"Hey, Ron."
"What?"
"Why do you trust those prophecies you hear in your dreams? What if they're wrong? And why do you have to try so hard?"
"…If I don't succeed, does that mean everything I've done is meaningless?"
…
I tightened my grip around her neck, making her thrash wildly, clawing at my hands.
Blood flowed from my wings, thick, viscous, dark, like the blood of some demon.
My pupils dilated; my eyes shifted from gold to deep crimson. A disgusting, feverish itch surged into my hands, as if thousands of worms were writhing beneath my skin.
I picked up the axe and aimed straight for her arm, but was suddenly knocked back. Even so, as a gatekeeper, she would not die that easily.
But I did not care.
I rushed at her, a butcher's knife in my left hand, and slashed straight across her throat.
Blood sprayed everywhere. A wave of pleasure surged within me, yet the itching remained.
As for her, she grabbed an aluminum tray and swung it at me in defense, while her other hand clutched her wound, trying to stop the bleeding. But a wound to the neck like that was more than enough to knock someone unconscious and kill them.
Then there was a dull thud as something fell to the floor. She had accidentally dropped something, something grotesque.
Judging by its size and shape, it looked exactly like a child's hand, brutally severed and then frozen.
She looked around the room, trying to reorganize the information in her head.
She could not die within this space and should not concern herself with her injuries.
This room felt both familiar and strange, as if reality itself were being distorted by a mist.
She felt fear, something that should not exist within her, yet at the same time she felt a strange excitement.
Looking at that man, he seemed to be slowing down as well. His hands trembled incessantly.
The conclusion was clear. Her Love mana was overflowing and being extremely influenced by him.
Because it was Love mana, it required at least two people who shared a bond, her and him.
In other words, both she and he were being forced to endure each other's emotions, and the two of them were gradually synchronizing.
Moreover, she was certain that he did not possess some perverse sexual fixation on killing when she pulled him in. This meant it was a moment he himself had once experienced.
This space was abnormal, which meant that he himself was becoming unstable. Since she had been emotionally numb from the start, all the love and suffering here were originating from him.
But why had his emotions exploded to this extent, and since when? Because of the mirror, or was this his plan?
Countless questions erupted in her mind, but none of them could change the fact that Ron Irus was now collapsing from within.
I looked at her, gripping the axe so tightly that blood streamed out, and muttered a few words.
"Hey, you look quite beautiful."
I swung the axe straight at her head, but she quickly blocked it with her arm.
There was a heavy impact.
I severed her arm, sending it crashing to the floor in a spray of blood. The cut was clean and smooth, without any resistance.
"But sorry, you're not my type."
She desperately dodged the savage attacks aimed at her, leaving me only to hack apart the furniture in the room.
I giggled at the sight, my heart dancing with joy yet overflowing with pain and fear.
That feeling, daring to cross the rules and get away with the crime, was utterly intoxicating.
I swung the axe horizontally at her, but it was instantly blown away by an invisible force.
"What…"
Cracking sounds echoed as the floor began to split apart, revealing pitch black chains that coiled around my arms. I lost my balance and fell into a bottomless abyss, even though I had been standing in a room just moments before.
"Ha ha."
Sophia clutched her throat as if all the oxygen had been sucked out of her. Then some silhouette appeared behind her and stabbed a blade into her neck.
At that very moment, as I fell into the abyss, I wore a blissful smile.
"As long as everything I do is not meaningless."
…
I woke up in the middle of a hospital room.
White corridors and the smell of disinfectant seeped into my nose. It was unbearably unpleasant.
Wait, I could smell something?
I raised my hand and pinched myself. It hurt. What was going on?
"Did something go wrong with the plan?"
At the end of the corridor, I saw a door that looked strangely familiar.
The beeping sound of a heart monitor echoed as it always did. At last, I understood what had happened.
I walked up to it and shoved the door open. The sound grew louder.
I approached the hospital bed. Lying there was a boy no more than fifteen years old, asleep, dozens of tubes wrapped around him to keep him alive.
Beside the bed were two chairs. One was occupied, the other empty.
I sat down in the empty chair and looked at the person beside me.
"Cigarette?"
I asked. He handed me the kind I usually smoked.
"Do not smoke too much. This is a hospital."
The gaunt faced man warned me.
"You are still afraid of that kind of nonsense?"
I was about to take one when I realized I did not have a lighter, so I handed it back without smoking.
"I once said that if there were a next life, I would try without hesitation. I have wasted too much of this one. What about you?"
He asked.
"I would say that if there were a next life, I would just want to sleep and eat. I do not want to be human anymore. Even being livestock waiting to die would be fine."
…
I closed my eyes, then opened them.
"As expected."
In front of me was Janeus. My body was riddled with holes, my heart pierced straight through.
I was sprawled on the ground, with Janeus lying atop me, her hand thrust through my heart and neck.
But it seemed Janeus had lost consciousness. After all, I had sustained far more injuries than she had. More accurately, she had already regenerated all of hers and was not in critical condition.
Given the situation, there was only one possibility. It seemed the battle with the One eyed imposter had tilted in my favor, so she had tried to transform my body, but accidentally resurrected me instead.
"Either way, the plan can still be considered a success."
I pushed Janeus off me and glanced at the time.
"One minute left."