Chapter 9

Chapter 9 : He Who Wishes to Die Shall Live (4)

The information Pan rattled off was of far higher quality than anything I had managed to cling to after all that suffering, hanging off the ragged edge of the Original Work.

Not long after he disappeared, the assembly began, and I had no choice but to endure the rulers’ gazes from inside the cage.

Even in my miserable condition, the only reason I was able to keep a relatively clear head and gather up what they were saying was because Pan had warned me in advance.

“So what do you intend to do about it?”

It was the kind of voice that made the nape of my neck tighten.

There was something unpleasant in it, a metallic quality mixed into the sound.

That woman, reclining lazily in a pure white chair, was Mol Retu, the ruler of the Mist.

Judging by the appearance alone, it was no wonder she was the superior of the bastard who had vented his stress by torturing me. She did not look sane from the start.

“We brought that one all the way here because our opinions would not narrow on their own, did we not?”

Retu’s long crimson hair, trailing all the way down to the floor, writhed in response to her irritation.

Clicking her tongue, Retu glanced at me and waved a hand.

“The trouble broke out in the forest’s territory, and yet the ruler responsible is nowhere to be seen.”

“This side has plenty of troubles already. What on earth did that one do?”

The one who responded to Retu was a tiny ball-jointed doll that only looked cute.

Because of the distance between territories, he had attended in a temporary form rather than his true appearance. Ingfrek Etel, the ruler of the Sky.

Possessing a silver-haired doll modeled after himself, he flailed its arms about while voicing his complaints.

“Are we certain that one is Underfolk?”

I am telling you, we are not.

I merely picked at my ear and listened to their behavior in silence.

Pan had told me so.

He said there would be nothing for me to do here.

At most, the only thing I had to do was……

“Could we not just kill the problem and erase the evidence?”

That slightly flashy, dark-skinned man who looked as though he were perpetually ablaze was Kaldida Frui, the ruler of the desert.

He had been grabbing one of the doll’s arms and swinging it around, then casually tossing it onto a large leaf beside him.

That doll had been the ruler of the Sky.

A fairy who had been seated on the leaf got struck by the doll and tumbled down, landing on a pure white flower beneath it.

That was Ariti Reda, the ruler of the Spring.

She was the heroine of this accursed Original Work called 〈Your Regret After Killing Me〉.

When I first heard that name from Pan, the thing that came before curiosity had been a sigh, because I remembered all the suffering I had gone through.

It did feel different, though, seeing one of the original characters with my own eyes, moving and alive instead of only existing in text.

She was in the form of a fairy no bigger than a palm, but she carried more than enough presence to be the heroine. According to Pan, she was quite a formidable character too, so I quietly touched my bangs and lowered my gaze behind them.

Straightening her trembling transparent fairy wings, Ariti twisted her mouth into a smile and mocked the other rulers.

“Have you all lost your minds? Do you realize how hard-won this peace has been? You have seized someone from the Underfolk, and now you are all gathered here conspiring over what to do next? All of you…… have you grown so sick of peace that you are itching for trouble?”

There was coldness in Ariti’s smiling face.

‘Dear God, how terrifying.’

I almost caught myself thinking, How did a woman this strong-willed end up behaving like that around Karon? Then I shook my head.

At that moment, Etel, who had been sprawled there, strode over to her—as much as a doll could stride—and snapped the flower clean off.

“Wh-what do you think you are doing?”

At Retu’s startled cry, Etel spun the doll around once, then even shook the flower stem in his hand.

Perhaps because the shock had destabilized the connection, Ariti had already vanished.

I raised my brows and let out a silent whistle.

It was because Pan’s warning had been falling into place one by one.

He had said that, first of all, Ariti needed to leave the chamber for the execution to proceed, so I supposed it was almost time.

“Let us stop with the stale talk and have a more productive conversation.”

“Hah, that is Etel for you. If that is the case, would it not still be better to kill the problem? Retu, do you agree?”

Smiling brightly, Frui ground even the flower petals into powder and scattered them away as he spoke.

‘It is time.’

I rose to my feet, striking the floor with my chain as loudly as possible.

“Wow…… talking about whether to kill me or not right in front of me, do you not think that is a bit much—?”

I threw out whatever would draw attention first, just to make them realize that I could, in fact, speak and communicate, then opened my mouth again.

“This concerns me, so why do you not let me have a say before you start fighting?”

Every ruler who had been busily planning my murder reacted to my voice.

A good start.

So, in the end, the only thing I had to do here was push them toward carrying out my execution as quickly as possible.

To be exact, I had to force my way into staying within the peculiar nature of the execution ground.

Pan had said that only there, in that place where truth could not be hidden and would be laid bare, could my death cease to be death.

Of course, I did not trust his words a hundred percent.

Still, judging by the mood, they all looked ready to cut off my head that very instant, so it was not as though I had many choices.

‘One. I have only one.’

I rolled my eyes once for no reason, then spoke.

“I have lost my memory.”

Apparently that was the cliché.

“I would like to correct something, since you all seem to have forgotten. I might, of course, be whatever this Underfolk thing is. But you are overlooking the possibility that I might not be, are you not, rulers?”

All of them who had previously been acting bored and expressionless—or rather, the three remaining ones—began trading glances and focusing on me.

They had clearly heard that I could not speak, so none of them had expected me to start talking this fluently.

“Go on, then.”

At Retu’s impatient prompt, delivered with a jerk of her chin and her arms crossed, I spoke again.

“Rulers, are you afraid of me? That would explain the brutal torture and all, I suppose. Mist…… what was your name again?”

“What absurd nonsense are you babbling? Afraid? Did you truly say afraid? You miserable little Underfolk pawn, are you insulting me right now?”

