Chapter 17: I’m Not That Kind of Person Part 2

According to imperial law, just having the Book of Lemegeton was considered a serious crime.

As mentioned before, being chosen by this grimoire was practically a declaration of being judged as a socially unfit person.

The demons themselves had handpicked the kind of people who might sell their souls to them.

It didn’t get more credible than that.

“What am I even supposed to do with this?”

The Book of Lemegeton wasn’t something one could simply discard.

Items like this typically followed the cliché of ghost stories. They came back no matter how many times you tried to throw them away.

Even if I were to burn or discard it, sooner or later, it would just show up again on my desk like today.

“Going to Lobelia with this… would basically be suicide.”

She was a walking law book.

As an imperial member, she had the authority to decide my fate on the spot.

And considering how much stress she must already be under from all the chaos lately, I couldn’t predict how she’d react if she found out I’d been marked by a demon.

She might see me as a dangerous radical, or even carry out an immediate execution.

“No, but seriously, this pisses me off.”

What was so wrong with me?

What did those demon bastards see in me to make this kind of judgment?

You’d be hard-pressed to find another upstanding young man like me.

“Ugh, but seriously, what do I do now?”

It felt like a bomb had been planted on me. One I couldn’t detach from my own body.

Even if it never exploded, the fact remained that I was carrying it.

The moment I got caught, I would be buried.

If it were just social ostracization, I could live with that. But the real problem was, I might be buried physically.

Of course, there was a solution.

There was, but…

“It’s not like I can just go looking for that lunatic Kult.”

Since ancient times, the natural enemies of demons had been gods and angels. I didn’t know exactly what kind of demon had latched onto me, but one thing was certain. In the face of divine authority, it would be nothing more than a yapping pup.

If it were the prophet Kult Hereticus, he might be able to purify the demon clinging to me.

And while he was at it, he’d probably crack open my head, too.

“…Let’s not even think about that for now.”

There was no solution.

It was actually more comforting to just think that way.

I’d simply be careful not to get caught and forget the whole thing.

I placed the Book of Lemegeton into the drawer and headed for bed.

Might as well try sleeping.

When you’re tired, no matter how hard you think, you’re not going to come up with a good answer.

***

I didn’t sleep.

I mean, come on. How could anyone sleep peacefully with a bomb sitting in their room?

Everything was stressful.

The annoyingly bright sunlight was stressful, the knife-like cold wind was stressful, and most of all, the pink-haired lunatic clown standing in front of me was peak stress.

“Changed your mind yet?”

“Nope, not at all.”

“Use casual speech, Johan. That’s how you usually talk.”

“Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Uh, yeah, got it.”

“So, have you changed your mind?”

“No?”

“How cold.”

I couldn’t breathe.

It would’ve been easier if I just hadn’t known.

But now that I knew the truth, every moment felt unbearable.

Eventually, that crazy clown… Safe Clown, Yuna, sprawled across my desk and started grumbling.

Looking at her like this, she really didn’t seem any different from a childish student.

“By the way, how did you find out that Lemegeton approached me…? Wait, how did you know? Did you come into my room or something?”

I forced myself to fix my tone before it got too polite.

Speech, just like anything else, needed to change depending on who you were talking to.

With Yuna, this was the right way.

I naturally wanted to speak more respectfully, but I couldn’t help it.

I was the one who set the tone at the beginning, so I had to stay consistent.

“I just saw you walking around campus.”

“So that means you didn’t come into my room?”

“Who knows?”

Damn it. She just kept smiling sweetly the whole time, so I couldn’t read her at all.

Well, if her acting had been sloppy enough for me to see through, she wouldn’t have made a name for herself as the Safe Clown in the first place. I might as well give up.

“Hey, what are you going to eat for lunch?”

At least this much I could understand.

“I’m skipping it.”

She clearly wanted to eat with me, but that was never going to happen.

Just the thought of it made me feel like I’d throw up what I’d already eaten.

“By the way, seeing the process of the demon’s book getting delivered must’ve been quite the rare experience.”

What, was the book supposed to float in on its own and slip through my door or something?

