#19
“… hey.”
“… … Well.”
“hey?”
“… … uhm.”
“… … Are you sleeping?”
“… … ”
“… … haha, how do i do this… ”
“!”
“Damn!”
As soon as my nodding head was bent down, I opened my eyes with a flash and looked around in a hurry.
“Uh, uh!”
I quickly raised my fists and searched for the familiar scent of the monster, but noticed that the floor where I sat on my buttocks was stained with a faint light, and sighed blankly.
“Yeah, this was a safe zone.”
“… … ”
Come to think of it.
It sounded like something was going on.
“What are you doing there?”
“… … No, don’t mind.”
He lay on the floor and took a deep breath, as if he was trying to calm his startled heart by putting his hand on his chest.
“I’m sorry, I forgot… ”
“No, it’s okay. Because if you keep sleeping, I’m going to leave you.”
“… … what ma? Does that mean it’s okay without me? You seem to have grown up quite nicely, how about we go our separate ways now?”
“… … uh, no problem? Who knows?”
hello.
Self-esteem… …
“Okay, then you’re stocking up on some stamina here. I keep getting sleepy because I’m sitting here. I’ll go first. We’ll see you again soon, we’ll see you again.”
“… uh?”
“Uh-huh,” he said, stretching out, and jumped to his feet.
I had come to a safe area with Yuri for brief maintenance. I ate almost all the leftover food and drank water. I thought about what I could do with the rope, etc. I still didn’t know how to use, but I ended up putting it back in my backpack, leaning my back against the wall, and closing my eyes for a moment.
He almost completely fell into Suma.
I’ve had quite a lot of records that I’ve spent the night with, so I’m not going to collapse at this level. Even when I was a weakling, I couldn’t stand it for 3 days if I overdo it, so now the threshold that I can’t fight against fatigue must have been raised.
I turned my shoulders round and round, my neck was stiff, and after trying to regain my original condition, I picked up my weapon while carrying my backpack. It was a hatchet that could be thrown at the enemy from a distance.
Yuri stuttered her voice and spit it out.
“… uh? Gee, really go… ?”
“Then are you going to fake it?”
“No, uh… … ”
As she answered with a sigh, Yuri kept her mouth shut.
“Did you say that you don’t need to accomplish any special tasks? I need to achieve a bit of that to cover up for ruining my test scores.”
To be honest, I didn’t ruin it so badly that I had to take the course for another year… … Recalling the mindset I had when I entered Frontier, my current grades were the kind that should not be left alone.
He rubbed his chin and spoke.
“… Well, if I survive another half day or so, the practice will probably be over, so go find a safe zone and move around like you’ve been doing. You will be able to survive without difficulty because you are small and swift. Do you remember correctly what I said? It’s the weakness of demons.”
“Gee, I do remember… No, wait, that’s… ”
When he took a stance that seemed to really leave Yuri alone, rather than a joke, Yuri, who had been half joking, was at a loss for what to do.
I looked at that happy face with a more serious expression, then raised the corners of my mouth and lightly clapped my hands. pair-.
“Okay, that’s enough. I didn’t have many opportunities to talk to you at the academy, but it was fun to talk with you two after a long time. then fight Let’s meet again later in life.”
“Hey, hey. Now, wait… … ”
At this point, the glass had turned white.
In the end, when I put my footsteps right in front of the border between the safe zone and the outside, I looked around the space that would be left alone if I hurriedly left, and a clear expression of fear showed a young expression on my face.
there, I
I was sure of victory in a fight that would have no meaning.
“You, I was kind of like borrowing your hand from you all the time… yes… that, yes okay. me later… look. … I will never lose to you, you too… … ”
When an unexpected reaction came back from Yuri, who was shaking her shoulders, it was on my side to panic again.
Yuri, who would not be able to refuse to cooperate with me from her standpoint, knew that she would declare defeat on her own to a certain extent, but in order to protect her self-esteem, she gave a rather unreasonable answer.
