Click.
Olga Hermod set down her teacup as soon as she finished her story.
It had been a fairly long tale, and the teacup was already empty.
“I hope this story was of some help to you, student Johan.”
“……”
Half of what Olga Hermod had said was, in essence, nothing more than speculation.
Rumors from outside, actual events, the type of person she had observed—
And from those pieces, she had pieced together the life of a man called Charybdis.
But even from just that, there was one thing I could understand.
“…Ha.”
It was that I knew absolutely nothing about Yuna.
Feeling empty, I slowly rose from my seat.
There was a lot I needed to do.
First, I had to figure out what Yuna was thinking.
And after that… after that…
“……”
Just before stepping out of the Headmistress’s office, I paused for a moment.
It felt like I was overlooking something important.
“How skilled was Charybdis Salos as a mage?”
“In terms of the battlefield, he was even better than I was. And his potential was equal to mine, if not greater.”
First, I needed to assess the threat level.
If his talents were on par with Olga Hermod’s, just imagining it was terrifying.
It was despairing.
I decided to ask one last question.
“The letter Charybdis Salos sent… do you still have it? May I take a look at it?”
Olga Hermod seemed surprised by my question and her eyes widened for a moment, then she soon smiled gently and took something out from her office desk.
It was the very letter Charybdis Salos had sent to Olga Hermod at the time.
The answer must have been inside.
***
Charybdis Salos was a villain.
A villain created by this world.
He had originally been a good man, someone who struggled with deeply human concerns more than anyone.
His disposition probably hadn’t been that different from mine.
If there was one difference between us, it would surely have been the power we each possessed.
Why had Yuna approached me?
It felt like I had just gained one more answer to that question.
“Johan, you’re back! What did you talk about in the Headmistress’s office?”
Yuna had said that, at the time she killed Charybdis, she didn’t hate him.
A man so consumed by madness had chosen, time and again, to muster up courage and change for Yuna’s sake.
It must have been hard to hate him.
Even through pain and difficulty, the sight of someone trying to change for her sake… I didn’t think she could have truly disliked that.
“I talked about you.”
“Huh?”
“She asked if you were adjusting well. I said yes.”
“Ah! I see!”
Back when Charybdis’s existence surfaced, I had thought about it far too simply.
I knew he was someone Yuna had killed in the past. I’d even sensed that he might’ve had a deep connection to her.
When I first began listening to Olga Hermod’s story, I assumed he was someone Yuna must have hated.
But now that I had heard the whole story. Now that I knew why she had killed Charybdis…how did I feel?
“Yuna.”
“Mhmm?”
“Want to go on a date or something?”
“Uh…? Wh-Why all of a sudden?”
“Just because.”
What had I even said in front of her before? Did I just shrug it off and casually remark, “You killed him because he was someone worth killing, wasn’t he?”
I knew nothing about her.
Even though I was the one who spent the most time with her.
“Can I refuse?”
“…No more talking. Just come with me.”
“Wow! What a bad guy!”
I took Yuna and headed straight for a nearby café.
***
“Aww, you said it was a date, so I thought we’d actually leave the cradle.”
“I don’t have the guts for that. And even if we did go out, with those Under Chain bastards causing so much chaos lately, most shops would probably be closed and people evacuated anyway.”
“Is that so?”
“But I’ve got plenty of money, so if there’s anything you want, don’t hold back. Order whatever you like.”
“It’s just a café though… Oh, they sell this too? Get me this one!”
“Sure, sure.”
It seemed Yuna had just realized cafés didn’t only sell coffee. She ordered every dessert she thought she could handle.
Yeah, eat as much as you want.
As I watched her try a bit of everything she’d ordered, I moved on to the real reason we were here.
“Yuna, you were Charybdis Salos’s adopted daughter, right?”
“Mhmm…”
It was meant to be a surprise question, but Yuna seemed to have anticipated even that and just answered with her fork still in her mouth.
“So this wasn’t a date after all, huh?”
“Doesn’t feel any different from usual.”
“You tricked me!”
