Chapter 152

"……"

Mikhail stood with his head dropped at an angle and said nothing. No—he couldn't bring himself to say anything.

The moments he'd engineered. Those memories came flooding in like a river bursting its banks.

[I'll become the path to your futures.]

[It was satisfying. Watching everything flow according to plan, according to my control.]

Himself and the main storyline. The original progression that had to be maintained—because there was no other choice, because it guaranteed the best outcome.

He'd thought he'd already settled the question of compliance, once and for all.

[So I'll maintain the original storyline's flow. I know the advantages it brings, and I understand it's the best path for everyone.]

[…What was I even worried about? That was nothing.]

But there had been a flaw in that reasoning.

He'd been viewing this world as nothing more than an extension of the game. Every moment he'd encountered, he'd interpreted through the lens of fixed roles and predetermined flows.

[Ethan, forget about efficiency or whatever else. Don't think about things like that. You… you of all people can't afford to.]

He'd assigned names and labels, then managed everything like data sorted into predetermined categories.

Rather than following natural cause and effect, he'd treated each moment as an isolated fragment—one where only efficiency and results mattered.

[Yeah. It's a shame, but it can't be helped.]

[Should achieve roughly seventy percent of the intended effect.]

[Could probably be replaced in a future update.]

The world he'd left behind.

He'd been clinging stubbornly to the way he used to see things.

[Delete.]

But that had been a distortion. The world he'd set foot in was independent—alive, organic. Not a single element in it could be carved away and interpreted in isolation.

What stood before his eyes had to be understood and accepted within the living context of the reality he inhabited—in all its complexity.

[If it were you, Mikhail, I know you would've done the same. So this result belongs to all of us.]

[I'm sorry. I feel like I've been holding you back this whole time. …Things won't be that difficult going forward.]

[If there's ever anything I can do to help, just say the word.]

And yet he hadn't faced a single one of those moments honestly. Not even the slightest trace of genuine emotion.

[But seriously, what's that guy even doing here?]

How much had he missed… because his thinking had been locked in a cage?

"Ah… ahh."

A sound escaped through Mikhail's lips—too faint to call a sigh, too broken to call a groan.

It had to look pathetic. Wretched, even. But Mikhail kept his head bowed and made no effort to hide the tremor in his voice.

He just kept letting it spill—piece by fractured piece.

"Aah… ah."

A sudden throb lanced through his temples. The same kind that struck whenever he'd told himself this is for the best and*there's no other way *—whenever he'd smothered the characters' voices and cut them short.

[…Why is today so rough? Maybe I should go take some painkillers.]

But this time, he didn't want to swallow the medicine. He didn't want to shake off the pain bearing down on him.

The ache that had been signaling from deep in his chest all along—telling him something was wrong.

He wouldn't let anything obstruct his vision anymore. He wouldn't be dragged along by the momentum of the past.

Everything tangled inside him… he would face it. And he would judge it for himself.

"Hoo."

The trembling in his shoulders gradually subsided. Mikhail raised his head, and the staff clenched in his hand clattered to the floor.

Then he stretched his empty hand forward and shifted his gaze to meet Verte's eyes.

"What are you suddenly—"

Verte's brow creased with suspicion at the unexpected gesture.

But Mikhail only stared straight ahead in silence.

"……"

The headache's aftermath, maybe. His eyes ached as though they'd been pried at from behind. His vision kept cycling between sharp focus and blur, like a camera lens that couldn't decide where to land.

But the urge to look away from Verte—not even the faintest trace of it crossed his mind.

[I'm settling this with you. Here and now. Mikhail Senit.]

You were never just some variable in the main storyline.

[—Because we want to protect him! Verte!]

You, standing right in front of me. Your desire… I can finally see it for what it is.

A beat of silence drifted between them.

"…Wow. Verte."

The words broke free from behind Mikhail's pressed lips. Verte ground his molars and launched himself forward.

TAP!

Verte's hands transformed in an instant. Ice crystals shimmering with pale blue light bloomed across his knuckles and spread like frost overtaking glass, swallowing the blackened skin beneath.

CRACK-CRACK!

Mikhail countered and thrust his arm forward.

Above his outstretched palm, crystals identical to Verte's materialized—gleaming, translucent ice.

Crk-crk! CRACK!

This time, neither side's magic fizzled out or tried to dodge the incoming trajectory.

Instead, they collided head-on—locked in a dead-even clash.

BOOM! KA-BOOM!

—In the scale of their spells, the hardness of their crystals, the depth of their cold, the sharpness of their edges.

Mikhail answered every challenge thrown at him across every front.

Without yielding a single inch, he layered mana upon mana, amplified the force of his spells, and bore down—driving Verte into a corner.

"Ngh…!"

A rapid-fire string of collisions rang out. Verte was forced back step by step, teeth sinking into his lip.

With every exchange against Mikhail's magic, the fact that his chances were growing slimmer had shifted from instinct to certainty.

Griiind.

But Verte shook off the doubt.

He ground his teeth and threw his eyes wide.

He'd come this far. Whatever it took—

"AAAAAAGH!"

Verte lurched backward, then hurled himself at Mikhail with a scream that sounded torn from his throat.

KRA-CRACK!

A brittle detonation of cold, and transparent crystals erupted from Verte's hands.

Razor-sharp shards of ice trailing wisps of freezing air.

They jutted from every angle of his fists like layered sword blades stacked one atop the other.

"……"

Mikhail stared down the charging figure head-on, then reached out once more.

Above his outstretched palm, crystals identical to Verte's appeared—the same translucent ice.

Crk-crk. Crack.

The bitter cold pouring from both sides collided in a taut, unyielding stalemate.

But the shapes their crystals had taken couldn't have been more different.

