PMEVBO 50

When I woke up, it was pouring rain.

A pungent, metallic smell wafted up from the rain-soaked earth. The dark sky, obscured by storm clouds, made it impossible to tell whether it was day or night.

“Ugh…”

The fierce rain made it hard to open my eyes, and my thoroughly soaked body felt clammy. I sat up, groggily raising my body sprawled across the garden plot.

Only then did I regain enough presence of mind to check the status window. Floating in mid-air, it illuminated the thick rain with a white glow.

───【 System Notification 】───

System update complete.

Progress: 100% (100/100)

Elapsed time: 4h 42m 29s

────────────────────────

“…Damn, 4 hours and 42 minutes?”

Wait, so I was unconscious for nearly 5 hours? ……What the hell kind of shitty game is this?

It was around 6 AM when I said goodbye to Seriha and left the storage room, so that means it’s about 11 AM now. And Iser and I usually woke up around 7 AM.

I need to get back to Iser quickly……

Boom─!

At first, I thought it was thunder. But it wasn’t.

“Why is that…”

The main building, engulfed in flames, was collapsing with a tremendous roar. The red glow of the unrelenting inferno, even amidst the savage downpour, was staining the darkness.

In that instant, a line flashed through my mind.

Before Hayut, reduced to ashes overnight, Isabelle’s heart burned black, following those she loved.

The opening line of the original work.

The original story began in Hayut Castle, immediately after the Hayut Massacre.

The novel’s words and the real-life scene overlapped ominously.

“Could it be… the Hayut Massacre has happened…?”

No, in the original work, it was the original Lucariel who caused that. I, possessed the body of that bastard, didn’t do anything, so why did it happen…

I held my breath for a moment.

“…Then what about Iser?”

In the original story, Iser lost his life in the Hayut Massacre…

It was then. In the room where I had released the divine power, a terrible presence entered.

And it wasn’t just one. …There were countless.

My heart sank.

***

Iser’s life was filled with time spent waiting for someone.

During his childhood, living alone in this annex, he waited for his father and sister.

After being imprisoned atop the spire in the main building, he believed he was waiting for death.

But it wasn’t until Lucariel came that he realized.

What he had truly been waiting for wasn’t death, but someone to rescue him from that spire.

Waiting was unbearable.

Yet even after escaping that spire and returning to the annex, Iser remained trapped in that same tedious waiting.

‘What? You waited because you missed me?’

‘Yes.’

Somewhere along the way, Iser had begun waiting only for Lucariel to come. It was no different now.

The sound of rain pattering against the window grew louder. Outside, it was daytime, yet as dark as night.

“…You said it would only be a moment.”

Lucariel, who had said he was stepping out briefly for urgent business, hadn’t returned even by morning.

But Iser was equally guilty of making promises he didn’t keep. He had obediently nodded at Lucariel’s words to sleep instead of waiting, yet Iser had ended up waiting for him all night.

‘…Even though he said it wasn’t, maybe I really am a bother.’

After the kidnapping incident, Iser admitted it.

He liked Lucariel. Enough to want to stay with him forever.

Lucariel was affectionate, but equally indifferent. That person, who was equally kind to everyone, had absolutely no interest in how much comfort his affection brought to the other person. His affection was something he could easily share with anyone, and so he often lightly dismissed the affection others felt for him in his own way.

‘A person so kind that he rarely believes the affection others hold for him…’

Iser was saved precisely because Lucariel was that kind of person, but that very fact made him all the more anxious. He didn’t want to share even a single fragment of his smile, a single glance, or a single word with anyone else.

He knew he couldn’t achieve what he wanted through ordinary means. So Iser gambled. He gambled by showing Lucariel his very core.

That’s why he asked him to read the experimental log. If he read it, that kind, responsible person wouldn’t be able to easily abandon him. Even if he wasn’t special to Lucariel, he knew he cared for him deeply.

And that prediction proved correct.

‘What would you do if I said I wanted to die?’

‘……I’d do anything.’

‘…….’

