It wasn’t her first time witnessing death.

She was a knight assigned to the Eastern Front. This short sentence hinted that she had experienced countless deaths. It was the place where the fiercest battles in the Empire took place.

Soldiers dying impaled by the tentacles of malignant demons, knights isolated and perishing after failing to escape a closing dimensional gate, comrades who had to behead themselves due to contamination…

If you ask whether all those deaths were sad, I would say yes, but if you ask whether they were shocking, I would say no. They seemed distant and blurry, like looking at a black-and-white painting. It was to be expected.

What feelings could one who does not understand the value of life have while gazing at the period that marks its end?

After the funeral, I could only feel bitterness in the gaps of the orderly lines. With a vague sentiment that someday I too would end up like that.

But now.

“Ah…”

Looking at the woman with red hair sprawled dead on the floor.

The intense red made my optic nerves tingle. The color of her hair, adorned with the blood that had flowed out, was striking, like a sharp object piercing my eyes. It was always a beautiful color.

Yet there was no vitality.

The bright atmosphere she always carried was no longer felt. The colors were shining so vividly, yet the ambiance was chillingly silent. Not even a tremor.

“…Karen?”

There was no response.

I know. I understand. She was in a state where she could not answer. My heart was turning away from that fact, but I could not deny the evidence accepted through my eyes.

A person cannot withstand this amount of blood loss. Blood had pooled, and her skin was pale, devoid of color.

There were holes in fatal spots. Multiple ones. It was a meticulous effort to ensure she would not survive.

Also, her limbs were bent in strange directions. Was it to prevent her escape, or purely to inflict pain?

Imagining the agony that would accompany such a process, and thinking that pain had befallen her, I suddenly heard a soft sound.

I felt a lukewarm liquid flowing from my lips down my chin.

Her lips, torn by her own teeth, bled as much as the wounds she had received, adding a few drops of red to the horror before my eyes.

Was I angry?

No. It was not anger. Cissel was grieving.

Now Cissel had learned how to paint life in various colors. Rather than remaining without thought, to think for oneself and walk one’s own path… was a hundred times more enjoyable. She had learned this from Karen.

I thought that I could be happier than any knight of Yurenshto, perhaps in some tavern during a debauch. And beside me, even if not always, I thought Karen would often be there.

I imagined that when Karen moved toward her dreams and created a grand stage, I could help her with my singing skills, honed through diligent practice.

Not in some distant future.

Tomorrow, I had planned to invite her to a restaurant to enjoy delicious food with the commemorative currency awarded to those who advanced to the top ranks of the tournament…

All those futures had been punctuated. Here. Unmercifully.

Should we have gone back together? Or… should I have clung to her, throwing a tantrum, asking her to stay until my performance was over?

Regret is too late.

Cissel swayed. It felt as if my head would burst. I could not grasp what I should do, what emotions I should harbor, or where to steer my wheel, spinning in confusion.

And then.

Karen gave life to Cissel, so shouldn’t Cissel also give life for Karen? This thought crossed her mind.

Crack. A twisting noise echoed from her soul.

By the time she resolved to tear the culprit apart by any means necessary—

“Step aside, the scene will be managed by the ‘Reformists.’”

“Come on, please move aside. It’s not helping at all to block the way!”

A group appeared, beginning to control the citizens and organize the crime scene. Cissel watched them for quite a while. Quite a while.

Then they spoke to someone through a communication crystal, lifted Karen’s corpse onto a stretcher, and covered it with a white cloth, preparing to move it somewhere.

“Wait…!”

Cissel instinctively tried to stop them.

“Cissel Urensto?”

A man with black hair and red eyes, reminiscent of a crow, approached from behind. His voice had a strange allure that drew people’s attention.

Moreover, his pupils and tongue were as red as blood, making him stand out. Ominous yet mysterious. Like fate.

He resembled the magician she saw from the carriage, but… he felt different. Cissel sensed he was an entirely different person.

He spoke calmly with a faint smile.

“I am a certain magician serving as an external advisor for the ‘Reformists.’ I have a special relationship with your bloodline, the Lord of the Purple Tower, and I would love to share some camaraderie, but… it seems you don’t have the luxury for that right now.”

“…….”

“Let me get to the point. There’s a possibility that Karen Yurata might still be alive—what do you think? Would you invest your ten minutes in this dreamlike story?”

A lie.

Cissel had clearly seen her death.

