Just Because I Have Narrow Eyes Doesn’t Make Me a Villain! - Chapter 136
TN: Thank Viiyen for the chapter.
Shunk.
The sound of the sword piercing flesh echoed once more.
No, perhaps it’s wrong to say it echoed.
Although I heard the sound, it wasn’t that loud.
It would be more accurate to say I was so focused that I felt the sound was louder than it actually was.
A sensation similar to when I cut the girl named Annie earlier.
However, the feeling at my fingertips seemed much clearer, causing my hand to tremble.
The sensation of personally removing the heart of the one I loved was horrifying.
Even knowing this was for Arte’s sake.
Even though I knew she wouldn’t die, cold sweat dripped down.
“What are you doing…!”
“Wait just a moment. I’ll listen to all your complaints later.”
I wanted to explain the situation to Dorothy, who didn’t understand what was happening, but there was no time.
I had to finish quickly before the Author noticed and took action.
“…Ugh, you must explain everything later!”
“Okay. I’m sorry.”
The apology wasn’t meant for Dorothy.
Though her face contorted with pain.
Despite the unbearable agony, it was meant for Arte, who was smiling at me as if she trusted me.
Arte is weak to pain.
To the point she couldn’t move after getting two large bruises on her side.
Yet she was smiling at me while enduring the pain of her chest being carved out with a knife.
Though her face was scrunched up, I could tell she still trusted me.
“…This is it.”
Thump, thump.
In my right hand was Arte’s heart, still beating.
No, should I call this heart-shaped thing in my hand a heart?
Something taking the role of a heart was in my hand.
That would be a more accurate description.
“…”
I time it.
Until Amelia rushes here, 3…2…1.
“I’m here! Are you guys still ali-…?! Siwoo?! What are you…!”
“Heal Arte first. Quickly.”
Just as Amelia arrived, I swiftly cut out the heart and placed it in the Crucible I held.
After a moment of shock at the sight, the superhuman Amelia would prioritize saving a life and begin surgery.
They would likely determine it impossible to save someone without a heart, with only a bead-like object in its place…
But they’ll soon realize that the bead can function in place of a heart.
And since there’s one more injured person, Amelia will try to bring someone else.
Everything was proceeding exactly as I knew it would.
“Dorothy.”
“Y-Yes…?”
“In thirty minutes, release the enhancement for a split second. I need to pass out for a bit.”
“…What?”
“Then, make sure to maintain the enhancement even after I pass out. Thirty minutes, okay?”
After giving Dorothy all my instructions, I swallowed the heart I had taken from Arte’s chest in one gulp.
The metallic scent filled my mouth, making me want to spit out the heart immediately.
Sometimes, I resented having better senses than others.
But I forced myself to swallow. Arte trusted me and gave me her heart.
She trusted me that much, so how could I spit it out just because of a slightly metallic taste?
Arte’s heart was a bit too large to swallow in one bite.
As I swallowed it all, I heard a voice from somewhere.
[W-What is this…! Oh, oh no, what should I do! How can I fix this…?!]
And then my vision went dark.
***
“Waaaah…! What, what is this…!”
The girl was flustered.
She thought she was about to see a touching love story between the Protagonist and the Reader.
Suddenly, the Protagonist raised his sword, took out the Reader’s heart, and swallowed it!
This wasn’t some bloody slasher movie.
Eating the heart of a loved one, what on earth was going on!?
No, there was something even more important than that.
At this rate, she’d be expelled…!
“W-What should I do…! How can I go back?!”
“There is a way to go back.”
“Really?!… Wait a moment.”
The girl was startled.
No one else should have been able to enter this place besides herself.
If another transcendent’s mind forcibly entered, the space would collapse instantly.
The girl looked in the direction of the voice and was shocked.
The boy she had set as the Protagonist.
He was standing before her eyes.
“You can return by going outside this world.”
“…How, how are you here?”
The boy did eat the Reader’s heart.
So, the connection with the Reader should have been severed, and a connection with the boy should have been made…
But how?
How did he come here?
“Well. I don’t know either.”
“W-What?! That doesn’t make sense…!”
“I just knew that doing this would allow me to come here. So I came. I probably won’t come here again.”
Facing the girl who was gaping in confusion, Siwoo spoke.
“…Well, that’s not important. I’m sorry, but you need to leave here. Think of it as the homeowner’s tyranny.”
“Ha, haha…! I don’t know how you got in, but…! Do you think I’ll leave?! Do you know how hard I worked to get here!”
“I know.”
“…What?”
It was surprising that he came here, but that was all.
Realizing she could instantly kill him even if he was the Protagonist, the girl quickly regained her confidence.
