Chapter 21 (2/2)
I felt a severe chill as if a tongue of ice licked up the back of my neck .
Shuria jumped down, and the other two followed .
And right as they did, the already withered tree crumbled back into the earth as if its time had been accelerated many fold .
“Khshishi”
“Thank you so much for guiding them, Teddy”
It’s duty complete, the teddy bear who seemed to recognize Shuria as master trotted off to her . My supposed half-sister then proceeded to gently stroke the doll’s head .
“The other two, I thought you looked familiar, you’re the same people I met outside town, the ones in battle with that Blackorc, are you not?”
“Oh? So you remember us . Here I thought you wouldn’t bother”
“I thought her intelligence was that of a bagworm, but her memory is a tad bit better it seems”
“… … Fucking trash, it appears conversing is pointless . Return Sori to me, now”
The black haired boy and the beastkin girl were laughing .
They must’ve been the fools who had come to Shuria’s aid . Previously, they had the look of warriors and were taking on a Blackorc just the two of them . The changed Shuria aside, I mustn’t make light of them . I now possessed magic so superior, I couldn’t see a way I could lose .
“Oh, of course . I’ll have her brought here immediately . Kitty, you can come now”
Upon two sharp claps of her hand, what appeared out of the forest on the other side was the cat plushy I’d once bought for Shuria . The knife and fork were no longer in its hands but affixed to its side, and its small hand now pulled on a chain .
“Nishishishishi”
“Urk, ahh!!”
“SORI!!”
My dear Sori crawled on all fours behind the feline doll . Her clothes were torn all over and her limbs bound in thick metal shackles .
She had a leather collar, like those used on untrained animals, on her neck which linked back to the chain held by the cat plush .
“Kitty, you can let her go”
“Nishish”
“Aiee!?”
After letting go of her collar chain, the cat then used its knife to cut away the chains on Sori’s limb-binding shackles .
“Go on to your master now, bait”
“Eh, ah”
As if compelled by Shuria’s command, the hesitating Sori slowly walked to me .
And after a moment, as if she couldn’t bear her emotions, Sori now came running, tears around her eyes .
“Yumis-sama, Yumis-samaaa!!”
“Soriii!!”
I received my worn out, ragged, Sori in my arms as gently as I could .
“Ah, ahh, Sori, you’ve grown so thin――”
No, this wasn’t my Sori!!
“Miss! get away from ‘er!!”
In that instant, I could see Ronbert who’d been beside me draw his sword .
As the word Trap surfaced to my mind, I immediately made to push away this thing that pretended to be Sori, but I was a moment too late .
“Khshishishi!!”
That fake Sori had taken out a small multicolored dagger with the symbol 8 carved on it, and had furthermore stabbed it into me, as it sneered at me, twisting Sori’s beautiful face into a crude grin .
That laugh sounded oddly similar to the one from that teddy bear creature .
“Ukh!!”
Once I’d jumped backwards, away from the fake which showed no more reaction, Ronbert chopped off its arm .
“Roar O spirit of wind, Lightning!!”
“Khshishishijjijii!!”
I finished the doppelganger with my green lightning that resulted in the creature bursting into mist, leaving not even a corpse .
“Ah, so you did see through the guise, only the appearance was the same after all”
Shuria said non-chalantly as she put on another warped smile .
“Kusukusu, okey, are we all ready for the main event? I’m not the only one who’ll be performing tonight”
I subdued the pure rage boiling inside me from the fact that they’d used Sori’s appearance as a means to deceive me, and pulled out the dagger stabbing into me .
That small sword too disappeared into mist .
“What did y――― ―”
What had they done to me, I couldn’t finish asking .
“Ugh, Aa AAHH!! My, head… ”
A tremendous volume of foreign memories were seared into my brain . It felt as if something was directly flowing inside my head . No, it wasn’t my head that was being tampered with, it was my very soul . Things were becoming an unorganized mess inside me, as I felt what seemed to be a part of my soul being overwritten .
☆
Let’s see . Did it work?
I was trying something completely new and untested, and honestly didn’t even know if it was possible . I just happened to have an idea and went with it, and if it didn’t work, that’d be fine too .
If I got this idea a bit earlier, I could’ve used it on Barkus and his goons, missed a fine opportunity there .
“Hey Miss! Fucking bastards, what’d you do to ‘er!!”
The big guy who seemed to be the boss of Yumis’ personal army yelled .
“Meh, just got her to remember some stuff”
I’d had Yumis stabbed with an 【Eight Eyed Bookblade of Transparency] that I pre-filled with as much mana as I could shove inside .
The 【Eight Eyed Bookblade of Transparency]had the ability to read the target’s status and log it .
So what was this ‘status’?
Where’s this sword pulling all this info out from?
It’s definitely not the body, if the status came from the body, it wouldn’t have the target’s name on there . You could make an argument for the brain being the source, but then even newborns had their own status including a name .
That meant that it got this information from the soul .
The thing called a soul definitely did exist in this world . For example, wraiths, a type of undead that were soul only, were real creatures .
Now, if the soul stored all this data, then what the 【Eight Eyed Bookblade of Transparency]was doing was copying that data inside . Then, couldn’t it be possible to copy the data on Yumis I had from my 1st run directly into the current her?
No look, I realized that this interpretation of its power is way too liberal . But if it worked, she’d remember what she did to me in the 1st run . If it didn’t, whatever .
The mission objective wouldn’t change no matter the outcome . It was a matter of feeling . If she remembered, then she’d scream her pain knowing what she did .
And by the looks of it, the trick worked .
“Haah, haah, what, did you, do to me, my, memories…”
“Why don’t you answer that yourself? you should know”
“… … Ukei Kaito, the hero from another world, you’re supposed to’ve been executed, wait, past tense? But aren’t these my”
Her mutters told it all, she recognized me as me .
“… … … Haha”
I suddenly felt joy, so much, extraordinary joy .
“AHAHA, AHAHAHAHA!! Aa, … Aa, ahh, AHH!! I’m so happy, sooo damn HAPPY to see you, you know that, Yumis? Last time it was when I was killed, and now we can finally do that second waltz . Raise the curtains, raise them high, HIGH!! The foolish Hero once again enters the stage!! And the Mage joins in, whether she likes it or NOT!!”
Were the memories all overwritten, or were they saved under a different name?
Who cares, I sure didn’t . It was all the same to me .
She was back . That was all that mattered .
“… I’d like you to refrain from speaking complete gibberish, but as I see it, your objective is counter to my dream, is it not?”
“IT IS!! And I’ll make due on my vow, right now!! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you all!! Starting with YOU, Yumiss!! I’ll send you to the pits of despair, desolation and derangement, I’ll make sure you DIE, painfully!!”