Where Verte's ice had sprouted in jagged, irregular clusters, the crystals blooming from Mikhail's hand were arranged in neat, precise layers—like the petals of a flower in full bloom.

SHATTER!

The two spells crashed together in the same heartbeat.

The razor-honed crystals from both sides exploded into fragments on impact, unleashing a violent burst of pressure.

WHOOOOSH—!

But the stronger gale tore toward Verte's side.

Verte staggered under the onslaught of wind, lurching one way and then the other before he was flung backward.

"Gakh!"

He slammed into the wall and slid to the floor in a crumpled heap. Searing pain ripped through every inch of his body.

Ragged gasps and a high-pitched ringing flooded his senses all at once.

Hoooooo—

The wind that had been tearing through the cavern died down in slow, fading gusts as Verte lay twitching against the ground.

Mikhail watched him through hair whipping across his face, then walked forward—steady, unhurried—until he stood before the fallen figure.

"Hahh… hkk."

Verte's eyes flickered like a candle on the verge of guttering out.

But at the presence closing in, his body tried to respond—tried, against every signal screaming otherwise, to force itself upright.

"Ngh… hahh."

Mikhail didn't move any closer. He simply stood there in silence, looking down at Verte.

"It's… not over… yet…."

Verte managed to drag his upper body off the ground and was twitching his blackened fingertips, trying to conjure something—anything.

Fzzt. Fzzzt.

But the mana wouldn't gather the way it used to. Feeble sparks flickered at his fingertips in scattered, dying bursts—then faded without a trace.

And then, a moment later.

Verte's hands couldn't produce mana at all.

"Ha… haha. Hh…."

A laugh that sounded like something breaking spilled from Verte's lips. His head dropped, his shoulders shook violently, and a voice ripped raw tore from his throat.

"Damn it! Why is it disappearing! Come back! Come back!"

Verte kept screaming. His blackened hands curled into claws as he scraped at the ground again and again.

As if that alone… could bring back the mana that had abandoned him.

"I don't—I don't care if I'm completely destroyed! I mean it! All I have left is one goal! If I can just take him down! I don't care what happens to me! So—!"

"Verte. Is that really what you want?"

"Is that even a question?! Of cour—!"

Verte jerked his bloodshot eyes upward.

But the instant his gaze met Mikhail's, the words died in his throat. He froze like something had locked every joint in his body.

"Of course… I…."

Verte stared up at the figure before him.

And when he saw the anguish twisting Mikhail's face—something that looked terribly close to grief—his lips moved without sound, and his eyes fell.

What filled his downward gaze was the sight of his own hands, blackened and dying.

"……"

Mikhail lowered his eyelids halfway. He watched despair bloom across Verte's frozen features, slow as frost spreading over glass, and barely managed to swallow the sob that surged up his throat.

What echoed in his ears were the voices of the research institute members who had stood in his way.

[You think we'd just hand you an answer to a question like that?]

[Because we want to protect him! Verte!]

People who wished for Verte's safety and happiness—who'd refused to back down in the face of a threat, planting themselves between Mikhail and the person they cared about.

The unwavering devotion they'd shown, the trust—none of it could have been built from one side alone.

A heavy silence settled over them.

Mikhail hesitated, then steadied the tremor in his voice and asked once more.

"Was beating me… truly the only thing that ever mattered in your life?"

Verte couldn't lift his head any higher. He kept it bowed, chewing at his lip.

"I… I'm… I…."

A tangle of emotions knotted through every syllable.

But the right words to express what churned inside him seemed just out of reach.

"I still… I haven't… those guys… I still…."

Fractured syllables. A shaking voice.

That was all Verte's heart could manage to say for him.

Mikhail let a thin breath escape and curled his fingers tight.

The appropriate course of action—no, something far more than that. A desire of his own, fully formed and crystalline, was rising from deep inside his chest.

"—Gakh!"

It happened in that instant. Verte's torso lurched, a violent cough tore through him, and bright red blood poured from between his lips.

Drip. Drop.

Vivid crimson splattered across the black ground in stark, unmistakable lines.

Clear evidence of a critical wound.

Mikhail lowered his gaze, exhaled a long breath, then turned and walked to the side.

Clatter.

He bent toward the floor.

He picked up the intact return stone, carried it to where Verte lay, and knelt down in front of him.

"Verte. You should be the one to use this."

"…?"

"If you get out quickly and receive treatment, you can at least avoid losing your mana for good."

Whirrrr—

Mikhail channeled his own mana into the stone, activating it, and pressed it into Verte's hand.

The dark cavern around them began to shake harder in response.

Verte's eyes flew wide with shock. His breathing came in ragged heaves, but he fumbled the words out one by one.

"Why are you… suddenly doing this…?"

"Because you showed me something important. Think of this as my way of returning the favor."

Nothing about it made sense from where Verte stood.

But Mikhail sealed his lips after that. He had no intention of saying anything more.

RUMMMBLE….

The tremors surged again. The stone resting in Verte's hand began to glow with a vivid, rising light.

"You… you. If this place… collapses…."

Verte stared up at Mikhail as he rose to his feet, the urgent fragments tumbling out before he could piece them together.

KA-RUMBLE!

But Mikhail paid the roaring noise and the chaos no mind at all. He wore the same calm expression as always, looking down at the figure crumpled on the ground before him.

Only the faint smile resting at the corner of his mouth was something Verte had never seen before.

"…!"

Verte pried his eyelids wide and stared at Mikhail's moving lips.

The glow surging from below and the stone's rising hum drowned out the words, but the shape of Mikhail's mouth told him enough.

"I'll figure it out. Don't worry about me."

That was the last thing he registered. A blinding flash of light swallowed Verte whole. The final image—Mikhail's silhouette, fading into nothing—was the last thing he saw before the return stone carried him out of the cave.