Chapter 193 – Confession (3)
The ruffian who barged in without knocking narrowed his eyes as he looked back and forth between me and the open window.
“What? Weren’t you going with Jing?”
When I hastily changed the subject, Ratel tilted his head crookedly from where he stood in the doorway.
“You’ve just admitted that you were pretending to sleep.”
“I’m a very light sleeper.”
At my excuse, he raised one corner of his mouth as crookedly as his posture.
“What a joke. You didn’t even notice when Lia dropped you once while carrying you here.”
What?
That happened?
I had fallen asleep as though I had lost consciousness after using my power several times on the island, but I couldn’t believe I hadn’t even noticed myself hitting the floor.
Then again, my entire body had already been aching, so tumbling across the floor a few times probably hadn’t made much difference.
“You caught me.”
When I readily admitted it, Ratel straightened his posture with a surprised expression.
He entered the room and approached the bedside table holding the candlestick, apparently intending to illuminate the room.
“I’m trying to be as honest as possible right now. I’m sorry I pretended to be asleep. I wanted to be alone for a while.”
After lighting the candle, Ratel shook his head slightly at my straightforward apology.
“It doesn’t matter. I was lying about Lia dropping you too.”
“……Right. It’s nice that we’re being honest with each other.”
Any more honesty might result in us exchanging harsh words, so this degree of honesty seemed appropriate.
Both for confessing my identity and for allowing him to accept the truth.
“Did Jing follow Lia by himself?”
“There was no need for me to follow them as well. You didn’t want to tell the others yet, did you?”
I did not know whether he had discussed this with Jing, but he was right.
I needed more time to consider how much I should tell Jing and Lia, whose brainwashing had not yet been completely undone.
Perhaps it would be better if they never learned the truth.
While I was feeling relieved, Ratel’s candle ignited.
The candlelight, flickering in the wind blowing through the window, illuminated Ratel’s face.
He slowly opened his mouth.
“Now that no one else is listening, explain it properly. What did you mean when you said you had read my entire life?”
My mouth felt dry, but now that we had come this far, I could no longer continue evading the matter with lies.
The original story had already become so distorted that the ending once assigned to him no longer meant anything, and it was too late for me to withdraw now.
“……I meant exactly what I said. I know what you have experienced.”
Beginning with that tiny piece of truth, the rest of my confession flowed out more smoothly than expected.
Had telling the truth ever felt this much easier than lying?
“I also know what you were supposed to experience in the future. What trials you would face, what people you would meet, and what conclusions you would reach. I know all of it.”
I took a deep breath and continued.
“Because I read your entire life.”
Ratel furrowed his brow as though unable to comprehend my words.
“You keep saying that you read it. What exactly does that mean? Was there some kind of prophecy?”
It was something similar to a prophecy.
“Something like that. I read something containing your entire story—in a world completely different from this one.”
It took a short while to explain a world where imperial families, magical powers, and monsters did not exist.
It took somewhat longer to explain that, for reasons I did not understand, the ordinary person I had been in that world had crossed over into this one.
Ratel waited silently until I finished speaking, then asked his first question.
“Then where is the original Prince?”
“He is most likely inside my body in the world where I used to live. The original owner of this body definitely existed within the book.”
“Who wrote this book in the first place? How did they know everything, and why in the world did they write it?”
I had no choice but to contemplate that question for a moment.
The rest was one thing, but the final question troubled me.
The intentions of a fantasy novelist?
There could hardly have been any purpose beyond entertainment.
“……Certain people in my world did. I never met them personally, so I don’t know how they did it.”
I knew that answer strayed considerably from my determination to tell him the truth.
But I believed that revealing this particular truth would do no good.
This entire world in which he lived was contained within a novel.
Telling someone from inside the book that everything he had ever experienced was merely an illusion created by an author would have been far too cruel.
It would be better to answer vaguely and let him think of me as some kind of alien from a higher-dimensional world.
“……Are the lives of everyone in this world recorded like that in your world?”
“Perhaps. But yours is the only one I’ve read.”
