Chapter 80. Fantasy Novel
“You’re not going to tell me?”
I spoke in a dull voice while holding the suffering woman in my arms, resting my chin on her shoulder.
She had to say something so I could continue from there, but apparently, she had some kind of secret she couldn’t reveal.
My imagination wasn’t exactly very good, so I wanted her to give me a proper explanation.
“Then should I take a guess?”
“W-What...?”
“For example, maybe the Chairman had some kind of goal involving me, so he hired Lucy Lowell, a former employee, and made her approach me while pretending she knew something.”
I had no idea why he would do that, though.
Did the Chairman really have any reason to go that far just for me?
Was he trying to use me to observe some kind of result?
A social experiment or something?
Maybe he fed Lucy Lowell information about Pie so she could approach me in the form that would affect me the most.
“Or, if that’s not it, maybe Lucy Lowell personally approached me because she wanted revenge on the Chairman who abandoned her. She decided to use me because I’m directly connected to him and mentally unstable.”
As for how she could speak as if she knew Pie...
I could just assume she somehow hacked Super Real’s computers.
Whether she actually had the ability to do that was another matter, but at least the story could fit together somehow.
Still, both possibilities lacked a convincing motive.
The first one had the obvious problem of, Why would the Chairman bother doing that to me?
And in the second case, it would’ve been far more efficient for her to approach Secretary Lee instead of me.
“Please say something I can actually understand. My head isn’t working very well right now, so I might act out of anger.”
If Lucy said something that stimulated my fantasy-addicted brain any further, I really might lose it and do something insane.
Honestly, I had no idea anymore what I was supposed to believe or accept.
From a realistic point of view...
Was it really possible for me to see some kind of flow in the real world and use that flow to completely restrain a person?
Did that make any sense?
And the person I restrained looked obviously abnormal because her flow was being controlled.
On top of that, she might even be the exact same Pie I met inside the game.
How was I supposed to believe something like that?
“Just...”
Her voice was wet with emotion as she forced the words out.
At that moment, her flow violently trembled.
I could tell the words she was about to say carried a lot of meaning.
But if she didn’t explain properly, I wouldn’t understand.
“You’d better explain it in a way that makes sense to me...”
“I just... wanted to see you...”
Crack!
My anger instantly shot through the roof, and I squeezed her a little harder.
Something cracked.
Muscle?
Bone?
Whatever it was, something definitely made a breaking sound.
She wanted to see me?
Who?
Me?
Who wanted to see me?
Her?
Why?
When had I ever met her before?
Was she seriously going to keep pretending she was Pie?
Pie was a game character.
She didn’t even exist in reality.
And most importantly, she didn’t look anything like Lucy.
Just how far did this damn world intend to push me before it was satisfied with turning me into a lunatic?
Did they really think that if someone appeared in front of me claiming to be Pie, I would happily accept her without question?
Me?
Someone who trusted himself less than anyone else?
Did they seriously think I would believe something just because it happened right in front of my eyes?
“At least say something that makes sense...”
“I don’t... believe it either...”
“Then tell me what you know. When did I ever ask for your personal thoughts?”
I had just been forced to remember a past I never wanted to remember.
I probably wouldn’t even be able to sleep tonight.
If she kept saying weird things, I really was going to crush her next time.
“...I don’t know exactly either... More importantly, let go of me and let me talk. I can’t... breathe... I’m going to die...”
“No. I’m scared.”
“...When did I ever ask for... your personal thoughts...?”
...
She had gotten surprisingly cold.
Her insides should’ve been twisted up, yet she could still talk back pretty well.
Wait.
If this whole flow thing was just my imagination, then her insides being twisted up would also be my imagination.
So I guess it made sense that she could speak normally.
“What if you run away?”
“I waited twenty years... and finally met you... I’m not running away...”
“You seriously don’t understand why I’m angry at all, do you?”
“...Haa... I’m sorry...”
“For what? What are you sorry about?”
“I knew... you would react like this. But if I suddenly came to find you... I thought you’d be shocked and suspicious... so I wanted to approach slowly. I thought it would be better... to pretend I wasn’t me.”
