198 – overwrite
I opened my eyes. There was no light coming through the open eyelids.
“…was it successful?”
I looked around. The whole place is dark and covered in darkness. The place I entered was such a space. A place that shows the image of Olivia as it is, only black no matter where you look.
It meant that my expectations were exactly right.
Olivia had expected her to act like that at the end. That before I overwhelm myself with another personality, I will break the time freeze as a last resort and cut off my arm and make a new one.
The nominal reason for hugging the body was to increase the probability of success even a little bit, but the real purpose was to show Olivia a gap.
You have to change your personality from the root, but can it be solved without touching the soul in the process? Olivia made me touch my soul, and I touched Olivia’s, so it was a success.
Due to Olivia’s personality, it was clear that she would try to destroy her heart by taking advantage of the moment I embraced her, so I had predicted that far in advance and made a plan.
Still, what if she tried to calmly accept her fate, but Olivia was still Olivia.
“I’ll have to look for it now.”
The only survivor, Olivia, and the last Olivia who couldn’t even do anything about herself left outside. And Olivia when I first met him.
I wandered aimlessly through a dark space where there was nothing. From now on, it was purely the realm of luck. If you’re lucky, you’ll find it quickly, if you’re unlucky, you’ll wander for a while.
I looked around the heart. The sword was in its blackened state just before it was reconstructed by injecting mana. Discolored blood vessels spread like a spider’s web along the skin.
The reason why Olivia, who can display power close to the creator god, couldn’t kill the last remaining one while keeping humans intact while reconstructing after destroying the heart like this. There was only one reason.
Because she was the first Olivia I met.
If there is no first meeting, now does not exist. Olivia knows that too, so she left one last person in the midst of killing all Olivias from other timelines out of jealousy.
It was a simple matter. If it wasn’t for the Charlotte who met me right before my brother caught me, would there be the current Charlotte?
If it had not been for Christine, who was dedicated to the Holy Church as a saint and raised in extreme abuse during her childhood, would the current Christine exist?
If Serena had not lived a difficult life in the mansion alone with her mother, would there be Serena today?
It was a question related to fundamental cause and effect. Even if it had been given not to Olivia, but to Serena, Charlotte, and Christine, it would have been impossible to change.
He met me because he went through such a past, and he gained strength because he met me.
If the past is erased, the power will also disappear, so it was impossible to prevent the contradiction of erasing the past with the lost power.
“found.”
How long had it been since I started walking aimlessly around here, I saw the figure of a girl in the distance. It was a girl wearing faded rags, staring blankly at the darkness.
Her hair was black, long and luxuriant, dragging on the ground and covering about half of her body.
The girl heard my footsteps and turned around with unfocused eyes. When our eyes met, she was startled and hurriedly straightened her clothes and tidied up her hair.
Her hair was so long that she couldn’t tidy it up with her fingers, and her clothes were so rags that she had nothing to trim.
“…”
Perhaps noticing that fact, the girl was twisting her body with her head down.
“Does it really need to be so formal between you and me?”
“……sorry.”
“I didn’t mean to apologize. I meant to laugh.”
He raised his hand and stroked his hair lightly. The girl, that is to say, Olivia, who had just met me, flinched as soon as the warmth of the palm touched her head.
I didn’t cut my hair though. As if in a good mood, he quivered his eyebrows thinly, enjoying the warmth felt on the top of his head.
“You know why I’m here, Olivia?”
Nodding, Olivia gave a small nod of her head up and down instead of answering. Perhaps this Olivia has also seen everything that Olivia outside has done up until now.
“Then you know what I’m asking you?”
“……yes.”
Again, after some hesitation, the answer came back. Olivia was like this when we first met. not anymore
Olivia raised her head. The face and upper body hidden by the long hair were revealed.
The hideous distorted skin that gives goosebumps. A black, empty hole taking the place of the right eye. A completely ruined right half.
If you take a close look at it, it was a pretty face that could not be called a beauty at all, but the burn marks and all kinds of scars that were terribly burned were not enough to eat away at that beauty, so it was brought down to minus.
The burn marks that burned all the skin were not just on the face, but covered half of the body. Olivia’s right side was all covered with burns. There are places where you can see the muscles under the skin.
Olivia stared at me anxiously with her only remaining pupil, and when there was no change in my gaze, she closed her eyes again as if relieved and enjoyed the touch of my palm.
