Chapter 09 "A Nightmare Too Sweet"
A horrifying second chime‚ as if shaking the very pit of the stomach‚
slithered through the corridor‚
piercing up from the feet through the spine.
Before the heavy vibration could even subside‚
the "human-like wavering" vanished from the face of the guardian standing before him.
Elise‚ with her silver hair swaying‚
regained her inorganic iron mask devoid of emotion‚
returning once more to the cold‚ merciless executor of reason.
Elise: “……After the bell rings three more times‚
she will offer her body from the sacrificial altar into the abyss.
That means
she will change from a single girl
into the ‘Bride of God’ who saves the world from catastrophe.”
Elise calmly raised three fingers‚
declaring the time that remained.
The second chime just now
was the signal‚ the chant announcing the start of the ritual.
By his senses‚
about thirty minutes left.
No‚
even that might be an optimistic estimate.
The magical pulses spread throughout the temple
were urging the next chime forward.
Louis: (……Good grief.
For my first mission as an invader‚
they’ve given me quite the rushed time limit‚ haven’t they?
Do you happen to know the despair of a perpetual manuscript copyist
who’s been handed an impossible task‚
O Guardian of the World?)
Louis: (……Three left.)
Louis: (――This is no laughing matter.)
While spitting self-deprecating venom in his mind‚
he tightly gripped the blueprint in his breast with blood-drained fingertips.
Lethal amounts of magic power flowing backward through the ley lines
caused his vision‚ dulled to monochrome by the Fourth Tier curse‚ to flicker violently.
Deep in his ears‚
the unpleasant metallic screech of reason’s gears failing to mesh continued to spin uselessly.
Elise: “I will not yield this place.
The established scripture of the canon
is not so fragile
that it can be soiled by your mud-like obsession.”
When Elise raised her staff once more‚
a geometric pure-white magic circle spread across the stone pavement at her feet
at abnormal speed without a sound.
‘Target Restraint · Sealing’——it was not to eliminate him‚
but a cold‚ time-buying cage meant to nail him in place until the ritual was over.
Louis: “Not elimination‚ but time-buying‚ huh……
Wow‚
you really are kind!”
The slight tremble in her gaze‚
the stagnation in the air born during spell construction.
He instantly analyzed them
and calculated the deployment position of the circle.
——Even though his Analysis Eye had captured it‚
his injured body could not keep up with the reaction.
Even the slightest margin of error allowed her circle to erode his freedom.
It was still within tolerable range.
He slipped through the deadly line as if sliding in.
Louis: “……However‚
I have no intention of yielding either.
I pray that this ‘canon’ you speak of
is not a ‘first draft’ riddled with contradictions that would cease functioning after changing just one character.”
The moment he landed‚
the next magic circle began forming at his feet.
A merciless barrage.
His entire body screamed‚
and his flickering vision nearly turned pure white.
Countless torrents of numerical formulas flowed past.
Deep within them‚
a single unnaturally enlarged computation sequence caught his eye.
——Found it.
The activation format of the magic circle.
And the ‘rift’ in the description needed to intrude into the internal calculations.
If he could just reach that point with his fingertip‚
this principle could be rewritten.
Forcing burning magic power deep into his lungs‚
he forcibly released his Analysis Eye to the Fourth Tier.
The Fourth Tier’s visual bugs forcibly projected the corridor into an old‚ worn bookshelf‚
converting Elise’s magic circles into strings of characters.
At the edge of his vision‚
Elina from his memories‚ with her blue ribbon swaying‚
was looking at him anxiously.
 To protect that illusion‚
he slammed the jet-black magic power overflowing from his fingertips
into the circle’s character strings as if running a pen across them.
What he needed to decipher
was the core of the circle.
Within the causal chain running from 〈START〉 to 〈END〉‚
the unnaturally enlarged description——〈MAINTAIN〉‚
the command to maintain the current restraint state.
Louis: “……Got you.
That is the ‘seam’ in your principle.”
Gritting his teeth‚
he stained that single character with black ink
and rewrote it.
Not to destroy.
Just
to alter one character
and reverse its meaning.
〈MAINTAIN〉 (maintain)
to
〈WAIT〉 (standby).
In an instant‚
the pure-white magic circle Elise had deployed
began flickering madly.
Elise: “……!
What did you do?
The circle…… won’t close? It can’t transition to the next formula‚
and the magic power is flowing backward……!”
Louis: “I only corrected one character.
From this very moment‚ your magic circle
has fallen into an infinite loop that will forever execute the ‘standby command’ to restrain me.
