Chapter 178 – Confession
“If you’re awake, get up already. Stop lying there.”
At the familiar and irritating voice, I snapped open my eyes.
What entered my vision was pitch-black darkness and the faint outline of a rough stone wall.
In other words, the flames that had been hurtling toward me as though to burn out my eyes had vanished, as had the room where the two suspicious figures had been talking.
Then had I been dreaming until moments ago?
“I told you to get up if you’re awake. Have you finally gone deaf?”
When I pushed myself upright, cold sweat trickled down my forehead.
The moment that person reached into empty space, flames had erupted. That meant at least one of the two had been a member of the imperial family.
And considering the contents of their conversation, that imperial family member was clearly—
“I said get up.”
Why does he keep telling me to get up?
I was about to identify the owner of the voice interrupting my thoughts when I felt my body being yanked upward like a radish pulled from the ground.
“Ugh...... What?”
Startled, I looked up and met the eyes of the bastard holding me by the back of my neck.
The cold golden eyes shining in the darkness could belong to none other than Ratel.
Why was this bastard here?
I looked around again, but there was no trace of the corridor where I had been standing moments earlier.
The surroundings contained nothing but natural rock formations, created as stone layers had accumulated and eroded with the passage of time.
I wondered whether it had been a dream, but everything had felt far too vivid.
“This seems to be the orc den. Am I right?”
When I regained my composure and asked, Ratel frowned.
“It’s the orc den. Though it doesn’t seem to be the real one.”
Despite his sour expression, he kindly answered before practically throwing me down and stepping back with his arms crossed.
Either way, it was the orc den.
Since he had awakened before me, perhaps Ratel had also seen those two people.
“Did you see them too?”
When I asked directly without even bothering to probe him first, Ratel stood there with a strange expression before nodding.
“Yes, I saw it clearly.”
“Did you see their faces?”
When I hurriedly asked, he frowned.
“Their faces?”
Only then did I realize that Ratel and I were not talking about the same thing.
His expression grew even fiercer as he uncrossed his arms and straightened his posture.
“Who are these two? Were they people? Or members of the imperial family?”
“No, I didn’t see that, which is why I asked you...... Wait. Then what exactly did you see?”
I had begun answering obediently before coming to my senses and questioning him instead.
His eyes shifted away.
“What did you see so clearly?”
When I asked again, some of the ferocity left his expression. He gestured behind me with his chin.
“I meant that I watched orcs trample your face several times.”
What?
It did not take long to understand that brutal statement.
Boom!! Boom!!
Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom!!
—Kweeeeeck!!!
The ground rumbled, and the ceiling shook.
There were far too many sounds for only one or two creatures to be making them.
The orcs’ cries and pounding footsteps were loud enough to make my brain ache.
Even as I looked around in bewilderment, the sounds continued growing louder.
Eventually, dozens of orcs appeared amid a cloud of dust.
—Kweeeeeck!!!!
The frenzied creatures charged toward me.
As I looked around for somewhere to evade them, I noticed that Ratel had already put more distance between us and was standing far away.
When did that bastard retreat all the way over there?
While a faint sense of betrayal rose within me, the horde of orcs reached me.
However, they did not collide with me.
I was not sent flying, nor was I kicked and reduced to pulp beneath their feet.
Every single one of the dozens of orcs passed straight through me.
When I looked at Ratel again, he calmly shrugged.
“I told you I watched your face being trampled.”
“......How many times did this repeat while I was lying there?”
“I don’t know. About ten times?”
The bastard boldly confessed that he had watched my face being trampled ten times, then approached me.
“So, did watching that make you feel better?”
“No. Perhaps because you weren’t actually being trampled, it wasn’t particularly satisfying.”
Before he could add that he would personally smash my face apart, I spoke first.
“If it repeated ten times, how long is the interval?”
“Before worrying about that, don’t you have something you need to explain to me?”
This time, however, he did not appear willing to accommodate me.
I knew.
I had anticipated that we could not simply overlook what had happened and that he would demand reasons he could accept.
What I had not anticipated was facing him again without any time to prepare.
As expected, people eventually reaped what they sowed.
If I had known we would meet again this quickly, I would never have cowardly mentioned his older brother in front of him......
No. I probably would have done it even if I had known. Now it was time to harvest what I had sown.
I could still make excuses if I wanted, but.......
“Forget it. I really can’t run away anymore.”
“What does that mean?”
Ratel reacted sharply to my muttering.
There was no need for him to be so wary. This time, I truly intended to answer honestly.
“......First, killing the leader was simply a gamble.”
“A gamble?”
“Yes. Once we leave this place, you’ll naturally understand what kind of gamble it was, so let’s set that aside for now.”
I pointed in the direction where the horde of orcs had disappeared.
“For now, I think following them should be our priority.”
“Does that mean you know how to leave this place?”
Something like that.
When I nodded, Ratel moved his lips several times, sighed, and repeatedly opened and closed his mouth as though he had something else to say.
Even though he clearly had many things he wanted to demand from me before worrying about escaping.
Instead of threatening to tear out my tongue unless I explained why I had spoken as though I knew his older brother, Ratel walked past me with an expression of extreme displeasure.
Surprised by his more cooperative response than expected, I followed him.
* * *
As we followed the horde of orcs, the terrain gradually became familiar.
“This is where we were first swept away.”
When I muttered while looking around, Ratel briefly stopped walking.
“Are you taking the shortcut again?”
The bastard, who had kept his mouth tightly shut until then, finally spoke after a long silence.
“Yes, but this time I’ll walk on my own feet.”
