"—Professor Dante Hiakapo. What the hell are you doing all of a sudden? The princess gave up on Kaiser and even bowed her head to the royal family she swore she'd never kneel to, all because she trusted you. And now you pull this crap?"
While Sir Layme barked on, I stayed silent and let him speak.
"My stance hasn't changed. The redevelopment of Starfall Mountain is canceled. If you try to proceed, you'll be making me your enemy."
"—You...!"
"—You're not afraid of death? You gambled your life on 'Eternity ∞'!"
"I don’t die."
Of course, surviving will take some effort.
To be specific, I have thirty days to go meet a certain individual. The thing is, I know exactly where they are, what they’re like, and what their weaknesses are. If I head out, I could meet them within a day.
"Just deliver the message to the princess properly."
"—You! You rude-ass royal bastard...!"
Click.
I hung up.
At the same time, a status window popped up.
< You have violated your ∞ Contract. >
< You will die in 30 days. >
A fork in the road had been chosen. I was now on the expressway. The route was far from the original, but that was fine. The goal was to take Rebecca down anyway.
What would happen next was obvious.
Rebecca would lose it.
She might even shatter the mask she’s never once dropped.
But so what if Rebecca comes after me?
Right now, the Academy values me as much as—or possibly more than—they do Rebecca. They wouldn't approve of my assassination.
The department is also my safety net. The Shaman Department Chair is in a position where he has to protect me, even if it means going against all of the princess’s forces.
Doing this was still worth it, if only to preserve and protect—
The thing called “Potential 3.0.”
Let’s see where this choice takes me and Rebecca.
Things are about to get real interesting.
Because in the end, I’m going to win.
Around that time, Ran had returned after sending the squirrel, bird, turtle, and MiniMinimong outside the cave.
“Shall we head back now? To the estate?”
“......”
I paused.
Then I looked down at the witch. The demonic mutant.
At Eve.
There are people in this world who like to act unnecessarily kind. Not truly good, just pretending. I’m probably one of them.
I wouldn’t say it’s guilt. More like a faint sense of regret. Sure, I had my reasons—but honestly, I didn’t care much about those.
What mattered to me was—
What remains of an action in the world.
I mean, I love hypocrisy. Because what remains in the world from it is goodness.
Intentions don’t matter. What remains does. So then, what remained here?
I hurt someone who said they liked me.
Some people cry just from getting a paper cut reading a textbook. So what kind of pain is it to be stabbed in the stomach?
Eve said she was waiting for me. She must’ve had some kind of bond with me.
So I tried flipping the perspective. If I had waited endlessly for someone to show up, and then they appeared—only to stab me?
Hmm...
No one really comes to mind, so I imagined the younger days of the "Old Pig."
My advisor, back then. Someone I practically worshipped. If he stabbed me?
Okay, now I felt a little worse.
I felt something similar once—when I killed the assassins from Kreutz to protect Forte.
There was no guilt with the demons. They weren’t human.
Same for lackeys. They’re just flunkies.
But killing the Kreutz assassins... that did leave a sour taste.
‘...Am I over-immersing again?’
The thought struck me suddenly.
Maybe I don’t need to immerse this much.
After all, this is a game world.
And these people—they’re all just NPCs.
Well, maybe it’s weird to call it just a game now, but if I stretch it, sure, it kind of works.
...That’s what I told myself.
Forget it.
I cut off the thoughts.
It’s hard enough just keeping myself alive. What am I, a well-fed Socrates with too much free time?
“The professor seems to be experiencing confusion about emotional attachment to virtual subjects.”
That’s what Ran said.
“...What?”
I looked up and saw the parrot above me.
Ah. Non-verbal communication.
“You got that just from my face?”
“Yes.”
“...Huh. I’ve always wondered—how many of these ‘support devices’ do you have?”
“Quite a few.”
“Show me. I want to see.”
“There’s a lot.”
“Dump them all out.”
Ran flipped her [Subspace Pouch] and shook everything onto the ground.
And like she said—it was a lot. Easily over a hundred items. Headbands alone numbered over ten.
Among them was a ridiculously oversized teddy bear.
“What’s this?”
“A teddy bear.”
“I can see that. Why the teddy bear? What does it do?”
“Oh, that one’s not a support device. It was a gift from the Chairman when I got hired as a teaching assistant.”
The ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) Chairman?
If it came from him, then it was probably suspicious.
So I poked around. Sure enough, there was a magic circuit inside.
What kind of circuit?
It was unfamiliar.
Didn’t seem like a combat type.
Upon closer inspection, it was a [Movement] circuit. Meaning, this bear could move.
The circuit ran from the head down to the arms and legs. It was clumsy and rough, but the fact that the Chairman gave it made it feel... off.