……Until your magic power runs out‚
I won’t let it proceed any further.”
Unconcealable confusion ran across Elise’s face.
At her feet‚ the pure-white circle repeating 〈WAIT - RETRY - WAIT〉 flickered madly‚
and a high-pitched screech like nails scraping glass echoed unpleasantly throughout the corridor.
However‚
he himself was not unharmed.
The intense backlash from forcibly releasing the Fourth Tier Analysis Eye to its limit
burned his brain with a headache like vomiting blood‚
completely pinning his body in place.
The piercing clean scent of sandalwood
was being painted over by the stench of boiling ink.
His vision remained stained in black and white.
Only the light of the altered magic circle scattered fierce sparks‚
scorching their silence.
Elise: “I see……
As long as this spell is fixed‚
you yourself cannot move either.”
Elise: “In that case‚
it is convenient.”
Elise: “Until the ritual is over‚
you cannot leave this place.”
Elise: “……Three bells remain.
Until that time comes‚
we simply continue this loop.”
She did not even smile boldly.
With ice-cold eyes‚
she simply declared his “checkmate.”
No one wins.
No one loses.
Only‚
deep within the temple‚
a stalemate began in which the world’s principle and the invader mutually restrained each other.
Louis: (……So that’s how it is.)
Louis: (Elise
thinks she has won.)
Louis: (No‚
I want to laugh and tell her.)
Louis: (I’m not the one maintaining it.
This infinite loop will keep spinning on its own even if left alone.
The reason I can’t move——is the backlash from forcing the Fourth Tier open.)
Louis: (……But)
Louis: (It doesn’t change the fact
that my body cannot take a single step.)
While he was engaged in a muddy brawl against the world’s principle and the second hand of life here‚
——At that same moment.
Deep within the temple.
A single girl named Elina
was quietly beginning to lose her “humanity”
within time that no one could stop.
The stone walls
inhaled and exhaled inorganic silence.
The ritual preparation room located at the deepest part of the temple.
In that room‚ which completely shut out the clamor of the outside world‚
the clean sandalwood smoke rising from the incense burner
writhed like snakes‚ turning the ceiling white and cloudy.
Elina: (……Louis-kun.)
Elina: (I wonder if he’s
reading a book in the library tower right now.)
Elina: (I wonder if he ate
today’s lunch properly.)
Faintly‚
a high-pitched metallic screech like tearing glass vibrated her eardrums.
A weak vibration transmitted through the wall
made the teacup on the desk tremble slightly.
The error sound of reason’s gears failing to mesh‚
echoing from the far side of the corridor.
The world’s guardian Elise and
the reckless magic student——Louis-kun——who was trying to rewrite this country’s answer.
This silence alone
told her that he had not yet given up.
Priest: “——Lady Elina.
This is the last one.”
The priest who had always accompanied her
smiled gently
and held out a small white porcelain vessel.
The refined drug handed to her
looked just a little darker and cloudier than usual.
Elina: (As I thought‚
I still want to be with Louis-kun……
I wanted to be.)
After taking one breath‚
she poured the offered drug down her throat.
For some time now‚
drinking the drug no longer hurt.
Had her body grown accustomed to it?
Or had the “heart” that felt pain
been scraped away in sequence?
From the core of her body‚
the outline of herself began to melt into the stone wall.
The refined drug circulating through her blood vessels
carefully and cruelly washed away every last drop
of the “girl” heat inside her.
Priest: “Priestess‚
the preparations for your next change of attire are complete.”
Another priest who entered
held up pure-white thin garments
and knelt beside her.
Reflected in their eyes‚ clear like glass marbles‚
was not her as a human.
Only
a beautifully prepared ‘offering’
to be dedicated to God.
Elina: “……Thank you.
But
before that‚ may I have
a little time alone?”
She spread
the false smile created by the refined drug——a merciful‚ holy mother-like smile.
The priests withdrew without a sound‚
and silence descended once more.
She quietly untied
with trembling fingertips
the small paper packet she had hidden on her lap.
The Sasha lemon candy
that Mina had managed to deliver in a brief opening just earlier.
The sweet she wanted to eat last——
the candy of memories with Louis-kun.
The one and only ‘impurity’ in the world
to hold onto the memory of the day she shared it with Louis-kun in the library tower.
She brought that golden fragment
to her mouth as if in prayer.
A light
crunch.
However‚
the intense sourness that should have followed‚
nor the bitterness of the peel that numbs the nose‚
were nowhere to be found.