The pure white doll that barely reached my knees seized the bars of the cage and spat vicious words at me.

Oh my, how frightening.

“I heard something, you see. About some execution ground or whatever it is, and that if something is done there, the truth is revealed.”

Instead, I moved closer, crouched down to face him directly, and grasped the bars.

“More importantly, if I really am Underfolk, then you can send me cleanly to the other world without dirtying your hands. So what do you say? Sounds worth trying, does it not?”

I was not afraid of anything then.

Even though I could not fully trust what result this act of staking my life would bring.

Perhaps I was half out of my mind already, shouting because excitement and terror had mixed together.

I pressed my forehead right up against the bars and provoked him.

“Carry out the execution.”

I drew my finger across my throat and grinned.

“If I am not Underfolk, then I will not die, so you can apologize afterward.”

People said that when someone truly snapped, laughter came instead.

I must have gone mad.

---

【Time】 Escape the Execution

You have been placed in a situation where you are about to be executed.

It is honestly astonishing how you managed to earn such a hasty death sentence in so short a time. Resolve today’s execution.

▶Fragment of the Original Work (Bound)

▶Time Limit: 01h : 00m : 00s

〈Tip〉 If you fail to clear it within the time limit, a penalty will be applied (common to all Time quests).

A penalty? That just means I die if I fail, does it not?

I half-lidded my eyes, dismissed the quest window that had barged into my sight, and then, for the sake of my mental health, let loose a torrent of curses at everything that had driven me into this state.

And after that, I found myself already kneeling meekly in the middle of the execution ground, my neck laid bare.

That quest taking up space in the corner of my vision was a new leash-system that had appeared after I ran my mouth a little too much during the rulers’ provisional assembly yesterday, which sent my Contribution climbing rapidly and promoted me to Minor Role C.

Apparently, the minimum condition for unlocking Time Quests was Minor Role C.

There was a time limit, and I supposed the rank requirement had been added as the minimum safety measure for clearing it, but the penalty being death was simply absurd.

Ever since that quest had appeared, I had been carrying anxiety and impatience inside me.

The fact that the system seemed to have judged that I would die during the execution only made me wait for Pan more anxiously.

But he never appeared, not even by the time I was dragged to the execution ground.

That was the root of my anxiety and impatience.

‘Was I tricked?’

In truth, one thought after another kept surfacing.

What if Pan had simply wanted me to walk to the execution ground of my own accord and conveniently offer up my neck so I could be disposed of easily?

“This is not right.”

I shook my head.

Instead of waiting vaguely for him, it seemed wiser for my future survival to look around and come to my senses.

Unlike the floating city above the forest, the execution ground was located on the outer floor below.

A broad pentagonal space paved with hard stone engraved with unfamiliar patterns.

At each corner stood a finely carved small pillar.

And I was bound quietly within a round circle at the center, perhaps a step or two across.

The place felt like ancient ruins.

I studied the pillars, which resembled the underground space I had seen in the Black Forest, wondering whether they were connected, then lowered my head.

If I let them know there was a connection, they would probably just steal the travel record from me.

Dark reddish stains, dried stiff on the floor, came into view.

I had no desire to know why this place alone was more stained than the rest, so stop thinking about it, brain.

[You have achieved the achievement 〈You Were Supposed to Die at the Scaffold, Weren’t You?〉.]

[You gain points +1P.]

Hey……?

System, the way you so kindly slam reality straight back into my head the instant I try to escape from it is new to me.

The suspicion that the system was enjoying the sight of me suffering, rolling around, and being tormented rose once again.

Fine. Fine.

I am definitely clearing this quest.

“We will now begin the execution procedure.”

At that moment, Pan appeared, wearing a hat with a long black plume stuck into it at an angle, and stepped up onto the platform at the front.

The last time, when he had been busy only with schemes behind the scenes, he had done nothing but smile slyly, so I had not realized it then, but perhaps the place itself lent him a certain presence.

He suited this execution ground better than anyone.

Even without his saying so, there was a kind of charisma about him that made it feel as though that platform were exactly where he belonged.

‘So you were the executioner, and you still did not bother telling me.’

Soon after, people came flooding in and ringed the execution ground, and I lost even my final chance to run.

A chill crept over me and drew a hollow laugh from my throat, while the iron chain still tied around my neck continued to get in the way.

“Name: Riwin. Affiliation: unknown. Intent: unknown. Age: unknown. In addition, uncooperative regarding all other questions……”

I tasted iron inside my tightly shut mouth.

‘Pull yourself together.’

They said that even if you were dragged off by a tiger, if you kept your wits about you, you could still talk your way out of it.

Since I did not happen to have any catnip on hand, I would just have to try coaxing something else instead.

And at this point, all I could do was pray that things would proceed according to Pan’s claim that he had not deceived me.

“Above all, the accused themselves strongly requested execution, and the rulers accept the consequences and bear responsibility for the outcome of this matter.”

I swallowed hard and waited for the next words.

Pan only stared at me with a gaze entirely devoid of emotion.

From that face alone, who would ever guess that all of this was a game staged by the two of us?

“Begin the execution.”

Flames rose at the five corners.

The magic circle was beginning.

From those five flames, blue lines raced upward through the air.

Those lines, green like the forest canopy, responded to Pan and began drawing a pattern.

The design that instantly spread through the air until it filled the entire place was so dreamlike that it created the illusion of the sounds of the forest.

It became so dazzling that I could no longer tell whether this was an execution meant to kill me or fireworks at a festival.

Tiny motes of light stabbed at my eyes, and just before tears could gather, a sigh escaped me first out of sheer emptiness.

“Ha, you are not really killing me, are you?”

Even from the rough explanation I had been given, I still had no idea how any of this was supposed to work, and my chest felt tight with it.

Am I really going to survive this?