The corpse was identical to Karen. The body shape, the appearance.

Yet, despite that, wanting to believe in the ‘perhaps,’ Cissel followed the crow-like magician.

——–

Just now, I heard that Karen had socially died.

In the emergency of a main actor dying mid-scenario, I buried my face in the pillow and screamed, rolling around on the bed. This is really fucked up.

Pingbalez patted my lower back as a gesture of comfort. If it were the previous Pingbalez, she would have patted my butt, and if it were her right after the ‘Queen Hunt,’ she would have patted my back, so this was right in the middle.

“……Mima, didn’t Karen mostly keep herself hidden? She said it would be a big deal if she died, so she shouldn’t die in the first place.”

“That’s the most dangerous part!”

An NPC who shouldn’t have died had died.

I minimized the time Karen spent wandering outside, and for the rest of the time, just as Pingbalez said, I completely canceled her summoning. While I let other NPCs roam around full-time, I hid Karen.

Whenever I had to show Karen to the outside, I always had to have Akushin-chan or Pingbalez by her side.

—

Cicely had come to trust Karen enough that she deemed it acceptable for the realism to be somewhat lacking (after all, wouldn’t it be odd to ask, “What were you doing during the four hours from 11 AM to 4 PM when there’s no record of your whereabouts?”).

If she got too caught up in those details, it could lead to a major disaster. If Karen were to suddenly become a casualty while the story was unfolding, the genre would take a nosedive!

But socially, she was dead. The murderer hadn’t even touched the original hologram; they simply found someone who looked just like Karen and killed them, leaving the body right along Cicely’s route home.

Go ahead, try to bring Karen back. The fact that she’s dead has been widely known—can you really bring her back? That’s what they were saying.

This fact meant that the murderer had come closer to my objective.

Surely, they hadn’t grasped the true intent of “emotionally manipulating Cicely Urenstol to change the narrative while simultaneously making her a candidate for a hero, healing her soul, keeping the cardinal faction in check, and gathering intel on Yuna’s sulking.”

But I was trying to provoke something in Cicely through Karen. I thought she might have caught on to that much.

I also heard the news that Cicely was quietly sobbing in front of Karen’s (not) corpse. Poor thing…

I feigned sympathy.

The evil deity chuckled mischievously. Depending on the person, they might find her expression enchanting or feel a strange, malevolent charisma, but to me at that moment, she looked like nothing more than a nuisance.

“Honestly, you were aiming for this, right? You knew the murderer would target Karen eventually.”

“No…!”

From noble mtl dot come

“You wanted to ruin the tender-hearted knight’s feelings. Isn’t it romantic to bring a cold winter to a budding flower? Isn’t it?”

“That’s… no, you b*stard, fix this!”

Honestly, I could almost empathize with that romantic notion, and for a moment, I nearly agreed. Seeing my reaction, the evil deity smirked slyly and threw in another jab.

“Honestly, you were into it. Just leave it be?”

“The kid doesn’t hold back on anything, seriously, shut up!”

“Ah!”

I smacked the round back of the evil deity’s head. She was completely unfazed.

Rubbing her head, the evil deity said, “Isn’t it contradictory? You tell Cicely to find what she loves, yet now you’re trying to hide your own sinister desires. Why is that, hmm?”

“…”

“Moreover—there are people who find meaning in life through suffering. If you just keep the identity of Karen’s murderer slightly hidden and stoke the flames of hatred, Cicely won’t waste her life anymore. She’ll want to live a long time for revenge!”

“…That’s different, you idiot.”

I spoke to the evil deity, who was excitedly rambling on. Fortunately, since she had her own story to tell, I had something to say in return.

“Remember that boy whose life you saved?”

“…Why bring that up?”

“If he ends up walking a painful path like that, only to become an adult who sees nothing but black hatred as the meaning of life… would you be able to accept that story?”

“…”

The evil deity fell silent.

—

Yes, merely living is too precious to waste.

If we are to live this life, shouldn’t it be a vibrant summer?

I hope the end of despair is a happy ending.

Death must be reversed. I need to convince Cissel, who witnessed Karen’s corpse, that Karen is, in fact, not dead.

Let’s think.

In this situation, how should I weave the story together?

There had been a few incidents of illusionary murders even before Karen.

As much as the murderer observed me, I too observed the murderer. I couldn’t catch that b*stard, but I figured out roughly what abilities he possessed.

I examined the victim’s corpse.