Ratel clicked his tongue at my emphatic declaration that I would not travel while being carried in his insane hands again.
“What? Did you think I would let you carry me after nearly biting off my tongue and dying last time?”
“That wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t tried to deceive me and escape in the first place.”
I had indeed been trying to escape to some extent.
I had also deceived him.
And he had caught me trying to deceive him again.
Therefore, I remained silent.
Stopping the conversation did not mean we could stop walking.
We continued advancing in silence.
The silence persisted until we reached the cliff Ratel had previously climbed while carrying me like luggage in one hand.
Before another pointless argument could begin, I quickly started climbing the wall.
Ratel glanced at me once, then ascended past me at a terrifying speed and reached the top of the cliff.
He deliberately dropped into a seated position with a loud thud and looked down at me.
Fine. If watching me struggle makes you feel better, do whatever you want.
Fortunately, climbing here was no more difficult than climbing in the real world.
The rocks embedded in the wall were not significantly different from those in the real world, making them easy to use as footholds.
Come to think of it, there really weren’t many major differences.
Even the pillars that had served as landmarks at the fork earlier were nearly identical to those in the real world.
As I compared this place with reality, an odd sense of déjà vu passed through my mind.
Before I could identify its source, Ratel’s voice descended from above.
“How long have you known?”
“......Known what?”
My question came a moment late because I was reaching for another handhold. Ratel remained silent for a while before answering in a mutter.
“That I was seeing my brother in you.”
His admission that he had been overlapping me with his lost family member nearly caused me to lose my footing.
That was almost too honest.
“......Since you jumped off the ship after me. Logically speaking, it made no sense for you to go that far merely to save me.”
“It must have been difficult pretending not to notice for so long.”
Ignoring his resentful remark, I continued climbing.
“You must have found it amusing when I told you to ask me to save you.”
I could not ignore that self-mocking remark, so I looked up.
I remembered the moment he was referring to.
I had thought it was merely a contest of pride. Once I realized that those were words he had wanted to hear from his brother, I regretted it too.
Just how morally bankrupt did he think I was if he believed I would mock him for something like that?
“There are plenty of amusing things in the world. Why would something like that be funny?”
“Then why didn’t you say anything?”
The darkness obscured his face.
His voice sounded calm, at least.
Well, since I had decided to be honest, I would say precisely what I thought this time, regardless of whether he became angry.
“Because nothing good would have come from telling you.”
“Why wouldn’t anything good come from it? If you’d told me sooner, I would have.......”
His voice rose with emotion before trailing off.
“You would have done what? Tried to find my flaws so you could separate me from your brother? Or tried to distort your memories of him?”
He most likely would have chosen the former.
“I was going to leave soon, and I assumed that once I did, you would naturally stop seeing your brother in me.”
Of course, the greater reason was that I disliked the idea of making things uncomfortable by saying something unnecessary before then.
However, I was not tactless enough to be quite that honest.
“Anyway, my point is that I never found you ridiculous. I was merely uncomfortable.”
“.......”
“And I’ve been holding back because I didn’t want to hurt you, but most of what you say isn’t even amusing enough to mock.”
His jokes in particular were entirely incompatible with my tastes.
Although there might have been some sincerity mixed into those remarks that I desperately hoped had been jokes.
“It seems you’ve accumulated quite a few complaints.”
After a brief silence, his sarcastic voice came from above again.
“I won’t make you uncomfortable anymore. What you’re worried about won’t happen either.”
“It’s fine now. Just do whatever you want.”
“What exactly are you telling me to do?”
“I’m saying you can look at me and think of your brother if you want. We’ll have to continue traveling together whether we like it or not, so how can I worry about every little thing? Ah, I don’t mean you should truly do whatever you want. I mean you shouldn’t force yourself to do anything until you’ve come to terms with it. As we continue traveling, you’ll naturally realize that I’m a different person from your brother.”
I only needed two more steps to reach the top.
Reaching upward, I continued.
“Besides, other than our hair color and age, there probably isn’t anything similar about us.”
At that moment, a rough hand seized my wrist.
Before I could regain my senses from the sudden change in my height and field of vision, his voice came from directly before me.
Ratel had lifted me with one hand and now stood face-to-face with me.
My brief admiration for his absurd strength vanished when I glanced downward and saw the dizzying drop below.
I thought he had waited here merely to irritate me. Had he actually watched me climb so slowly because he intended to do this?
Realizing that I had trusted Ratel far more than I thought, I opened my mouth.
“Dropping me from here won’t kill me. This isn’t even the real world.”
“I can repeat it as many times as necessary.”
Right. Even if it couldn’t kill me, the threat was effective if he could torment me.
It wasn’t as though I would enjoy enduring such torture for an extended period.
“I think I know what you want to hear. You want to know why I keep speaking as though I know your brother so well, don’t you?”
When I saved him the trouble of asking directly, Ratel silently stared at me in confirmation.
Whether I liked it or not, I would have to remain with Ratel’s group from now on.
If so, how long could piecemeal lies preserve the relationship between us?
How far would that damned bastard, who never listened to anyone, follow the words of someone he did not trust?
“I know what you’ve been through.”
In the end, I decided to reveal one tiny piece of the truth.
The original story had already become so distorted that his predetermined ending no longer meant anything.
And it was far too late for me to withdraw.
“I also know what you were supposed to experience in the future. What trials you would face, which people you would meet, and what conclusion you would reach—I know all of it.”
I took a deep breath before speaking again.
“Because I read your entire life.”
“.......”
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