“Nope. What I saw wasn’t some book; it was the demon itself.”

“……”

“So? Do you think your mind’s changed a bit now?”

“…A little.”

For a demon to materialize in this world, it needed considerable power.

That’s why demons made contracts with people….to collect souls.

But there were some demons that wandered the world without making any contracts.

Of course, there were limitations… but still.

“What was I thinking… I mean, really, what the hell was I thinking…?”

At the point where those limitations could be partially ignored, it meant that the demon possessed an outrageous amount of power.

“See? Talented people always get noticed by many! Puhihihi!”

“…….”

Yuna looked at me and laughed.

Maybe it was because she was a cruel assassin who took pleasure in others’ suffering.

“Oh, class is about to start. See you at lunch, Johan.”

With those words, Yuna smiled brightly and skipped off.

When lunchtime came, I was going to run from Class F without looking back.

***

Lunch.

I was wandering around the campus, clutching my head from a headache caused by stress and lack of sleep.

I wasn’t in the mood to eat.

No matter what I ate, it felt like it would just sit heavy in my stomach.

Why had everything been going so wrong lately?

With my head filled with stress and my heart weighed down by anxiety, I wandered aimlessly around the campus.

“Argh! What the—?!”

With a sensation like something tickling my face, the world suddenly went dark.

What was this?! The demon’s power?!

Frantically, I waved my hands to pull off whatever had clung to my face.

Thunk.

Whatever had been stuck to my face fell off ridiculously easily.

“…….”

Taking a deep breath to calm my pounding heart, I looked down at the object that had fallen weakly to the ground.

“It’s a hat.”

It must’ve been a hat blown by the wind.

The moment I realized that, a huge wave of embarrassment crashed over me.

I had made a huge scene just because a hat had blocked my view. Thank god no one had seen this. Otherwise, I would’ve died of shame.

“Wow……”

No, someone had seen.

Far away, sitting on a bench, a girl with snow-white hair was staring at me as if I were some kind of bug.

Upon closer inspection, the hat lying on the ground was the same large witch’s hat she always wore.

With her hat off, her rabbit ears drooped as if they were trying to hide.

The one who wanted to hide was me.

“Could you hand me my hat?”

“Pick it up yourse—.”

I had meant to snap at her and tell her to pick it up herself like I usually would, but…

I noticed her legs, faintly trembling as she sat on the bench.

The terminally ill girl, Ariel Ether.

It seemed her predetermined death was creeping ever closer by the second.

Damn it… Even if I had no desire to get involved with the main character’s party, I wasn’t such trash that I could ignore a sick person right in front of me.

“Excuse me? Sir Johan? I said, could you hand me my hat that fell over there?”

“Ha…”

I didn’t care what happened to the main character’s group.

From the start, it was a fight without justice, and no matter which side came out on top, my life wouldn’t change in the slightest.

In that sense, I held no particular feelings toward either the hero or the villains.

But still…

“Here you go.”

“Thank you.”

“Yes, you should be thankful.”

“Do you always have to sound so sarcastic no matter what you say, Sir Johan?”

“Yes.”

“You’re a strange one.”

I disliked her.

Out of everyone, she was the one I genuinely couldn’t stand.

“Excuse me, Sir Johann.”

It happened just as I was turning to leave her behind.

“What is it.”

She grabbed the hem of my coat.

“Could we talk for a moment?”

“No.”

I had meant to coldly shake her off and walk away, but surprisingly, the frail Ariel’s strength surpassed mine.

This is crazy, seriously…

“Come on, just talk to me for a moment.”

“Why are you being so clingy, Lady Ariel?”

In the end, I couldn’t shake off her grip and was half-forced to sit down on the bench.

“You know… Sir Johan, you said you weren’t an Oracle, right?”

“And even if I say I’m not, would you believe me? At this point, asking again makes the answer meaningless, don’t you think?”

“…I think you’re severely lacking in social skills, Sir Johan. I do believe you, you know?”

“If you believe me, then the conversation’s over.”

“No, this is just the beginning, obviously. Why are you always so mean to me?”

