Chapter 121

"Why me?"

Inside the company commander's office, Kay was furious at having been dragged into his own workplace. He had tried to escape, but the Dogs blocked him every time.

"Come on, don't do this to me. Huh? Why are you doing this?"

Appealing to the bonds they'd built over the years did no good.

The Dogs who had been joking with him only a short while ago now looked at him as though he were an inanimate object.

Kay had already known what these bastards were like. It infuriated him all over again.

"Seriously, why the hell are you doing this?"

He didn't want to face that man.

There was no reason he should have to, either.

Whatever the man did on this planet, Kay could simply collect some compensation. If he didn't get any, there was nothing he could do about it.

He would rather be blown to pieces when the planet exploded than come face-to-face with him.

"If you need something, say so! Just tell me what—"

The Dogs parted and bowed their heads to the floor.

"It's been a while."

Kay fell silent as Dezeb Avganis strode between them. He knew he needed to answer, urgently, but he couldn't make his mouth open.

"You're Kay, aren't you? I've been having some trouble with my memory lately."

"Y-yeah."

Kay swallowed. At that half-formed reply, Dezeb raised an eyebrow.

"W-we never used to speak formally to each other—"

"There's no need to be nervous. It's nothing serious."

Then why the hell did you come here over nothing?

While Kay screamed inwardly, Dezeb gave a slight shrug, took a document from a subordinate behind him, and tossed it onto the desk.

"Take care of this."

"This is..."

"Lieutenant Vermilion's medical chart. Have her discharged on medical grounds. As quickly as possible."

He came all this way for something like this...?

Kay froze for a moment in surprise. Dezeb fixed his gaze on him again, and Kay flinched, hurriedly picking up the document.

Meanwhile, ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) Dezeb gave a disbelieving little laugh as he looked at a scratch on his own skin.

The whole situation seemed absurd to him.

He clicked his tongue and turned to leave. Kay couldn't hold back any longer.

"Why did you do it?"

The scratch healed in an instant. But Vermilion's situation, wherever she had been stranded, apparently wasn't good. Another scratch appeared on Dezeb's skin and healed, only for another to appear.

"You didn't have to go that far. I know you've lost your memory, but you've been through things like this for a long time."

A problem with the highest deity had thrown this world out of balance, and the unbalanced world had, in turn, harmed the deity's body.

The nightmare had repeated without end. It could be summed up in one phrase.

A vicious cycle.

When that cycle continued to the point where nothing could be undone, Dezeb Avganis turned everything back to where the trouble had begun.

If only we could go back one day earlier. Just one day... No, even half a day.

Kay had thought it countless times, until he finally gave up believing any of this would ever end.

"You certainly never liked it."

That was why he understood this situation even less.

Fine, Dezeb had reclaimed his divinity. Fine, he had suddenly started making a fuss about getting married.

Kay could even accept that he had eaten the Second Prince, locked the Thirteenth Prince in a laboratory, rescued a young member of the imperial family from Defit, a place he'd forgotten even existed, and was now trying to keep the Empire intact.

"But why did you turn your own body into a vessel? Why become a goddamn Dog serving a master? You could have used something else. The prince you ate in Molin City that day, or a priest, or just about anyone would have been enough."

"Why would I?"

Kay was struck speechless by the question.

"...What?"

But Dezeb apparently had no intention of discussing it further. He merely told his Dogs to raise Vermilion's protection level, then left before Kay could stop him.

"...What the hell did he mean by that?"

Kay asked the Dogs, who were still staring at the floor behind their Master.

"'Why would I?' What does that mean? Don't tell me it's something childish, like he won't even let anyone else be Vermilion's doormat. Huh? There's some other, grander reason, right?"

Of course, none of them answered.

Kay hadn't expected them to talk about their Master anyway. He scowled at them.

"And why the fuck do you all look so miserable?"

He couldn't help asking, even as he ground his teeth. Their expressions were a sight.

