The stage of a broken heart (3)

Kleio, still holding onto his Perception, grew dizzy as he sensed dozens of people running into the hall. He could hear guns and swords rattling alongside loud footsteps that didn’t belong to knights.

“The police are entering!”

“Damn it! What are they trying to do now?!”

The red-eyed assassins, the red ether, and the suspicious connection between them and prince Aslan would be left to the police, unsolved. Fran’s expression distorted as he glanced between the hall’s entrance and Geheim. Then Arthur and Kleio’s eyes met their thoughts the same.

“Fran, please guide us to the passage you came in from.”

“It’s too narrow for all of us.”

“Alright, there’s away.”

Fran turned a corner around the backdrop without a further word. He opened a hidden door without a handle, revealing a narrow passage. Fran moved in first, followed by Arthur carrying Geheim. Finally, Kleio came in, closing the door behind them.

“Arthur, now!”

The moment Kleio spoke, the Promise’s familiar message floated brightly in the dusty passage.

[Unique skill: Foreground]

[—Creates a subspace that cannot be invaded by any force or magic.

—The user and the person specified by the user are separated from the incident and the background and moved to the subspace.

―Remaining time/time limit:

00:29:59 / 00:30:00

User: Arthur Reignan]

The space in front of them turned white as it changed.

.

.

.

Kleio’s first impression was this.

‘As Arthur’s level went up, the duration of his unique skill increased tremendously.’

Followed up by the second.

‘What will we do with this singer?’

Arthur had Geheim still held down. When Fran applied his [Reduction] magic one more time, he seemed to be gradually returned back to his senses, but he still struggled hard. After that, [Healing] and [Relief] were applied, but the man didn’t calm down.

“Hate! Go away! Fire!”

“It’s not fire; it’s ether. I’m trying to cure you!”

Fran, unfamiliar with magic, lost his concentration. Arthur was also struggling to hold Geheim down without hurting him.

“Listen to us!”

“Let me go. Let me go! The stage… still… me…”

“Okay. This is the stage. We’ve stopped you, so let’s talk about it!”

“Ahhhh!”

Kleio, sitting a little further from them, finally collected enough ether to carry out his plan.

‘Fran’s mantra contained the word fire. He said the fire was scary, so maybe I should avoid that.’

“Fran, I’ll try it.”

With a sigh, Fran extinguished his ether. Kleio approached the trio, Geheim still having intermittent convulsions as he laid down.

“Please step back for a moment.”

“Will you be okay?”

Kleio nodded.

“What can I do with this condition?”

Geheim’s costume was torn and ragged, and his skin revealed underneath was covered with cuts. Half of his face and body were slightly melted, and his hair was a mess. Despite Fran’s struggle, Geheim was dying. It was obvious that he had little time left.

‘This isn’t just a wound.’

The red-eyed assassins were trying to kill Geheim.

‘That means Geheim knows something that they want to cover up.’

With his mind-clearing, Geheim struggled like he had become a different person entirely, but he didn’t attack Fran or Arthur. Kleio, kneeling down, grabbed Geheim’s hand and ran his fingers carefully over the burns as he opened a circle. The small circle surrounding them shone like sunlight, a bright light that could never be mistaken for fire.

“Ah…”

Fran admired the sight quietly. Kleio Asel’s circle was amazing. Even among numerous other ether users, that bright sun-like light certainly stood out. Without knowing Fran’s reaction, Kleio focused on his magic and created a formula using [Healing][Reduction]. Then, pondering Geheim, he recited the mantra he had thought of.

“[The world is a stage, everyone is just an actor.]1”

‘On stage, pain and sorrow are only part of the play.’

It was a mantra that didn’t match the contents of the formula, but Geheim’s face relaxed in response to it. His body started to recover as his eyelids fluttered open slowly.

“Geheim Ginger. This is on stage. Shouldn’t you wake up?”

“Stage…”

Kleio gingerly supported his head.

“This is an ancient theater. The place where human fate and the gods’ tragedy were reproduced…”

“There is no theater anywhere in the world that will use a killer as an actor.”

“A killer…?”

Geheim started convulsing again.

“I, I, Lily… Is Lily dead…?”

“If that was the singer opposite you, they were lucky to survive. But-…”

When he realized Geheim was ready to talk, Fran intervened, flush with anger.

“You motherfucker, why are you pretending to be weak? There aren’t just one or two dead. The flower seller, the guides, the stage assistants! You killed them! You drained their blood and mutilated their bodies!”

“I… Those people… Ahh, ahhhh!”

Slap!

Fran smacked Geheim hard.

“I know you aren’t the only one with red-eyes. But your disgusting ether! Your red and hard ether that remained on the dead!”

Fran was right; his [Glasses of Discrimination] was a magical tool that could distinguish ether. Arthur held him back as he tried to strike Geheim again.

“Francis. This guy is undeniably a killer. However, there must be another behind him that made him like this. Are you going to ignore that? In order to relieve the resentment of the dead, you have to listen to him now.”

