Chapter 29: Simulated Revenge

Translated by Hikaru

Edited by Mel

“Let me tell you the story first. This whole thing is an act. I never died, and the severed heads of Glan and Mize are fake ones created by《Alchemy》.”

I told Elysia, who was so surprised that she lost her voice.

“The attacker, as you can see, is me. The other one is an acquaintance of mine, but… I’ve already sent him on his way because I’ve had no more use of him.”

The first attacker to show up was a former colleague of mine. I asked him if he could help me since I was short on manpower, and he gladly agreed. However, I now owe him a debt.

“Everything is an act…? Then, everything that happened today is…”

“Not just today.”

Elysia’s eyes widened at that comment.

“No way, the Robert I killed was…”

I nodded at Elysia’s murmur.

“Not dead. What Elysia killed last night was a doll dummy that we prepared. The real one is still alive.”

When Elysia was told the truth, she was utterly shocked.

Of course! There was no way that an amateur could assassinate the second son of a duke and get away with it. No matter how lucky they were, it was impossible. Robert’s assassination was never made known as an incident in the first place, because last night nothing happened. The real Robert was not dead, so the real Orthodox knights were probably enjoying a relaxing holiday in the royal capital right now.

“I couldn’t seem to get you to stop your revenge, so I had to play a trick on you to get you to calm down. Well, I hope you’ve cooled down a bit now that you feel like you’ve defeated your bitter enemy.”

After I explained that much, I suddenly realized there was a strange smell. I looked down and saw a small puddle of water had formed around Elysia, who was sitting on her butt on the ground.

“…Let’s change clothes first, shall we?”

I wondered if there was a clothing store nearby. With that in mind, I moved on.

◆

After stripping off my armor, I went to a clothing store and bought some women’s clothes and gave them to Elysia. A few minutes later, after Elysia finished changing, I suggested that we go to a park nearby. Elysia nodded absent-mindedly, so I took her to the park. It was almost sunset, and the park was completely quiet. I sat down on the edge of the fountain, watching the sunset, and opened my mouth.

“…I regret that I may have gone a little too far. But it’s also true that I couldn’t talk about it without doing this.”

Until the other day, Elysia was filled with hatred, narrow-minded, and unstoppable. So I decided to remove her hatred. That was to say ― I decided to make her realize that she had gotten her revenge. By having killed the fake Robert, Elysia regained her composure. She realized that revenge would only leave her with a sense of emptiness, and how wonderful it was to have a future. Elysia, without her hatred, was finally able to realize this. There was a possibility that Elysia would destroy the doll dummy and harm herself at the same time. Initially, I was going to run to her immediately if it looked like she was going to, but… as expected, she did not.

I knew it.

As I was still a former resident of the “dark” world. I was sure that she would definitely miss her life after taking revenge. There are not many people who, after taking revenge, commit suicide with a clean slate. I was familiar enough with situations like this, to be able to identify such a peculiar person as someone who would not.

“As I said before, this whole thing is a play. But even if it is a play, it is not a good scenario. This is an unquestionably possible future as a fact, there is a knight in the Knights of Orthodox who was saved by Robert when he was an orphan.”

Elysia silently shook her head.

I wouldn’t bother to explain it, but Chris also cooperated in the production of this scenario. In other words, this was the situation that the Royal Defense Intelligence Bureau, the kingdom’s largest intelligence agency, judged to be the most likely to happen. The accuracy rate was quite high. Not only the backgrounds of each member of the Knights of Orthodox but also their personalities and strength were carefully calculated.

So to speak, this is what I called simulated revenge.

“What you just experienced earlier – That’s the end of disastrous revenge. Do you know why that happened?”

“…because I was trying to pick up the future that I threw away.”

“That’s right.”

I nodded at Elysia’s answer, which she said in a strained voice.

“Being prepared is, after all, a temporary thing. When the circumstance changes, the resolve you had before becomes useless. Taking revenge is a big change in the situation. It is very normal to want a future when you thought you could die.”

Elysia’s revenge did not anticipate that change, so she realized her failure at the last moment.

“Everything was exactly like what you said,” replied Elysia.

“It was only at first that I felt great after my revenge. After a night, there was nothing but emptiness. As I tried to fill that emptiness, before I knew it, I was thinking about the ‘future’.

Ever since my father died, all I’ve ever wanted was revenge, but after I got my revenge, what awaited me was a feeling of emptiness and… anxiety. I wasn’t sure if the knights would ever find out what I’ve done. Would I be able to go back to my normal life like this? Such anxiety was buried in a corner of my mind.”

“That’s what you call destructive, isn’t it? Anxiety-ridden, with a horrible end. …When I realized that I was going to die, all I could think about was regret. I should never have taken revenge if this was going to happen. …What I said then was unmistakably true.”

“…I feel relieved to hear you say that,” I said to Elysia, who was mocking herself.

She no longer had the will to take revenge though Robert was still alive. She wouldn’t be able to take such destructive revenge anymore in the future. It was a bit forceful, but I thought I finally convinced her.

Our ordinary daily life is protected for the time being.

“―But it’s also true that if we don’t do anything about it, it’s not going to end well.”

At my words, Elysia lifted her downcast face.

“Do you remember what I said earlier about productive revenge?”

“Yes, I do. But…I couldn’t do that.”

“No wonder. It’s hard to get productive revenge. The reasons why professionals in this field are valued is because amateur revenge is usually doomed, unless you take the proper time to attack, or you have power like Zeke. There are people out there who can take revenge and do it perfectly, including aftercare, simply as a job.”

Glan and Mize approached us from the entrance of the park. I looked away from the two approaching people and slowly stood up.

“Please deceive them appropriately.”

“…Where are you going?”

Elysia asked, and I answered briefly.

“Work.”