Translator: Alpha0210
They said they would respect Agolet's choice. There was no malice or mockery in the remark, so Residue was able to survey the situation with a relatively clear field of vision.
Two of the Four Knights, and two Rulers. Four opponents, each one a handful even in a one-on-one fight. Of course, he doubted these ones would coordinate their attacks, but even if they simply kept proper spacing and poured on their assaults, Residue would find himself in danger. To turn a clumsy joint attack back on the enemy, one needed at minimum the ability of a Half King, and for the present Residue, that was a peak still impossibly far off.
...No. Assuming a fight from the outset might be a misjudgment.
Residue was completely surrounded now, yet they did not attack right away. They even seemed to have no will to fight at all. That was what he needed to think about first.
Were they being cautious to the extreme?
Doubtful. Excessive caution was no different from being cowed before the fact. At the very least, the ones ringed around him now would share a similar view, so this assumption was wrong.
...Now hold on.
–Let's talk, Residue.
Come to think of it, hadn't that woman stated her purpose from the very start?
Residue looked at the Blue Knight and spoke.
"Talk, sure. Blue Knight. Let's have a good, thorough conversation. But it seems your way of conversing could use some correction."
"What do you mean?"
"'Lately I've had a lot on my mind', 'I don't like the choice this one made', 'I'm not the only one who agreed with that', 'the Negotiator appeared to me too'... this is the string of things you've rattled off one-sidedly in this cave, and what connection is there between all that random babble? You're just blurting out whatever comes to mind, moment to moment."
"Hm."
"This way, no conversation can take shape. If you have something to say, set it down clearly. First off, what's the reason you dragged this one all the way out here?"
Pale spoke with a smirking grin.
"I told you I don't like the choice you made, didn't I?"
"And what is it you want to do about it. Kill this one and collect the Ticket from the corpse? Is that what you lot are after?"
"......"
The Blue Knight mulled it over for a moment, glanced around at her surroundings, and nodded.
"There's certainly something to that. All right."
Perhaps this was the first time the Blue Knight had ever affirmed anything he'd said. A useless thought like that crossed Residue's mind.
"Lukas made you his proxy. I didn't want to admit it, couldn't accept it either, but I've come to take that fact as it is now. And yet you, right after being made 'Lukas', pulled a lot of moronic stunts and only made things worse, didn't you?"
Was she talking about when he wore the Beginning Wizard's mask and screwed around?
"That I did."
"But at some point the hesitation vanished, and– in your own way, you produced results too."
What results was Pale referring to?
Luring Agolet out? Persuading the Half King? Or maybe killing every last one of the Twelve Void Lords who'd become 'Hide'.
"Residue, I've come to wonder whether you haven't gotten far too drunk on yourself."
Granted, he had thrown back a few drinks before coming, but that surely wasn't what she meant.
Residue narrowed his eyes and looked at the Blue Knight. It was a strange feeling. A woman who had always looked out of her mind seemed unusually normal today. Of course, what she was doing right now was a far cry from normal, but still.
"Up to now, you've never made an irreversible mistake, have you? For the most part you've made only the right choices. So you've come to think you're right this time too. But the people here, myself included, Agolet, the Black Thorn Demon King, the Lightning God. No matter how I think it over, it doesn't sit right."
"What are you getting at."
"...We're saying that the judgment you made at the very end is dangerous."
The Black Thorn Demon King spoke.
"Residue, not all of your choices are wrong. On the contrary, most of them worked out well and came back as good outcomes. The chronicle of your life we heard at the summit. Deeply impressive. I mean that sincerely."
"......"
"But the judgment you made at the very last is off somehow. Too impulsive, is what I mean. ...No. You're generally impulsive, but this is different from the other cases. From here on, anything I say won't carry weight, so I'll leave it to your vassal."
Clank.
The sound of shield and armor meshing together came.
From behind, Agolet's voice reached him.
"It was unlike Your Majesty."
"......"
"To be sure, the flow that led to selecting them may itself have been natural. There was nothing awkward about the choice that rode along with that flow either. At a glance, doesn't it make a fine picture? The five human heroes who once saved a universe– now changed from how they were then, bound for an entirely different place, on a journey to rescue the last comrade who has gone far away. From a narrative standpoint, it's quite beautiful."
Agolet's voice, which had flowed on gently, turned cold at some point.
"But what is happening now is no fairy tale, is it."
"......"
