Chapter 76: Incident (3)

Chapter 76: Incident (3)

As I read the thesis aloud, I eventually fell silent, though I didn't stop making corrections.

There are numerous incorrect and inefficient sections. Although the core idea is sound...

Despite the unfortunate incident Drent caused at the Thesis Colloquium, his talent was exceptional, almost unattainable for someone like the original Deculein. For me, who had only expected Epherene to join, Drent was an unexpected gain.

Talking to myself was a sign of my unexpectedly good mood, which was unusual. Then again, I wasn’t sure what being myself meant anymore.

“... Hmm.”

Deculein's personality trait was Authoritative. The more capable someone was, the more he expected them to lower themselves before him. When they did, he felt a certain joy.

Yet now, I was filled with unease. The unfamiliarity stemmed from the way the car cornered. My entire body, sensitively attuned by the Iron Man attribute, detected it. The one holding the wheel was not Jeff.

However, I couldn’t act hastily. I scanned the car with a meticulous eye. Villain’s Fate detected no immediate dangers. If boarding this car had been risky, the attribute's radar would have flagged it. Perhaps this was a gap in its function, as it only flagged variables directly linked to my death.

I rolled down the window. The ordinary scenery slid by, but as the wind rushed in, the entire road was bathed in a vivid red aura.

"... This is unprecedented," I remarked.

The outside was a danger zone. Inside the car, however, was the safest place in the area. As I realized the situation, a new quest notification appeared.

[Surprise Quest: Encounter]

◆ Store Currency +1

I pondered for a moment and then said, “An encounter... I shall regard it as an invitation.”

A smile crept onto my face. I didn't know who had arranged such an absurd meeting, but thinking of it as an invitation made it easier to accept. I glanced at the driver in the rearview mirror. Our eyes met, and he gripped the steering wheel tighter, his palms sweating.

"Rest assured, I will not act in an ungentlemanly manner. After all, you are not the real one."

The driver remained silent, and there was still time. I resumed editing the thesis.

***

Vroom—

Gerek glared at Deculein’s car in the distance. Although he was maintaining a reasonable distance, the bloodthirsty Gerek found the pace unbearably frustrating.

“Why can’t we simply kill him?” Gerek demanded.

Arlos, who was behind the wheel, responded calmly, “Is that you, Gerek?”

“Yeah, it’s me. Just like you, the real Arlos right now.”

Arlos pressed the accelerator without a word. The puppet driving Deculein’s car contained about ten percent of her own soul, making it less intelligent and more unsophisticated than she was.

However, everything the puppet saw, heard, and felt was fully transmitted to the original, and the puppet acted as if it were the original. This method of puppetry only worked perfectly under these conditions. A puppet aware of its nature could not move with vitality.

To be precise, a puppet aware of its true nature lacked motivation, often failing to perform tasks properly and sometimes even refusing commands from the original. Fully infusing a puppet with one's soul resulted in severe penalties of Soul Separation, so Arlos had developed this method with great care.

Gerek muttered, "So, does the soul in that puppet die upon returning to you, never realizing it was a puppet?"

"More or less," Arlos replied.

“You’re so cruel~ Don’t your puppets have personalities?”

“They fulfill their roles through sacrifice.”

Gerek glanced at her and inquired, “What do you mean by sacrifice?”

Arlos bitterly smiled and replied, “The sacrifice is never knowing whether I am the puppet or the original.”

Even Arlos, who believed herself to be the original, might only be a soul fragment of her true self hiding somewhere. Her memories could be fabrications of the original. This was the price of creating the perfect puppet, one indistinguishable from a human. Consequently, Arlos would always live in doubt of her own reality.

“I really admire that about you, sis,” Gerek said with a bright smile.

“... I told you not to fool me,” Arlos snapped, her frown deepening at the word, sis.

“Sis~” Gerek said, laughing creepily, lunging at Arlos.

