Editor 83

Amid the dizziness, Cleio, clinging to “Perception,” sensed the footsteps of dozens running down the corridor.

The clatter of guns and swords, heavy footsteps. They weren’t knights.

“The police are about to break in!”

“Damn! Just when we were getting somewhere!”

The red-eyed assassins, the crimson aether, their suspicious connection with Prince Aslan—none of this would be resolved if left to the police.

Fran’s face twisted as he looked back and forth between the entrance to the hall and Gehaim.

At that moment, Arthur and Cleio met each other’s eyes. They must have thought of the same thing.

Cleio spoke.

“Fran, guide us to the rigging passage you mentioned earlier.”

“It’s too narrow for four people.”

“It’s fine. I have a way.”

Without further questions, Fran pulled back a corner of the backdrop. Behind it, he deftly opened a handleless door. A coffin-like narrow passage was revealed.

Fran dove in first. Arthur carried Gehaim and entered.

Lastly, Cleio barely managed to squeeze herself in, then closed the hatch above her head.

“Arthur, now!”

At the same time as Cleio’s words, a dazzling “Promise” message appeared over the dusty passage.

<? Creates a subspace that cannot be breached by any physical force or magic.

?The user and those designated by the user are separated from the event and setting and moved into the subspace.

―Time Remaining / Time Limit:

00:29:59 / 00:30:00

User: Arthur Riognan>

Her vision flashed white as the space transformed.

.

.

.

Cleio’s first impression was this:

‘Arthur, that brat, his unique skill duration has increased a ton since leveling up.’

The second impression was as follows:

‘What are we going to do with that guy?’

In the center of the desolate stage of the amphitheater, Arthur was still pinning down the convulsing Gehaim.

After Fran cast magic once more, he seemed to regain some clarity, but instead, his struggling only intensified.

After that, every attempt to cast or magic resulted in Gehaim flailing and trying to escape, leading to a constant wrestling match.

“Stop! Get away! That thing, fire!”

“It’s not fire, it’s aether! We’re trying to heal you!”

Fran, unfamiliar with magic, was gradually losing focus. Arthur also seemed to have difficulty subduing Gehaim without injuring him.

“Would you just listen for a second, really!”

“Let go, let go! This stage… quietly… let me…”

“Yeah. This is a stage. I’ll let you up, so let’s talk, you bastard!”

“Uaaagh!”

Sitting a little apart, hastily circulating her aether, Cleio finally gathered enough to properly carry out her plan.

‘Fran’s incantation contains the word ‘flame.’ The form of magic is influenced by the incantation. Maybe that’s why. He said earlier he was afraid of fire, didn’t he?’

“Fran, can you drop your circle? Let me try.”

Sighing, Fran let his aether fade.

Cleio approached the tangled trio. Gehaim, still on the ground, was convulsing intermittently.

“Both of you, please step back for a moment.”

“Will you be okay?”

Cleio nodded.

“What more can we do like this?”

Gehaim’s stage costume was now nearly all torn to shreds. The body revealed underneath was a mess from stab wounds by the assassins and Arthur.

Even the uninjured parts weren’t intact.

Half his body and face had melted down to the dermis, and clumps of hair were missing.

Despite Fran’s efforts, Gehaim was dying. He clearly didn’t have much time left.

‘These wounds aren’t fresh.’

And the red-eyed assassins had clearly intended to kill Gehaim.

‘That means Gehaim is someone connected to the red eyes, or to Hydra’s Venom. He knows something worth silencing.’

Now lucid, Gehaim was no longer the crazed vampire from before, only struggling but not attacking Fran or Arthur.

Kneeling, Cleio took Gehaim’s hand, from which fluid oozed from burns and blood from lost nails.

Then she opened a circle.

A small circle, enveloping only Cleio and Gehaim, shone like sunlight. It was a bright light that could never be mistaken for fire.

“Ah…”

Fran unconsciously let out a sigh.

