Chapter 156
Chapter 156
Flowers and blades of grass swayed in the warm breeze.
Lapin was sleeping soundly, leaning her back against a large tree.
There was not even the slightest worry on Lapin’s face.
It was enough to make me want to fall asleep beside her, even if only for a moment.
This world was so peaceful that I almost felt sorry to wake her.
Yes, peaceful.
……But because it was too peaceful, I could tell.
This peace had been created by someone.
In the outside world, monsterized Lapin and Ren’s group were probably facing each other, risking their lives.
There was no paradise at the place one fled to.
It was time to wake up from this dream and return to reality.
“Lapin.”
I slowly opened my mouth.
“It’s time to wake up.”
Just as I stepped closer and reached out my hand toward Lapin—
Pajijijik—!
An unidentified spark flew from my fingertips. I hurriedly pulled my hand back.
……Something of unknown origin was blocking Lapin.
And then…….
System Warning
Irregular entity detected. Fifty XXXX patterns detected within a single entity.
Recommended action: Immediately suspend synchronization.
Just moments ago, the system background had been colorful with a pink hue.
But now, the familiar phrases and pink background unique to <Animal Farm> had completely disappeared.
Instead, a warning message appeared on a screen filled with heavy noise.
Naturally, it was something I had never seen before.
“…….”
When Lapin opened her eyes, her emerald-colored pupils shimmered.
I no longer looked at the system and instead focused on Lapin.
“……Villed.”
“Did you sleep well?”
Fortunately, Lapin seemed to recognize me.
I extended my hand again, stopping just before touching the unidentified barrier.
“It’s time to wake up.”
“…….”
Lapin seemed to hesitate for a moment, then slowly shook her head.
I blinked.
“If you don’t wake up now, you’ll be trapped here and live out your life, you know?”
“……I don’t care.”
“You won’t be able to see me or Karin, you won’t be able to attend the academy anymore, and you won’t be able to hug the sea otters or the lambs either.”
“…….”
“You’ll be left here all alone.”
In an instant, Lapin’s eyebrows drooped into the shape of the number eight.
“I don’t want that.”
So she really didn’t want that after all.
“……Actually.”
Lapin carefully opened her mouth.
“I don’t want to be alone here.”
Lapin looked up at me and met my gaze directly.
“I want to go back to the livestock shed. But…….”
Her pupils wavered, and then she lowered her head.
“I…… can’t do that.”
Lapin’s voice trembled.
“I thought I had finally become free, but I was still trapped.”
Still sitting, Lapin clenched the grass in her hand.
Wasn’t it true freedom that she really wanted to grasp?
“I’m a fake created by someone. My appearance, my life, all of it.”
At some point, her voice turned into sobbing.
It was as if she were forcing herself to squeeze out words she didn’t want to say.
“……Everything about me was ……fake.”
Even I could tell that Lapin didn’t want to say those words.
“What on earth are you talking about?”
I replied with a sigh.
“Then are you saying I came all this way to pick up a fake?”
“…….”
As if realizing it too late, Lapin jerked her head up. Tears welled up at the corners of her eyes.
Her eyes were slightly wider than usual, as if she were startled.
“How did Villed get here?”
“Hey, you’re only asking that now?”
I spat it out with a laugh mixed in.
“I came in to drag you out since you were holed up in here.”
“……Why.”
“Why? Because I promised. I said we’d travel together.”
“Travel…….”
Lapin couldn’t continue speaking.
“What are you hesitating about?”
I stretched my hand even closer toward Lapin.
Pajijijik—!
Sparks flew.
A scorching current flowed up my arm, and pain shot through me.
“……Lapin. This hurts a lot more than it looks, so get up and grab it quickly.”
My head told me—
I had to pull my hand away immediately.
But my mouth spoke words completely opposite to what my head was thinking.
“Grab it.”
My head gave the order again.
Let go of your hand.
“Take my hand.”
Once again, I said the exact opposite.