She pushed away the man who had adopted the persona of a younger sister.

“Sis~ I love you~”

"Stop clinging to me. I'm trying to drive."

Thankfully, Gerek was somewhat handsome. If he had looked like a bearded bandit, she would have killed him already.

“Siiiis~”

“Quiet down, Jelin.”

This was Jelin, not Gerek. Among Gerek’s multiple personas, Jelin was the easiest to handle.

“But sis, I can’t hold back for long. I want to kill Deculein as much as my brother does. You remember how I died, right?”

“I’ve heard it countless times from Gerek,” Arlos replied.

“Hmph. That stupid brother of mine takes all the attention. Even the topics I come up with, he takes all the credit for...”

Jelin, who had been grumbling, suddenly fell silent and tightly gripped his pants leg.

In a lowered voice, he asked, “Sis.”

“What?”

“I’m real, right?”

Arlos turned to look at Jelin, an eighteen-year-old girl trapped in a grown man’s body.

"Who knows? There's no need to find out.”

As both a puppeteer and a soul master, Arlos had not teamed up with Gerek by coincidence. The numerous personas within Gerek might be remnants of a mental illness, while she herself might only be a soul fragment of her true self.

“Just don't think about it too deeply, and you'll be fine."

The commonality was their identity crisis. Living without knowing if they were real or fake made life uncertain, often dragging their emotions into a depressive abyss, like an anchor weighing down their heart.

"Everything in the world is like that. If you don’t think too deeply, you’ll be fine. Trust in the resilience of your identity and live lightly."

“... Sis~” Jelin said, looking moved. He lunged at her again, but Arlos elbowed him in the jaw.

“Get off, Gerek.”

“Tch. How did you figure it out?” Gerek muttered.

Jelin was skilled at acting, but Gerek was not.

Following Jukaken’s words, a cold, ominous energy filled the underground space, triggered by the sudden arrival of a particular figure.

“Deculein. Let me be clear, this is neither a request nor a proposal.”

Deculein observed the figure whose face was obscured. He appeared to be male, though his features remained hidden.

“Is he your boyfriend, Jukaken?” Deculein inquired.

Jukaken flinched and shouted, “What nonsense are you spouting?!”

“Were you so afraid of me, even as one of the Serpent’s Heads?”

“Hmph. If I wanted you dead, I would have done it already. But I respect the power and wealth you've demonstrated in the underworld. I seek a peaceful resolution.”

“Are you so cowardly yet still call yourself a man?”

“... Hey! Show yourself! Professor Deculein isn’t taking this seriously!” Jukaken shouted.

The darkness cleared, and Deculein's expression turned cold. The figure exuded death variables. In fact, his very existence was a death variable.

“Gerek, I presume?” Deculein said.

“Yes. You recognize this infamous figure,” Jukaken replied.

Gerek, the multi-persona psychopath. Among the named lunatics, he ranked at the top in combat power and was a walking death variable for Deculein.

Deculein let out a dry laugh and said, “Jukaken, do you really believe you can control him?”

“I cannot. If you break the barrier, Gerek will not hesitate to kill you. I cannot stop him in that situation.”

The death variable crept like a shadow at Gerek's feet. Deculein's eyes followed its red movements intently.

"If you refuse to comply, Gerek will break the barrier and kill you," Jukaken said.

However, the barrier blocked the death variable. This was a clue given by the Villain’s Fate attribute.

“... Strange.”

“Haha. It’s not strange; it’s just meticulous. Stay inside and watch,” Jukaken said with a smirk.

Deculein analyzed the barrier using his Comprehension attribute. It was a dependent type of magic that functioned through a medium. This meant that, regardless of who cast it, the barrier operated via its medium. In other words, its ownership could be transferred at any time, a process known as hijacking.

Deculein possessed the skills necessary for hijacking, a process that typically required immense computational power and time. Fortunately, the small scale of the barrier meant it wouldn’t take long.

