The drunken haze evaporated from my head in an instant.
But my face maintained its alcohol-flushed expression. It wasn't hard to do. I blinked my eyes shut, then slowly opened them. I looked exactly like a drunkard desperately trying to pull himself together.
"If you're going to visit someone, shouldn't you at least show a little courtesy?"
"We sincerely apologize. But this is a matter of urgency on our end as well."
"Urgency, you say. You certainly arrived in quite the urgent fashion."
I sneered and rose from my seat. Carefully.
With deliberate care, I let my arm slip.
My palm slid out from under me and my body tilted. If I'd been any less careful, I might have cracked my head against the floor. This was just the right amount. I could deceive them about my current state without being too conspicuous. I was actually drunk, after all — but what was the problem with being a little drunk? I had plotted schemes while soaked in drugs more times than I could count.
"Oh my. Are you all right?"
The woman rushed over and tried to prop me up. I swatted the back of her hand away.
"Don't touch me."
"...If that is what you wish."
The woman took a step back.
The faint mockery I sensed in her voice was no illusion. The woman was fundamentally looking down on me. Behind her polite manner of speaking, her true disposition bared itself shamelessly. My senses — honed to a razor's edge over eight years — did not miss even the subtlest nuance.
"Why have you only come now?"
"Normally, this wouldn't be the sort of visit I'd make in a personal capacity."
I sat back down in my chair. Without waiting for my permission, the woman seated herself in the chair across the table. Well, considering she'd barged into my home without so much as a word, I could more or less read what kind of person she was.
Arrogant.
Presumptuous.
And yet she used polite language with me. It was one of two possibilities. First, she was the type who deliberately used honorifics even with those she considered beneath her. Second, there was some circumstance forcing her to use polite speech with me.
Shall I test it?
"I wished to remain silent and observe until you had finished everything. It's difficult to explain in detail, but it was much better for me not to intervene."
"Such deep consideration. It's hard to believe you're the same person who reduced someone to this state just because you lost a petty argument."
"I also apologize for that matter."
The woman bowed her head slightly. It seemed she believed a single nod was worth billions.
It did have some value. Thanks to her concession, the first possibility grew fainter. Eight years ago that day, she had used casual speech with me throughout. Now, it was more plausible to assume she was being forced to use honorifics.
"An apology alone wouldn't be sincere. I have prepared a reward you will be satisfied with."
"Reward?"
"Whatever you wish for. I am confident I can grant most of it."
I stared silently at the woman.
The woman with the beautiful black hair was full of self-assurance.
"I can see how much despair and agony you felt, having watched it all. I can undo your life once. The lover you can no longer see, and the tragedy that love missed—all of it can be reversed."
"……."
"That, I dare to declare, is your most desperate wish."
I chuckled softly.
Laughter was a powerful gesture. It was suitable for revealing one's psychology. She would be interpreting me now as someone irritable and stung. At minimum, she would mistake me for a drunkard unable to restrain his emotions, laid bare.
Draw me in further.
"However, we also have our circumstances. If you do not bring this world's scenario to its conclusion, it will be difficult to provide you with an official reward. That is why I came."
"Be brief."
"Please continue living as Dantalion."
The woman's gaze turned serious.
"You've already achieved the highest possible score. You may not be aware, but the 71st-ranked Demon Lord Dantalion holds the worst position in this world. At first glance, the 72nd-ranked Andromalius might appear to have it even worse, but..."
"There's a frontier village right nearby where the Hero lives."
"That's correct."
The woman smiled.
"As expected, you are very wise. Yes, that's right. Andromalius is undoubtedly the weakest, but he possesses one powerful advantage — the ability to eliminate the Hero in the very early stages. Even if you start as Andromalius, things improve significantly once you remove the Hero or take them under your command."
Which meant the true bottom rank was the 71st-ranked Demon Lord, Dantalion.
He had no particular advantage over Andromalius, and his starting conditions were about as close to the worst as possible.
"Of course, there is an immense difference between conquering the continent as Bael versus conquering it as Dantalion. In fact, no one has ever conquered the continent starting as Dantalion under the hardest difficulty settings — not a single time."
The woman smiled with her eyes and sent him a meaningful look.
"I can only be impressed. You found a path that no one else could blaze. What's more, purging all the major Demon Lords was a remarkably shrewd move. I simply haven't been able to tell you everything just yet..."
"Get to the point."
The woman folded her hands atop the table. On it sat a candle and a glass that appeared to be left over from drinking.
"If you continue sequestering yourself out here in the boonies, there will be no reward at all. You are free to commit suicide right now, if you wish. As long as you bring things to an end in any fashion, you will receive the compensation rightfully owed to you."
"For a method of recommending suicide, that's hardly elegant."
"It's just a consciousness within a virtual world, isn't it?"
I curled the corner of my lips.
"Virtual, you say."
"Yes. If you'll pardon my bluntness, the characters you've shown affection for will remain nothing but fictions in their current state. Shouldn't you gift them a true life? Only then would you have truly completed your atonement, wouldn't you say?"