He’d thought he’d been surprised enough in the theater earlier, but even when not using high-level magic, Cleio Aser’s circle was astonishing.

Among countless aether users, that radiant light, like the sun, would stand out above all.

Oblivious to Fran’s amazement, Cleio focused solely on the magic, invoking and formulas.

Then, watching Gehaim closely, she softly recited the incantation she’d recalled.

“<All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players!>3)<”

‘On stage, even this pain and sorrow are just part of the play.’

Though the incantation didn’t match the content of the magic formula, Gehaim’s face softened as he listened to Cleio’s words.

The burns consuming his body halted, and at least in one eye, clarity returned as his eyelid lifted.

“Gehaim Zinger. This is a stage. Isn’t this where you should regain your senses?”

“Stage…”

Cleio gently supported Gehaim’s head.

Though it was in ruins, it still showed they stood at the heart of a majestic ancient amphitheater.

“This is an ancient theater. A place where the fates of humans and the tragedies of gods were reenacted. I always thought I’d stand here someday…”

“There is no theater in the world that would cast a murderer as an actor.”

“Murderer…?”

Gehaim, his melted eyelids barely able to blink, trembled again.

“I… I killed Lily Rose… Is Lily dead…?”

“If you mean the singer who played your counterpart, she was lucky and survived. But—”

Realizing Gehaim was able to talk, Fran, his face red with rage, cut in.

“You bastard, why are you acting weak? It wasn’t just one person who died! The flower-selling kids, the ushers, the stagehands! You killed them! You drained all their blood and mutilated their bodies!”

“I… those people… Ah, aaaaaagh!!!”

Smack!

Fran struck Gehaim hard across the face.

“I know you’re not the only red-eye. But their crimson aether was different from yours! What was left in the dead kids was definitely your disgusting aether! This thick, sticky red stuff!”

Fran was right. The were a magical tool more than capable of distinguishing aether.

Arthur stopped Fran, who was about to hit Gehaim again, regardless of the melted skin sticking to his hand.

“Francis. He’s a murderer, yes. But there’s clearly someone behind who made him like this. Are you going to lose that? For the sake of the children who died unjustly, we have to listen to him now.”

Held by Arthur, Fran shook with rage, then finally dropped his arm.

Cleio addressed the now tearful, frightened Gehaim in a neutral, emotionless tone.

“I know crimson aether isn’t something you’re born with. Do you remember how you came to possess it?”

As if affected by Cleio’s composure, Gehaim caught his breath slowly.

“Memory… Yes. I remember.”

“Then speak. This is your last stage—perform the truth.”

Cleio believed in the sincerity this murderer had shown on stage. He was someone who acted as if burning his life away.

“Stage… Yes. I was always truthful on stage. Much more than in my real life.”

Gehaim chose his words as if on stage. Though melted and hideous, unable even to sit up on his own, he did his best on stage.

It was a familiar story.

A child born in a cold, barren border village sees a traveling troupe and dreams.

When old enough to help on the farm, he runs away from his parents’ home and wanders the big city. But plain in looks and with a rustic accent, he could not become a singer or actor, only working odd jobs in troupes and playing bit parts.

He moved from troupe to troupe, living at the bottom, never officially registered anywhere.

Two years ago, when he disappeared from the eastern border city of Peseiln at the foot of the Pintos mountains, no one looked for him.

“Tied up and blindfolded, I was in a carriage for a long time. When I came to, I was bound hand and foot in a cage like an animal.”

In a stockyard built deep in the mountains, people were treated like beasts. Cleaning excrement and being hosed down was no different from animals.

Mages and foreigners came and went, and each day’s meal was a single bowl of porridge.

The porridge was bitter and fishy. Even if you didn’t want to eat it, there was nothing else, so you swallowed it out of hunger.

“One time my blindfold slipped and I saw—it was a dark-red gruel, as if mixed with blood. I vomited up everything I ate and survived a few days, but then hunger got the better of me… sniff.

