Lying on the bed, I wait for thirty minutes to pass.
I am accepting death in stillness.
Outside is the busiest time right now.
There were funerals, there was the collecting of bodies, and there was the rooting out of those involved with Setian and the demons. It was led by Ezekiel, who went back to the royal castle wrapped all over in bandages.
For some reason, the king, no longer afflicted with dementia, gave his full support. Thus the Elder Council was half-destroyed.
Because many had sent their children to the Academy. Social anxiety rose to an extreme. Quelling that also became the role of the Hero Party. Those guys went around diligently, speaking to the citizens about peace and safety. Accordingly, rewards and promotions were being prepared.
Amid that, I slip behind the stage and lie here in bed like this.
Death did not frighten me.
What frightens me is loss.
Many figures died in this Summerneken battle.
Betelgeuse, the ever-composed Black Abyss division chief; his clever crow; the fat head of the Assassination Department, Shaman Kreutz. Besides them, many professors whose faces I knew died.
The face of piglet Assistant Professor Bugi Bugi, who sobbed at the funeral I dropped by briefly, flashes before my eyes. I still remember Shaman and him grinning slyly.
— Ho-ho-ho! Donuts must be stacked three together and eaten in one bite, Bugi Bugi!
— Oooh, I’ll try it too!
But Shaman is gone now, and Bugi Bugi will never stack three donuts with someone again.
My heart kept going to Bugi Bugi.
I am not afraid of my loss.
What I fear is the loss that will be suffered by those left behind.
Because the figure called “me” is that precious to them?
No.
I do not think I am that important.
Only that this world, this game world planned for, implemented for, and operated for only one player—is, before the player’s loss, a world that must collapse.
Even if for them it is not “me,” they need a “player.”
Structurally so.
“Professor. It is prepared.”
“......”
I turned my head and looked at my loyal TA, Ran.
She is the only person detached from this world’s setting. I had just conveyed all my plans to her.
“...Have you confirmed the matter of the curse.”
While I slept, Ran used every [Auxiliary Device] to confirm the “ultimate curse” placed on me.
“Yes. Curse No.96, 『Curse of Instant Death』, has been confirmed.”
If it were only up to that, it would be as expected.
“...Additionally, part of the mana that burrowed in as Summerneken was dying has been detected. Ordinarily that mana should have been blocked by the stigmata of the Radiant Constellation⁺₊⋆, but since your output has dropped, it seems infection occurred.”
“As befits a two-horned demon.”
Quan and Ultra-Bomiteka, and finally even Kaiser—all of them, in the end, joined hands. I came to suffer a quasi-permanent loss of might.
I can’t know how fortunate that is.
If, with maximum output, I had overcome the contract of 「Curse-Suit♠」 and then triple-horn demonization had proceeded—this [Hell Difficulty] would inevitably have entered its ending.
“If I were to speculate....”
Ran glanced at me, then opened her mouth.
Then closed it again.
“If you were to speculate, what.”
“......”
“Speak freely. I’m going anyway.”
“If I speculate... I think it may be the 『Curse of Being Forgotten』 or the 『Curse of Oblivion』. From what I grasped, those were the curses Summerneken handled best.”
The difference between the two curses lies in this: do others forget me, or do I forget others...
“So that’s why Eve was forgotten by the world.”
“That’s right.”
“I can be forgotten too.”
“Yes.”
“What shall we do. There is no longer a player who unconditionally resists curses.”
“Then no one will be able to remember you, Professor.”
After that, silence. As always, Ran sat beside me with her back straight, not blinking an eye, and I let out a feeble breath.
It was a very familiar tableau to me. This was exactly how it was before I entered the game. When I lay on the hospital bed as a cancer patient, friends or relatives—someone—often came and sat like this at my side.
As I closed my eyes in a stupor, something touched my cheek. I turned, and Ran was poking me with a finger. When I opened my eyes, there was her ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ sullen face.
“Shall I hug you.”
“......”
I recall when Ran hugged a teddy bear.
If there is no meaning in hugging something that is dead, then teddy bears should not exist in the world.
Even so, there were far too many teddy bears in the world.
Ran said that even if it is a teddy bear, if one can feel a bond, one should hug it.
“I have no strength to sit up.”
But just when I was thinking what kind of embarrassing hug this would be, a cold hand slipped between my fingers.
Ran laced her fingers with mine.
Still with those sullen eyes.
‘Good grief.’
The truth is.
Right before I entered the game, in the end I was sensing the end alone after a long illness.
For the last time I had arranged all my scant possessions (laptop, etc.) to donate somewhere.
Not because I especially wanted to help others—just because it felt like a waste to throw them away meaninglessly.
Even if I earned a single won. I earned it. Isn’t it galling not to know where it will go, what will become of it?
The day before I was to carry that out, a pop-up appeared. [DLC: Professor of a Hero Story].
Back then, I must have been lonely.
The friends and labmates who came the first few times—I, embarrassed to show an ugly sight, later made them unable to come.
Relatives by nature come once or twice and that’s it.
There was no family. Nor a lover.
A textbook young man’s lonely death!
And yet...
Now it was different.
Even at death’s door, there was someone.
In truth, I could have called more.
There are people I want to see.
Having one’s hand held right before death means it’s quite a death worth dying.
Knock-knock—
Then someone knocked on the door.
Ran opened it and cautiously stepped aside.
It was the Eternal Constellation∞ Song Chien who came in.