It was half sincere, yet it showed his will to move forward on his own without relying on me any longer.
“… … Oh, I’m not going, what are you doing… ?”
“… … ”
what.
Turns out it was me who was being teased?
Since when… … ?
For some reason, I felt like I was playing on Yuri’s palm, so I kept my mouth shut and stared at Yuri for a while.
“… … ?”
Even though his questioning eyes were looking at me, I firmly put down my backpack and sat down next to Yuri, who had the same look on her face as what are they going to do.
“Hey you… … !”
It was then that she was convinced that she was being teased by me, and Yuri opened her mouth with a face that gradually started to turn red.
“I was really going to go, but after thinking about it, there was something I had to tell you.”
In fact, if I said it was a joke, I thought he was going to be grumpy for a while and not even talk to me, so he said in a semi-serious tone.
Then Yuri tilted her head.
“… What do I have to tell you?”
“Oh, it’s very important. The timing wasn’t right.”
I’ve been procrastinating on talking, though.
“that is… What?”
“Once the practice is in progress, I will never leave your side. I don’t know if we hadn’t met, but since we’ve been acting together like this, I can never leave you alone. That’s right.”
“… … Mmm, Mmm, what? what-“
There was a lot of room for different interpretations depending on what you heard, but whether Yuri stuttered or not, I continued to speak.
“It is something that may never happen because fate has been reversed, and it has not happened yet. But I know for sure that it will happen. From the foreknowledge that even the theme of this exercise was predicted, it is certain that something related to it will happen in some way.”
“… … What are you talking about, huh?”
Still, Yuri has a mysterious face.
Turning to the side, he staggered for a close distance, pulling his shoulders back slightly.
“Stella’s ability, you know?”
so ask
Yuri closed her eyes and then nodded her head.
“… … I’ve heard of it.”
“Then we’ll talk quickly.”
I don’t know how far you know.
Whatever the case, the truth of the story will be guaranteed.
“Says Stella.”
I quietly raised my left hand.
A hand blade made by straightening the fingers with their fingers glued together, I gently carried it to the nape of Yuri, who was quietly listening to me.
“Well, what are you doing… … ”
“wickedness-.”
“… … ?”
Make a gesture like beheading.
After taking the blade back, a look of embarrassment met the red eyes of young Yuri in a straight line, and her lips were soft.
“You’re going to kill me.”
#20
The conversation that followed didn’t last very long.
“I… … You want me to die?”
Stella lifted the veil and peered into the future. Yuri and myself mixed in a very simple scene. The two of them replaced each other with broken bodies, and in the end——
“Yeah, I guess that will happen.”
“What… … ”
Yuri couldn’t believe it.
Then he slowly walks away from me.
“you you… Dude, you were going to kill me from the beginning… … ? The reason you wanted to go with me was to kill me the closest… … ”
“It can’t be.”
took a deep breath.
“If that were the case, I wouldn’t have told you to stay away from me even before the practice started.”
“ah.”
Then, as if realizing the true meaning of my strange words and actions, I opened my mouth blankly.
“I’m not like an assassin who came to kill you, the princess of one country, I’m just a classmate with no intention of harming you. I also don’t understand Stella’s prophecy. I don’t know what the hell is the reason I’m really going to kill you… … ”
“… … ”
“… … What are you stabbing?”
“Oh, isn’t it?”
Yuri was bewildered and turned her head.
There must have been quite a few things that could be called karma… …
“Anyway, for that reason, I tried not to run into you as much as possible in this practice, and even if I did, I didn’t intend to cooperate right away… … In the end, I was naturally entangled with you as I came to help you because you were in a state of crisis. … Moreover, seeing that you and I both met each other for the first time in the labyrinth, I got the feeling that what Stella was saying was really coming true.”
“… … ”
“As far as I’m concerned, if I act separately from you, I think we will meet again somewhere, and then that future will become a reality, and then I thought it would be better to be by your side and remove the signs of such a future in advance. That’s why I try not to be with you as much as possible… … If we summarize the situation so far, it will be like that.”