What slid down her tongue
was merely a cold stone fragment.
Or perhaps
the remains of a flavorless sculpture.
No matter how hard she bit down‚
there was only the inorganic chewing sound
and the empty sensation passing through her throat.
Elina: (……No way.
There’s…… no taste……)
Elina: (No.)
Elina: (Today’s Sasha
just turned out a little bit wrong.)
Elina: (Surely‚
that’s it——)
Driven by impatience‚
she threw another piece into her mouth.
However‚
the result was just as mercilessly the same.
Elise had said that as the refinement progressed‚
her five senses would abandon their “functions to feel happiness” one by one.
Elina: (Louis-kun.
Louis-kun‚
Louis-kun……!)
She screamed his name deep in her heart.
However‚
the pharmacological euphoria soaked her brain‚
converting her screams into a loving hum.
She wanted to cry.
Yet what overflowed from her eyes was not tears‚
but an unnaturally clear glow of magic power.
Elina: “……Delicious.”
Elina: “……”
Elina: “It’s really‚
so delicious.
Sasha‚
Louis-kun.”
Muttering toward the empty air
with a doll-like smile.
The terror of having no taste
was overwritten by the refined drug with a cloyingly sweet mist called “fulfillment.”
If her heart became completely empty like this‚
she could become the perfect offering.
The one and only sacrifice
that would save the world
without anyone getting hurt.
But.
Elina: “……My dreams lately……
have been getting sweeter.”
Staring at the windowless wall‚
with her lips unnaturally upturned‚
she let slip a monologue that no one might hear.
When she closed her eyes‚
what awaited her was a polychromatic nightmare.
The sweet and gruesome prophetic dream
of Louis-kun collapsing and bleeding in her place.
With a brilliance that surpassed reality itself‚
it beckoned her toward the abyss.
That dream
grew more vivid each time she saw it.
Almost as if
it was not the future‚
but an “answer” that God was showing her.
Therefore.
……
She
must not run away.
Her vision
melted away into an unnaturally bright white light.
Water drips.
At regular intervals.
Plop.
Plop.
Only the sound echoing off the stone walls
told her that this place was still alive.
A place filled with the scent of trees
and the sound of bubbling water——clear air.
At the deepest part of the temple‚
the ‘Purification Chamber’ isolated from the outside world.
There‚ a hard stone circular altar
and a spiritual spring gushing from deep underground
waited for her in a silence as if time had stopped.
Shrine Maiden Assistant: “Lady Priestess.
We will now begin
the final ‘purification.’”
From behind‚
the shrine maiden assistants placed their hands on her white shawl.
The layers of shrine maiden garments
were carefully folded away‚
one by one.
Only the sound of fabric sliding over skin
echoed crisply in the silence.
Eventually‚
her skin‚ which had never known spring sunlight‚
was exposed to the freezing air.
Shrine Maiden Assistant: “So your body does not grow cold‚
please take this.”
The transparent honey handed to her.
When she took just a single drop into her mouth‚
the illusion of being wrapped in warm air enveloped her entire body.
The ceiling was open‚
and occasionally
fluffs of grass seeds drifted down.
Each time they fell into the spring‚
small ripples spread across the surface.
 The reflection of herself on the mirror-like water surface
looked less like a girl
and more like a ‘white porcelain doll’ crafted by a master artisan who had poured his life into it.
Elina: (……Wow.
It feels like
I’m about to be put into a luxurious jewelry box.
……If it were Louis-kun‚
he’d probably laugh and say‚ “Just the packaging cost would put us in the red.”)
While making a self-deprecating retort in her mind‚
she knelt on the cold floor of the spring.
The fingertips of the shrine maidens‚
using soft cloths soaked in the spiritual spring‚
began to wipe her body.
From her collarbone to her shoulders‚
then down her spine.
Carefully‚
lovingly‚
prayerfully.
——Yet‚
it was a freezing devotion‚
as if they had forgotten that a living‚ breathing human was there.
Even so‚
every time a faint warmth came from their fingertips‚
the sensation of still being alive was burned into her skin.
Suddenly‚
silver-golden hair tips brushed across her vision and fell.
Each time the shrine maiden ran the comb through‚
the color that had once reflected spring sunlight
transformed‚ lock by lock‚
into an inorganic “white.”
The hair falling through the gaps of the comb
no longer looked like hair‚
but like the remains of worn-out silver craftsmanship.
Shrine Maiden Assistant: “……It’s so beautiful.
For the refinement to progress this smoothly‚
it truly is God’s blessing.”