ERROR CODE: 000
Process collision detected!
Process ID: 1, 2, 3…… 50.
Initiating exception handling due to overlapping errors
It was the first error code I had seen since crash-landing here.
Even the system denied Lapin.
It was as if it were saying that Lapin herself was something false in this world,
but I denied that denial.
“Lapin. Even if I concede everything and assume that everything you’ve seen so far was fake.”
I deliberately took another step forward and reached my hand out even farther.
“I’ll fill everything that comes from now on with the truth.”
The pain that followed made it feel as though my blood was boiling, but I endured it to the very end.
“Trust me.”
When I answered, Lapin slowly raised her arm.
She tried to take my hand, but then lowered it again.
“Villed doesn’t know anything.”
Lapin was sobbing.
“If you knew what kind of person I am, Villed would definitely hate me.”
“I’ll say this clearly—there’s no reason for me to hate you.”
“……Why.”
Lapin asked back.
“Why does Villed go that far for me?”
Yeah.
Why was I exerting myself this much?
“I don’t know either.”
I had always tried to follow the canon.
I followed reason, valuing only strategy and efficiency.
……And yet, somehow, it ended up like this.
I felt like something similar had happened before.
Boogie poisoned.
I had agonized over whether to use the one and only ingredient to make an antidote to cure Boogie, or to make an Enhancement Potion and follow the canon safely.
But I had abandoned the stable path and ultimately chose Boogie.
When it came to spirit creatures, no matter how inefficient it was, I always chose the spirit creature.
And I would continue to do so in the future.
“You know, sometimes you just want to do things you don’t really have to do, right?”
“……?”
Lapin’s eyes widened.
“I know this isn’t how things are supposed to go. There’s no reason for me to take on the risk of staking my life just to save you. But still.”
I smiled at Lapin.
“Isn’t that just how games are?”
“……Games?”
“I’ve seen the predetermined answers dozens of times already. But this time, for the first time, I found a completely different route.”
Yes.
Even for someone like me, who had seen all the endings of <Yggdrasil>, it was a route I had never seen before.
It was fun and exciting.
Maybe this was how Columbus felt when he discovered the New World.
“It felt like too much of a waste to let this go, so this time I made a big decision too.”
Lapin’s destined death.
If you asked whether Lapin’s death was absolutely necessary for this world, I could answer immediately.
Not at all.
Nothing changed because of Lapin’s death.
There was no need to kill Lapin in the first place.
“I want to see the best ending—the one I couldn’t find.”
The risk of the canon going off track?
I just had to fix it somehow.
There had been countless times when the canon was on the verge of collapsing.
Even hopeless situations where it felt like no canon could ever be restored.
But I resolved them all.
I revived every single canon that had become a tangled mess.
Yes.
I had that kind of ‘ability’.
And the source of that ability was…….
my spirit creatures.
“I thought I only trusted myself, you know. But thinking about it again, it was a bit different.”
I didn’t trust others.
I trusted only myself.
……But there were exceptions.
“I trust Hwayo too—the one who sometimes breathes flames when in a bad mood, but always willingly lends me her fire.”
I remembered my first day falling into this world.
Back when I thought I had hit rock bottom after becoming the incompetent villain character, Villed.
My first meeting with Hwayo had completely overturned everything about me.
“The Boogie that helps me farm, the Shurk that hides my presence, the Pau that heals any wound, and the Ramji that can blow anything away.”
My abilities were practically weak.
My mana was pathetically scarce.
Compared to the protagonists, my strength, swordsmanship, everything was inferior.
I was nothing more than a small-time Villed who had been cast out of the main story and was serving punishment in the livestock shed that everyone avoided.
And yet.
Spirit creatures that lent their strength generously to someone like me, who had nothing.
Thanks to them, I survived brushes with death time and time again. I was able to reclaim the canon that had been shattered, again and again.
That was why I trusted my spirit creatures as if they were my own body.
Even if the whole world collapsed, I would trust only my spirit creatures.
