Swamp Girl!

I — was alone.

Such was the lot of the common war orphan.

I no longer know where I was born, but I remember that when I became aware of the world around me, I was crying in front of my parents, who had been burned to charcoal.
So, I do not know the faces of my parents either. I do not even know whether those charred black things were my parents at all. In any case, there was war, and it seemed I had lost everything.

To be honest, I often can only remember mere fragments of how I lived after that.
If I had to say why, it is because I lived in near-total darkness.

That was probably somewhere underground, and I was a slave.
I — or perhaps we — toiled day and night, however much such words were worth underground.
I gathered something in that subterranean place and turned it in as I was told. By doing so, I could receive food. I believe that was how I lived.

And so that dark underground place was my entire world; I knew no other. In a certain sense, that might have been considered my good fortune.

If I were to know of a world outside that one, surely I would not have been able to endure it. Ignorance is a blessing.
But if I were to think about it now, even without that consideration, if I was alive, if I was dead, if I was human at all — even that much was unclear.

The one who took me from that world was my current master. That was nothing more than good luck, no doubt. I believe it was by chance.
But when the Master took me out of that place, I was able to learn of a new world.
A new world, a new way of life, a new set of values — the Master gave all of those to me. Everything I have, I received from the Master.

For that reason, everything I was belonged to the Master.

So from that point on, I devoted everything to the Master.
I would spare no effort in becoming the version of myself the Master desired me to be. There were various considerations, but I lived each day by that principle.
A way of life that was devoid of doubt.

— Yes, until she came.

When she came here, the Master said: ‘My special someone’.
In the beginning, I felt happy. If I had to say why, it was because the Master, who had a worrying lack of interest in women until then, was able to find a special someone.

However, for reasons I could not understand, something like a thorn p.r.i.c.ked at my heart.

I did not know its true nature. But every time she spoke of the Master, or the Master spoke of her, there was a p.r.i.c.kling in my heart.

However, I made no attempt to identify it.
I knew, instinctively, that I could not think about it.

And yet, the day she tried to sacrifice herself for the Master, I realized what it was.

We were the same.

I, too, wanted to offer up my life for the Master’s sake. I, too, was capable of it. It would not be difficult. Even I could do it. I — wanted to.

It was envy.

Affection, dislike, love, hate — it was none of those things.

To be able to sacrifice myself for the Master.

That was everything to me. It was my entire reason for living.
And yet, she demonstrated it before I could.
Even though I wanted to be the one. Even though that was my role.
Even though it was my place to live and die for the Master.
She could have stolen anything else. I did not even want the Master’s love.
But that alone belonged to me.
I did not want to hand it over to anyone else.
So.

I accepted.

–

–

— What the h.e.l.l?

“Kuh–, guho–”

Awake, I shivered, thinking of the memories that had been swimming around in my head since the golden light had swallowed me.
They were filled with nothing but ugliness. I coughed, as if I could hack it out of my lungs.
That was when I heard the rattle of metal above my head.

“…Huh?”

My head spinning, I looked for the source.
Then I finally realized what had happened to me.

My wrists chained, I was suspended in the air. Releasing jets of vapor, Tetra’s Heart pulsated eerily overhead.
So I’d been brought back here after all, had I? In conjunction with the memories I’d just seen, it was too jarring a change in scenery. It was like something out of a dream. And one h.e.l.l of a nightmare, at that.

Though my feet just barely grazed the floor, the chains around my wrists were too tight for me to take a single step.
I tried to struggle anyway, but I knew right away that the st.u.r.dy chains weren’t likely to give. Now that I’d pretty much been trussed up like this, I couldn’t see myself being able to just squirm my way free.

“s.h.i.t…”

“Yo, so you noticed.”

Cursing, I got a reply. Though I knew the owner of that voice, I turned my eyes toward him anyway.
There, sitting cross-legged on the floor, was Lucien. And then, standing beside him in a blank stupor, was Allie… Maddox was nowhere to be seen.

“Couldn’t stay away, could you?”

“I was dragged here against my will. What kind of bulls.h.i.t are you going on about…”

Glaring at Lucien, who was as nonchalant as always, I ground my teeth.
It was Allie… or rather, Tetra who abducted me, but the one who was pulling the strings from the shadows was Lucien.

In the end, he was the mastermind.

Allie didn’t have that evil look from earlier, but that said, she didn’t look her usual dashing self either. Her expression was empty of soul, and she stood in place, swaying gently. It was bizarre.

Where did Tetra go? Was she still inside Allie?

“What did you do to Allie…?”

“Nothing. I haven’t done a thing to her. Tetra did that all by herself. Oh, but your restraints were all me.”

“…And here I thought you were a little more of a gentleman.”