Even though I told her several times that I didn’t care about these scars and burn marks because I had already made numerous suicide attempts and suffered all kinds of disgrace. Olivia in the past was always like this.
The stroking continued for a long time. I only removed my hand after confirming that Olivia let out a satisfied sigh. Happiness flashed in his narrowed eyes.
Olivia wiggled her fingers in front of her chest and opened her mouth.
“That, thank you.”
“what?”
“You stroked my hair…”
“You don’t have to thank me for that.”
“But thank you. This is my heart, so I’ll decide.”
It was no joke to see Olivia who was so docile and kind after watching Olivia screaming at me from outside until just now. I unknowingly swept my arm.
I wiggled my fingers, so I gently held out my left hand. Olivia quickly tried to catch it, but stopped in the air when she saw the state of her right hand.
It seemed that he was contemplating whether he could join me with his terribly distorted hands with keloids covering his right side, all kinds of scars, and missing skin.
I sighed inwardly and took my hand and put it on the pod. Olivia was startled and reflexively tried to pull her hand away, but then relaxed.
I could feel the tingling sensation in my clasped hands. Her skin was very rough, but her movements were full of joy.
Olivia, who had been concentrating on clapping her hands for a while, raised her head and met my eyes.
“……What can I do?”
“It’s nothing grandiose. You just need to be determined. The determination to accept all of Olivia’s memories as yours. That’s enough.”
“…”
The Olivia in front of her could be free from the atrocities committed by the only remaining Olivia besides herself.
It is possible for what happened in the past to affect the future, but it is impossible for what will happen in the future to affect the past. The two Olivias are in fact close to a one-sided relationship.
However, if you listen to my request, the story will be different.
I will maintain continuity while accepting all the memories, so the atrocities that Olivia has committed so far will be entirely her own. Even though it’s practically unrelated.
“I’m determined… I’m ready. That’s me after all.”
Olivia put on a determined expression. Even though it must have been a decision that required quite a lot of willpower from the standpoint of knowing what the other Olivia had done.
My fellow mages in the same mage tower as me treated Olivia as a colleague, but Olivia went mad in love and betrayed the favor and killed each one with her own hands.
Olivia strained her gripped hand. Then he raised the corners of his lips and gave a faint smile.
The corners of the mouth on the burnt side barely raised, so it was only a half-smile, but that was enough.
“…Can I ask you one thing instead?”
Wiggling her fingers, Olivia timidly asked a question.
“Okay. What is it?”
“Even if I am covered up… please don’t hate me too much. I did something, so you don’t need to love me. I just need you to let me be. I will never approach you. Just, just… please allow me to just look at you. That’s enough for me.”
I stood firm at those words for a moment, then sighed deeply, raised my right hand and blew a chestnut on my forehead. Just, my fingers collided with Olivia’s forehead, making a cheerful sound.
“Ah!”
“Olivia.”
“……yes?”
Olivia grabbed her forehead and looked into tears, startled by my low voice. I wonder what I said wrong.
said wrong long time too.
“As long as you’re still Olivia, I won’t hate you. Of course, if your memories are overwritten, you’ll become the same person. But that doesn’t change your essence. You’ll always be you, Olivia. I guarantee that.”
At some point, as long as the continuity of memory is maintained, they say that they are the same person, but now they are different, and it didn’t matter if they cursed at me, asking if I was interpreting it the way I liked. Actually, I was interpreting it the way I liked.
All I wanted was to bring down Olivia’s madness outside, not to let Olivia, innocent, live her life weighed down by guilt.
Same person but not the same person. That was enough.
“Master…”
Tears welled up in Olivia’s normal eye.
“Oh, wait a minute. Let’s change the title first. Not Master. I don’t think there should be a way to distinguish you from the other Olivia outside.”
“……then?”
“Call me by name. Anyway, if you overwrite Olivia, the curse on my name will naturally be lifted.
Even after my name was so damned that only Olivia could call me, Olivia never called me by my first name.
He said that the day he would call me by name would be after destroying all the world and completing the heaven with only himself and me.
So, a title Olivia would never call me. That would be the perfect marker to separate the two.
Olivia nodded cautiously.
“Okay, Master, no…”
Then, he licked his half-charred lips and opened his mouth.
“……Abel.”