Creak. Creak.
The unpleasant sound of something not fitting properly grated on my ears.
As consciousness gradually returned, my hand came into view.
"...Ah."
No, it was something that could hardly be called a hand anymore.
It didn't seem like something that would happen even if someone had stepped on it.
The skin, stained purple as if blood had burst beneath it, was completely crushed.
"Aaaah...!"
A scream mixed with disbelief and pain escaped my lips.
As I stared at my hand, trembling, clutching it while wailing, a voice reached me.
"Oh, you're awake?"
"Nngh...!"
The moment I heard that voice, memories flashed through my mind like lightning, making me tremble.
After successfully stopping the monster invasion, I was captured while trying to figure out how to explain how I knew this information.
I was dragged here without anyone's help.
I had no presence of mind to check where "here" was.
My consciousness, on the verge of collapse, was struggling desperately.
"Hng..."
The Mysterious Person, stained black.
Being too noticeable was the problem.
In my desperate struggle to survive, and my desire to change the world's ending, I'd caught the Mysterious Person's eye.
Was I paying for that sin now?
Was I suffering consequences beyond what I deserved?
I stretched out the arm I had been clutching to my chest.
Splat. The bumpy floor felt cold to the touch, suggesting we weren't indoors.
I tried to prop myself up with my arm, wanting to escape anywhere. I already knew nothing good would come from staying here.
But as if that wish was also beyond my means, just as I tried to move forward, the Mysterious Person's foot came into view, stomping on my arm.
"!!!!"
My eyes widened.
I tried to hold back my pain-filled cries, but I couldn't contain the voice that burst forth.
"Hnnngh, aaaah!"
"How cute."
The Mysterious Person had values fundamentally different from humans.
While we discuss whether to obey or break laws within the framework of those laws, the Mysterious Person questioned why those laws existed in the first place and acted naturally according to their own inclinations.
An abnormal situation where someone smiles when hearing agonized cries, when most would instinctively wince.
I felt like I was going to die from pain.
Like my consciousness would snap.
The pitch-black Mysterious Person enjoyed this sort of thing.
Of course, they enjoyed people's reactions in general, not just these painful emotions specifically.
It's just that the most intense emotions—writhing in pain, screaming from loss—were the easiest to provoke, so they tended to gravitate toward these methods.
"Who told you about my babies?"
Crack.
Blood vessels in my eyes burst.
My right arm was crushed just like my hand had been.
My arm was pressed down, bones broken, nerves damaged as it was ground to pieces.
I screamed again at the searing pain.
"I've never once shown them to humans."
My uniform was soaked with blood. My flesh turned purple.
If there was any small mercy, it was that my uniform covered my crushed body from view.
"I'm asking who told you, and where you heard it from?"
Crunch, crunch. With those sounds, nothing remained of my right arm below the elbow.
Either my brain was going numb or I was going insane, as the pain gradually felt duller.
I was short of breath. I felt like I was lacking oxygen from screaming so much.
My vision blurred. Judging from the cold stone floor and dark space, I guessed we were in a cave.
How ironic that my burns had just healed, and now my right hand was gone completely.
"...Urgh."
I gritted my teeth.
Holding my breath and enduring the pain rising to my throat made my face feel like it would burst, but it allowed me to swallow my cries momentarily.
As a strained sound escaped my lips, the Mysterious Person stared blankly before grinning.
"Think carefully. If you don't say anything, you'll die like this."
I trembled as they grabbed my hair and pulled me up.
Then I opened my mouth slightly.
"...You're going to kill me anyway."
"Me? Why would I? I tend to keep my promises."
Their casual shrug while saying this, as if they knew I was testing them, was truly absurd.
I snorted derisively, cutting them off.
"You? I don't believe it."
My arms were already unusable.
While my left arm was intact, my hand was strangely deformed.
It looked like someone had tried to flatten my hand with a rolling pin.
It would be strange to trust a Mysterious Person who had done this much.
The moment I spoke with certainty, the Mysterious Person's eyes widened.
I could see their red pupils trembling.
When they grabbed my head and threw me, my body flew and crashed against the wall with a thud.
"Kuhak!"
It would have hurt even if it were just a flat wall, but the cave wall was jagged and seemed to stab into my body.
As I rolled back onto the floor, the Mysterious Person's chilling voice approached.
"How do you know? How can you be so certain? When I'm saying I'll let you live, why? Don't you want to live?"
"...Hng."
Even if I survived, they would clearly make all my limbs unusable for resisting them.
Knowing that, why should I listen to them?
Whether I spoke or not, the same future awaited me.
With no arms or legs, I would likely live with disabilities.
I'd have to quit the Academy, unable to find work, and just live miserably until death.
I wasn't clinging to life here for such a miserable existence.
If I was going to die anyway, it would be better to die before becoming unable to end my own life.
Though it hurt, I thought it might be better than being left alone to starve to death in solitude. Perhaps it was only possible to think this way because I was going mad and the pain felt duller now.
"...Yeah, you liar."
I said provocatively. My breathing was labored, my vision blurred.
And because I thought it was impossible to survive this situation.
I was practically begging them to get angry and kill me.
Just grab my neck quickly, I silently urged.
The Mysterious Person approached me, grinding their teeth.
Seeing this, I closed my eyes.
I wanted to do my best, but I couldn't.
What I regretted most was not thinking to create evidence at the end, which meant I had shattered Yoon Ha-min's trust.
Though the collapse of the Wall was prevented, which led to the Mysterious Person finding me, I didn't regret that.
It was the best I could do when I didn't know this would happen.
I did have a small regret—perhaps I should have followed the route where the protagonist could be happy.
"...Come to think of it, it's strange. You're so certain I'm lying..."
As I was composing myself to accept death, the Mysterious Person stood before me, deep in thought.
At that moment, warning bells rang in my head.
I felt I shouldn't let the Mysterious Person think any further.
"Ugh, aah!"
With a broken voice, I desperately summoned my mana.
Please.
I desperately begged as I pointed my crushed left hand toward the Mysterious Person.
A crackling sound filled my ears. I thought it might reach them at this distance, but the Mysterious Person lazily grabbed my arm and snapped it.
"AAAAH! AAAAAAAAH!"
My elbow bent in a direction it shouldn't.
I screamed until my throat felt raw at the sight of my strangely twisted arm.
Why do people want to scream when they're in pain?
Perhaps because we'd go insane from the pain otherwise.
My left arm hurt so much, but my right arm had been crushed long ago, so there was no right arm to cradle my left.
In too much pain, I buried my face in the floor and screamed.
"AAAAAAAAH!"
Meanwhile, the Mysterious Person calmly continued their train of thought.
Their muttering made me even more anxious.
"How did you find the feather? Who told you? No one else would have told you."
Don't.
"It's fascinating. And you knew how to deal with monsters I've never shown to humans before."
Don't.
"Hng... grrrk."
It felt like foam was forming in my mouth.
Saliva dripped from my unclosed mouth, wetting the floor.
Groaning from the burning pain in my head, I eventually begged.
Forgetting that my opponent was a Mysterious Person, I carefully pleaded.
"Ple... please... kill, kill me..."
The Mysterious Person responded calmly to my voice.
"Why should I?"
Why? Because you're the type to kill without hesitation when someone becomes an obstacle.
Please.
"This is the first time I've had this much fun."
...Ah.
What did I do wrong again?
Should I not have begged? No, was it already too late by then?
Was I wrong from the very beginning?