"...He told us to raise her protection level."

"So raise it."

"You really don't understand anything... If something happens to her now, even by accident, we're all going to die. All of us!"

Kay stared at them in disbelief.

"Weren't you drawing lots because even your chance to be eliminated was first come, first served? Take this chance to get out."

"Do you think the other Dogs would let us?"

They were sure the others would stitch them back together piece by piece and demote them to the very bottom. The way they cursed one another, saying life in their filthy organization would be hell if they lost rank as well, wasn't even funny. None of them trusted the others.

"You're insane."

They really were the strangest creatures in the universe.

They ate their own kind yet had a powerful sense of kinship. They distrusted one another yet rejected everything outside their own group.

The monsters created by the Thirteenth Prince and Sanctuary were truly appalling.

"...Fuck. Why the laboratory again?"

Kay scowled toward the place Dezeb had gone. He was heading for the laboratory because Erabelle Vermilion was there.

And why did she have to run to the laboratory of all places...?

"Fuck it. I don't know anymore."

"Ugh..."

She was dizzy.

Erabelle staggered, leaned against the nearest thing she could find, and retched. Of all the rotten luck... Why did that particular section have to break apart?

She sighed as she remembered falling from the shuttle.

"......"

Apart from the dizziness brought on by motion sickness, she had no injuries, as expected. What had happened was closer to being shoved aside than attacked, but she had run and fallen. She was sure she'd been hurt. Yet there wasn't a mark on her.

That power had allowed her to complete the A-rank Center, but it still unsettled her.

For now, she set her tangled thoughts aside and looked around.

Point 34-4.

It was fortunate she had landed near here. The monsters definitely couldn't enter this area. In fact... she had a strange feeling they wouldn't attack her even if she stayed where she was, but she had no desire to test that with her own body.

The laboratory looked no different from when she had last seen it almost two years ago.

The building was reduced to a bare frame, the planet's axis was askew... Even the air felt oddly still.

The remains of the campfire she had sat beside with Virgo Hag were still there. Seeing them reminded her of the 10,000 cp she had never received.

"Oh..."

Then Erabelle looked up at the sky, which was darkening by the second.

...Will he be very angry?

She shivered faintly.

Truthfully, the thing at her back made her skin crawl.

The monster's Molt, wrapped around the entire laboratory site, was enormous. A single tentacle looked thick enough to rise well above the first floor.

Erabelle braced a hand against the vast Molt and slowly got to her feet.

Someone would come to rescue her soon. Until then, she decided to do what she could to stay in one piece. She was cold, for one thing, and hungry. Doing something would be better than sitting here alone.

Even if the interference with her signum meant she couldn't open Miro.

Having been stranded once before, Erabelle now carried quite a few things whenever she went beyond the conflict zone.

"...What are you doing?"

Dezeb arrived at the laboratory less than an hour after Erabelle had been stranded.

In that time, she had practically set up camp inside his Molt.

She had pitched a two-person tent in the hollow interior of a tentacle, hung a portable lamp inside it, and even brought out a brazier and lit a fire.

She had made herself at home.

It was so absurd he couldn't even be angry. The fact that she had carried all of it with her, knowing she wouldn't be able to open her signum, was astonishing too.

He leaned an arm against the edge of a split in the Molt and let out a crooked, incredulous laugh.

"Sweetheart, you've gone to work in a very strange place."

"I absolutely did not want this to happen."

"And what about all this? Wasn't this your choice either?"

"This part was..."

"What, are you planning to live here?"

Erabelle fumbled for an explanation.

"Well, it was cold, and I was hungry..."

Thunder rolled behind him through the dark sky. Erabelle quietly closed her mouth.

"So you decided to do all this inside a monster's skin? The ones outside are cuter than this, at least."

He gave the wall-like Molt a light tap and stepped inside.

"Doesn't it disgust you?"

"Honestly..."

"It does, doesn't it?"

"Yes. A little."