Yuna pouted and pretended to be angry.
“Then maybe we should go on a real date next time?”
“No thanks. Mmm, so the Headmaster even told you that much?”
“Yeah. She also told me you killed Charybdis for revenge.”
“Then what you’re really wondering about, Johan, is probably ‘what I thought of Charybdis’, right? Isn’t that it?”
Yuna gave a captivating smile.
It was so different from her usual demeanor that I involuntarily held my breath for a moment.
This wouldn’t do. If I let my guard down, I’d just get swept up in Yuna’s presence again.
I calmed myself with a sip of coffee and regained my usual composure.
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“You’re worried about me, aren’t you? That’s touching, Johan. But like I said before, my revenge ended in the past. I told you, I’m not holding on to it anymore. So there’s no need to worry.”
“Yuna.”
As she casually poked at the cake in front of her with a fork and took another bite, I asked again.
“I asked what you thought. Not what you plan to do.”
“……”
“If you don’t want to answer, just say so. Don’t try to dodge it.”
“Harsh, aren’t you…”
Yuna leaned back in her chair and kept chewing on her fork. She seemed to be thinking carefully about what to say.
Would she tell me? Or would she say she didn’t want to talk about it?
Maybe it wouldn’t make much of a difference either way. But still, I thought I’d rather hear it.
After all, we are friends.
“Johan.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry.”
“You mean you’re not going to tell me?”
“Mhmm. I don’t think this is something I can say to just anyone. You’ve got secrets of your own too, right? So you understand, don’t you?”
“……”
“To just anyone”… Another session of mirror therapy, huh?
“Alright, I get it. If that’s how you feel, I won’t press you any further.”
Whoever came up with that excuse…just hearing it was irritating.
***
Yuna had planned to assassinate Charybdis from the very beginning.
His personality, routines, what made him wary, and what might make him feel a sense of connection—
Just investigating all of that took her a full two years.
And with that, Yuna was successfully taken in by Charybdis.
She didn’t let her guard down right away and continued to push Charybdis away.
It was precisely that clear hostility that could put Charybdis at ease.
A clearly weaker person, someone openly hostile. Such people were far easier to understand than those who approached with kindness.
Mom, Dad, just wait for me.
She had no intention of opening her heart. She was merely putting on an act.
Bit by bit, she would draw closer to Charybdis until, eventually, she could catch him off guard.
That was the only move the weaker Yuna could make.
And just as she had predicted, Charybdis made efforts to open Yuna’s heart. There was no way someone like him, with such a strong sense of self-awareness, would fail to notice a girl in the same state as himself.
– Ahem! Hm, hm…
However, contrary to her expectations, he tried far harder than she had imagined.
– Ta-da! Ahem…! Then how about this! Ta-daaa! …Ahem ahem.
One day, Charybdis appeared dressed in a ridiculous outfit, wearing makeup like a clown.
It was a sight unthinkable from his usual self.
He was clumsy in everything.
He had no idea how to approach her in order to open her heart. Instead, he relied on bits and pieces of advice he’d picked up here and there to try and reach her.
Just look at that laughably ridiculous clown costume and those terribly awkward magic tricks.
Things that could’ve been done with a flick of a finger using magic….he insisted on performing them all manually.
As expected, he failed at card tricks, botched the juggling, and dropped the ball while trying to balance it.
– Hahahahaha!
Yuna laughed.
She had believed she would never be able to truly laugh again after her parents had been brutally murdered. But to her own surprise, laughter escaped her so easily.
Just look at the man in front of her.
A man rumored to be a monster on par with an archmage was now resorting to all kinds of antics just to open her heart.
How could she not laugh at that?
How could anyone call a person pathetic when that person was throwing away all pride just to reach out to someone?
Yuna slowly began to open her heart.
What had started as mere acting gradually became infused with sincerity.
And the more she opened up to Charybdis, the more she came to understand who he really was.
The war that had plunged the Empire into chaos over the years had created countless victims. Charybdis was simply one of them.
He wasn’t a villain.
He hadn’t been a villain.