And so…….
“You’re the same, Lapin.”
What kind of twist of fate was this?
“I can’t help but trust you. It’s funny, but I really can’t help it.”
Because—
XXXX Lapin Friend Found!
It’s your chance to bring her to the farm!
Hold her by hand and shout Animal Registration!
She was a spirit creature.
“I’ll say this definitively, Lapin.”
I looked straight at Lapin with my own eyes.
“In my entire life, the only person I can trust is you.”
In this world, there was only one spirit creature and person I could trust with everything.
Lapin.
“It’s fine if you don’t talk much. It’s fine if you don’t show expressions. It’s fine even if you’re clumsy at expressing your feelings.”
I stepped fully inside the barrier.
I drew that much closer to Lapin.
“Even if you’re a witch’s subordinate, it doesn’t matter. Even if you’re a chimera, it doesn’t matter. Even if you’ve already turned into a monster, it doesn’t matter. So please.”
My entire body shone with sparks. It felt like I was burning from the current.
But it was fine.
“Just like I trust you, trust me too.”
The reason I trusted only myself was because I had been placed in an environment where I had no other choice.
……But I wasn’t a machine either. I was a person.
There was someone I wanted to trust.
I wanted to trust others too.
“In the end, since I’m human, I want at least one person by my side whom I can trust in my life.”
This wasn’t a simple one-sided relationship.
What we had in common was wanting to trust people.
If that was the case, then all we had to do was trust each other.
In other words, it was a symbiosis between Lapin and me.
“It wouldn’t be so bad if you had someone like that too, right?”
“……Yeah.”
Lapin nodded.
“Then that settles it.”
I laughed weakly and waved the hand I had been holding out once more.
The pain was extreme. I was enduring the verge of losing consciousness over and over again.
“My arm feels like it’s going to burn off, so hurry up and grab my hand, Lapin.”
Lapin hesitated as if she were about to take my hand…….
Then she threw herself straight at me and embraced me.
Noise-processed holograms appeared in an instant and abnormally wrapped around my surroundings.
I took a deep breath.
A figure who was fated to die without fail in <Yggdrasil>, no matter what.
The only character who had never once managed to avoid death.
“Welcome, Lapin.”
“Yeah.”
Why was it Lapin?
While playing the game, I had always questioned that.
Other users couldn’t even remember Lapin’s name.
So why was it that I remembered Lapin?
Was it simply because I liked the game <Yggdrasil> and therefore knew every character’s name?
……No.
Deep down in my heart, I might have been rebelling against that unfairness.
I might have been throwing a childish tantrum, asking why Lapin had to die in the first place.
That was why.
I wanted to create something together with Lapin.
To create, in this world, the best ending that would never exist in the game.
“Animal Registration.”
That was the moment.
It wasn’t my imagination.
Lapin’s expression changed.
The change was so unfamiliar that I unconsciously held my breath.
As if solid ice were cracking for the first time.
The corners of Lapin’s lips slowly…… rose.
Lapin was making an expression she had never once shown before.
It was undoubtedly something no one could help but call a miracle…….
A bright smile.
At the same moment I saw it, the entire world turned pure white.
Time Leap Rate Friend has arrived as XX!
Dark Sky Mole Morg Friend has arrived as XX!
Tracker Leo Friend has arrived as XX!
Black Swan Monakus Friend has arrived as XX!
…….
Sea Current Prince Bumble Friend has arrived as XX!
XX Friend has arrived as XXXX!
ERROR CODE: 999
An entity that cannot exist has been detected.
XX = Lapin = Class: ANOMALY_Entity
Authority conflict
Debug start…….
Error code correction
Debug end
Rebooting…….
System Notification
The existence of the special entity has been normalized.
Integration of 50 single entities complete
Lapin = Transcendent Multi-Fusion Entity
Registration of Lapin, Star of Ten Thousand Beasts, has been completed!
A special friend has come to visit the farm!