“We’re not exactly on friendly terms, are we? Honestly, it’s uncomfortable.”

“Very blunt, aren’t you… Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to ask.”

Ariel clutched my sleeve as if she wouldn’t let go until I gave her an answer.

“Sir Johan, you know the future, don’t you?”

“No.”

“Her Highness said you told her who the leader of Eden is. Then where did that information come from?”

“Asking about something so sensitive is quite rude, you know.”

“So what?”

She was even more relentless than I had imagined.

Was she always like this? I wouldn’t know. She died so quickly in the game.

“I’m going to die soon anyway, so isn’t it fine to be a little rude?”

“What…!”

I froze at her casually spoken words.

Of course she knew about her illness. She couldn’t even muster the strength to rise from the bench. How could she not know?

But I had never imagined she would open up to me about it.

It made sense, though. After all, even Lobelia, whom she trusted and followed, hadn’t known about Ariel’s illness until after her death.

She had hidden her illness. Even until the very moment she died.

“Judging by your expression, I was right. Somehow, I thought you might know about my illness, Sir Johan. It makes sense, since you know the future, don’t you?”

“…Were you testing me? By revealing such an outrageous secret?”

“At least it was worth it, wasn’t it?”

She had revealed her greatest secret solely to confirm whether I truly knew the future.

Or… perhaps not? Maybe, to her, the fact that I could see the future held even greater value.

“Lady Ariel.”

“Yes.”

“You…”

I couldn’t bring myself to speak.

It felt like if I asked her what she wanted, there would be no turning back.

“…….?”

“No, I think I need some more time to sort out my thoughts.”

“Then, may I speak? There’s something I’ve been wondering about for a while.”

“…Go ahead.”

“Why didn’t you change the future, Sir Johan? I’m sure there were people you could have saved with just a few words.”

She was right.

Maybe someone who was meant to die could have survived. If only I had said a few words.

“Is there some kind of restriction that prevents you from changing the future? Hmm… That can’t be it, though. You told Her Highness who the leader of Eden is, after all.”

“It’s because I am a coward.”

I had no intention of making excuses.

I had simply put myself first. In my previous life, I had learned that I had to.

“I was afraid of being targeted. And just because I change the future doesn’t mean things will necessarily get better. The bastards who commit acts of terror aren’t all empty-headed. There could be a second plan, and that second plan might lead to an even more horrible outcome.”

“That would definitely be a heavy burden.”

And in fact, things could have turned out even worse as a result of me getting involved too hastily.

If I couldn’t take responsibility, I shouldn’t act carelessly.

“Even if you know the future, there are things that won’t change.”

The kind of person someone had become, built up layer by layer over time, didn’t change easily.

“Hmm… I see.”

Ariel muttered to herself as if she had come to understand something from my answer.

After staring blankly at the sky for a while, she let go of the hem of my clothes she had been holding onto. It felt like she was giving up on something. There was a sense of lingering regret.

“That’s enough now, Sir Johan. Thank you for answering. It helped me.”

Still, Ariel smiled faintly.

I hated that smile. I could hardly bear to look at it.

“Tch …”

As expected, I disliked her.

Whenever I looked at her, the words “It can’t be helped” came to mind.

I hated those words.

I hated myself for thinking of them.

And so, I hated Ariel Ether, the one who made me feel that way.

***

After Johan Damus left,

Ariel remained seated on the bench, still looking up at the sky.

She looked as though she might vanish at any moment. It felt so empty.

“So, in the future Sir Johan saw… there really is no cure for my illness.”

She might seem naive, but her mind worked remarkably fast.

She wasn’t called an archmage candidate for nothing.

Because of that, she had been able to easily infer what Johan had been hiding, just from his reaction.

Even knowing the future, there were still things that wouldn’t change.

“So I’m going to die after all…”

Pity, discomfort, caution.

Johan had clearly found it difficult to face Ariel.

She put the hat Johan returned to her back on.

The wide-brimmed witch’s hat seemed more than enough to hide her face.

And before long, her shoulders began to tremble slightly.

There was no “what if”.