The Protagonist Already Knows

Her limp body resting next to mine on the wall, Carissa barely managed to keep her eyes open as she slowly turned her head to face me, her drenched brown hair still dripping water.

"W-what’s h-happening to m-me?"

Her wet eyelashes trembled as she faced me, her skin deathly pale and her usual shiny amber-brown pupils dull and glassy.

The veins along her neck had turned a dark purple, and her usual crimson-red lips had lost all their color.

"..."

Looking at her shallow and uneven breathing, making it seem as if the very act of inhaling air hurt like a knife stabbing into her body, I...couldn’t help but avoid her gaze.

The edges of her dry, grey lips curling upward, Carissa said in between desperate breaths.

"h-hah...i-it must be b-bad. Y-you’re not even b-being...sarcastic a-anymore."

The real danger of attacks from those above A-rank wasn’t the physical wounds, but the internal injuries, whether directly to the soul or vital organs.

Seeing Carissa’s erratic breathing, I knew she had probably had her lungs attacked.

Ah...if only I had noticed her idea of escaping through the shooting arrow earlier.

We had to escape...we had to leave now and get back into the human realm, so a healer could treat her.

Gazing at Carissa, feeling an incredible amount of fear through the mark... so much so I couldn’t even think properly, I sighed and removed my mark before looking down.

Logic...my mind...everything told me to wait at least a couple of days before trying to escape through a gate crash.

To wait until security loosened...wait until the Dreg Demons slowly gave up on the idea of finding us.

But...there was no time.

Perhaps no longer having the strength to even hold her head up, Carissa’s body swayed right and left like an unbalanced scale until her head finally limply fell to the right.

Instantly catching her head with my hand, so that her right ear rested on my palm, I was forced to meet her eyes.

Her ear was cold to the touch.

Perhaps...it was the fake smile on her face that betrayed her own emotions or the bit of vitality left in her sparkling brown pupils, but when she opened her mouth, everything else went silent.

The water droplets dripping from our two drenched bodies halted...the constant footsteps and voices echoing from the palace vanished.

It was as if I had been sucked into her world.

Then, she asked, her eyes locked onto mine as her head rested on my palm.

"H-hey...am I g-going to die?"

For the first time, I saw her pupils tremble with fear...her voice shaky and laced with sorrow.

I opened my mouth and hesitated for a moment...but before any words could leave my mouth, her eyelids closed, sealing off her amber-brown pupils.

"..."

She was the one who had given me hope, the one who came up with the idea to escape.

She was the reason I had come here in the first place...but now, she was leaving me all alone to face everything.

[ETA: 22 hours] / [Eastward] / [Serpents (B)]

A B-rank gate crash was going to take place in 22 hours eastward of the palace.

It was likely that many Dreg Demons would be patrolling the area, knowing that gate crashes were humans’ only way to escape back to their dimension.

Still shivering from the pond’s freezing water, I reached into Carissa’s pocket and took out a few more potions.

I had barely survived drinking 4 potions back in Ascent...but now I was much stronger, wasn’t I?

What was the point of all this power I had accumulated if I couldn’t even use it when I desired it most?

My entire body protested with pain as I slowly stood up, hoisting Carissa’s limp body back on my back.

But the cold liquid of the second and third potions I drank muted it...if even for a second.

"ah..."

Halting as I felt my hair scrunch up, I glanced upward, seeing Carissa’s palm clenching my hair with her eyes still closed.

A faint voice sounded from her tightly pressed-together lips.

"b-brother."

"..."

At first, I had thought she selfishly and stupidly wanted to go into the portal to find her brother...but as I talked to her, I realized that... simply wasn’t the case.

She was just like me...lying about her true intentions.

Sure...it was a driving force, but she wanted to close the portal to the Dreg Realm to protect her friends still trapped in the virtual reality world.

When she saw the two Dreg Demons in the watchtower, she had felt relief...knowing that her sacrifice was worth it.

And...when we entered the Dreg Realm, despite her words, she held no desperation or hope of finding her brother.

But...then why had she entered the Dreg Realm even after I had gone through the portal already?

It would have automatically shut a few seconds later, but she still followed me into the Dreg Realm.

"...for the same reason as me."

I could feel it, her emotions...all she wanted to do was survive...escape this terrible place with me.

The two of us together.

Although...I was an extra...a sheep in her eyes, she still couldn’t bear to watch me die and sacrifice myself to close the portal.

She wanted to be the one to sacrifice herself...she wanted to be the hero!

She didn’t want to feel the guilt of my death and sacrifice to close the portal when it should have been her, the more powerful one.

Because she had already felt it once before.

Just like me...she couldn’t bear to continue living back in the human realm, knowing that there was a chance the two of us could have survived together, rather than me dying solely in the Dreg Realm.

It was interesting...from the start, both of us were in sync.

We had the exact same intent, but both of us desperately tried to mask it with harsh words and false goals.

In the end, we were both... pretentious fools, weren’t we?