Fran eventually lowered his fists as he listened to Arthur. Kleio spoke to Geheim, who had begun to cry in confusion and terror, in a neutral tone without emotion.

“I know red ether isn’t innate. Do you remember how you got it?”

As if influenced by Kleio’s calm, Geheim took a slow breath.

“Remember… Yes, I remember.”

“Then tell us. This is your final stage, so you have to reveal the truth.”

Kleio believed in the authenticity this killer showed on the stage.

“Stage… Yes. I’ve always been truthful on the stage, much more than in my real life.”

Geheim’s voice sounded like it had on the stage. Even if he was dying, he did his best on the stage.

It was a familiar story. He was a child born in a cold and barren town on the border, with a dream that formed when he saw a wandering troupe. When he grew older and needed to help out with the farming, he ran away from his parents’ house and wandered the big city. However, he was neither a singer nor an actor, so he worked as a handyman in a theater company, taking on minor roles. He lived on the bottom Then, two years ago, when he disappeared in Pesseln, a city bordering the Pintos mountains, no one searched for him.

“The carriage ran for a long time, and I was tied and blindfolded. When I awoke, I was already trapped in a cage meant for a beast.”

He was in a barn built deep in the mountains with others. They were treated like animals, eating little more than porridge as wizards and strange foreigners came and went. The porridge was bitter, but it was all he had, so he forced it down when his hunger became too much to bear.

“I saw it once when the blindfold was peeled off. It was dark red, as if it were mixed with blood. I vomited everything I ate and endured for a few days… but I couldn’t overcome the hunger. After eating it, most of the people there died, but a few survived. Their eyes began to glow, and they went mad. A few eyes didn’t glow, however. They grew strong enough to bend the iron bars on their own. When that happened, people came and took them from the barn.”

Geheim survived for a long time without gaining power or going crazy.

‘This test subject is odd. There is no reaction, but he won’t die.’

‘Let’s continue to record.’

Geheim eventually forgot his own name. And, one day, a whispering sound was caught in his ear. The only words he understood were broken fragments like, ‘Obtaining a new sample,’ ‘Prototype,’ ‘Discard the rest.’

“The last night, they poured oil around us and burned it all down. I died trapped in a cage… I remember being choked as the flames ascended around me.”

“And?”

“I woke up in ruins, as I am now. An herbalist found me and took me home. I thought I would become some monster, but I remained as I am now.”

‘The Hydra’s Poison works differently on different people. He gained a powerful charm skill and was able to mend his broken body with vampirism.’

The herbalist cared for him and gave him a name. She said he had a good voice and asked him to sing, then gave him money to go to the city.

“After that, as you know, I continued to sing and act. But, from time to time, memories began to disappear. One day, I woke up, and my bed was stained with pus and blood, but I was fine.”

Geheim’s voice grew thinner.

“I- I thought it was because of those experiments. I thought I would die soon, so I refused to sign any exclusive contracts or purchase any property.”

“Did you ever think to investigate it?”

“There were too few clues. Only once, a person named Four, a servant of a noble, appeared. But no matter how much I asked around, I found nothing.”

Kleio frowned.

‘That must be a pseudonym. The master of such a cruel human experiment wouldn’t have allowed his subordinate to use his real name.’

Fran added his own question, his tone more tempered now.

“Did you never really realize what you were doing? Really!”

“I just thought I had a nightmare. People drinking human blood… I was immersed in the script and just thought that… no, I… I was killing people.”

Geheim’s words rang true.

“How could I pay for that sin… No… it’s impossible.”

Kleio felt both Arthur and Fran shake. They were courageous, but still young. Kleio turned on his appropriate judgment, cycling his ether hastily to prepare himself.

[—Using Appropriate Judgment.

—You can judge whether an issue is true or false and whether an element is appropriate.

*Caution: When using this function, 95% of the ether in the body is temporarily consumed.]

“Geheim Ginger, is everything you said true?”

“Yes. That’s right… It’s all true. I have to atone… somehow…”

[―According to appropriate judgment, the answer turned out to be true.]

“Ugh…ugh…”

Geheim’s body collapsed as the strong magic preserving him couldn’t hold out. Kleio, bearing the duty to test him until the end, didn’t let go of his bloodied hand that squeezed his.

“Mage… I know it’s presumptuous, but… One last time… That mantra… Listen…”

Half-conscious, Geheim begged Kleio for mercy. Kleio, regardless of his will, accepted the demand of one dragged from the stage of life. His quiet voice, fatigued, rang out quietly in the sub-space.

“The world is a stage; everyone is just an actor. Each has its own appearance and exit.2”

They were just words without ether, but the singer’s face grew calm once more as his trembling ceased and the strength in his hand holding Kleio’s faded.

It was the moment a life was lost.

1) 『As You Like It』, William Shakespeare.

2) 『As You Like It』, William Shakespeare.