Chapter 160: The Limit

The Limit

* * *

“……..A show……”

“Hahaha, that’s right! The slaughter show you also witnessed!”

With the clacking of shoes, Nare proceeded down the hallway.

Occasionally laughing in apparent amusement as she nostalgically recounted her past, but the contents – the life Nare had experienced – were frankly nothing but cruel.

An inescapable hell with no way out.

This woman had been trapped in that hell endlessly.

Could I endure if I fell into the same situation?

Just imagining it made me shudder involuntarily.

Impossible.

It would be impossible for me.

My heart would reach its limit in no time at all.

Perhaps this woman Nare had already reached her limits long ago and broken down.

Her laughter sounded so hollow and parched.

“It started from a mere petty fit of rage. As usual, time rewound and I returned to the head’s study room. Then I happened to notice the ‘Ring of the Ranrananga White Lizard’ on my finger.”

Gazing at her bony, slender fingers currently bare, Nare continued speaking.

“That ring is a treasure of our family, passed down to each head generation after generation… Actually, contrary to what those fools believe, simply wearing it doesn’t automatically make one the acknowledged head. But it can still be called a symbol of the Luclees family head.”

“………”

“‘For the mere reason of being the bloodline meant to become this family’s head, I ended up repeating this hell’… That’s what I thought at the time. I suddenly felt an intense hatred toward that ring. So I immediately took it off and threw it out the window.”

“Outside?”

“Yes. And then a commotion occurred. If I recall, one of the servants happened to find the ring that had fallen outside at the time? And Doj obtained that ring, leading to a dispute over who would possess it.”

“If Sarelka had just said ‘That ring belongs to me,’ it could have ended there. But that cowardly man couldn’t do that. Doj tried to have Keranko inherit the ring instead. Which Karashia couldn’t accept. Resulting in violence breaking out – Karashia killed Keranko with ‘Agzeliary.'”

……I see.

A similar event to the tragedy we had witnessed occurred.

“By that point, I had gained the strange ability to perceive everyone’s actions within the manor from this room, you see. While watching that commotion unfold in the study room, I felt… I felt a thrill I had never experienced from the repeated cycles until then. And I impulsively committed suicide.”

“Eh?”

“I wanted to try various things. Just by discarding that ring, my hated acquaintances would hurt and kill each other of their own accord! Hahaha, ahahahaha! It was delightful! So amusing! I began researching how to make them suffer even more! I tried all sorts of things. Even if I failed, I could just die and try again, so I could experiment quite casually!”

No no no, you may call it casual, but you were dying each time you tried again, weren’t you?

“And I arrived at one conclusion. ‘Discard the ring in front of Karashia’s room.’ This was the optimal solution I reached after hundreds of trials and errors. When time rewound, I would immediately discard the ring in front of her room, then secretly return to the head’s study room. By doing that, you wouldn’t believe what happened! Karashia would go berserk, leading to the complete death of everyone in this manor, including the servants! I just burst into laughter when I discovered that fact! Oh, it was so utterly ridiculous! To see the very people who had tortured me endlessly turn on and kill each other – oh, it was a sight to behold!! Ahahahaha, ahahahahahaha!!”

Nare laughed.

Laughing loudly while clutching her stomach.

……It was unclear if she truly found it amusing.

She walked ahead of me.

I couldn’t see her expression.

……I had no desire to, either.

After laughing for a while, Nare cleared her throat and resumed her personal story.

“In any case, after discovering this ‘optimal solution,’ I repeated it endlessly from then on. More times than I could count, really. Why, you ask? Because it was enjoyable. This was my revenge against them. I would confirm everyone’s deaths, bask in that satisfaction, then repeat time again. I just kept doing that over and over.”

……Hearing that, I thought “Oh?”

“Why?”

“Hm?”

“Why did you keep repeating it endlessly?”

“Well, because it was my revenge.”

“Repeating it a few times, I can understand that. But it’s strange. Didn’t you ever want to stop at some point?”

“………”

“Once everyone in the manor died, Nare didn’t need to die after that. If you didn’t die after that with no more enemies, you could have lived a long life, right?”

I didn’t mean to lecture on the futility of revenge.

But isn’t the important thing what you do after achieving your revenge?

Why die satisfied after completing your revenge?

If you didn’t commit suicide then, your life could have continued afterward.

“……..Hahaha.”

In response to my questioning, Nare dropped her shoulders and let out a weak laugh.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

“By the time I realized it, it was already too late.”

“……….?”

“Perfect timing. I’ll show you.”

Saying that, Nare approached a door further down the hallway.

This door was Keranko’s room.

Inside, Keranko, Fateu, and Doj should be having tea.

Entering there would surely cause an uproar.

However, Nare paid it no heed as she flung open Keranko’s room door without warning before I could stop her.

The moment she did, startled voices and screams erupted from inside the room.

……That was the development I had imagined, but it didn’t happen.

Not a single sound came from the room’s interior.

This was strange.

Thinking that, I hurried over to Nare and peeked into Keranko’s room as well.

What entered my vision then was a shocking sight.

Inside the room, as I had expected, Keranko, Fateu, and Doj were present, enjoying tea.

However.

Keranko and Fateu were frozen in postures mid-conversation with each other.

Doj was frozen in the motion of pouring tea from the pot into Fateu’s cup.

Like a still image, they were all “frozen in time.”

“Th-This is…!?”

Looking closer, even the tea being poured from the pot in Doj’s hands had its motion stopped, as if frozen in an instant.

“We’ve reached the time limit.”

Nare began speaking again with a somewhat bored expression.

“After a certain time passes since the rewind, this happens. Time itself stops progressing any further. It wasn’t like this before… People’s time continued moving without stopping, even if I lived a long life. At some point, I realized it had become like this. The extent of the space too. At least within this country, I could go anywhere before. Now it’s impossible. When I noticed, the manor’s surroundings had become enveloped in a mysterious haze, preventing me from venturing beyond.”

Why…?

The limit?

Depleting, isn’t it…?

“Well, there’s your answer to your question. Even if I wanted to live a new life after achieving my revenge, I’m no longer permitted that. Quite literally, I have ‘no future.’ For the people of this manor… including myself.”

Nare turned to face me.

A parched smile on her face.

That expression, despite smiling, was utterly exhausted beyond any recourse.

“Say, Emi. I have a request. With power like yours, I think you may be able to do it.”

And with that exhausted face, in a faint, drained voice, Nare said this to me:

“Won’t you put an end to it?……Our time.”