naturally, it hurt.

At about five meters above the ground, it was the perfect hiding place, hidden equally well from the damp forest floor below and from the floating city overhead by the thick branches.

Not long after, a noisy wave of commotion swept through below once and then faded away.

“―.”

Only then did I finally see the one who had pulled me up.

The first thing that caught my eye was his hair, long enough to cover the back of his neck, like the deep green of the forest itself.

He looked so much like the surrounding woodland that it felt as though someone had simply personified the dense forest and given it human shape.

Apparently, hauling me up had not cost him any effort at all, because he was already sitting nearby, looking down at me.

Long legs stretched out, smiling brightly.

It looked as though he was waiting for me to get up, but the moment I tried to put strength into my limbs, I promptly gave up.

My thoroughly exhausted body declared a strike, and I chose instead to remain draped awkwardly over the branch.

So I merely turned my head and blinked.

He tilted his head and gave a disbelieving little laugh.

“So it is true.”

Separate from the fact that I could understand him, the moment he finished speaking, text flooded my vision.

Ding!

[▶▶▶▶▶▶……100% (Remaining time: 0)]

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

[Achievements and points accumulated during temporary maintenance will now be settled in a batch.]

[You have achieved the achievement 〈Even Falling Is an Art, You Know〉.

→Free fall beyond a certain distance.

You have achieved the achievement 〈Stepping into the Forest’s Domain〉.

→First entry into the forest’s territory.

You have achieved the achievement 〈Dangerous, but Handsome!〉.

→A certain number or more of hostile yet interested onlookers.

You have achieved the achievement 〈Pain? What Is That?〉.

→Experienced pain beyond the limit.]

[You gain points in a batch +4P]

[Points Held: 5P]

It looked as though there was something strange mixed in among those achievements, but I ignored it for the moment.

Before I could even finish reading them, the system began throwing up new text one after another like someone cramming overdue work at the last minute, covering over what had come before.

[You have encountered an important character from the Original Work.]

[The Executor’s contribution to the Original Work increases significantly.]

[Current rank of the Executor: Minor Role F → Minor Role D]

[You have achieved the minimum rank (Minor Role E) required for 〈Random Original Work Loading〉.]

[▶Random Original Work Loading (╶2P)]

It burst into my sight so aggressively it might as well have been a warning alarm.

That the language synchronization had finished, that I had gained a pile of points, that I could now view a random piece of the Original Work—there was one line among it all that blew the rest away.

I widened my eyes and checked the still-fading rank text again.

Let us say that last time the error prevented it from applying, so I stayed at F. Even so, what had just happened that I jumped all the way to D just from meeting someone?

The balance of whatever experience system this was made me dizzy.

Or else it meant I had just met someone I was never supposed to meet at this stage.

Like a boss personally showing up for someone who had only just cleared the tutorial.

I shifted my focus and studied the man smiling lazily at me.

He sat there with one arm propped on a knee and his chin resting on his hand, waiting for my reaction.

Judging that it was too dangerous to keep responding in this sprawled position, I forced myself upright and sat on the branch.

Watching me, he finally spoke.

“I thought you were dead, but you are still alive.”

Only after hearing that heavy voice did I truly feel that the language synchronization was real.

It was strange. Not like a dubbed version, but as though I myself had become a native speaker of their language and could naturally grasp its structure and meaning.

A brief thought flashed through me—if this was the Original Work, then should it not all be the same language anyway?—but my current situation was hardly scientific to begin with.

Because I was caught up in curiosity about this bizarre phenomenon, I was two beats late in recalling what he had said and replying.

“I nearly died, did I not?”

He raised his brows and let out a light laugh of surprise.

“What, so you can speak after all?”

I could not, until just a moment ago.

I casually edged away a little and glanced down again, measuring the height.

The question was whether I could jump and run or not.

The whistle that had drifted farther away could no longer be heard.

Whatever his intentions, it was true that he had saved me.

‘Why…… me?’

I did not need to count details to know at once that his rank was no joke.

There was no way someone designed with that much care by the author could be an ordinary passerby. At the very least, he was a major supporting character.

“By the way, what exactly happened? What were you doing in the Black Forest to show up reeking of that foul Phantasmal Species scent?”

He folded his arms and actually leaned back as though I smelled truly terrible.

I felt wronged. How dare he insult the traces of my desperate survival.

“So it is my fault for clinging to whatever would keep me alive? Is it not your fault for killing the Phantasmal Species that kept me alive without even asking? What, are you planning to pin the crime of associating with a Phantasmal Species on me so you have a pretext?”

As I kept speaking, the memory of Woldeer’s death returned, and my words grew rough.

I could see his expression hardening by the second, and yet I kept pouring out my grievances.

Now that speech had finally become possible, and with my situation so utterly miserable, it came out less like a calculated response to some high-rank boss and more like self-justification muttered aloud.

If I had gone through even one decent thing since arriving here, maybe enough reason would have remained for me not to act like this.

“……To stay alive?”

“The only reason I am still alive is because of him.”

