The Villain’s POV in the Academy

Chapter 345: The Villain’s POV in the Academy

At first, I thought I was dreaming.

I hadn’t slept for quite some time, nor had I eaten anything, so I thought I might have passed out without realizing it.

But it didn’t take long for me to realize that this wasn’t a dream.

As my hazy mind cleared, I eventually realized that I was drifting in the middle of a ‘river.’

“Where is this……?”

A river where a faint light flowed slowly instead of water.

More precisely, was it called the ‘River of Origin’? I had heard Evangeline explain it several times before, and after Omega’s cells were transplanted into me, it was a place whose existence I could vaguely sense.

“Don’t tell me…… I’m dead……?”

According to Evangeline, the souls of all living beings, including [Mysteries], came here after death. So it was only natural for me to suspect that I had died.

“Hah, seriously…….”

It was so absurd that I was at a loss for words.

After fighting for my life, defeating a dragon, and surviving, the place I ultimately ended up was the afterlife? This felt more than a little unfair.

But looking at it the other way, perhaps it couldn’t be helped. For all intents and purposes, I had practically lost my life in that battle, and the fact that I had remained alive for some time afterward was nothing short of a miracle.

I had done my best, but in the end, I died.

In a way, it was merely an utterly ordinary experience that everyone who lived in this world would eventually go through, so perhaps there was no need to feel so wronged about it.

A strange sense of resignation weighed down my weary shoulders, and feeling exhausted, I tried to let myself drift along with the river’s current.

But then.

[……No, not yet.]

I suddenly felt something tugging at my body as I drifted along with the stream of light. As though my clothes had caught on a tree branch, I was pulled by the sudden force and sank toward the riverbed.

My surprise lasted only a moment before I landed on the riverbed without any trouble. I didn’t feel suffocated at all, and the current felt much weaker down there.

Then I noticed a thread extending from around my heart. It was impossible to separate from me, almost as though it were part of my body, while its other end stretched toward the upstream reaches of the river.

What the hell is this?

Unable to suppress my curiosity, I followed the direction in which the thread stretched, walking along the riverbed against the current.

After walking for some time while pushing through the clusters of light that obscured my vision like fog, I saw a familiar silhouette.

A height that reached somewhere around my waist.

Long blonde hair and red eyes. Adorably plump cheeks.

“Evangeline……!?”

“Aaron!”

Evangeline ran toward me with her usual expression and nestled herself snugly into my arms. Only then did I realize that the thread extending from me was connected to none other than Evangeline.

At last, I remembered how she had once gone on about being my ‘Soul Companion.’

“Thank goodness, Aaron! I was so nervous that the connection might break even while I was pulling you toward me!”

“……So that voice I heard earlier was yours. But what exactly is going on? Leaving me aside, why are you here?”

“Is it not obvious, since both you and I came close to death?”

“……!”

Evangeline delivered the shocking statement in an astonishingly cheerful tone. But before I could say anything in response, she quickly added.

“Ah, do not be too alarmed! I said we came ‘close to death,’ not that we ‘died.’ You pushed yourself too hard in your battle against the Sky Dragon, while I merely got caught up in an accident and suffered a few injuries. I have been watching everything from here ever since.”

“Aren’t you being a little too calm about this?”

“Is that not because I have already experienced this once before? Bah, there is no need to worry so much. Our situation now is faaar better than what I experienced back then. Take another good look at your body, Aaron.”

Evangeline pointed at my shoulder.

Only then did I notice the thin threads connected to my shoulders and stretching out in every direction. They were so fine that I couldn’t even see them unless I focused.

“Those threads mean that you are still connected to the mortal world. Both you and I still have living bodies.”

“……I see. Then is there a way back?”

“We must find one from now on. Now!”

Evangeline stretched both arms toward me.

She wanted a piggyback ride on my shoulders.

A shoulder ride, even in a situation like this…… It was absurd in more ways than one, but I gave a small sigh and lifted her onto my shoulders.

“Now, let us find the way.”

“What do we have to do?”

“We follow the threads back. There should undoubtedly be a ‘Well’ connected to our bodies somewhere, and we can return through it. Ah, before that, moving around like this will be difficult, so it would be better to change our surroundings a little.”

Evangeline moved her finger through the air, and the terrain of the riverbed transformed in an instant.

Walls rose, flooring and carpet spread beneath us, and before long, we found ourselves standing in the middle of a long corridor.

The corridor had a somewhat gloomy atmosphere, and its end was nowhere in sight. Wooden doors with handles lined both sides, allowing them to be opened, and intersections appeared here and there along the way.

“……Oh.”

“The River of Origin is the source of all souls, magic, and the universe itself. To some, it is ‘God,’ and to others, it is ‘Nothingness,’ so if we borrow the power of your soul, changing its form a little is no problem so long as we do not violate its principles.”

“Are we really allowed to do this?”

“We have merely changed the form through which we perceive it. We have not distorted providence itself, so there is no problem!”

“That’s…… impressive.”

“Fufut. Praise me more!”

“But it’s a little gloomy in here. Couldn’t you have made it brighter? This looks like something straight out of a horror movie.”

“Hey, I told you to praise me!”

When I teased her, Evangeline protested by lightly thumping my head. I took it in stride and asked again.

“Anyway, we just follow the threads?”

“Yes. One of these doors must surely be connected to your body. Now, we have no time to keep standing around talking like this, so let us hurry and depart!”