One of the shrine maiden assistants
gazed at Elina’s white hair
with enraptured yet somehow empty eyes.
They praised the stripping away of her humanity
as “virtue.”
That trampling born of good will
felt colder to her now than anything else.
——Suddenly‚
the refined drug circulating through her body
forcibly plunged her consciousness into the depths of deep sleep.
The nightmare
began.
A flood of color.
The collapsing library tower.
Louis-kun lying collapsed as if shielding her
amid a mountain of rubble.
Everyone else was dead‚
yet she alone
had survived.
His black hair was stained with mud‚
bright red blood gushed from his throat‚
dyeing the old parchment of the library tower crimson.
Louis: “……Thank goodness.
……I made it in time.”
Even on the verge of death‚
he looked at her
and smiled with the kindest face in the world.
In the next instant‚
the light slowly faded from his eyes.
A gruesome‚
irredeemable‚
desperate future.
She wanted to scream and cry.
She wanted to reject this tragedy
and call his name.
——But the drug
forcibly painted over her brain with sweet ecstasy.
Her brain processed the scene of him dying
as “supreme happiness‚”
pouring thick‚ cloyingly sweet pleasure into her chest.
 Forced to feel happiness
while staring at despair.
A cruel disconnect
between emotion and perception.
Elina: (Louis-kun.
Louis-kun…… I’m sorry.
If I
stop being myself——then you won’t have to die‚ right?)
By the time the purification ended‚
she stood before the mirror‚
smiling with unnaturally clear blue eyes moist with tears.
Her skin was cold like white porcelain‚
her hair white‚ having lost the color of moonlight.
All that remained in the back of her throat
was the hollow sensation of the stone-like lemon candy she had eaten earlier.
Priest: “Lady Priestess‚
you have tears.
……Ah‚
your heart is being purified by overwhelming joy.”
The priests all knelt at once.
Without answering their words‚
she simply hugged her own freezing chest
with trembling fingertips‚
searching for the warmth of the boy who was no longer there.
There‚
no one’s warmth
remained anymore.
The Purification Chamber at the deepest part of the temple.
The spiritual spring where the oracle priestess purified herself daily
looked colder than ever today.
As a maid apprentice attending to her‚
I hid my breath in the shadow of a stone pillar‚
trembling with thick‚ viscous terror.
 Cold air leaking through the gaps in the stone walls
and the ceaseless smoke of sandalwood incense.
On the other side of that white haze‚
the girl who should have been my best friend
was having her form as a ‘human’ scraped away second by second.
Mina: “……Ah.”
She forcibly stifled
the short scream with her palm.
Elina’s silver-golden hair was combed by the shrine maiden assistants.
Each stroke
transformed the brilliance that should have reflected spring sunlight
into a lifeless‚ chalk-like white‚
which sank into the spiritual spring in small flakes.
The hair tangled in the comb and falling out
no longer looked like hair‚
but like mineral remnants waiting to be ground down.
Mina: (Louis……)
Mina: (What can you see right now……?)
Mina: (Can you still see
Elina smiling……?)
In the crazed eyes of the boy fighting at the far end of the corridor‚
he was probably still seeing
the same blue ribbon from that day they laughed together in the library tower.
However‚
the reality reflected in Mina’s objective mirror
was hopelessly gruesome.
The one there was not the Elina she knew.
She was nothing more than a ‘gold coin‚’
her cheeks forcibly lifted by the refined drug‚
staring into empty space with dead eyes.
What was most horrifying
was the sight of the priests surrounding her.
Their eyes held not a single cloud‚
only pure good will and a sense of duty.
 They were not hurting her out of malice.
They were sincerely blessing from the bottom of their hearts
that her skin temperature had dropped further than yesterday‚
that her hair had turned whiter than yesterday‚
as proof that the offering to God was nearing completion.
Shrine Maiden Assistant: “Ah……
How
beautiful.
For the impurities to disappear
and be refined into such transparent magic power.”
The shrine maiden assistant touched Elina’s porcelain-like neck
and let out an enraptured sigh.
The air in her lungs felt as if it had turned to ice
from the overly pure‚ overly perfect massacre.
She shuddered with the fear that even her exhaled breath
might be rejected as an impurity in this place‚
causing her throat to tighten.
Good people‚
as part of their job‚
carefully‚
with affection‚
grinding a single girl down day after day.
To a knight of justice like Senior Kyle‚
this quiet massacre was invisible.
The light was too strong‚
so they could not even notice the muddy despair pooling at their feet.