Though it appeared intact on the outside, the inside was a complete mess. Muscles twisted and tangled, bones broken and compressed into strange shapes. It looked as if it had been forcibly kneaded like dough.

The conclusion drawn from this.

I determined that the murderer’s ability (or some other special power) was body manipulation. He could reshape a person like a clay doll at will.

That’s how he could socially kill the NPCs.

Then…

——–

The magician invited Cissel to the dissection room and, with Karen’s corpse before him, declared firmly.

“This is a kidnapping act.”

“…Don’t be ridiculous. If you think to mock me with such childish wordplay—!!”

“No, I understand. Hearing such words with a corpse in front of you… would seem bizarre. But tell me, could this really be the corpse of Karen Yurata?”

“…”

No, I saw it clearly. The body shape, the length of the hair, it was a perfect match. But what if I was mistaken—

Cissel struggled to cut off such optimism.

“That’s impossible. There can’t be anyone in the world who looks so much like her.”

“That’s correct. However, the serial killer possesses the ability to piece together other people’s bodies at will. Using that ability, he disguised someone as Karen and killed them.”

“…Such nonsense, no, can you prove it?”

“Of course. It may be somewhat gruesome to witness. But let me perform a little magic. I will revert the corpse to before the spell was cast.”

The magician took out a small, sharp knife. Then, he sliced into Karen’s leg, which lay on the dissection table. Cissel nearly lunged at that horrific desecration—but held back with desperate patience.

If the magician’s words were nonsense or lies, he vowed to make him pay dearly. Cissel glared at him with bloodshot eyes.

The magician ‘disassembled’ and ‘reassembled’ the body.

Once the compressed and twisted bones and muscles were returned to their proper positions, there were not Karen’s legs, but those of another person. The shape of the muscles and joints, their lengths, were completely different.

—

It was true.

Even though something unspeakable was happening right before my eyes, the wizard’s words were nonetheless a fact. That corpse was not Karen. Sissel felt all the strength drain from her body, slumping into the chair.

A glimmer of hope emerged. A faint hope.

Then, why?

The wizard washed the blood from his hands and spoke softly.

“Why did the perpetrator go through such a cumbersome process…? If they wanted to kill, they could have simply done so. Instead, they disguised the corpse and made the victim disappear…”

“………”

“It’s a predictable repertoire, but I believe it to be the work of a dark sorcerer. The serial killer’s targets were concentrated on the tournament participants. They likely needed a high-quality offering, done discreetly if possible.”

Now that a dead body had been found, no one would think that a dead person had been kidnapped and was still alive somewhere. Therefore, the idea of human sacrifice could not even be entertained.

“We are tracking the murderer while also investigating the whereabouts of the disguised missing victims.”

“……… Why wasn’t this made public?”

“Because the kidnapped individuals might still be alive. Most sacrificial rituals are conducted all at once, so if they haven’t been offered yet, they might be held somewhere… If the trick is revealed, the offerings will be used up and the perpetrator will escape, won’t they?”

“Then why to me…?”

It was an indirect request for help. The wizard explained it that way.

“I thought you might lend your strength since you seem to be close to the victims. I will contact you once we have a grasp on the perpetrator’s movements. You may leave now.”

“……… Yes, if you find out anything. Please, I beg you… let me know.”

Sissel bowed her head in a deep plea and staggered out of the room. The mad wizard watched her retreating figure quietly before snapping his fingers.

Swish.

The corpse on the dissection table disintegrated into particles.

——–

I pondered with Karen before me.

The Karen manifested through illusion magic was smiling innocently, as if nothing had happened, her legs flailing about. Did I set up such a waiting motion?

Anyway, somehow I had twisted the direction of the story into a hostage situation.

Sissel temporarily suppressed her bubbling emotions, and now… if only an event occurred where she could rescue Karen from the perpetrator, it would all wrap up nicely.

But there were still many problems. This was reality, not the omnipotent simulation world.

I couldn’t create a fake murderer to act out the role. It was impossible to completely immerse Sissel in illusion magic, and it was also impossible to escalate to a grand showdown, nor could I withstand Sissel’s fable.

The fact that it wasn’t a real kidnapping was also an issue. Karen was right there, perfectly fine. It would be nice if the story could be that she had fortuitously escaped by chance…

But no, I had a better picture in mind.

If the problem was the absence of a hostage situation…

Then couldn’t I just get kidnapped by the murderer right now?