After eating it, most people died. Only a very few survived, but it was common for someone in the next cage, who had been tapping in response just yesterday, to suddenly go wild like a beast.

Those who didn’t go mad were rare. If you listened carefully, soon they could bend the bars of their cages with their own strength. Then people would come and take them out of the stockyard.”

Gehaim neither gained strength nor went mad, but survived for a long time.

‘This test subject is strange. No response, but won’t die either.’

‘Let’s just keep him for the records for now.’

Gehaim eventually forgot his original name.

Then one day, the footsteps outside his cage stopped.

He heard whispers from a distance.

What he made out were only fragments: ‘possibility of acquiring a new specimen’ ‘prototype’ ‘dispose of the rest.’

“On the last night, they poured oil and burned everything. I died, locked in the cage. I remember suffocating before the flames reached me.”

“And then?”

“When I awoke in the ruins, I was as I am now. The first person I met was an old herbalist woman who took me home. I thought she’d be afraid of a monster like me, but she spoke to me first.”

‘Hydra’s Venom worked differently on him. He gained a powerful “Fascination” skill and tried to restore his ruined body by drinking blood.’

The herbalist cared for him devotedly and even named him. She liked his voice and asked him to sing, and later gave him travel money, telling him to go to the city.

“After that, as you know. I liked to sing and act. But I began to have blackouts. Some days, I’d wake to find my bedsheets ruined with pus and blood, but I’d be fine.”

Gehaim’s voice grew thinner.

“I thought it was from the experiments in the mountains. I didn’t think I’d live long, so I didn’t save money or sign exclusive contracts.”

“You never tried to find out who was behind it?”

“There were too few clues. Only once, someone called ‘Pfoer’—supposedly a servant of a great noble—came to the stockyard. But no matter how I searched, I couldn’t find him.”

Cleio’s brow furrowed automatically.

‘That must be an alias. Whoever ordered such cruel human experiments wouldn’t let a subordinate use their real name.’

Fran, in a more controlled tone, asked another question.

“You really never realized what you were doing? Really?”

“I just thought I was having nightmares. A person drinking another’s blood? I thought it was just immersion in a role… I… I was killing people.”

Gehaim’s words, spoken through constant tears, sounded sincere.

“How could I ever atone for that sin… No, it’s impossible.”

Arthur and Fran, too, were visibly shaken.

With these brave but still young children before her, Cleio activated “Appropriateness Judgment.”

She had hurriedly circulated her aether for this very function.

<? Using “Appropriateness Judgment.”

?Can determine truth or falsehood of facts and appropriateness of elements.

*Caution: This function temporarily consumes 95% of internal aether.>

“Gehaim Zinger, is everything you have said so far true?”

“Yes. It is… all true. I wish to atone… somehow…”

[―According to “Appropriateness Judgment,” this answer is found to be true.]

“Ugh… ugh…”

Now, not even the strongest magic could preserve Gehaim’s body, collapsing from poison and burns.

Cleio, fulfilling her duty as the one who doubted and tested him to the end, did not let go of Gehaim’s hand as he writhed in the blood.

His hand, bones exposed, weakly gripped Cleio’s.

“Magician… I know it’s presumptuous… but one last time… that incantation… let me hear it…”

Already half-conscious, Gehaim begged Cleio for mercy.

Cleio granted the request of one who sinned without will and was being dragged off the stage of life.

Her voice, faint and hoarse with exhaustion, echoed on the stage of the subspace.

“All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players,

They have their exits and their entrances.4)”

Though no aether was woven into these words, the singer’s face, so distorted by pain, seemed to calm.

Gehaim’s trembling eyelids stilled, and the grip on Cleio’s hand faded completely.

It was the moment life slipped away.

3) “As You Like It,” William Shakespeare.

4) “As You Like It,” William Shakespeare.