For all I knew, the author might have written other side stories privately or submitted them to the editorial department only for them never to be published.
In other words, stories might exist with any number of the book’s characters as their protagonists.
After falling silent briefly at my answer that his was the only story I knew, Ratel spoke again.
“You seem to have suffered a great deal for someone who knows the future.”
“That was unavoidable. For various reasons, the future has changed considerably from how it was originally supposed to unfold.”
I was the cause of most of those changes, but this was not a good time to mention that.
“It seems this book of yours is not entirely absolute.”
Ratel sounded somewhat relieved.
I readily nodded.
“That’s right. Therefore, there is no predetermined fate awaiting you anymore.”
Ratel regarded me with a complicated expression.
He was accepting my explanation more quietly and obediently than I had expected.
I had thought he might put a blade to my throat again, as he had before.
“Why are you suddenly telling me everything?”
Perhaps he still harbored some suspicions, because he finally asked the question.
“I told you that parts of the future have deviated from what I know, didn’t I? Dito gaining power far too quickly is one of them. The situation is too urgent for me to let your stubbornness and suspicions waste our time. It would be troublesome if Dito became stronger first and killed you.”
“I was prepared for that much.”
“The others aren’t. You’re no longer the only one who will die.”
He closed his mouth at my firm reply.
The thought of other people dying probably troubled him more than the prospect of his own death.
That was the kind of person Ratel was.
A person who understood the value of other people’s lives slightly better than that of his own.
“I’m not saying this merely to wound your pride. I’m telling you the reality of the situation. Dito will obtain even greater power by sacrificing the other members of the Imperial Family. Whether you can keep pace with his growth will determine victory or defeat.”
The words were fairly humiliating, but Ratel did not become angry.
“You need to grow rapidly—faster and more precisely than you originally did. To accomplish that, you’ll need my knowledge of the future and my power.”
“That’s tremendous confidence.”
“I came from another world and even know the future. With that much, making one person like you stronger shouldn’t be particularly difficult.”
When I displayed what I considered reasonably justified confidence, Ratel twisted his lips slightly.
“Did you just scoff at me?”
“Of course not. You’re an existence even harder to believe than this world’s god.”
So that was how it appeared.
Then again, the reason this world’s god did not feel like a god to me was ultimately that I had been dragged here from an outside world.
I was a foreign existence that did not belong in this world.
From my perspective, this world’s god was similar to a demon from a foreign horror film released in a Korean theater.
One could call it the sense of alienation created by the differences between the environments in which we had lived.
From the perspective of this world’s people, the same would apply to me.
Did that mean I played the role of a demon to him?
“Wow, that’s incredibly disturbing.”
I frowned at the cringeworthy comparison that suddenly crossed my mind, causing Ratel to look at me in puzzlement.
“No, it’s nothing. In any case, I’m telling you everything solely to help you and to help myself. This experience has also made me painfully realize how difficult it is to trust a liar.”
After being deceived several times by that imperial brat pretending to be a child, even I had learned something.
“This opportunity won’t come every time, so ask if there’s anything else you want to know. I’ll answer as honestly as possible.”
Ratel remained silent for a while, seemingly arranging his thoughts.
After enough time had passed for five more drops of wax to fall, he opened his mouth.
“If everything you said is true, the person I am now does not seem any better than the version of me whose life you read. So why are you still willing to help me?”
I stared briefly at Ratel, who was unusually talkative today.
“I told you. I’ve been watching you for a very long time.”
I had spent nearly as much time reading books featuring him as the protagonist as he had spent living his life.
From the time I was an elementary school student wandering between public libraries because I had no money, until I became an office worker approaching thirty.
“If you watched yourself save the world more than a hundred times, you probably wouldn’t be able to stop yourself from helping either.”
I was too embarrassed to say it directly, but it meant that this inadequate bastard had been my hero for that long.
Feeling slightly embarrassed after saying it aloud, I quickly walked toward the door.
“Is that all you wanted to ask? Then shall we head out and follow Jing and Lia?”
