In any case, the mental control had now stopped.
And...
“Should I die now?”
There was no reason left to live. I’d already done more than enough.
There was no hope, no goal. And I didn’t have the time to go looking for some new hope or some new goal.
Not only that, but the mental control might start up again at any moment.
“If that’s your choice, then I can’t deny it. To be honest, asking you to keep living in this state would be a request I couldn’t make, not even as a doctor, but as a person...”
Yeah. That was right. This had to end now...
Tremble
I was scared. No matter how shitty this life was, dying was still terrifying. Especially giving up like this...
'It’s not that the mental control started again. I’m really afraid of dying...'
Humans are foolish and fragile. Even knowing I’d go on to live a horrible life, I still couldn’t gather the courage to die.
Even after trying to break free of that control, I was afraid of death again.
“Are you scared?”
Romani asked me without wavering.
“Yeah. I’m losing my mind...”
There were still four Singularities left. On top of that, I still had to catch that bastard Lev. I hadn’t even made it halfway, and I was already like this.
“If I’d at least made it halfway, I’d keep going to the end just because it’d be a waste...”
“So you’re giving up now?”
“Damn it, I don’t know, so stop asking!!”
There was no more calm left in me. I didn’t even have the room to keep pretending to be rational.
“I got dragged here against my will, and nothing but shitty things kept happening! I did everything I could! I gambled my life on one more fight even though my whole body was wrecked! I failed, and now I’m in this state! I’ve already done everything I could!!!”
Too worked up, I even grabbed Romani by the collar and shouted at him.
“Do you know how awful it feels to have your brain forcibly messed with? Do you know what it’s like to feel like a marionette being dragged around by strings?!?”
I still couldn’t calm down.
“Even a slave can at least think freely...”
After that, an intense wave of self-loathing and post-cringe shame washed over me.
“If it’s a bad ending even when I succeed, a bad ending if I fail, and a bad ending if I do nothing, then why the hell would I keep trying...”
“No.”
Romani straightened his clothes and corrected me.
“Even if you succeed, you definitely won’t get everything you want. But even so, it still won’t be a bad ending.”
“...”
“Even if you can’t fulfill your dream, a life spent achieving your purpose isn’t something you call a bad ending.”
“Then I guess we should call it a sad ending~”
'What’s the point of saying that now...'
“I can’t claim to understand how painful this journey has been for you. I’m not qualified to say that. But...”
“You haven’t traveled alone.”
“Don’t tell me not to give up because of the companions I’ve traveled with. If I hadn’t thought about them, I wouldn’t have done something like a possession summon in the first place...”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
Romani took a long pause before speaking again.
“You know Mash, right?”
“That kid’s got the same kind of deadline I do, so you want me to stop whining because even someone younger than me is putting up with it?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Romani told me about Mash’s past, about what she’d gone through before Ritsuka and I arrived.
“She went through experiments and training that wouldn’t be strange to call lifelong torture, and she only had a year left to live, just like you. And this Singularity investigation shortened that by another two months.”
“Mine got cut by four months from just this one run.”
Four months of my already pitifully short life had been blown away fighting those god bastards.
“If four months were taken off against the gods...”
“...Fine, I’ll admit that.”
“Anyway, if you stop now, everything ends there. But if you keep running even now...”
“Romani, what am I supposed to do about everything I lose while doing that?”
This was nothing more than a complaint, a tantrum. A childish fit.
“I kept trying like that, and every time all I got was loss. I never got anything back no matter how hard I worked!!”
No one knew what the future held. And I knew this was pathetic.
But so what? No matter how hard I tried, I’d never been rewarded for it...
“Thinking effort gets rewarded is the kind of delusion only little kids have. There’s no game more unfair than life...”
Some people could go into the same Singularity and come back without a scratch, while others lost an arm...
“I’m... tired now...”
“...You want someone to tell you why you should keep going. Something you can accept, right?”
“Yeah. Call me selfish, call me sneaky, I don’t care. Just give me a reason I can actually accept.”
If I ran, I’d die in agony. If I stopped, I’d rot away and die.
