The Insane Regressor: Throne of Pride

Ravian stepped out of his room with a slight heaviness to his steps, looking left and right.

When he looked to the right, he saw Mirai emerging from her room some distance away and heading toward him.

She wore the same Head Servant uniform the nightmare had given her when the roles were assigned on the first day, while Ravian still wore his Correspondence Servant’s uniform beneath a long black coat that fell all the way to his feet. Black leather gloves covered his hands, giving him an elegant appearance in every sense of the word, most likely because his physique filled out the clothes perfectly.

Mirai stopped in front of him and examined him from head to toe with a thorough, scrutinizing gaze, while Ravian continued looking at her calmly as his mind raced through countless possibilities. He had reached a realization earlier, and even now, after turning it over incessantly, he could not get it out of his head.

The Mage could protect three people...

Three people!

Only three participants needed to remain for the Killer to win, which meant Ravian now had to kill one more person—but how could he do that when the Mage could simply protect the other three, including themselves?

Did that not simply mean Ravian was already doomed to fail if the Mage so much as suspected him, decided not to protect him, and instead protected themselves and the other two?

That meant Ravian had to dispel every suspicion surrounding him and even convince the Mage to protect him. He also had to guess whom the Mage would leave unprotected, then make sure he was the last person to communicate with that person before nightfall—all while concealing his identity from the Traitor.

’I mean, you could just say you want to fuck me up. No need for all this shit,’ Ravian thought as he waited for Mirai to finish examining him.

"Are you done yet?" Ravian asked when he saw that her gaze was still roaming over every inch of him in a way that even he found unsettling.

Her blue eyes rose to meet his when she heard him speak. Then she lowered her head and stared at the floor.

"I’m afraid," she said.

Ravian raised both eyebrows, watching her abruptly transform from an overbearing superior into what appeared to be a genuinely confused and frightened girl.

The silence continued for several seconds until Mirai grew suspicious of Ravian’s lack of response and raised her eyes to him again, only to find him still watching her in silence.

"Why are you silent?" Mirai asked.

"Because I’m afraid too," Ravian replied without so much as blinking, as though it were self-evident. "I might even be more afraid than you."

Mirai’s brows knitted into a genuinely puzzled frown this time.

"Then why do you look so calm? Is this what you’re like when you’re afraid?" Mirai asked mockingly, gesturing toward his expression with one finger.

At that moment, however, Ravian noticed that her finger would not stop trembling. Mirai quickly lowered both hands and hid them behind her back in embarrassment.

"Fear doesn’t have to show on your face to prove that it exists, Mirai," Ravian said as a small smile returned to his lips. "There is no one who doesn’t feel fear; that is simply impossible. But there are people who know how to hide it."

Ravian then pointed at himself with the same smile on his face, while Mirai continued staring at him, unable to tear her eyes away.

"Just like me," Ravian said. "And I also know that this is nothing more than a test to determine whether I’m the Killer."

The final sentence struck Mirai like a hammer. Her legs betrayed her, forcing her to take a single step back, yet her eyes remained fixed on him.

Most of the feigned anxiety vanished from her face, replaced by genuine fear. Even so, a hint of admiration surfaced in her eyes.

She had come here to trap him. She had expected him to evade her questions, try to manipulate her, tell her that he would protect her and that everything would be all right, then attempt to convince her to accuse someone else of being the Killer.

But Ravian did none of that. Instead, he told her the truth about what he felt without making any attempt to win her approval or help her. He had even implicitly admitted that he was the Killer.

The combination of all those things nearly gave Mirai a stroke.

"A-Are you really the Killer?" Mirai asked in a trembling voice.

Ravian fixed his crimson gaze on her for several seconds, then spread his arms as though presenting himself before a crowd, wearing a faint smile that held no real happiness.

"My performance was excellent, even though it was my first time..." Ravian said, tilting his head slightly. "Wasn’t it?"

...

In another hall of the palace, the wind sent the curtains fluttering, their faint rustling lending the place the natural serenity of morning.

That tranquility did not last long, however, for the sound of metal scraping across the marble floor soon intruded, producing an unpleasant screech throughout the hall.

The sound came from two dark, bloodied axes held by someone who was likewise dressed in a servant’s uniform. A broad smile stretched across his face, the sort one might expect from a genuine serial killer, while an ugly scar cut through one of his eyebrows and slashed down his face until it almost reached his chin.

He was exactly the sort of man whose likeness parents might show their children to keep them from wandering away, warning that he would come and snatch them if they did.

This scarred man with short black hair was Bran, the quietest person among the participants.

Yet that calm was merely a mask concealing terror, slaughter, and corruption.

Now Bran’s other half had emerged into the open—the demonic Bran, one of the Empire’s newest and most infamous serial killers, wanted throughout the entire Empire with a hefty bounty on his head.

And this Bran had now been given a lethal weapon that no one else could wield and placed in the midst of a herd of humans who could not attack him even in retaliation; all they could do was run.

Bran was now simply a wolf unleashed inside a farm full of sheep, with all the doors locked around them.

All he had to do was kill the guardian of the farm before having the remaining sheep all to himself.

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