Just as I grasped the doorknob to leave, he spoke.
“So you’re……neither the true owner of that body nor a member of the Imperial Family.”
His uncharacteristically quiet voice stopped me.
When I turned toward Ratel, he stood there with a complicated expression.
Since he was not even looking at me, it did not seem as though he had asked a question.
It sounded more like something he was repeating to himself.
“Why? Are you disappointed that I’m just an ordinary person with no connection to the Imperial Family?”
His gaze, which had been fixed on the floor, rose toward me.
I had spoken as though joking, but the question also contained some sincerity.
It would now be difficult for him to resent me freely for being a member of the Imperial Family.
“What will you do if I say that I am?”
That was practically an admission that he was disappointed, so I shrugged.
“What could I possibly do? You’ll simply have to accept it.”
“Why did you even ask if you were only going to give me an answer like that?”
Apparently irritated by my insipid response, he challenged me.
“Whether you regret it or not, that won’t make me the real Seventh Prince. I’m telling you to make a smarter choice instead of wasting your time using me as an object for your resentment.”
“And what is this smarter choice?”
“Put aside the rejection caused by your personal feelings and extract whatever benefits you can from me. Neither of us can do anything about how tangled this situation has become.”
Ultimately, I was telling him to shut up and obey me, but since he responded with neither mockery nor abuse, he did not seem particularly dissatisfied with my opinion.
“Right. Nothing can be done about it.”
Muttering to himself, he pinched the wick of the almost completely burned candle between his fingers and extinguished the flame.
Just before it went out, the candlelight illuminated Ratel’s face in one final struggle, revealing a faint smile.
Or had I seen it incorrectly?
There was no way to confirm it.
I had no intention of doing so anyway, and a sound from downstairs announced the end of our conversation.
Bang!
The noise was so tremendous that I could not tell whether a door had been thrown open or ripped from its hinges.
“Ratel, pack the luggage and come downstairs! Lord Ran, are you able to walk?”
“Ran, tell me if you can’t walk! I can carry you properly this time!”
Jing and Lia rushed inside, instantly throwing the previously quiet house into chaos.
When Ratel and I descended the stairs, Jing hurried over and examined us.
“Are both of you unharmed? No one came here while we were gone, did they? You didn’t open the door for anyone, did you?”
He bombarded us with questions as though Ratel and I were four-year-old children.
“Jing, do you understand what you’re saying right now?”
“Even if someone had broken in, we would need to worry more about the intruder.”
After Ratel and I answered in turn, Jing finally seemed to calm down and cleared his throat.
“Ahem. I became somewhat agitated. At my age, I witnessed something rather stressful for the heart……”
What had happened to disturb him so much?
Whatever it was, it must have been serious if it had made Jing react like this.
Edan, who was absent, was probably involved as well.
“Did Edan try to inform the temple of our presence?”
At my question, Jing and Lia looked at each other as though deciding who should answer.
“No, he didn’t.”
Lia pushed back her robe’s hood and spoke.
Contrary to my expectation that she would look somewhat dejected, Lia’s uncovered face was bright.
She also had a bruise around one eye.
“Were you hit?”
“How many people did you hit?”
When Ratel and I asked simultaneously, Lia urgently waved her hands.
“I wasn’t hit, and I didn’t hit anyone. I merely collided with something on the way out.”
“It would be better to explain the details while packing.”
Jing made the suggestion to the rambling Lia.
“Oh, right! That’s why we ran back here!”
As though only now remembering, Lia hurried toward the stairs.
“We need to escape quickly! The temple’s people will soon search the entire village. If we don’t escape now, we don’t know when we’ll get another opportunity.”
If Edan had not informed on us, why were the temple’s people coming here?
When I silently asked while climbing the stairs with her, Lia looked as though she had just realized the omission and hastily continued her explanation.
“The temple is in complete chaos right now.”
That did not particularly help me understand the situation.
* * *
As Jing had predicted, Edan stood alone inside the room.
His eyes widened at the sudden intrusion, and he held a thick ledger in one hand.