“Mind if I test it?”
“Go ahead.”
The activation button was on its stomach.
I pressed it.
The teddy bear stood up and opened its arms wide.
—“Hug me.”
...That was it.
Just a doll asking for a hug?
Or maybe it was a trap? A hidden function?
While I was wondering, Ran crouched down in front of it.
Then she knelt.
And hugged the bear.
Slowly, but deeply. Eyes closed.
“??”
What the...
I looked at her face.
Expressionless as always. Totally blank.
“What are you doing?”
“It asked for a hug.”
“So you hugged it?”
“Yes.”
“It’s just a doll. The voice is built-in.”
“Am I not allowed to hug dolls?”
“...I mean, are you usually the kind of person who hugs things just because they ask?”
The conversation was getting unnecessarily long. Maybe because Ran was such an odd person, it made me feel more at ease. Like I could be a little weird too.
“......”
She hesitated, then shook her head.
“I don’t know. Is it weird?”
“...Not really.”
What puzzled me was that Ran was usually machine-like.
Except for Head Cadet Cain, she’d never shown affection toward anyone.
“......”
Then she stared at me.
With that same unreadable gaze.
And asked,
“Professor. I have a question.”
“Ask.”
“If a doll asks for a hug, is it different from when a person does?”
“...Why?”
“For a paper. Demons study humans to kill them, but I realized I don’t actually know much about humans. So lately, I’ve been researching them.”
“......”
So it was like researching prey behavior.
“...There’s definitely a difference. A doll isn’t a living thing.”
“Then if it’s not alive, the request for a hug is meaningless?”
“...That’s a tough question. Probably meaningless. Or not very meaningful, at least.”
“I see.”
Ran quietly stared at the bear she just hugged. Then she started pressing its button repeatedly.
The teddy bear turned to face me.
—“Hug me.”
It held its arms out.
I looked at the bear, then at Ran.
“......”
“......”
She stared blankly at me. As always. Empty eyes.
—“Hug me.”
—“Hug me.”
—“Hug me...”
I covered the bear’s mouth.
“What are you doing?”
“It asked for a hug.”
“I’m not doing it.”
Ran tilted her head.
“Why not?”
“I don’t feel like it.”
She blinked.
“Is it because it’s a doll? Would you hug it if it were a person?”
“...Maybe.”
“Or... is it because of what you said earlier?”
“What?”
“The difference between a doll asking for a hug and a person asking for one?”
She seemed to be back in research mode.
So I tried to flesh out the vague idea I’d mentioned earlier.
“...The difference probably lies in the fact that one is an object and the other a living being. Hugging usually involves emotion or communication. You can’t really communicate with something that’s not alive.”
“I see.”
Ran spaced out for a second. Like she stopped breathing.
Then she asked something strange.
“...Then why was this doll made?”
“What?”
“If hugging a non-living thing is meaningless, then why does this doll have a ‘hug me’ function?”
“......”
Her words brushed my cheek like a gentle wind.
“Ah. Shall we go now?”
“...Yeah.”
As we walked down the mountain, I thought more about it.
Why does a teddy bear ask for a hug?
If hugging dead things is meaningless...
Then teddy bears shouldn’t exist.
But they do. Lots of them.
Why?
Because children feel bonded when they hug them.
And why do they feel that?
Because it just feels that way to them.
That brought to mind a story I once read online.
A post from a mom.
She had a 12-year-old kid who was obsessed with gaming. One day, in anger, she deleted his Minecraft server. It had existed for five years.
The kid cried for days and stopped talking to her.
The mom asked the internet how to teach him that it was “just a game.”
The responses were cold:
—“A 12-year-old’s 5-year-old server? That’s basically his life’s work.”
—“Imagine 10 years from now, your son spends all your life savings and says ‘It was just numbers, mom.’”
—“You didn’t delete a server. You deleted five years of sweat and tears. Probably even a dog named Choco in a house he built himself. And you call him immature?”
And through all that reasoning—
I realized something.
Right. The world I feel is the only world that matters.
***
But I didn’t have time to dwell on these soft thoughts.
Maybe this [Hell Difficulty] world refuses to let me sit in peace.
――.
Something fell from the sky and stabbed into my head.
It was just mana for now, but it was coming down for real.
What is this—?
< ♠ 『Curse of the Target』 has been applied. >
“Ran!”
She stopped and turned toward me.
Instinct kicked in—I shoved her.
Off the ridge.
“Don’t come out!”
“......”
Ran didn’t even scream as she tumbled down the slope. She landed in a bed of dry winter leaves. I threw down a [Cognition Disruption Barrier] over her. All within one second.
My [Mini-map] was zoomed out. I could see everything. Red dots rushing in from every direction.
But... they didn’t feel like assassins.