“But if I didn’t do anything, wouldn’t you end up running away? So I’d appreciate it if you could think of it, not as a personal interest, but a matter of necessity.”

His reply mocking, Lucien shook his head with an disappointed look on his face, like it was my fault. The whole thing p.i.s.sed me off.

But still, there was nothing I could do.
Maybe I couldn’t use magic, because although I’d been staring at him for a while, the blue flames weren’t burning.
Was it because of that black mist from before? Or was something else getting in the way?

“Allie! Oi! Allie!”

Something wasn’t right with her, but I called out to my only hope.
Though she was obviously being manipulated earlier, at least that didn’t seem to be the case now. Praying for her sanity to return, I cried her name.

“It’s pointless. She let Tetra in, poor thing. Tetra went back to the Heart, but she’s already broken. The average person can’t take it. What you see here is a cast-off skin.”

I’d expected as much, but Lucien readily revealed what I didn’t want to accept.
I bit my lip.

Allie… Even though she’d survived such gruesome experiences to come this far. Was that so easily snuffed out?

The reminiscence from earlier lingered within me.
I didn’t know why I ended up seeing it. But clearly, it couldn’t be anything but Allie’s memories.

Just like me, she lost everything to war, then lived as a slave… and lived for Leon’s sake.
Her way of thinking bordered on insanity, but it was her way of life. Like all of humanity, an overlay of memories, experiences, molded her into who she was. As twisted as she was, I couldn’t forsake her.

But she was no longer here.

And now she was no more than a record in my mind. She was gone.

Ba-dump

At that moment, the memories I saw earlier, returned to my head in a thundering torrent.

[I belong to the master]
[If she hadn’t come]
[That was envy]

The memories of a broken person. Recollections without an owner.

“U–aa–UAAAAAAHH–!”

I shrieked as the emotions broke free.
Memories, experiences, a way of life that existed without knowing the reason for itself, without a way to return any longer.

Now disappearing from within her, leaving nothing behind.
And what she would naturally have gone on to become — that, too, was lost forever.

“AAH–! AAAAH! AAAAH!”

My tears overflowed. They wouldn’t stop.
I can’t think about it. I can’t consider it. How the dead once lived.
That was the conclusion I came to, fighting as a mercenary. If not, my heart wouldn’t have been able to take it.

It wasn’t that I didn’t hold myself to that maxim, but those dead memories remained clearly imprinted in my mind.
That was why my emotions seemed to burn out.1

The decades of memories that had dwelled within Allie. And the fact that they no longer existed.
The only emotion such a reality could inspire was horror.

It’s terrifying. Terrifying. Terrifying.

Will I be lost like this too? Will I become nothing?
Is this how Allie and [Chris] disappeared?

“Ugh–ah–ah–”

No way. It’s not like that. That’s wrong.
Engulfed by a terror that threatened to break me, I desperately repeated baseless words of denial again and again to recover myself.

Don’t think about it. You can’t think about it.

“Hahh, hahh…”

I breathed in deep, over and over again.
It’s okay. It’s nothing.
I calmed down just a little.

“What an interesting reaction. It’s not like this is your first time seeing someone die, right?”

Unable to wipe away the tears and saliva, I glared feebly at Lucien.
No matter what he said, he wouldn’t understand what he was talking about. I didn’t even expect him to be able to understand.
That terror just now — it was like I’d died myself.

“…I have — her memories.”

Even so, I gave him a terse response.
He wouldn’t get it, but I wanted to make some excuse for my disgraceful behavior.

“I see.”

And Lucien nodded with an unexpected look of satisfaction on his face.
His words blindsided me. When I looked at him, he calmly rose to his feet and patted off his knees.

“What the h.e.l.l do you ‘see’…!”

If he meant that he understood, I would be furious.
There was no way he could. It was impossible for him to understand. That’s why the fact that he could use such a thoughtless, know-it-all tone aggravated me.

“Well, basically, you seem to have the ability to reproduce other people’s memories. I suspected as much before, but now I can prove it.”

However, Lucien’s [I see] seemed to refer to something else.
Satisfied, all by himself, he crossed his arms and looked at me.

…Put that way, sure, that might be true.
But just because I could see Allie’s memories didn’t make it an [ability]. That was too big a leap in logic for me.

“…So what?”

And my response was accordingly curt. Frankly, I didn’t have the faintest idea what Lucien stood to gain by having this conversation right now.
As I watched him suspiciously, Lucien suddenly smiled, then said,

“Mm, because as I thought, you’re a swamp man after all.”

Footnotes
1. だからこそ、俺の感情は焼き切れそうだった ↵

Leave it on a cliffhanger today? Screw that, let’s get to the good stuff! I mean, check out that t.i.tle drop — it’s the moment some of us have been waiting for!! Onwards!