Several older-looking ledgers lay scattered around his feet, making it easy to deduce why the room had been silent.
It was equally easy to understand what they meant.
Lia approached Edan and picked up one of the ledgers lying open on the floor.
The entries, written in hastily scrawled handwriting, recorded the villagers’ dates of birth and death.
They were records intended to confirm whether the villagers had submitted their offerings on time.
“Was this what you wanted to confirm?”
Edan flinched at Lia’s cold voice.
Instead of waiting for an answer, Lia examined the section Edan had been tracing with his finger.
It contained her name.
Several thick lines of ink had been drawn over it, even though she had not been marked as deceased.
The sheer carelessness of it was almost enough to make her laugh.
“They might as well have marked me as dead. What is this supposed to be?”
Edan looked at Lia when she laughed bitterly.
“……Everyone else is recorded the same way. It doesn’t matter whether they left recently or a long time ago.”
“Because none of them will ever return. The temple can’t collect any more offerings from them.”
Edan bit down on his lip at Lia’s cold response.
“Since they aren’t marked as deceased, it might merely mean that they left the village……”
“Do you truly believe that? It also means that not one of these people ever returned to the village.”
Interrupting Edan, Lia rapidly flipped through the ledger.
“When you think about it, it is strange. Not a single person ever returned to their hometown, and the temple’s people immediately erased their names as though it were perfectly natural.”
Lia closed the dusty book and pressed it into his arms.
“Believe whatever you want. The Lucha tournament will disappear soon anyway. There might be one or two more at most. No matter how many are held, the winners will certainly die.”
The temple would continue holding the Lucha tournament until it became certain that the holy relic no longer devoured people.
Until then, it would continue summoning the winners like emergency provisions and killing them once they were no longer useful.
Edan’s face turned deathly pale as he listened to Lia.
“……How can we stop it?”
“What can you do besides fake your death and escape? That’s what I did. There’s nothing we can do against the temple.”
A light appeared in Edan’s eyes at her cold advice.
His grip on the records tightened until his hand turned white, and he looked at Jing and Lia.
“But we can’t simply let this go.”
Lia thought she saw a tiny ember ignite in his seemingly composed eyes.
* * *
“It turned out that Edan had learned quite a few things while working under the priests. For example, he knew where they stored the offerings collected to hold the Lucha tournament. He scattered all of them during the prayer meeting, so the temple is in complete chaos right now.”
“His timing was appropriate. It happened right in the middle of the priest’s sermon.”
“Haha, that’s right. The priest had just shouted, ‘He bestows mercy upon the people of Abiran!’ when money suddenly began raining from the sky. How could anyone not lose their mind?!”
Apparently amused merely by remembering it, Lia burst into laughter.
“Are you saying the villagers picked it all up? The priests must have tried to stop them.”
At my question, Lia paused momentarily with a startled expression before resuming her packing.
“They did. But Jing and I pushed through the crowd and escaped first. The villagers rushed outside after us in complete confusion. Of course, some of them probably stayed behind to help the priests. Edan shamelessly slipped into the crowd, so he remained there too.”
Lia’s smile faded as her feelings became complicated again at the thought of Edan.
“He still didn’t seem to believe that the people’s deaths were the will of Great Emperor Sierra. He didn’t seem to believe in the holy relic’s existence yet either. He said the temple must have done it independently. Anyway, he said he would remain here and do what he could. If the Lucha tournament is held again, he plans to become the winner and help the others escape.”
“His ability to justify his own actions is truly extraordinary.”
Ratel spoke mockingly as he came downstairs carrying all the luggage.
“Even so, thanks to him, I can leave feeling relieved. Now let’s hurry. The temple’s people will soon search the entire village to recover everything the villagers took.”
Lia threw open the door to Edan’s house and gestured for us to leave quickly.
After Jing, Ratel, and I stepped outside, Lia took one final look at the inn that had served as a home for her and Edan, then closed the door.
Her steps noticeably lighter, she walked away with us as we left the village behind and hurried onward.
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