In a situation where no matter what I did the result was the same, effort...
Smack!!
“...Huh?”
“That hurt, didn’t it?”
“What the—”
It happened so suddenly I didn’t even get angry.
“If you’re still looking for a reason, doesn’t that mean you still don’t want to give up?”
I didn’t interrupt him. I just kept listening.
“You asked me for a reason to keep going. And you admitted it yourself—you wanted a reason you could accept. But I can’t give you that.”
“Whatever reason I gave you, you’d immediately think of a way to argue against it. In the end, you’d still try to find the answer yourself.”
'He’s right. This is exactly why people say talking to me is a pain...'
“You don’t want to be a trash can for someone’s emotions. Sorry about that...”
“No, I could do that as many times as you want. But... you wouldn’t find the answer, would you? Even if you did, it definitely wouldn’t be a good choice.”
“...Why are you so sure?”
“I haven’t given you any method. And yet you’d think of a path on your own—do you really think you could find it?”
“You’re kind of looking down on me...”
“I’m not.”
“...”
“Even if you found the path alone, you’d compromise with reality or your conscience and choose an option you couldn’t truly be satisfied with. And that would lead you toward a real bad ending.”
“Then... what am I supposed to do?”
“Just do what you want right now. Stop clinging to some goal or some greater purpose. Just choose what you want to do now—what you won’t regret right now.”
What I wouldn’t regret right now...?
“I don’t even have anything left to regret, so what...”
“That’s what matters. Trying to aim for something in a situation where things can’t get any worse is an exhausting, brutal choice.”
“So just choose what you think you want to do. No matter how hopeless things are, there’s still something you want to do, isn’t there?”
'Ha...'
“Unbelievable...”
It was so absurd, but...
“...Yeah, that’s true too.”
After leaving the infirmary, I walked down the hallway.
'Just follow my heart. Do what my heart tells me to do...'
And then I ran into the trio...
“Huh...!? You?!”
“I’m fine now. I think I’ve broken free of the control.”
“Are you being controlled right now...?”
“If you don’t believe me, just hit—”
Bang!!!
“Gahhh!!”
“Are you okay?”
'Mash is ridiculously strong...'
“Damn, that hurts...”
“Yep, it’s really him...”
“Please ease up a little...”
Then I noticed Ritsuka fidgeting awkwardly.
“You got something to say, Ritsuka?”
'She wasn’t usually like this...'
Still, I couldn’t force her to speak if she was having trouble, so I waited. After about three minutes, she finally opened her mouth.
“Mister... are you having a hard time?”
“....Yeah.”
Looking back now, telling a middle schooler that I was struggling to death was insanely embarrassing...
“...”
“But I can’t just die like this, so I guess I’ll have to keep fighting to the end.”
I put a hand on her shoulder and said it firmly.
“You’d better be ready too.”
“Okay!!”
'Still, her smile is cute...'
“If you look like you’re going to do that again, I’ll smack you, so you’d better be ready too, mister.”
“Yeah...”
After that, I went through a bunch of checkups, mock battles, and several Singularities, including events.
And then, a week later, we arrived at the London Singularity and cleared it in just four days.
“Mister, why doesn’t lightning work on you?”
“It’s the same as eating super-spicy mapo tofu and then eating curry—it doesn’t feel spicy anymore.”
'I had no idea those god bastards would actually be useful for something like this...'
At this point, it was fair to say that lightning, water, and curse-type attacks no longer worked on me at all.
“But apparently other people can use the abilities they absorb and stuff, so why can’t I...”
“Because it gets converted into mana instead. At least you don’t run out of mana anymore.”
Olga Marie snapped at me from the side to stop complaining, but it was still disappointing.
“That’s an order from the Director. Rest for at least two weeks. You pushed yourself too hard.”
“Director, you should rest a little too. The day your dark circles finally disappear...”
Before I could finish, her fist was already swinging.
“What am I, some kind of kid?!?”
“You’re a troublemaker, so it’s the same thing!!”
After getting beaten up by her for a while, I was finally let go.
Comments (0)
Please log in to leave a comment. Login or Register