“… … ugh.”
Yuri’s face was immersed in deep thought.
At that time, if I hadn’t saved Yuri, I might have been eliminated and left the labyrinth.
It is an undeniable fact that more than half of the possibility of the realization of Stellar’s foresight would then be lost.
But it was impossible for me to save enough people in crisis but not save them. I didn’t have time to think about anything else.
Above all, seeing that Yuri did not give up immediately and succeeded in surviving until then, it was because she knew that Yuri was really working on this training with all her heart.
I decided to save the glass without throwing it away.
“More than anything, this is the most disturbing thing.”
“… … What?”
Yuri swallows saliva.
I muttered quietly.
“I’m going to kill you.”
“… You already said it.”
I shook my head nervously.
“No, you have to put the points elsewhere. It’s not that you and I are the subjects, but the fact that someone ‘dies’ itself is the biggest problem.”
“… … !”
Stella described it in detail, saying that it was a terrifying sight that you would never be able to see with your eyes open.
It is a practice that takes place in an artificial environment to the last. No matter how similar the environment is to the real one, there is no way to drive a student who is protected by the Frontier to that point.
Then, if something big happened to the student’s mind, it would have been clear that the problems that would arise from it would not only be ignited within the Frontier.
In the first place, there may be injuries in practice, but never die. Still, Stella said that Yuri would die by my hand. I reconfirmed it over and over again, but it wasn’t that Stella intentionally told a lie.
The place is the same as the labyrinth.
It was not long until the end of the practice.
in the not so distant future,
I’m going to kill Yuri.
… … When I said that it was really a foreordained future.
bigger problems arise.
“perhaps… … We may not be able to get out of here.”
The safety of students is no longer guaranteed.
to die here,
that you could really die.
… … As for whether the practice was really safe or not, it was after getting reconfirmed several times by the supervisor.
But from the moment I entered the labyrinth, I suddenly realized that I had made the mistake of a lifetime.
If there was a device hidden in the labyrinth that the supervisor didn’t even know about, he didn’t realize that the person who could design it would be no one else but the labyrinth’s creator.
Any attempt to interview with Nebiros would not have been successful, but I could not help but feel somewhat regretful.
Yuri shows an uneasy look at my words,
“Wow, what are you talking about? It can’t be. Is this the frontier? The safest place on the continent? Those of us who are protected by the Frontier will die in the middle of training… … Well, that can’t be a reality. You’re talking nonsense… … ”
Could it be that Frontier is not that meticulous?
The aftermath of the last incident would have made it more secure for safety, but would they make a similar mistake again?
This time, it doesn’t just end with someone getting hurt, but there’s an accident where an Epic class student dies. Shall we let things go like that… …
“I think so too. Honestly, that’s absurd, isn’t it? I also keep in mind the possibility that Stella may have misunderstood the future.”
“Yeah, right? then… … ”
“But Stella was never wrong.”
“… What?”
“The future that Stella had seen until now was sure to come true. … Haven’t you heard about this from Stella?”
“… … Until there, fine.”
“Is that… In any case, the course towards the foreordained future never changes. One way or another, we’re going to find ourselves in that situation.”
“… … ”
Yuri lowered her eyes and covered her shoulders with her hands.
In the prophecy, he said he was a terrible gossip, so even though it had not happened yet, he seemed to feel fear already.
“… Rather, why are you telling me this now? If you had told me in advance, I would have been able to discuss it with you guys… ”
low murmur.
I said with a slightly dead grass look.
“No, what… … I wondered what to do if, like you, I was frightened and the practice was disrupted.”
“Hey, aren’t you scared?!”
Indeed, a strong negation could not be a typical example of the proverb that a strong positivity is strong.