Mina: (This is
definitely wrong……!)
Her knees would not stop shaking.
But
she could not run away.
Suddenly‚
the priests left Elina’s side for a moment
to prepare for the next purification.
An empty drug shell of the refined medicine discarded in the corner of the altar.
And
the strands of white hair that had fallen from the comb
and gathered in a pile.
The living proof of her that the world had discarded as “impurity”
and was trying to dispose of as trash.
Driven by impulse‚
she crawled out from the shadows.
Killing her footsteps‚
she gathered that ‘trash’ with trembling fingertips.
The cold touch of the empty drug shell.
The heatless strands of hair slipping through her fingers.
No matter how much the world tried to turn her into a symbol‚
this was the final‚
and only proof
that a girl named Elina had certainly existed here.
Mina: “……I picked them up‚
Elina.
Your screams‚
your memories‚
all of them.”
She hugged the remnants to her chest.
The impurities that should have been cold
transmitted a burning heat of rage
through her skin.
She had to deliver this.
To that mad invader
who was trying to rewrite the world’s principle.
Louis.
The rest
is up to you.
The freezing air of the temple mercilessly slashed at my throat as I sprinted at full speed‚
tracing my bronchi with icy thorns.
The ‘remnants of impurity’ clutched to my chest
burned my skin with heavy heat.
Mina: (……Please make it in time.
I beg you‚
don’t take Elina away yet!)
She had no time to look back.
There were no footsteps chasing after her
as she fled the inorganic purification chamber filled with good will devoid of malice.
Yet
the illusion of an invisible‚ enormous gear
slowly closing in from behind would not stop.
Beyond the long corridor.
On the other side of the overlapping stone arches‚
the end and beginning of the world were colliding.
Mina: “——‚
How horrible……”
In the abyss of the corridor leading to the altar‚
Elise’s absolute pure-white magic circles
filled the space like cages of formulas.
In opposition‚ Louis
overflowed with thick jet-black magic power from his entire body‚
fighting back as if smearing mud onto that pure-white cage.
Louis was wounded‚
on his knees on the ground‚
while Elise quietly looked down at him.
Perhaps in his broken retinas‚
that scene looked like rewriting bookshelves.
However‚
the reality reflected in my eyes
was far more gruesome
and far more beautiful.
White and black.
Reason and obsession.
The flickering iridescence
repainted the old reliefs carved into the stone walls with eerie colors.
The black ink Louis emitted eroded the edges of the magic circles‚
and the scorched‚ unpleasant stench
forcefully overpowered the temple’s sandalwood.
Mina: “Louis! The thing you were looking for!”
Her shout
was drowned out by the violent clash of magic power.
In her chest were
the living proofs of Elina that the world had discarded as ‘trash’——the fallen white hairs‚
the empty drug shell‚
and
the fragment of the lemon candy that should have had no taste.
Truth from the mud that residents of light like Senior Kyle could never pick up.
If she did not deliver this‚
the time Louis was desperately staking his life to hold onto right here
would end in mere nothingness.
She saw Louis’s profile.
With a blood-drained face‚
staring at an illusion of the past that did not exist——
he was not grand enough to be called a hero.
Covered in mud‚
cursing the world‚
a madman who had gone insane for a single girl——
the worst and greatest invader.
＊＊＊
At that moment.
——GOOOOOOONG.
The third chime reverberated from the depths of the temple.
It was the sound of collapse
as the kingdom’s absolute system authority coldly overwrote
the infinite loop of the standby command that I had forcibly rewritten‚
forcing it to terminate.
Louis: “……!
Ga…… ha……!”
Jet-black magic power spilled from the corner of my mouth
like fresh blood.
The third chime.
Ley line connection.
The signal that synchronization between the altar and Elina’s soul had begun.
The jet-black ink swirling in the corridor
was overwhelmed by the pure white light emitted by Elise
and scattered away.
On the other side of the light‚
Elise‚
flipping her unruffled navy robe‚
quietly closed her eyes
with an expression like a merciful mother‚
or like an inorganic doll.
Elise: “……I shall praise you
for buying time with a single character alteration.
However‚
stopping the regression of reason
is impossible for anyone.”
Elise slowly opened her eyes.
In those transparent pupils‚
even the distortion called Louis
seemed to appear only as part of a calculation.
She calmly moved her cold lips‚
continuing the death countdown.
Elise: “……Two bells
remain.”
The reverberation of the third chime
soaked into the dark corridor along with the aftertaste of despair.
**Chapter 09 "A Nightmare Too Sweet" — End**
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