Chapter 25

Hella seemed to have forgotten about the man. As if a piece of her memory had been delicately snipped away with scissors.

It doesn't seem like a lie. I don't know, but Rain Gray had the insight to see through it.

I didn't even sense the effects of any magical or cursed intervention.

At the same time, the discomfort I sensed in her could not be explained without some sort of power or intervention.

What power was it?

I could not tell and that made me feel even more frustrated.

The one clue that might provide answers in this world had been cut off so abruptly.

"I thought I'd heard the infamy of the...'Black Snake' but it's even more unimaginable in person."

Hella laughed unconcerned.

"I'm glad I didn't turn you into an enemy, really."

"...."

Even as she laughed, I could sense that she was desperately holding back her fear in front of us.

The frog's desperate fear in the face of a snake, the frog's feigned composure as it prays it won't be eaten. I've seen it before, and I'll see it again.

So I turned away without another word. My work is done here. I have no further business with her. It would be better for everyone if I just walked away quietly.

As I turned my back, there it was, an endless landscape of destruction and ruin stretching across the horizon. Dead people and corpses. Instead of staring at the scene in silence, I pulled the cigarette out of my bosom once more.

I was about to light it when a thought crossed my mind.

"There's one last thing I want to ask you."

I turned back to Hella and asked.

"What's the note on this <Commandant Secret>?"

"Huh?"

Hella cocked her head at the question.

"A note-what are you talking about all of a sudden?"

"...No, it's nothing."

I replied.

The clue, there it was.

I blurted it out like it was nothing and continued on my way.

Aria and Alice followed me in silence as we crossed a shattered, ruined, sunken, post-apocalyptic world.

Wandering through a labyrinth without an exit, not knowing where it might lead.

*

I remember the first time I killed a man with my own hands.

It's a memory I still can't forget. I was afraid and I felt guilty but it was far from the guilt-ridden, tormented, nightmarish nightmare that one might imagine.

It was etched in my memory, but that was it. The next one was easier, and the next one was easier, and the next one was easier, and so on, until I dimly realized that part of who I am now is, in a sense, the real Rain Gray.

The line between the two is as fuzzy and hazy as the sky at dawn, and cannot be cut and divided like a knife through a cake, except for one thing, the memory of Rain Gray, which is completely overlaid with darkness.

What lies within his memory, in a world that is not a game, but a living, breathing world, what purpose did he have in forming the Black Snake, what did he hope to accomplish?

I cannot know. And yet, sooner or later, I will know.

At the end of the mysterious threads that I am now following, intertwined and connected.

─And now, on the table in the hotel room we're staying in, the <Commander Secret> is one of them.

I had Aria and Alice stay away, to avoid arousing any suspicion. After all, it would be nothing out of the ordinary for me to give them orders.

When the time comes, the rest of the silent Black Snake's subordinates will be no exception.

-Hmph.

I run my hand over the cover of the grimoire, about to flip it over, when I realize it's not sheepskin, but human flesh. I frown slightly and continue to flip through the pages, skimming the words of the Grimoire.

Like in the real game, magic isn't learned on the fly but each of the jagged lines and formulas I didn't recognize flowed into my mind with uncanny clarity, and the words weren't even in the language of this age.

It was an ancient language, the language of a mysterious ancient empire that had once flourished and then suddenly ceased to exist, a common RPG trope.

The trope is that those who can read the ancient language are few and far between, even on the continent, and that they'll be treated well wherever they go.

'I'm not going to starve to death.'

After thinking about it, I stopped reading the book immediately. The fact that I could read and understand it was enough.

As a side note, when I read a grimoire that I couldn't acquire in-game, I received the following message.

"*NOTICE: This grimoire is too difficult for you to understand!"

This is the message you get when you're in the wrong class or don't have the right level, stats, etc.

This is not me. I had no problem understanding the contents of the <Commander Secret>, even the ancient language, and that was enough for me.

