Chapter 164

“There is no particular reason it would not have plausibility.”

“What?”

“It is what you have been doing all along, so is there a problem with doing it one more time? You said public opinion has changed too.”

“You are more shameless than I thought.”

“I am sorry, but my life is on the line right now.”

I can see a chance to survive, so I cannot just die.

I looked at the woman confidently, and after looking back at me, the woman let out a hollow laugh.

“How surprising. To think you knew how to throw a tantrum like this.”

The woman muttered to herself.

I had suddenly been treated like a child throwing a tantrum, but this was not the time to feel ashamed.

After confirming that the woman’s mood was not particularly bad, I continued speaking.

“Moreover, you really did save our Director with no restrictions. I think it would actually lack plausibility if you suddenly became strict now.”

“…….”

But at the words I added, the woman’s smile somehow became subtle.

As if she had a lot to say, the woman looked at me with ambiguous eyes.

Then, in a voice holding back laughter, she whispered,

“You only say that because you do not know, but you know so little it is pitiful.”

“……?”

When the woman murmured incomprehensible words, the space behind her also flashed along with her.

It seemed to be saying something, but what did this mean?

While I was puzzled, the woman changed her voice and spoke.

“Besides, that was not something I did.”

“What does that…….”

Come to think of it, that woman and 「Crow」 were separate beings.

The one who had revived Director Go was probably 「Crow」.

“And the method is different.”

“The method?”

“I mean the method used to save your Director. That was not truly reviving him. It skipped death. So it is fundamentally different from what I did to you. That is a crude workaround that uses space.”

What does that mean now?

“Then was the Director not revived?”

“Rather, you should see it as him never having died at all.”

“……?”

When I asked back in shock, the woman explained as if doing me a favor.

“Think of life as a thread.”

I did. Nod—

“When someone is alive, that thread will continue along time. And if that thread is severed at some point, then from your perspective, that is death.”

Death. Nod—

“When I saved you, I untangled the severed thread and connected it again, one piece at a time. But that 「Crow」.”

Saying 「Crow」, the woman smiled for a moment.

“That 「Crow」 did not connect the severed thread. It brought the part after the severance forward and covered the time period where the thread had been severed.”

Covered it?

“With that, it treated the very fact that the thread had been severed as if it had never happened.”

Connecting a severed thread and erasing the fact that it had ever been severed.

Was the former the method the woman had used on me, and the latter 「Crow」’s method?

Was that why there had been a 13-second gap in the time of Director Go that 「Crow」 had brought over?

But…….

“Is it not better to erase the fact that it was severed?”

“How impudent, after I went to the trouble of reconnecting you.”

I shut my mouth with an inward flinch.

Was there some philosophy to the method of reviving humans?

Thinking I might have made a verbal mistake, I briefly watched her mood.

At that, the woman smiled brightly again.

“I am joking. Mm, well. From your standpoint, that may be true. But that is truly a workaround. It is a cheat-like method possible only in the Spring of Memory, the state you call a nascent-phase Special Zone. It is easy to cause time distortion here.”

As expected, opening a door and drawing out a dead person from 13 seconds before death was something possible only in a nascent-phase Special Zone.

Of course, even that required assistance from a being like 「Crow」 or this woman.

But the method used to save me was entirely different from that…….

“Then what about the method you used to revive the Bureau agents just now?”

“Hm?”

“This time too, you opened doors and pulled out people right before they died. Is that not the workaround 「Crow」 used?”

“That is right.”

“You just called it a ‘crude workaround’…….”

“If there is an easy method, one should use it.”

The woman answered my question calmly.

“And my breath is not something I give to just anyone. Though you do not know how precious it is and use it carelessly.”

The woman subtly reproached me.

Her tone resembled a parent clicking their tongue at a child they had raised carefully, only for that child to become a troublemaker.

Was this being originally so familiar toward humans, or was she treating me specially?

It was probably the latter.

Because she had said, “my breath is not something I give to just anyone.”

That breath seemed to be some kind of material or power used to revive humans.

I chewed over the new words the woman had poured out.

What difference there was between the revival methods, and what was important, were still unknown.

But I certainly understood that this woman was favorable toward me.

So I decided to trust that incomprehensible goodwill and become even more shameless.

“If you revived me with such care, would it not be better to let me live a little longer after all…….”