Suddenly his head felt as if it had gone cold.
Residue lightly clenched his palm and opened it. A little damp. He had clearly broken out in a cold sweat, but he couldn't tell why.
Was this one flustered right now?
"I see. So you lot believe I've been brainwashed by Destruction."
"Our mental fortitude passed the point of being susceptible to something like brainwashing long ago. But the opponent is Destruction, a being that commits countless deeds outside the ordinary bounds....... It wouldn't be strange if it had disturbed your mind by means we don't know of."
Only then did he grasp their oddly composed attitude, the reason they hadn't readily reached out despite the encirclement, and even why they'd said they wouldn't kill him.
These ones had lured Residue into the cave, imprisoned him, and were threatening him to forcibly seize the Ticket, and yet. They carried no awareness that they were doing anything wrong.
Of course, they weren't a bunch that could be bound within the frame of "crime", but the same went for Agolet, who had once ridden in the same boat. He had deflected Residue's One Step Through Time and Space and was manning one axis of the encirclement, and still felt no prick of conscience.
Rather, the attitude that held Residue to be the strange one.
In such an attitude.
"There's something to it."
Residue acknowledged that their conjecture held credibility.
Not having expected him to accept it this obediently, the Black Thorn Demon King tilted his head.
"...Is there something you can point to? Did the Negotiator you last made contact with pull some trick?"
"Who knows. This one has tangled with Destruction plenty of times. If anything, the problem is that there are too many cases to point to."
"That you agree with our words."
The Lightning God opened his mouth.
"Does it mean you'll admit your choice was wrong?"
"Circumstances won't allow that. Lightning God. As things stand, there's no means to prove what you lot have just laid out, is there? However high the credibility, if it's nothing but words, even this one can't simply accept it."
"Then what would you have us do."
"Heh heh."
It struck Residue all at once how amusingly the situation was unfolding.
The grounds they'd put forward were plausible enough, but the process of finding them had likely been rather squalid.
Purely to negate Residue's choices and judgment, driven by nothing but that twisted feeling, they'd wandered in search of a reason– and at last gotten their hands on grounds they could put forth.
Of course, just because the process was filthy, he had no intention of letting their argument go in one ear and out the other.
In cases like this, the process was, surprisingly, not what mattered. If a kid who'd set his mind on stealing rummaged through a drawer and found a weapon, hadn't he, in the end, contributed at least a little to a good cause?
No. Was that a somewhat strange comparison?
Residue thought alone and burst into laughter alone.
In the end, the four here were the ones who, to the very last, could not accept Residue's Selection. With individuals possessed of such a strong sense of self gathered in one place denouncing him, he wouldn't dismiss it as pure nonsense.
"I'll admit it. Right now this one may be slightly out of his mind."
"...You really are a fellow whose head comes and goes. So are you going to accept it, or not?"
"Not much time left, is there? Rescind the Selection, even now."
The two Rulers prattled on at length, and even in such a situation Residue found the positive side.
For whatever reason, these ones had, if only temporarily, joined hands over the matter of the being called Residue. A common enemy appearing and an alliance being struck was simple, yet it was also the thing that happened most frequently.
That being so, the Rulers had surely changed.
They had gotten their hands on the element of change. Whether they'd soar higher from here, or fall, rested purely with them, but.
"This one does not overturn his choice."
Before that, Residue bared his teeth and grinned.
The mood grew heavy.
"...Are you serious, Residue? Haven't you read too much into our saying we won't kill you?"
"I don't expect anything of the sort. Having come this far, right and wrong don't actually matter. Neither I nor you lot are the sort to be convinced the greater cause lies with the other side, are we? What this one is talking about now is something a bit more primal."
"Something primal?"
"If you want to prove you're not wrong, then try using force. That's what I'm saying."
"......"
Rumble.
The sound of thunder came from somewhere.
The Lightning God spoke with a hardened face.
"That's a remark that won't end as a joke, Residue. Do you think you can survive against the four of us?"
"Fight head-on and you wouldn't leave enough of me to bury. So this one is going to run."
"...And what the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"Let's play a game of tag. I'll escape this dank cave one way or another and make it back to the 'King's Castle'. You four try to stop it. Use whatever means you like. And of course, it's fine if you kill this one in the process."
He didn't know how they'd take it, but.
Residue didn't dislike these ones. Unexpectedly, even his thoughts on the Blue Knight, who had grated on him all this while, had shifted a little.