I quickly flipped through the bookshelves until I found the "notes" Hella was referring to.

Something she didn't even remember anymore, but something she'd given her life to keep out of the hands of this country's military.

Even Colonel Hydra, who had gotten his hands on it earlier, didn't seem to realize what the book was really hiding. I wonder if it's not something he should know.

I wonder if...he had seen it and forgotten it like Hella did?

As expected, I turned the book over in my hands, but it wasn't easily visible. It must be hidden somewhere.

"<Anomaly detected>."

It wasn't hard to find. What a wizard hides and finds is determined purely by the quality of the wizard, and I've never met a wizard, at least not one who could compete with Rain Gray. Not that I know of.

Predictably, as if illuminated by a fluorescent detector, an unmistakable glow of magical heterogeneity emanated from within the grimoire, a clue that leads to one of the protagonists of the past.

Even this country, the Duchy of Germania, covets it and hopes to get their hands on it. For what could be gained there?

He who remembers the hero, can spin the thread for us.

As I unfolded the page, the following words were written with magic.

[Fighting monsters for men, giving up men to fight monsters, giving up men so that there is no reason to fight for men.]

[The hero becomes a monster, and the monster eats humans again.]

[Until someone comes along who will fight monsters for humans.]

"...."

[─ Why did my father raise me to be a hero?]

I read it wordlessly. It wasn't long. The words were too metaphorical and rambling to be called information.

I knew it was something that hinted at the world's "hero mythology" and the fate of its protagonists.

Other than that, I couldn't make any sense of the words. This was a clue?

I smirked and closed the book.

Sometime later, just as dusk was falling outside the hotel window, Aria and Alice returned.

"Woohoo, it's been hard being away, we missed you so much!"

"Alice, please be polite in front of the leader."

Alice, who didn't hide her feelings, and Aria, who smiled and gently scolded Alice.

As soon as they see me, they both smile without hiding it. Who are they smiling at?

I can't tell. In this situation, with no way forward, their smiles are strangely reassuring and comforting.

So I didn't bother to hide what I had revealed to them what I found in the grimoire through Anomaly Detection.

"─This."

"This is a note in the grimoire."

"...."

As expected, Aria looked like she knew what she was talking about. So I listened to her next words.

"...On my way here, I ran into a comrade who is staying in this city."

"Who is that?"

"Mr.──"

The words were unexpected.

'I have a subordinate in this city.'

There is nothing strange about a snake other than us in the capital of the Duchy of Germania.

"From what I hear, he's with a new kid who wants to join the Black Snake."

Even with a new recruit.

*

The holy maiden was wandering the ruined streets.

Showing no mercy before the swords of her pursuers, she managed to escape the Empire and make it to the Duchy.

Just past the border, the streets were lined with the shadow of a snake that could not escape.

This is where the Black Snake passed.

The man had passed through here.

When she realized that, she found herself strangely wanting to be close to the snake.

"...cough."

Unable to hide her growing wounds, Jeanne leaned back against the broken stones on the side of the road.

"─Your wound."

A voice spoke to her as she closed her eyes. She wondered if it was her pursuer, if she'd come this far, if she couldn't get away, if she couldn't escape, but it couldn't be. Not until she stood before the man once more and heard his answer.

Jeanne opened her eyes to see the man in the black coat, bloodied and soiled. She poised to draw her sword at a moment's notice.

"The wound is deep."

But there was an unexpectedly familiar face there.

She remembered fighting alongside her once, when she was a much more noble woman than she is now. Even her sense of justice, her refusal to let someone else's hurt go unnoticed, was familiar.

At the same time, there is no trace of the nobility and purity that shone so brightly in her then, just as she is now.

"Sword Lady...?"

"I never thought I'd see the Holy Maiden here."

Jeanne laughed, realizing that she was in no position to say anything else.

Sword Lady Alina, whose party was wiped out at the hands of the Black Snake and a female swordswoman who wandered in the shadow of the same snake.