He used his Comprehension attribute to analyze the barrier, tracking the flow of its embedded mana with his Sharp Eyesight. He reverse-calculated its circuits and spells in his mind and modified the barrier’s medium using Rockelock’s Staff. In 143 seconds, he successfully hijacked the barrier.

Deculein reinforced the barrier to its maximum strength before drawing a revolver from his coat. The chamber was already loaded with six bullets.

Jukaken muttered mockingly, “Oh, what a lovely accessory.”

Deculein aimed the revolver at the ceiling of the barrier and fired five consecutive shots. The barrier remained unscathed, but the gunfire drew Gerek’s attention.

"Do you hear me, Gerek?" Deculein inquired

"... I can hear you, but I'm not Gerek," came the response.

Deculein raised an eyebrow and said, "Who are you?"

"Jelin. My brother won’t come out. No matter what you attempt, I won’t allow you to ruin this."

“How cute,” Deculein remarked, tilting his head slightly at Jelin’s words. “Regardless, you are observing with your own eyes, are you not? It is your body after all.”

"... No. Whatever you intend, it will not succeed," Jelin said, narrowing his eyes.

Deculein remained indifferent. He calmly checked the revolver’s cylinder. After firing five shots, only one bullet remained.

“One of the six bullets is loaded,” Deculein said indifferently, closing the cylinder with a click and spinning it. This made it impossible to tell which chamber was loaded.

“Gerek,”

In an instant, Jelin's eyes and mouth widened in shock as Deculein placed the gun’s muzzle against his temple. He looked as if he were about to commit suicide.

“Let’s play a game.”

Jukaken scowled while Jelin, understanding Deculein’s intention, covered his mouth. Gerek began to thrash in Jelin’s consciousness. Jelin wanted to flee, but Gerek wouldn’t allow it. Gerek stood rooted to the spot, staring at Deculein.

Click—!

Deculein pulled back the hammer of the revolver. The cold steel sound echoed in the empty space. The mechanism operated with mechanical precision, and once he pulled the trigger, the contents of the cylinder would be expelled based on a specific probability.

“Before you kill me, will I die by my own hand?” Deculein asked softly. “Will it be an empty chamber? Or the one remaining bullet? Or will you wake up before I kill myself?”

Deculein fixed his gaze on Jelin.

Jukaken, clearly flustered, muttered, “Hey, don’t be fooled! That mage is surely up to some trick—”

But it was pointless. Being highly attuned to mana, they would immediately sense if magic influenced this game of Russian Roulette.

"Will you let me end this so easily?" Deculein asked, placing his finger on the trigger.

With the muzzle pressed against his temple, Deculein smiled. That horribly wicked grin seemed to ignite Gerek’s persona with a burning intensity.

“Here comes the first shot.”

Clunk—!

The empty click made Jelin shiver.

“Lucky,” Deculein remarked with cold detachment.

Creak—

Deculein pulled back the hammer again, the cold metallic sound echoing through the empty space.

Jelin shook his head and shouted, “It’s not going to work!”

Yet Deculein’s smile remained. He looked down at Jelin, one of Gerek’s personas.

“... You said your name was Jelin,” Deculein stated.

Jukaken had brought Gerek along out of fear of Deculein’s power, but it was a grave miscalculation. Gerek was an uncontrollable monster.

“I am rather curious.”

If he became moderately angry, he might target only Deculein. However, if his madness reached its peak, causing uncontrolled rage, Gerek could transform into a complete maniac, unable to distinguish friends from enemies, or turn into a human bomb ready to explode.

“Tell me, was the agony of drowning bearable?” Deculein asked.

Jelin remained silent, his expression growing icy. The wild trembling of his body ceased. Deculein smiled slightly as he glanced at the ground beneath Gerek's feet. The death variable emanated from him and spread in all directions, except for the barrier. It was clear that this death variable did not apply solely to Deculein.