Evangeline’s attitude made it sound as though we were about to go on a picnic, and that eased my worries a little.

Unfortunately, that sense of ease didn’t last very long.

How long had we walked?

There wasn’t just one thread connected to me.

The problem was that even the nearest thread was a considerable distance away, and endlessly walking through a corridor with the exact same scenery wasn’t particularly easy.

Still, I was fortunate not to be alone. We chatted as we walked, and after what felt like several hours, we finally reached the first door. According to Evangeline, this was a place where the ordinary concept of time didn’t apply, though I had no idea how that worked.

“Finally…….”

I immediately grabbed the handle and opened the wooden door.

And at that exact moment-

Snap.

The thread connected to the other side broke.

The moment the thread snapped, the light leaking through the doorway vanished as well, and before long, nothing but a solid wall filled the doorframe.

The timing was so perfect that it almost felt deliberately designed to say, ‘Screw you.’

Even Evangeline’s expression stiffened coldly, as though this was something she had never expected.

“…….”

“…….”

Silence settled between the two of us.

Evangeline forced herself to raise the mood and encouraged me.

“I-It is fine! There are still many left, are there not!? We simply need to find the next door!”

“……Yeah.”

But unlike Evangeline’s reassuring words, reality was merciless. No matter how far we walked to reach a door connected to a thread, the moment we finally opened it, the thread would weakly snap.

One broke, then another.

We continued walking down the corridor and opened countless doors, but every single time, all that greeted us was a solid wall.

There were times when the passage barely remained connected long enough for me to reach out, but all I managed to receive was a faint voice from the other side. I couldn’t cross over.

And eventually, only one thread remained.

Our final hope of returning.

“……Only one remains now.”

“…….”

“It is likely because the connection between your body and soul is gradually fading. The place for you to return to is slowly disappearing.”

“……I see.”

If even this one broke, any possibility of returning would probably disappear forever.

But we couldn’t simply do nothing out of fear that our last hope might vanish.

“It means we do not have much time left.”

“……Then we’ll just have to move quickly.”

And so, we walked again.

The same scenery. The same corridor. The same doors.

Were there thousands? Tens of thousands?

We endlessly walked down the corridor toward the place where the thread led, and the situation we had feared began to unfold.

The thread, which had at least been relatively thick, gradually became thinner and fainter.

It meant my connection to my body was steadily being severed.

“A-Aaron……!”

“……We need to hurry.”

I took Evangeline into my arms and started running. I intended to find the connected door before the thread completely disappeared.

Because I received none of the effects of my Modules in this place, my stamina here was absurdly lacking compared to reality, but this wasn’t the time to lament that.

I didn’t stop running even as my breath rose all the way into my throat.

[Can you hear my voice?]

[Please open your eyes……!]

“Aaron, can you hear those voices?”

“Yeah……!”

Serena, Ciel, Miyu…….

They were familiar voices.

Their voices traveled through the thread, reinforcing it little by little and barely keeping the fading connection intact.

“They are calling to you from the other side! They are speaking to you! Just like when you brought me back to life!”

“It feels close.”

“Quickly! Run faster, Aaron!”

“Damn it……!”

Was this what it meant to run with every last ounce of strength you had?

I never imagined I would be this out of breath again after the battle with the Sky Dragon.

“Huff…… Huff……!”

How long had I run like that?

The thread that had been gradually reinforced by the voices of my acquaintances once again began losing strength and fading.

To make matters worse, at some point the corridor had become so dark that it was difficult to tell which direction to go.

“Damn it, which way……!”

“That way, Aaron! It was in that direction!”

With Evangeline’s help, I barely managed to find the direction and locate the path.

But just as I thought I had found the door that the thread had presumably been connected to, the connection was completely severed.

“……!”

“A-Aaron…… The thread……!”

Was this how it ended?

Was there no hope left?

Was I really going to die now?

The fear of death that I had never truly felt while I was alive suddenly overwhelmed me.

And then-

[……I liked you. And thank you.]

“……A-Airi?”

[It was all thanks to you.]

Along with Airi’s voice, one of the doors buried in the darkness began shining brightly.

We hurriedly threw the door open, and,

“There is no time to hesitate! Go in!”

“Damn it!”

I threw myself toward the light pouring from inside the room.

“Mm…….”

My body felt strangely stiff.

When I opened my eyes again, it was around dawn, and Airi was asleep on the floor, leaning against my knees as though she had passed out.

Her entire body was covered in wounds and stained with blood and dust.

The moment I saw her, the footage recorded by my cybernetic devices while I was on ‘the other side’ began playing back like a flashback.

“…….”

I carefully reviewed the footage and figured out what had happened while we had been wandering through the ‘River.’

Once I finished checking everything, I looked at Airi and smiled.

“……Thank you. You saved my life.”

I wanted to wake her immediately and let her know that I was back, but for now, it seemed better to let her sleep soundly.

More than anything, I also wanted to surprise her a little.

I brought over a pen and scribbled something on Airi’s hand. There didn’t seem to be any need to write out some long-winded story, so I simply wrote one short sentence.

[Thank you.- A.S]

After that, I got up to deal with the work that had piled up.

I took a quick shower, put on a shirt, tied my tie, and slipped into a suit.

For me, it was no different from combat attire.

“……It’s about time I got going.”

It was time to sweep away the problems of reality.