“How long are you going to keep pretending you’re Pie? Do you even know what kind of person she is?”
Actually, even I didn’t know Pie that well.
We had never talked deeply about ourselves.
What we shared were clumsy feelings neither of us was used to.
Neither Pie nor I had experience with those kinds of emotions.
So there weren’t many things I could say with confidence.
But one thing was certain.
We had both become each other’s first.
“You seriously keep throwing her name around without even knowing what Pie means to me.”
“...What does she mean to you?”
Ha.
Now she was pretending not to know?
Was she messing with me?
Seriously?
“What else would she mean? Whether in reality or in a game, she was the first person I ever looked directly in the eyes and actually remembered after living more than twenty years.”
I gritted my teeth.
“Do you know something? Everything I ever looked at closely and became attached to ended up broken or disappearing. Do you have any idea how terrifying that is?”
“...You mean you wanted to get rid of her?”
“I mean I was scared she’d disappear too, but I still wanted her badly enough that I couldn’t give up. God, you’re terrible at understanding people!”
I thought I had already told Lucy about what happened between Pie and me.
So how could she fail to understand this badly?
What?
Was she planning to grab onto my weakness after realizing I had feelings for a nonexistent intelligent life-form made of zeros and ones?
Hmph!
If something that pathetic was enough to destroy me mentally, I would’ve already been spending my free time in the afterlife!
“Think about it for a second. What kind of lunatic risks her own life to help someone she barely knows?”
I continued before she could answer.
“And that wasn’t even all. She kept taking care of this pathetic guy, stayed beside me, believed in me, and she even made me a weapon. Do you know what the name of that weapon meant?”
I raised my voice.
“‘My Light.’ My light! When the hell would someone like me ever meet a person like that in my entire life?”
“...Mm.”
“Of course, neither of us was good at expressing ourselves, so we didn’t exactly have a lot of nice conversations! She spoke pretty harshly to me too! That hurt sometimes!”
“...Ahem.”
“She only finally called me by my actual name at the very end, and even then, she worried about absolutely everything while saying things that confused the hell out of me.”
“...”
“I seriously never thought I’d become this shaken up and obsessed with a game character. But I was completely absorbed in her. Enough that I forgot my past entirely.”
It was only after a long time that I realized what had happened.
“Looking back, I think that no matter what happened, some part of me just wanted Pie to stay beside me.”
I could feel Lucy’s body trembling violently in my grip.
Ha!
She was shaking in fear!
Although I had absolutely no idea why this paragraph was making her shake like that!
“That’s why I left Pie with One-Horn even though I somehow developed a ridiculous sense of friendship toward that absurd bastard.”
I clicked my tongue.
“But since I haven’t heard anything about that bastard lately, he probably died somewhere, abandoned Pie, or ran off to do something stupid. I’ll kill him.”
...
Huh?
Had I gone off topic?
What were we talking about again?
“Anyway, that’s how it is.”
I looked at Lucy coldly.
“I don’t know why you approached me or what you wanted from me. But you tried to use me without explaining anything, and you barged into memories I actually treasure while pretending to be part of them.”
My grip tightened slightly.
“I don’t think my anger would disappear even if I beat you to death. So, do you have anything to say?”
“...Hmph. Sounds like you really lo... Ahem... loved her or something.”
“What?”
Her voice was trembling.
But strangely enough...
It sounded like she was trying not to laugh!
You little...!
I was being serious!
Hey!
I was being extremely serious right now!
Couldn’t she tell?!
...
But...
Was that really it?
Was that what I felt?
No, I had definitely worried about that possibility before.
I hesitated over it countless times too.
But...
Was this emotion actually love?
Love...
What even was love?!
What standard did people use to decide they loved someone?
Was something like that even possible for someone like me?
I didn’t know anything about that!
Huh?
Wasn’t this feeling just obsession?
Like an extreme desire to possess an object?
No?
Was it actually love?
Wait.
Maybe?
“I don’t know about that...!”
