236. □□ Flower (3)
“Huh?”
“Ah?!”
“······What.”
The screams of the terminal, bursting out one beat late.
Eugene disappeared.
Suddenly, from that spot.
When she blinked her eyes, Eugene was gone.
“Ah······.”
The bodies of Mumyung and Belpegor stiffened.
This was the first time.
Eugene just disappeared.
However, Miso had seen this sight before.
When Eugene entered the inner world.
When her physical body was sucked into it, she would disappear like this.
But the reason Miso couldn’t hide her astonishment was different.
“······Camellia?”
The spot where Eugene and the black figure disappeared.
A flower was blooming there.
On the wooden floor of the room.
A single red camellia bloomed alone, without a tree.
Miso felt a chill running down her spine.
Eugene’s inner world.
From Noble mtl dot com
It was one of the four flowers that bloomed in the snowy field.
The meaning of the flowers was clear.
Yellow jasmine is Jill Dyer.
Black rose is Julia.
Blue cyclamen is Elina Frost.
The crystallization of the relationships and memories of these three, piled up and piled up inside Eugene.
Then, what is this red camellia?
Whose relationship is it a crystallization of?
Who on earth has a bond with Eugene as strong as those three women?
“······Why? Why, until now. I didn’t feel anything strange.”
Miso felt goosebumps.
The strangest thing was.
She had never doubted the identity of this flower until now.
.
.
.
Sigh, sigh.
I walked through the flower field······ no, the pile of flower corpses.
Camellia. Red camellia.
Why haven’t I thought this was suspicious until now?
‘Is this also a kind of cognitive restructuring?’
It was strange.
I clearly realized that the identities of the flowers were heroines who had accumulated through regression.
I didn’t doubt what the red camellia was.
Something was blocking my doubt.
It was blocking my perception.
And that hypnosis was broken the moment I entered this world.
‘I can see it.’
The world is covered with camellias.
But beyond that, something heterogeneous began to appear.
I had a hunch.
That’s the master of this world.
I started running right away.
But no matter how much I ran, it seemed to be getting farther away.
My body was getting weaker.
The scenery around me gradually changed.
As I felt drowsiness coming over me for some reason.
“······.”
I was in a completely different world.
My steps stopped.
There was a wall in front of me.
A strange······ no, a wall covered with familiar wallpaper.
“Huh.”
I looked around and sighed.
A large office.
Desks and computers filled it.
It had been over 10 years, but I remembered it right away.
This is the company I used to work for.
It’s the office of the development department.
“How did I······.”Suddenly, my head started throbbing with pain.
Why am I here?
It’s already past my quitting time?
Oh. I’m going to miss the last train.
I hurriedly put on my coat, grabbed my bag, and started walking out.
The moment I grabbed the office door and was about to turn the doorknob.
My body froze stiff.
“This is crazy······.”
My groggy mind came back to me.
My vision became clear.
Only then did I notice.
The graphics quality of this world is quite low.
As if it was recreated based on a low-quality video.
My mind was groggy, so I was able to adjust to it and accept it as normal.
But now that I’m awake, everything feels so awkward.
I almost fell for this.
And if I had opened this door and went out, what would have happened?
Would I have been trapped here forever, unable to regain my senses?
Would I have lived in this illusion, thinking I had returned home, without any suspicion?
An unpleasant feeling washed over me, and I got goosebumps.
“Did you think you could trick me with this?”
Thud, thud.
I walked back to my office desk and stood in front of the only monitor that was turned on.
The window that was open was the familiar login screen.
I pressed the button that had brought me to this world again.
Only then did the unpleasant scenery of the world fade away.
I had returned to the world I was in before.
I could feel that it was the same space from the energy surrounding my body.
But the scenery that unfolded was completely different.
It was no longer a world filled with red flowers.
Only a single camellia flower was blooming in a world where only darkness spread far and wide.
It was no ordinary flower.
I could see the will overflowing from the flower.
“What were you planning to do with me?”
-······-
“Don’t pretend you can’t talk.”
-I was planning to make you happy······-
Only then did the camellia flower start to speak.
My fists clenched on their own.
You were planning to make me happy?
You thought I would be happy if I was trapped in that crude illusion that was reconstructed based on my hazy memories?
That’s not even funny.
But what’s even more ridiculous is.
I couldn’t find any malice from it.
I extended my spiritual light towards the camellia flower.
Then, the flower’s essence, its inner thoughts, flowed into me.
‘You would have been happy if you had stayed there? Why did you come out?’