Sparkle, sparkle—

The lights responded again to the words I had hinted at.

Thank you, everyone.

And despite my nonsense, the woman smiled at me as usual.

The atmosphere was not bad.

If things went well, could I perhaps get through this like this…….

Just as I silently spun my hope circuit.

The woman, who had been looking at me with Author Na Bit’s face, opened her mouth again.

“After all, there is no plausibility. In what you are demanding right now.”

“The plausibility is…….”

“Do you remember what you thought when you died this time?”

Thought?

“You said your death too was ‘merely one of the things that happened.’”

At the woman’s words, I was quietly startled.

Then the woman burst into light laughter.

“There is no need to be startled. That is what revival is. In order to save you, I fitted your pieces back together one by one. So I know. I know enough about you, and there are some parts I know better than you do.”

For some reason, the word “know” made the area around my heart go cold.

I felt as if something had been exposed, and the woman narrowed her eyes toward me and said,

“I know how much you fear death, even though you do not know it yourself.”

“…….”

“That is why I am asking. About your attitude, which has even less plausibility than my whims.”

“What does that mean…….”

“To live again means to die again. It means you will continue experiencing death, when for humans, once is enough. And yet why are you begging so miserably for your life?”

“Because I want to live.”

“Do not lie.”

The woman firmly denied my words.

Then, without even giving me room to refute her, she spoke.

“If you truly wanted to live, you would not have chosen to send your friends out instead of yourself. Well, that is already past, so let us put that aside. Are you truly begging me for mercy now in order to live?”

The woman looked at me, and unable to fully endure that gaze, I lowered my eyes.

But even without looking, I could tell.

How clearly the woman’s eyes were piercing through me.

Only then did I realize why the woman had kept laughing.

It was because I was laughable.

Because I was moving my mouth before her, who saw through me like water.

I belatedly regretted using a pointless trick.

Then I confessed.

“You are right. More than that, if possible, I want to finish what I was doing.”

“What?”

“My work.”

“That is the same as what you said earlier. Since you sent your friends out safely, now you want to save that child named Lee Sol too?”

“……Yes.”

At my answer, the woman laughed dryly again.

She probably thought I was shameless.

It was like being rescued from drowning and then demanding my bundle too.

But since I had already become shameless, I clung to her again.

“I am sorry for being greedy over a deal that is already finished, but if there is room, I want to save that child too. And I think that story will be interesting enough. Because many things are entangled in it.”

I spoke as calmly as I could so as not to look like I was begging.

Then I braced myself for the woman’s criticism.

But an unexpected answer came back.

“I already saw that.”

“……?”

“I said I already saw that child being saved by you.”

The woman who said that was still smiling.

Her tone too was gentle.

But in that calm notification of fact, I felt an alienness and chill I had never felt before.

While I briefly lost my words, the woman added,

“That was why I put you in there in the first place.”

This time too, I did not immediately understand.

As if pitying me, the woman said it again.

“That was why I put you into 「Railway Station」.”

I lifted my head and looked at the woman.

For some reason, looking into that abyss was no longer frightening.

Because what the woman had revealed left me no room even to fear anything.

After staring at the woman for a long while, I barely opened my mouth.

“You said you are not 「Crow」.”

“Yes. 「Crow」 is 「Crow」.”

What does this mean?

The one who puts me into Special Zones is 「Crow」.

But the one who had dragged me into 「Railway Station」 was this woman?

The one who caused that very first incident and crumpled my life into a mess was……?

“You may resent me.”

To me, who had lost my words, the woman spoke with a smile.

“I do feel slightly sorry to you too. That is why I have saved you until now, but I am going to stop now.”

“……How can you decide that so one-sidedly?”

I barely opened my mouth.

I spoke without even knowing whether what rose inside me now was resentment or anger.

Then the woman instead tilted her head and argued back.

“I told you earlier. All my rights over you are legal. I have already paid the full price for dragging you here.”

What price did she pay, and how?

Do you know what I have been through all this time?

“If you had said you would live as an ordinary editor, I might have revived you. But the current you will not do.”

The woman who said this was still favorable toward me.

With that gentle tone and that kind smile, the woman said to me,

“There is no need for me to fill up, one by one, the lives you will continue using as tools. Is there?”