Draw Me In Further.
"Why not just force an end to it instead of trying to convince me?"
"That is impossible. Wrapping things up always follows the individual's own decision. Inflicting harm upon them or forcing anything upon them is strictly prohibited."
"Hmm."
Even the act of beginning was probably left to my own will.
But the other party had cleverly deceived me.
"Will you really start right now?"
"It may take every last drop of your time."
"Are you confident you won't regret it?"
By throwing questions whose meaning was hard to discern, she had steered me toward an answer. A transparently shallow trick. And I fell for it.
Fine.
I tapped the table with my fingertips in a steady rhythm. All the ingredients had been gathered. The question was how to cook them — sear them over a low flame, or burn them to ash with a blazing fire?
No matter how I thought about it, there was no reason to show the other party any consideration.
"I have just one question."
"Of course. I'll answer anything I'm able to."
"Here."
I stopped tapping the table and pointed at myself with a finger.
"—And you declared me to be a virtual entity. But you're here too, aren't you? Does that mean you're also nothing more than a fiction adrift somewhere?"
"Of course."
The woman answered without hesitation.
"My true body is unmistakably elsewhere. Only my consciousness has come here for a moment."
"So you're admitting you're a virtual entity."
"Yes."
I nodded.
My right hand drifted down and brushed against the candlestick sitting on the table. The candle tumbled downward, candleholder and all. A sharp clink rang out as it struck the metal basin, and the woman reflexively turned her gaze toward the sound.
That was the moment.
I drew a dagger from my waist and drove it down through the back of her hand. The blade pierced through flesh and sank deep into the desk. Her right hand was pinned to the tabletop, immobile, as if nailed in place.
"...!?"
It took the woman about one second to register the pain.
Before she could even grasp what was happening, she began to scream.
"Agh— ah— aaaahhhhgh!?"
The woman thrashed about. She seemed to be trying to wrench her hand free in any way she could, but perhaps some instinct told her that struggling too hard would only drive the wound deeper. She kept her right arm perfectly still while flailing with everything else.
"I must say, having you admit you're a virtual entity puts my mind considerably at ease."
"What— what are you doing! What are you doing right now!"
"You still don't understand the situation. That's understandable. Don't worry about it."
I picked up the glass and splashed its contents across her face.
As liquid poured over her features, the woman had no choice but to shut her eyes.
"I'm quite fond of explaining the same thing twice."
I pulled another dagger from inside my coat and this time drove it through her left hand. A scream tore through the air as if the sky itself were being ripped apart. Once was not enough. Twice, three times, over and over in relentless succession, the woman shriek in agony.
"Hah."
I took out my pipe tobacco and, for the first time in quite a while — quite a long while — I lit up some loose leaf.
The cigarettes Jeremy had prepared exclusively for me were no longer available. My palate, spoiled by the taste of fine cigarettes, could no longer be satisfied by ordinary ones. That was precisely why I had deliberately left it alone — until the taste of cigarettes faded from memory, until that scent became something I longed for again.
"Hah, aaahk… Guh, guh…"
The woman did not stop screaming until I had burned through half my tobacco. Whether she realized that moving her body only drove the daggers in deeper, her struggles gradually grew weaker. Her voice gave out quickly as well, reduced to something feeble and insignificant.
At last, the screams subsided.
I gazed at the woman with indifferent eyes.
"Are you beginning to understand the situation now?"
"I'll kill you… How dare someone like you… I will most definitely kill you…"
"Your expression and your tone have become much more honest. I appreciate that."
I smiled gently.
I pressed the glowing tip of the cigarette against the back of her hand. A fresh, piercing scream erupted. With the considerate intention of not letting that scream go quiet, I twisted the cigarette — firmly, deliberately, and with great care.
"As you must know, since you were surveilling me as well, this mansion is enveloped in powerful anti-magic wards. I don't know how impressive the body you transferred your consciousness into might be, but you would do well to abandon any thought of escaping by magic."
"Aaah, guuuh…!"
"You made two critical mistakes, you see."
The woman glared at me, her face a mess of tears and saliva. I found that face rather pleasing. I had always thought this, but a beautiful woman is at her most lovely when she is suffering.
"First, you failed to understand me properly. Think about it. Up until now, have I not been the sort of man who fought tooth and nail to bear it all while remaining in full command of my faculties? And now, suddenly, I am supposed to be drowning myself in drink? Dousing my own brain with alcohol every single day like some pathetic wreck whose mind has melted away?"
I shook my head playfully.
"That is not the case at all. Not in the slightest. You underestimated me. If I were the sort of man weak enough to be brought low by alcohol, I would never have made it this far in the first place."
"What are you… What are you saying, you lowly thing…"
"You deliberately targeted the moment I appeared to be dead drunk. You already knew perfectly well that I was not someone to be trifled with. You wanted to enter negotiations precisely when I was unable to keep my wits about me. Is that not correct?
The woman's face hardened.
"An intention... as an enemy...?"
I gave a thin smile.
"Perhaps because I've done plenty of such pointless things in my youth, the acting comes easily."