No matter what he did, the boy wouldn’t be able to attack her, let alone die on the spot.
As she regained her composure, the girl was once again thrown into confusion by the words flowing from the boy’s mouth.
“That you invaded this world thinking it looked interesting.”
“That you could only send one of your eyes to avoid being pushed out after forcibly making a hole.”
“That even that eye would certainly be detected and pushed out after a long time, so you needed a person to hide it.”
“That you molded Arte’s body for that purpose and hid your eye in her heart, everything.”
“Y-You, how do you know all that…?!”
She hadn’t told anyone.
A story she hadn’t even told other transcendents.
For this mortal before her to recite it all.
The girl was at a loss to even grasp what was happening.
“Entering someone else’s bedroom and messing around as you please. That’s not right.”
“…”
“Last time, I told Arte she was like your eyes, right? I was a bit surprised to find your actual eye inside Arte. It was quite a shock.”
The girl began to feel fear towards the boy who started talking about things she had never mentioned and had no way of knowing.
What on earth was going on?
Was this really the Protagonist she had been watching all this time?
Surely, his ability was Intuition.
She hadn’t set any inexplicable ability like this…
“It’s not Intuition. You set it up, didn’t you? That something amazing beyond it would pop up if I grew to the end. Well, this is the result.”
“?!”
“Don’t worry, it’s not mind reading or anything. You’re just too easy to judge.”
There’s a separate ability user with mind-reading abilities.
Muttering that, the boy’s appearance made the girl cry out in frustration.
“Don’t lie! That’s impossible!”
“Why?”
“It should take at least two more years for that growth to finish…!”
Right, it couldn’t be.
When she could manipulate the boy’s settings.
At that time, she had inserted a setting to roughly resolve some foreshadowing with a big event around his third year.
Calculating the boy’s protagonist-like abnormally fast growth rate and the events he would experience in between, it was set for two years.
There’s no way he could have gained that level of strength already.
There shouldn’t have been any strengthening events…!
“…Hmm, you really are stupid. I can see why Arte kept cursing at you.”
“What?!”
“Did you really forget?”
Tap, tap.
The boy lightly tapped his head with his index finger and said to the girl.
“You set it up. Every time I face a life-threatening crisis, I grow.”
“…?!”
“Wow, I can’t even remember how many times I nearly died just today. How many times was it? I stopped counting after fifty.”
The boy muttered and smiled brightly.
In contrast, the girl’s complexion turned pale blue.
“There’s also Dorothy’s enhancement. Actually, that’s quite significant.”
“…So, so what are you trying to say!”
“Hm?”
“No matter how strong you become, you can’t kill me!”
But soon, the girl regained her composure once again.
After all, a mere mortal couldn’t harm her.
No matter how much he strengthened, he was just a mortal who grew strong through her settings.
In the end, he was still beneath her.
That’s what the girl thought, and the boy agreed.
“That’s right. I can’t kill you. I probably can’t even attack you.”
“Ha, haha…! That’s right! A mere mortal…”
“But there is a way to make you leave here.”
“What?”
“Did you explain your ability to Arte last time? Something about Schrödinger’s cat. It was quite a novel explanation.”
“…What are you trying to say?”
“I was thinking of telling you a similar story.”
The girl didn’t understand what the boy was saying.
She couldn’t understand.
She didn’t want to understand.
“A scientist once said this. If there was a being who knew everything in the universe accurately, they could explain all past and present phenomena and even predict the future.”
“What does that…”
“Though you have some childish aspects, you’re worthy of being called a god. Then, what should we call someone who tries to drive out that god?”
“…A demon?”
“That’s right. The one who opposes god is the demon… And, as it happens, there is a demon with such an ability.”
A demon who knows the present.
Laplace’s demon.
The boy smiled and said that was his ability.
“You’re saying that can make me leave? How?”
“It’s not difficult. Why do you think I swallowed your eye?”
“Well, to enter this place…”
“No. It has nothing to do with that.”
The boy didn’t erase his smile.
Was it a sneer or a pure smile of joy at accomplishment?
“You’re looking at the world through my eyes now, right?”
“…”
The boy’s words were not wrong.
The girl’s eye was now asleep inside the boy.
So the girl could also see the scenes the boy saw.
Even if the boy lost consciousness, the girl could continue to observe the boy’s surroundings.
“Your ability is to mold the world you haven’t observed as you please.”
“…What are you trying to say?”
“It’s simple.”
The boy finally laughed out loud.
As if he could no longer hold back his laughter.
“Then, what could you do if you saw everything from the beginning to the end of this world?”
Translator’s Corner
The boy is doing a thing.
-Ruminas