“Baby.”
The eight-hundred-year-old woman called me that the moment she saw me.
“Yes, Constellation.”
“You’re dying now?”
Bewilderment pooled in her eyes.
“So it has come to that.”
“How can you go first like this. Auntie is still fine.”
“Are you sad? That your darling Dante Hiakapo is finally dying.”
Song Chien made a face.
“Sad? I’m jealous.”
“Shall we die together.”
“Great. When’s good.”
“In twenty-five minutes.”
“You’re hasty. And this place is a bit much. It’s your room.”
“Where would the Constellation prefer.”
“Somewhere with a view of the sea.”
As she spoke, Song Chien laughed, and I laughed as well.
The so-called “suicide joke.”
But someday far in the future, if Song Chien faces her last moments and I prepare her place to die, I store away in my head where that place should be.
Anyway, the jokes ended there.
“How did you know to come.”
“I always know everything. What are you thinking, anyway? How can you just up and go like this.”
“I’m not going anywhere. I have the Rune of Revival♥.”
“You trust that shabby thing? It’s a contract Summerneken made directly and a curse he cast himself. It’s outside any order... in your terms, it’s a state with a ‘bug.’”
“Yes.”
“Bluntly, you dying is one thing. But you should at least say your last goodbyes to the others. How can you not even do that?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t ‘yes’ me! What are you going to do. Just now I was praying at the funeral and that mute demon girl came wrapped head to toe in bandages with an IV pole and medical staff stuffed all around her and gestured at me, you know?”
Song Chien waved her hands around, then put her hand to her cheek and acted like a cat.
“This. This. What does it mean.”
“You didn’t learn sign language in eight hundred years?”
“Shut it. I mimicked it exactly, okay?”
“......Yes.”
“Uh-huh? Not ‘yes,’ huh? This brat is about to pop Auntie’s lid.”
What to say—Song Chien is fun to tease. How can someone live eight hundred years and still feel this pure. Setian, who lived a mere 140 years by the record, was that much an old fiend.
“In truth, I’ve prepared everything.”
“Your last goodbyes?”
“Not last goodbyes, but arrangements so that no loss remains where I have disappeared.”
“How?”
“Why would I tell you that.”
“Wanna die? Speak now.”
I explained the arrangements.
Then Song Chien’s expression turned a little strange.
“That’s it? That’s enough?”
“If only the three of you—Constellation, Ran, Adele—keep silent, all will be fine.”
They are the only three who know of my death.
“The princess?”
“The princess thinks I shook off that curse.”
“How?”
Then something funny came to mind.
“You remember when you released the Eternal∞ contract for her.”
“I do.”
“From that time, the princess mistakenly thinks contracts don’t take on me.”
“What?”
Song Chien laughed.
I found it funny too.
When the laughter ebbed, quiet remained.
“Then let me summarize your situation.”
“There’s no need.”
“Baby. Please shut it.”
“......”
After gagging me, Song Chien summarized.
“One. You are about to die. You will attempt [Revival♥], but you don’t know when you’ll resurrect.”
“Yes.”
“Two. You’ve prepared ‘arrangements’ so that even after you vanish, it will be as if you haven’t. The only ones who know the truth are your two TAs and me.”
“Correct.”
“Three. You may fail [Revival♥] and be forgotten forever. You know that too.”
“Perhaps that side would be better. I still carry the Demon King’s seed.”
“The worst is you’re forgotten and the Demon King—the Lord of Eternal Return—revives, right?”
“That’s right.”
“The best is you live and the Demon King dies.”
“Even if the Demon King cannot be killed, the Demon King War will begin with him bearing a fatal wound. That is Kaiser’s arrangement.”
“A pretty student.”
Indeed. He was my star pupil. Though he learned almost nothing from me.
“I’ll ask one last thing. Shouldn’t you at least meet the princess or that demon girl?”
“Song Chien.”
“Mm.”
“When dogs or cats are about to die, do you know why they run away from their owners and hide in a corner?”
“No, not that sort of thing.”
“Because it is the most efficient.”
“......”
“Pointlessly drawing attention to receive care is something that chips away at the group’s energy.”
And I was a gamer.
A pilgrim who pursues efficiency.
“Eve cannot do without me.”
Therefore she must not know that I am gone. Ever.
“...That’s a very assassin-like load of crap.”
“I’m a professor of the Department of Assassination.”
With that, Song Chien nodded and prayed for my revival.
I felt the strength slowly drain from my body.
Everyone dies.
Whether one lived winning a desperate struggle against oneself, or lived happily at play—in the end, is all that effort just to die? I once held such a question, but now I know.
While alive, make good things. Leave good things. Give others good memories. And if you are a professor, you must set your students on the shoulders of giants.
The faces of many come to mind. Balmung exerting himself with the Hero Party. Gray, still teaching illusion professors of many nations. Elize attached as escort covert unit to Professor Cain’s schedule. Kendreik, renowned as a silent elite assassin. Quan, who did not die. Kaiser, who as head of Dominion❆ is planning a full-scale advance onto the continent. Rebecca, my contract wife, no longer ignored anywhere. Glory, who at last drew the holy sword and became a hero. Adele Mouin, I don’t know well, but they say she is worshiped like a goddess at Kreutz. My elephant, who no longer lives alone and lonely.
Even if I die, what I left remains.
Therefore the death coming down upon me now did not frighten me.
Still, didn’t I leave a fair amount behind?