Dad, Mom.
As she witnessed Charybdis’s guilt and devotion, Yuna found herself thinking:
I don’t think I can keep hating this man forever.
Even so, she had to kill him.
She believed it was the right thing to do, and the memory of her parents’ deaths still stood clearly, unshaken, in one corner of her heart.
Yuna got to know Charybdis for the sake of killing him. And in doing so, she learned he was a pitiful person.
She felt pity.
But her inner conflict didn’t last long.
She had overlooked something.
Just how much karma Charybdis Salos had accumulated.
– Yuna!
There was an attack on the mansion. Something no one had dared attempt until then.
The target had been Yuna, and she saw the troubled look on Charybdis’s face as he killed to protect her.
She felt the trembling in the arms that held her close, as if she were something precious.
She heard the fear in his voice.
It wasn’t hard to understand.
She had now become Charybdis’s greatest weakness.
And she wasn’t the only one who could exploit that weakness.
This man is going to keep killing people.
Yuna was probably not the only one dreaming of revenge. The karma Charybdis had accumulated was that deep.
From now on, countless assassins would come after Yuna, who had become Charybdis’s weakness…and Charybdis would continue to kill many more to protect her.
It was already beyond undoing.
She had started it. So it was only right that she be the one to end it.
At the very least, she should have been the one to end this old man’s suffering sooner.
And so, Yuna killed Charybdis. He carelessly exposed a gap, and Yuna, without hesitation, drove her blade into it.
Yuna remembered.
– What do you think of me?
She remembered the shocked expression on Charybdis’s face when she attacked him.
His mouth opened and closed, as if he was trying to speak. He coughed up blood a few times, but in the end, he couldn’t say a word before he died.
– Do you hate me?
She didn’t know his final thoughts.
Even though she had been right there, he didn’t say a single thing to her.
“…I’m sure he did.”
That thought terrified her.
And now, that fear was crashing down on her like a wave.
***
I know what I have to do.
It’s not the real task. Just something to prepare for a worst-case scenario.
To do that, there was a necessary step I couldn’t skip.
“Stan Robinhood.”
“……”
“Can we talk for a minute?”
“Weren’t we supposed to stay out of each other’s business?”
“Come on, that depends on the situation. And it’s not like I actually messed with your sister or anything. I just want to talk, that’s all.”
“So you’re trying to threaten me again, is that it?”
“When did I ever?”
“You said you were working with a skilled assassin.”
“I did.”
That’s just me being honest about a social weakness. How was that a threat?
What, did he think I was going to have Yuna assassinate key members of his family or something? I suppose he could think that, but that’s just Stan’s narrow-minded way of thinking.
“Are you suspecting me right now?”
Suspecting someone as pure and innocent as me?
“…Fine. Just say what you came to say.”
“I just wanted to talk about something that happened recently. You’re one of the few people I know who’d get it.”
“When did we ever become people who ‘know’ each other…?”
“Since we started to understand each other’s struggles?”
“You’ve really lost it.”
I shrugged and handed Stan an item.
“You know what this is, right?”
“……”
“Yeah. A high-performance communicator Emily made. That rings a bell, right? I mean, you’re her brother after all. See, her initials are even engraved on it.”
“…Why are you giving this to me?”
“You know as well as I do, this comes as a pair. If someone speaks into one, the other can hear it.”
I immediately plugged the earpiece into my ear and spoke.
“You’re getting involved in the Under Chain problem, right?”
“Yeah, of course…”
“I’m not asking for much. You’ve got good eyes; there’s a lot you can see that I can’t. Just find one thing and let me know.”
“Ha! And why should I do that?”
“Because you’re Emily’s brother.”
Such a kind and good person.
That’s why I trust he’ll agree to a small favor like this without making a fuss.
We’re friends, right?
“There you go again with the threats…”
Is it? Really?
I have no idea how anyone could interpret it that way.
But there’s no time to explain.
“If you understand, I’m counting on you.”
“Ugh!”
If that works, then great. I’ll just run with it.
Any misunderstandings can be cleared up later.
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