“It’s a joke, and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you in advance. At that time, there was no economic situation, and I didn’t want to get you involved too. I thought I was the only one who could do it well… … In the end it happened like this I guess I just messed up the exam and gave up on the practice cleanly. Suddenly, I feel a bit regretful.”
As I looked up at the sky, an unexpected word came from right next to me.
“… It’s already happened. Throw away any regrets Stella said it was going to be like that anyway? So now I just have to think about what to do next. Don’t look back, look forward. Idiot.”
It was a pretty confident voice, as if when he was scared and withdrawn. I didn’t know that Yuri would give me a very proper discipline.
“… … What, what are you looking at like that?”
Yuri wiggles her eyebrows.
“No, thinking about it, I think you are right. Thank you.”
“… … huh.”
As if there was nothing to say, he sat down and folded his arms.
“Yeah, let’s look ahead. ahead… … ”
I shook my head and quietly opened my mouth.
“It is not that there is no hope at all.”
Whoops.
Yuri tilted her head at my words.
“You don’t know what the outcome will be.”
“… … result?”
“Yeah, I don’t know exactly what that means. Stella said she couldn’t explain it in detail. Still, it seems certain that something can be changed for now.”
“I’m fine… … I don’t know.”
“Well… … ”
while rubbing your chin.
tapping the floor with your fingers
“It may be a foreordained future until you and I are wrecked, but isn’t that saying that it may not become a reality until the future where I ‘kill you’ after that?”
I’m guessing it’s vaguely like that.
I’m only vaguely guessing.
“Well, I don’t know either… … ”
Yuri bites her lip and continues.
“You killed me in the first place? So you’re saying you had the intention to kill me? No matter how bad you and I are, do we have to fight each other for our lives?”
“No, wait, hey. What are you talking about? Why do I want to kill you? As I said before, I’m not really an assassin, am I?”
“that… … I mean, anyone can do it.”
“… … ”
“Wow, above all else.”
read at https://noblemtl.com
Do you really don’t trust me? As we looked at each other with the same gaze, Yuri opened her mouth, avoiding my eyes as if it wasn’t like that.
“I, I’m sure I didn’t want to kill you, but what do you think of me… … honestly well… … Because I don’t know… … ”
ah-
So.
It’s not that he doesn’t hate me enough to want to kill me, but he doesn’t know what my true heart is, so it seems like he’s focusing on that. is it. I roughly understood what it meant.
It was ridiculous, he said with a smile.
“If you’re aware that you’re being cruel to me, I think it’s okay to be a little kind to me.”
“Sir, it’s noisy… It’s your fault in the first place. Doesn’t it keep accumulating dislike because you keep doing things that I hate on my side?”
“So you hate me enough to die?”
“Will you stop saying things that don’t make sense?! You never said a word like that!”
“Ah Okay. What are you screaming at?”
If you deny it so harshly, it’s even harder to make fun of.
“… Anyway, I’m in a position where I’d rather protect you. If I had wanted to kill you, then I wouldn’t have saved you there.”
Yuri sighed vigorously for a while, then shut her mouth as if realizing that I had saved her again.
Like I just said.
I don’t even want to kill Yuri,
There is no reason why it should be.
If I say that I have to kill Yuri, it means that someone is forcing me to do something.
‘… … uh?’
… … forcing you?
One moment——The memory of a while ago when I fell into a trap where I could only get out by fighting the illusion of a high-ranking demonic beast came back to life.
Then I lost control of my body.
It ran like a crazy person and tore the skin of a monster to shreds. Even after that, he continued to detonate the corpse of the monster.
If I ever get into such a runaway state again, this time attacking Yuri, not a monster… …
And that future becomes a reality.
It may not be impossible at all.
Bump, my heart was pounding.
“glass.”
“… … ?”
“I have something to test for a moment.”
“What, what?”
“Would you like to give me a hand?”
“… … hand?”
When I opened my mouth with a serious face, Yuri gulped down her saliva and asked if she would let go of her hand.
Whew- and took it back.
“Oh, I hate it! What are you trying to do!”
