Chapter 158
When the second round ended, the third immediately began. Once again, Segleninde was impaled by spikes in the banquet hall, becoming one with the forest of corpses, and was hacked to death by his running self in the hallway.
“Stop, stop it. Stop!”
Sia finally shouted, clutching the laptop screen.
“Why are you showing me this? Why? Is it to lessen your own guilt? Don’t make me laugh!”
Did he really think she could forgive him just because of this? That’s impossible. So please.
“I said stop…”
Unable to watch the endless deaths on the screen any longer, Sia dropped her gaze. Her trembling hand fell from the laptop.
Ding—
A new notification sound rang out. Sia immediately lifted her head.
Below the screen showing Segleninde’s endless deaths, a tiny square window appeared. It seemed to be trying to push itself outward from the inside, slowly expanding in size.
Inside, Melissa could be seen struggling to push the square window sideways. Clara was also straining to lift the top edge of the window, with the Ghost Rats stacking up to help her. The Butcher Cook brothers, along with the rest of the creatures, were all squeezing into that small space, each trying to make room for themselves.
When the tiny window finally grew large enough for Sia to make out their forms, she was horrified.
Melissa and all the other creatures looked terrible. Some had faces that were decaying, others were missing arms and legs, and in some cases, the flesh had rotted away to reveal bone. Melissa’s head petals had all rotted and hung in tatters. The Butcher Cook brothers also had blackened, decayed flesh around the holes in their faces.
All of them had squeezed out the last of their strength just to come here.
When Clara, the tallest, used her remaining two and a half arms to push the top of the square window higher, text appeared above them.
[Right now, Master has locked himself in his own world of consciousness, casting a suggestion on himself to endlessly repeat deaths as real as any reality.] […He will go on like this forever.]
Sia’s heart dropped.
The truth she had tried to ignore came crashing in.
He truly intended to atone by dying forever.
Then, following Melissa’s lead, every creature in the cramped window lowered themselves. They all pressed their foreheads to the ground and bowed to Sia.
[We regret it so much. We never meant for it to turn out this way.] [We won’t dare ask you to save Master, or even to forgive us. From now on, we intend to repeat death together with him, so we came to say our last goodbyes.]
Sia’s heart grew cold. Melissa lifted her tattered flower head and forced her half-rotted lips to move.
“…Open the door.”
“The door. The door to that world. Even if it’s not a real door, there must be some passage to get there, right?”
Sia inhaled and exhaled as if to steady herself before she spoke. The creatures, startled by her resolute voice, slowly raised their heads to look at her. Even those who no longer had eyes hurried to listen closely.
Even if these creatures were just scheming to drag her back to that strange world, it didn’t matter anymore. Sia had made up her mind.
“I didn’t make this decision easily. I agonized over it for a long time, but if I don’t do it now, I feel like it’ll be too late to turn back.”
She still couldn’t forgive them. But she didn’t want to let them fall into endless death and pain, either. If that was the case, hadn’t her mind already been made up?
Sia admitted it. It was true she couldn’t forgive them, but it was also true that she had grown attached to them, and that she had come to love Segleninde. Therefore, she no longer wished for him, or for them, to suffer.
“If you understand, then hurry up and let me in. Before I change my mind.”
Discussion
0 CommentsReactions
No comments yet.