‘You’re going to live to escape the pain, and then you’re going to return to the painful mortal world? Why?’
‘It’s a contradiction.’
This thing?
Its way of thinking is different.
It’s definitely not the kind of thought that a human would have.
“Who are you?”
-I am······. An uninvited guest, I guess. I accidentally flowed into you and got trapped. I think you guys call it a Draken.-
“······.”
My vigilance has somewhat eased.
It’s not because I found out the flower’s identity.
It’s because I realized that this world can’t harm me.
How can it be so peaceful when it’s inside someone else’s world?
The reason is simple.
This flower is an existence that is located inside me.
In other words, it belongs to me.
So the world inside this flower must also be under my influence.That’s why this guy could only use tricks that were just an illusion.
“Since when?”
-Since you looked directly at me.-
“······.”
I shut my eyes tightly.
As expected.
The day I was dragged in front of Draken by Belphegor.
At that time, I definitely looked directly at Draken, and a part of Draken seeped into me through my eyes.
If I had left it alone, I would have been devoured by Draken.
However, thanks to the three heroines who were in me erasing the memory of that time, I was unable to recognize the camellia.
That’s why I was able to endure without being devoured any further.
“I never imagined that I would face you like this.”
How can I deal with this cheeky guy?
He tried to take my body, and just now he even tried to trap me in a fantasy world.
Still, now that I know that he is under my influence, there is no need to be devoured or brainwashed.
Then, I should take this opportunity to interrogate him about how to catch Draken’s main body.
“Can you talk properly? When we met before, you only sent out a will that I couldn’t understand at all.”
-It’s because of the curse on me. I can’t let anyone know my true intentions, and I bear the fate of not being able to be understood.-
“What did you do to get such a fate······?”
-You should ask my······ my main body about that. I’m just a very small part, so I don’t know everything.-
Just as I erased my existence and became unrecognizable to people.
It seems that Draken also bears the fate of not being able to convey his true intentions to others.
However, in this place, the inner world, it is possible to temporarily avoid the eyes of the ‘law’.
“Why did you attack us?”
-It’s difficult for me to answer that.-
“Do you have to ask the main body about that too?”
-No. You should ask the clockwork machine named Linda······ about that. I’m too small and weak to be called a person, so it’s impossible for me to force my will on someone. All I can do is amplify the impulses and desires of the host I’m parasitizing.-
“So, attacking me and shelling the Allied headquarters was all Linda’s will?”
-It’s not wrong to interpret it that way, but I can’t say it’s accurate either. For some reason, all I can amplify are people’s negative impulses. Doesn’t everyone have a dual nature?-
“······.”
I understand.
The role of this guy who stuck to Linda is to provoke Linda’s impulses.
Among them, he highlighted only the dark and ugly aspects, maximizing Linda’s hatred for humans.
Only then did I realize that my question was wrong from the beginning.
What I am facing now is not a person with a will, but a part.
It is a part that came down from the sky to make Linda a monster of impulse.
In the process, whether Linda took control of the Archive or hacked the airship fleet and bombarded it, none of that was intended by this guy.
It’s no wonder that I don’t feel any malice.
He never intended to harm us from the beginning.
He just functions as a part that faithfully performs its given role.
If you ask that part what you think, you won’t get a proper answer.
So the right question would be this.
“What is your purpose?”
-······-
“What is the benefit of parasitizing Linda?””Do you know about the force that acts on all things, the force of attraction?”
“I do.”
“Then it will be easier to explain. Attraction is the force that draws objects with a deep connection to each other. Even if I take away a part of myself, there will be an attraction to the main body, but it will be weak. However, if a part of me parasitizes a person, a much greater attraction will occur.”
“Surely not…!”
“At first, I scattered parts of myself throughout the world. To parasitize as many people as possible. But now I see, there is a much more efficient subject. The clockwork doll named Linda is so similar to me that I calculated that if I parasitize all of my ‘parts’ on this child, I will be able to generate a much greater attraction.”
It felt like I had been hit in the back of the head.
So, Draken’s power up until now was not to strengthen the monsters or the Four Heavenly Kings.
Those things were just side effects.
The only thing Draken was interested in was how to make the attraction to the world stronger…!
“So, how much! How much stronger has the attraction become! How much time is left until Draken descends to the world?!”
“In human time… about three days left.”
“What…”
It’s too late.
Draken has already come too close.
The time he thought he had earned by destroying all the dungeons was enough.
Now there were only three days left.