Perhaps the ones here now were, power aside, the most stubborn mules in all of the Unified World. Residue included, of course.
He didn't mind those with a strong will of their own. The mulish obstinacy of the hard-headed, dressed up a little more, became conviction or principle, and maybe fellows like these were precisely the talent suited for the expedition to the Outside.
Rather, it was for that very reason that he wanted, if he could, to leave them behind in the 'Unified World'.
These ones were the same as Residue. Depending on what events they went through, they could grow strong enough to reach the level of the Half King.
So if these five went to the 'Outside' together, this side's work would surely become far easier, but the Unified World's side would be in for a world of hurt.
But words already spoken were words already spoken– if these ones caught Residue, then it couldn't be helped.
"Time remaining is what, about thirty minutes? Well, give it your best."
Residue's laughter echoed loudly through the dark cave.
*
When another ten minutes had passed, Iris could bear it no longer and shot up from her seat.
"Where are you off to?"
An anxious voice cut in. It was Anastasia.
"Isn't it obvious. I have to find that man."
"And you know where he'd be?"
"...I don't. First I'll ask around inside the King's Castle, find some clue, and then search–"
"There's no need for that."
A new voice cut in.
It wasn't the voice of anyone who'd been at the summit, but the Half King stood, at some point, near the door. It wasn't a failing not to have noticed her presence, but Iris looked at the Half King with a slightly hardened face.
"What do you mean?"
"...Residue has already left."
It was an oddly deflated voice, yet no one present grasped the fact behind it.
Kasajin asked.
"Left? What is that supposed to mean?"
"Exactly what I said. Kasajin. He's already gone to the 'Outside'."
"Alone?"
"No. Together with others."
This time Lucid furrowed his brow.
"By others, you mean......"
The Half King spoke with a sigh.
"It isn't certain yet, but the Blue Knight and White Knight, the Black Thorn Demon King and the Lightning God are nowhere to be seen. We can no longer observe them within the Unified World."
"......"
At the abrupt declaration, a stunned silence settled over the summit.
Abruptly? No. More than that, why?
If those were the members going to the Outside in the end, then why were we called here?
"The problem isn't just this."
"There's more?"
"Destruction has appeared in the Unified World. As if it had been waiting for Residue to vanish. No, perhaps it's more apt to say they've swapped places with one another."
"What......?"
Iris's eyes went wide, but the Half King's shocking declaration was not over.
"Two kinds of Destruction have appeared. At the western and eastern edges, taking the King's Castle as the center, beings each vast enough to reach the sky have begun to advance simultaneously. I've only seen the data Futurix observed, but probably, no, definitely."
The Half King spoke in a quiet voice.
"Both entities are stronger than this sovereign."
*
He thought he could hear the sound of waves somewhere.
"......"
When his cheek grew a little damp, Residue realized the sound he was now hearing was no illusion. Perhaps some of the seawater, surging in and drawing back over and over, had seeped in between his lips, for there was a salty taste.
In some unknown place, he slowly opened his eyes. Even so, his vision was unclear. At first he wondered if it was because seawater had gotten into his eyes, but no. The fog was simply too thick.
Bracing against the damp sand, he staggered somehow to his feet.
...Was it his imagination? It wasn't only his head that was heavy, his body was heavy too. Heavy enough that even standing up wasn't easy.
It was some kind of beach. A place he'd never been, of course, and Residue couldn't quite make out whether this was the 'Outside', the Unified World, or somewhere else entirely.
Daybreak, a lighthouse scattering its light beyond the murky fog. From somewhere far off, the sound of a ship's horn rang out. Residue walked toward the lighthouse for now. As if his body had soaked up seawater while he slept, his feet were damnably heavy.
"......"
Beneath the lighthouse he'd finally reached, someone sat gazing into the distance. Even so, in a place blanketed in thick fog, there was surely no seeing anything like a coastline. What on earth was this one looking at.
Wanting to know, he stood beside him for a moment and shared the gaze. The fog showed no sign of lifting. It was clearly no ordinary place. It was a place where something like the flow of time seemed to have stopped entirely.
"Did you want to draw this one into the 'Outside'?"
At Residue's words, the man turned his head.
"That's right."
"...It doesn't quite come together for me. What are you right now? Destruction's Commander? Or still Lukas Trowman?"
"......"
Lukas Trowman quietly smiled.
*****
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