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── And, observing the disastrous and erratic scenes outside and inside the game, was Steph. She couldn't help but make a stiff face, she was accompanied by──
"As realistic as possible, you say!? Aren't they stupid!? There's no way my daaarling♥ would say such things! He would just abuse you verbally!?"
Raising complaints while shaking her water tank, there was the foolish representative, Leila.
── 'Even though she's so certain, I'm not so sure' Steph thinks.
However, seeing the killing intent each had for Sora:
"B-but... i-it became a situation where no one loses...... right!?"
Getting past her fear of the others, Steph gathered her courage and expressed her opinion──
"It that really true!? The stress might be making me lose lifespan at the speed of sound!?" Ino said.
"I had finally raised my charisma, but they made me lose it too～♪" Plum said.
"As for me, they gracefully used me, what I did was just a waste of time!? All my hards. h. i. +ps were a total loss of time!!" Kurami said.
"And, they are making me lose my pride～ right now, in progressive tense～" Fiel said.
She was dismissed with the four instant replies. But even so. No, because of them, Steph smiled.
"But you all look like you are having fun"
"... If Sora hadn't stopped you, no one would have been able to play the game with those faces" Steph continued with her face down, and suddenly:
"...... Just how much did you know, Stephanie-dono?" Ino said, from inside the game.
Everyone waited for the answer to that.
── Since they had made an 'Impostor', Steph had been outside the game this whole time. Just how much did she remember? How much did she know about the past ── or perhaps, even the future? That's what Ino was asking, and Steph's answer was:
"... I don't have any memory from right before the game started either"
── Naturally.
When they heard the answer they expected from Steph, everyone focused on the game once more. Even though it may be an Old Deus, the Ten Pledges are an absolute principle.
She couldn't harm the targets of the pledges, the Exceed, at all. She couldn't violate their rights. It was impossible to alter or read memories without permission. Even reproducing them without permission was out of the question. In that case, when the game started, Steph was right there, and consented to the creation of her own impostor. Thinking that her memories were levied in the same way is also probably correct, however:
"I remember what those two said when we departed from Elkia."
That's right, when they departed from Elkia; what they had called a trump card, Leila stuffed in a backpack, was already being carried by Steph. Those two had told her:
"── We should be able to negotiate the contents of the game to a certain extent...."
That's right, they didn't know specifically what the contents would be. But on the other hand, those two had said that they knew to a certain extent.
"When they said that, they handed me over this paper... and told me to read it when the time came."
Steph said, as she took out the piece of paper, the 'Instructions' she had received from Sora, and remembers.
Yes, she remembers when that time came, 41 days ago...
── In the gardens of Miyas. h. i. +ro, Steph was standing alone.
She felt a kick coming from the backpack on her back. Had Leila woken up? She didn't even know why they were there, so she realized that she had lost her memories. So Steph hurriedly opened the paper that they had given to her──
"... I had pa. s. sed out. Surely you can already guess what was written there."
When Steph said that, everyone answered only with a bitter smile. Aah, they could indeed guess: it was everything, right?
That's right, written there was everything that had happened in these 41 days.
── It will be a game where we will betray and deceive each other. They will most likely demand a Race Piece as the price for partic. i. p. ating in the game. Plum will betray us, and from that, Fiel and Kurami will come to attack us. In that case, it will become a drawn-out game with the possibility to withdraw in the middle of it. Since most likely Miko made the preparations, it will be a game that cannot be won normally. Everything.
That's right, everything was written in there. You can surely guess what Steph thought when she read that:
"... That's crazy, isn't it... fufufu..."
Just why had she agreed to this before losing her memory?
And thus, Steph doubted her own sanity. At any rate:
"I didn't understand why they made it a game where they knew you would betray each other, and where if they lost, five races would be destroyed. Or why if it wasn't like that there was the possibility that someone would die. I didn't understand anything."
She was full of bewilderment and uneasiness, and suddenly──
"But then I remembered that Sora and s. h. i. +ro had also said this"
Sora had said: "Don't worry. It will be fine"
s. h. i. +ro had said: "We will not let anyone die"
And on top of that──
"── 'Believe' he said... 'Believe that everyone will betray us for sure'..."
But at that time, Steph didn't understand what they meant.
Believe? That they'd get betrayed? ── There was no way she could believe in that.
'Then it will become something terrible. ' That's what she thought.
'If it went badly, five races, or at least someone, would become a sacrifice. ' She thought.
She spent day after day filled with unease and worries, unable to stop shaking, and looking up to the skies.
She could do nothing but wait for tens of days outside the game.