‘So tell me, what would make you want to live?’

Iser, whose taste buds were dulled and couldn’t perceive the flavor of food, didn’t know the meaning of the word ‘sweet’. But the moment those words flowed from Lucariel’s mouth, he felt he understood its meaning for the first time.

‘You’ll really do anything?’

‘Yes.’

Lucariel probably never dreamed it, but that was actually a more despicable question.

‘If I act helpless and desperate to appeal to your pity, will you really stay with me?’

Yet, even after finally extracting the answer he wanted from him, Iser ultimately shook off the temptation.

‘…I don’t want to be together like that.’

He wanted Lucariel’s love, not his pity.

In the end, Iser chose to place the hilt of the sword he held into Lucariel’s grasp.

‘I don’t want to die anymore.’

It was only half-hearted sincerity. If he couldn’t stay by Lucariel’s side, he would want to die again. But he didn’t want to use such a disgusting, base feeling as a weapon to hold onto him.

Iser was reading the holy book he had borrowed from Lucariel. The content on the pages, yellowed by candlelight, was familiar. In truth, he had read the holy book countless times as a child, to the point where he could recite every passage by heart.

Yet, there was only one reason he borrowed the holy book from Lucariel. He was simply jealous of the man named Abel who had borrowed it from Lucariel.

‘I didn’t even want to deliver that letter…’

The envelope tucked inside the holy book was silver, like the light of dawn. The moment he saw it, Iser first thought of Lucariel’s eyes. Abel, who had chosen that envelope, must have felt much the same as he did.

‘He hasn’t read it yet, but… he will soon…’

Sitting cross-legged with his chin propped up, an uncharacteristically sullen expression on his face, Iser turned the pages.

Rereading a book whose contents he already knew was something Iser was very familiar with. The act of reading was what mattered; the book’s content was of little importance.

Reading had always been a means to endure the countless hours of waiting. Following the words with his eyes calmed his restless mind, if only a little.

Iser’s gaze settled on a particular passage.

He who commits sin welcomes the devil, for sin arises from the devil.

Flee from sin as you would flee from a serpent.

If you approach sin, you will be bitten by its fangs.

The fangs of sin are serpent fangs. They will destroy the human soul.

It was the passage in the holy book where the devil first appeared.

It was then.

Click. Click.

Someone was slowly turning the doorknob outside.

‘Has Lucariel returned?’

But he knew instantly it wasn’t him. The locked handle made a clunking sound, turning uselessly.

Moreover.

Knock, knock, knock─

Lucariel had a key and never knocked when entering the room.

‘Who is it? …Could it be the maid named Paf?’

As far as Iser knew, the only person who would come to this room was that maid.

Knock, knock─

“…….”

Iser stared silently toward the door.

‘Last time, Lucariel nailed it solidly, so they probably won’t just break the door down and come in like they did then.’

The knocking stopped.

But drowned out by the rain, no footsteps could be heard. He couldn’t tell if the person outside had left or was still lingering.

Then, something pitch-black began wriggling through the crack beneath the door. One, two, three… A swarm poured in, covering the marble floor.

Iser could make out what they were.

“…Snakes?”

Black snakes with glowing red eyes flickered their tongues and quickly slithered toward Iser. Then, suddenly, they began coiling their bodies around each other.

Hundreds of snakes, large and small, merged into one in an instant. Arms and legs, hands and feet, torso, and head. ‘It’ resembled a human form. Yet within that colossal body, towering far above an adult’s height, instead of blood and flesh, countless snakes seethed.

As it approached within inches of Iser, the candle on the table began to flicker.

Where a face should have been, only a mouth existed. The mouth, formed by dozens of snake heads fused together, opened wide. A mouth that looked like it was smiling. Inside its pitch-black depths, snakes raised their heads like tongues.

In that instant, Iser instinctively realized.

This being had come here to take his life.

Finally, the candle flame went out, and the room was shrouded by darkness. The scent of death wafted through the air.

……Ah, it’s fortunate Lucariel didn’t return.