“No, that is not what I meant…… I meant, you nearly died?”

“Whether from starving or from being tortured to death.”

“Yes, striking him with a chair was well done.”

“Right, well done…… hm?”

Something in our conversation was off.

“Hmmm, that is strange.”

He stroked his chin and fell into thought for a moment.

Meanwhile, I reeled in the part of my mind that had briefly run away and played the conversation back again.

‘Hmm. He sounds like the idea of me dying makes no sense to him……’

I watched his expression, trying to figure out what I had missed, and then he lifted the head he had been tilting downward and our eyes met.

His blue eyes, shining vividly even in the dark, swept over me as though he had found something amusing.

“You do not know me?”

“……How would I?”

You have not even introduced yourself.

The moment he heard my answer, he burst into loud laughter.

It was not as though I had said anything especially funny, and yet he clutched at his stomach as though I were the most entertaining thing in the world.

At this rate, I was going to attract every last bit of unnecessary attention.

“Khh-hngh, ah—good grief, you do not know me.”

Come to think of it, he had snatched me up at the perfect moment, almost as though he had known in advance that I would pass through here.

Swaaahhh.

The sound of leaves stirring in the wind filled my ears.

Gooseflesh prickled over my skin.

He had been waiting for me from the start.

“Hmm. I am grateful that you helped me…… ah, did you help me?”

“For now?”

“Why?”

“Hm?”

“Why did you help me?”

If my rank had jumped to D in one go, then this intervention must have had a considerable impact on the Original Work.

Maybe in the Original Work I had truly been so faint a presence that I left behind not even a trace, but from this moment on, perhaps I might at least merit a single line of mention.

Which meant there had to be a reason for someone at least important enough to be a major supporting character to deliberately come find me, grab me by the hair, and interfere.

“For example, because you know me?”

The reason our conversation kept missing each other was because I did not know that premise.

At my question, he pressed his lips shut and only stared straight at me.

Ideally, I wanted this to be a friendly relationship, but setting that aside, the real problem was that I could not even begin to imagine how he knew me.

Even now, with my throat dry as tinder and my heart pounding so hard it felt ready to burst, that thin sliver of truth made it feel as though my brain were evaporating.

Even though reason kept insisting that this was not the time for that and that I should be running immediately.

“Hm, that personality of yours really has not changed.”

“So you do know me……”

“I do. I know someone with a rotten personality who looks just like you.”

Was that directed at me?

I narrowed my eyes and glared at the face that kept smiling so sweetly.

“……It sounds like that person must have had quite a difficult life?”

“Ah, no, I really should not laugh right now. Ah, wait…… khh, let me just laugh a little…… ngh.”

He waved a hand and actually spent a while choking on laughter.

The way it kept leaking out even though he was trying to hold it back made me feel truly foul.

Honestly, I almost wished he would just laugh openly instead of pretending not to.

I wanted to spit right in the face of that lazy smile.

And yet I endured it because, while everyone else was hostile to me, he was at least the only one who seemed remotely friendly.

“You were right. I helped you because I know you. Well, that is not the important part.”

He tapped lightly beneath his left eye and leaned his upper body back.

“The one who made you like this had a red pattern around this eye. Do you remember?”

“How could I not remember?”

He was the one who stabbed me when I ran, and the one I smashed with a chair.

He was also the reason my whole body hurt during my escape, leaving me barely able to do anything.

“It takes skill to endure that. Most people beg to be killed.”

I did beg. You lot were just the ones who could not understand what I said.

He shrugged and shook his head.

Then, as though some unnecessary memory had surfaced, he rubbed at the corner of his eye and began rattling off excuses.

“I told him several times not to show off like that in someone else’s territory…… tch. The ones from the Mist side are not good at listening.”

Mist?

At the unfamiliar word, my mind sharpened, while at the same time my questions about this man only multiplied.

“Does it hurt badly?”

……Are you out of your mind?

I gripped the precarious branch tightly and edged backward little by little until my back met the thick tree trunk.

His words were certainly those of concern, but his expression was positively delighted, and the way he smacked his lips made it seem more like he wanted to participate in my suffering.

“……If you know that, then maybe you could have stopped him a little. Anyone can see I am in a state where it would not be strange if I died at any moment.”

“If I leave you alone, you really do look like you might die today.”

He rummaged through his clothes and held out a finger-sized glass vial.

It contained a dark green liquid that looked as though someone had selected only the most bitter weeds imaginable, then concentrated them, with unidentified lumps floating inside.

Anyone at all would have called it poison.

“Drink it all in one gulp. It is a special remedy I made.”

“An apothecary?”

“……? Ah. Ahh…… if that is what you mean, then that is not wrong.”

The fact that he stumbled over his words only made me want to drink it even less.

“Drink it. That is why I waited for you.”

His gaze clearly said that if I refused, he would pry my mouth open and force it down my throat himself.

So naturally, I had no choice but to hold out my hand.

Ding!

[The Executor’s contribution to the Original Work increases.]

……?

What did I even do?