“It’s not strange. It really only takes a while.”
“I know that’s more suspicious… … ?”
“Okay, quick. Hold it out for a second.”
“… … ”
I bit my lip with sullen eyes.
“… … If you do something strange, I won’t let you go.”
Ugh…
He gently placed his hand on my palm.
cool and soft
Yuri’s cheeks and earlobes are dyed red.
I know that the tips of my fingers are trembling from shame, but I was teased and there was no other way to pay attention to that.
I concentrated my mind and activated my abilities.
This is still close to speculation though.
The scope of the impact of my newly awakened ability was limited to non-human beings.
Undead, ghosts, monsters, and.
The demon that encompasses all of them.
Paah-
“Ugh… … ”
When a bright light bursts out,
A sigh flowed from Yuri’s mouth.
I didn’t take damage from my abilities.
It was just because it was blinding.
thank god.
“ha… … Also.”
I sighed deeply, feeling relieved.
I really did it just in case.
Yuri wasn’t like a demon.
“… … So, what did you do now?”
When he removed his hand to signify that it was over, Yuri with a mysterious face asked.
“Friendly test.”
“… What test?”
“not a big deal. It’s a failure, so it doesn’t make any sense.”
“… … ?”
He was still full of doubts.
“glass.”
I said to Yuri again.
“What else this time… … ”
“If the.”
“?”
“If the devil appears.”
He tilts his head when he gets lucky.
“… … Devil? monster? If it’s a monster, even now… … ”
“No, not those fakes.”
“What?”
Things that are different from the level of magic (魔气).
“Things with wings. A real devil.”
To be honest, I didn’t want to make Yuri get entangled with the demons or anything like that, but it wouldn’t be a bad thing to give it a go ahead.
“You know? Devil.”
“Yeah, of course I know, but why is that all of a sudden… … ”
“Anyway, if the devil appears before us.”
“… … ?”
never.
I hope that doesn’t happen though.
I’m not going to let anyone get involved.
For now, I couldn’t say anything for sure.
“Then get away from me as soon as possible.”
I knew it.
“… … Why are you here, really?”
Yuri just tilted her head.
#21
The center of the labyrinth.
Only when he finally arrived in front of the massive and huge door——Neviros, noticing the existence of the first customer, secretly twitched the corners of his mouth.
‘It’s finally started.’
He sat down on the table and drank a glass of wine.
Red liquid like fresh blood.
There was no need or enjoyment of drinking human blood without a taste bud.
So, what was filled in Nebiros’ wine glass was a simple high-end wine.
“Hmm, hmm.”
Tak, put down your wine glass.
He looked around in the dark and murmured.
“Then, have a good night’s sleep.”
supportive… supportive… …
All the screens were stained black.
nothing shines
bum bum, bum bum.
No need to open the door.
The silhouette in the dark stopped in one place.
And I muttered to myself.
‘What’s the situation there?’
Soon the answer came.
‘All work is done. master. The transmission has been turned off, and we have made a notice that it will take at least 10 hours to restore it to its original state.’
‘Okay, most of the time I’m sleeping anyway.’
It was quite late. it’s dawn
Few students will be awake.
‘Keep holding on to that place, and then proceed with the rest. You know?’
‘I see, Master.’
Robert was a corpse that would soon return to dust.
So he didn’t even say that he worked hard.
“… … ”
Finally look around again.
After putting a satisfying smile on his lips——
Nebiros raised his hand.
A crack appeared in the empty air, and a portal into the pitch black darkness was created. Nebiros took a gentle step.
It was time to go get the treasures.
The sensation felt when passing through the created fantasy space did not exist, and a slightly darkened reality unfolded.
I recalled the faces of the people who would soon arrive here, and rolled the words I had prepared for them in my mouth.
Hmmm, he stroked his chin.
‘Well, whatever you say is fine.’
As long as everyone has their own wishes.
‘Cause I’ll never be able to deny it