── Even so, there was only one thing.
Even though she didn't believe in anything then, there was just that one thing. She believed in the last sentences written in that piece of paper, in the 'instructions'.
── "We are counting on you to stop them so that no one loses anything, Steph."
── "We are relying on you. Also, forgive us for excluding you, okay... ?"
Believing that she couldn't believe──
Holding just that close to her chest, Steph was able to come this far. However, that was...
"── Now, after seeing you all, I was finally able to calm down!!"
Shaking her head, Steph smiles──
"After all, you look like you are having so much fun!"
Having seen that, Steph was now able to say that with a lovely smile.
That smile was just a little bit lonely...
"That's why. I can now believe that the game with the Old Deus can end with fun"
Steph made that unilateral declaration, and thinks.
The reason why they hadn't let her partic. i. p. ate must have been....
── Because they couldn't believe that she'd betray them for sure.
Originally... that'd have been something to be proud of. Something to be happy about. However, looking at the people in front of her, and how much fun they were having playing the game, she felt just a tiny bit jealous.
Steph thought that being unable to join them was just a bit frustrating.
── From inside the virtual s. p. a. ce, Ino smiles bitterly at Steph's words.
He now understood that Sora's last message wasn't a lie.
── "I believed in you, that you'd surely betray us, I love you guys!"
'I will show you that we can beat a G. o. d without a single sacrifice, and without believing in anyone' is what he said.
Miko-sama had been able to find the meaning behind those words, but Ino hadn't. Also, he felt that he understood the part about believing, at least in part──
"... However, even so, there are still some questions remaining..."
That was, of course, what had Miko prepared? No. Before that was this game's true intention, what was even their goal when it started?
There were many questions remaining, but Ino thinks about the most baffling one.
── 'Why did Sora and s. h. i. +ro act together with the impostor?'
Sora and s. h. i. +ro certainly knew that 'that Steph' wasn't the real one. They knew immediately after the game started. And yet,
"Even though they didn't know when she would betray them, or even her true colors, they still handed their dice over to the impostor... ?"
Ino whispered that, and thinks back to 23 days ago.
In the baths, Sora and s. h. i. +ro had calmly transferred their dice to the impostor. He had certainly said that, 'The problem is the same for both of us' It was extremely dangerous... why would they do such a thing. As Ino was pondering by himself,
"E-excuse me... Ino-san?"
"Yees? What is it Stephanie-dono?"
Steph's voice resounded from outside the game, and Ino replied with an unusually good mood.
As if there was something wrong with that, Steph answers in a very shaky voice:
"E-ehm... I thought that maybe! Y-you should stop... mounting and punching Sora repeatedly!? Oh-hoho～"
Steph speaked against Ino, who kept hitting Sora NPCs endlessly.
With just one hit, the earth trembled, and the road broke. By now there was a crater there.
Not caring about the decrease in love power, Ino kept producing blunt sounds──
"Stephanie-dono, do you know the saying: 'This is this, and that is that'?" He answered with the best smile he has made this century.
He was convinced that this game had been created just for this moment.
"U-um! C-c'mon～, don't they say that good friends are the ones you can fight with?" Steph desperately tried to make a follow-up.
"In that case, in the era of the Great War, everyone was already the best of friends♥" Plum answered from outside the game.
"E-ehm, Sora also said that even foolishness can come full circle!!"
But, once again, Plum responded with a logical conclusion:
"Then, enmity can come full circle too and you'd become best friends! Are you saying that everything can come full circle!?"
The blunt sounds were echoing even now, and Ino──
"I-i-in the first place!! Didn't everyone get betrayed to the same extent!?"
── suddenly stops his hand. And considers.
"Sora said so too, didn't he!? 'I believed in you, that you'd surely betray us'!!"
00b: ── There is one person among the dice holders whose memories weren't levied, a "traitor".
... A 'Traitor' it says.
Not an impostor, nor a liar. A 'Traitor'.
Sora had said: 'I believed in you, that you'd surely betray us'. If everything can come full circle, if they didn't have faith in that belief either...
"It can't be. Is that it, Miko-sama... But that can't be..."
Ino remembers the start of the game with amazement. The words that Sora had used to instigate them had a hidden meaning.
── 'It doesn't matter who is the traitor, anyone is fine'
He understands what he meant now. Who is the traitor? ── Themselves.
Everyone. Everyone betrayed everyone. Everyone believed they'd be betrayed. In that case, the one that the Old Deus had gone out of her way to put in the rules as the 'Traitor'.
Just──
── Who were they going to betray... ?
| ← Ch. 48 | Ch. 50 → |