Just before he turned a corner with the other boys, Carl suddenly stopped and looked back anxiously.
"Oh no! My bracelet... I can't find my bracelet!"
There was no one who didn't know about Carl's bracelet. Even if no one knew the story behind the bracelet he proudly wore on his arm, Carl always showed it off.
"I think I dropped it while eating dessert!"
"What do we do now, Carl... If the old witch finds your bracelet, she'll know we ate the desserts!"
A girl voiced her thoughts with concern.
It was the first ti I had ever seen Carl like this. At the ti I thought it was because he was worried about his bracelet. Then… I had an idea.
What if I took the bracelet? If I did that... Wouldn't I then beco Carl's best friend? Wouldn't my 'friends' glorify if I managed to get that bracelet and save the day?
As soone who had never been very much in their company or in their gas, these selfish desires of mine had suddenly risen to the top. I wanted to have fun, I wanted to hang out with them, and I wanted to be 'one of them'.
"I..."
Suddenly everyone turned to .
"I'll get it..."
With a slight smile, Carl put his hand on my shoulder and started thanking .
This boy, two years older than , who normally bossed everyone around, now looked like he would cry with joy in front of . Even though this was very strange to , I didn't care because I was happy.
"You're the best, Ethan! We're going back to the dormitory, it's dangerous to stay here. You can co after us after you find my bracelet."
My brow furrowed with worry for a mont when I realized I was going to be alone for a while, but I didn't want to show them that I was scared, so I gave him a stuttering nod and then watched their backs until they turned the corner.
As I turned around and headed for the kitchen, I was scared but excited at the sa ti. When I entered the kitchen again, I quickly looked around for the bracelet, but no matter how hard I looked, the garish bracelet was nowhere to be found.
I ca to the dessert stocks, wondering if he had dropped it in them.
I was opening and looking at them when suddenly sothing caught my attention.
The stocks were... too short.
Even though we had perfectly cleaned up what we had eaten, it was very easy for soone opening the stock to realize that they were missing.
"Hey! What are you doing there?!"
I froze in my tracks as I heard the voice of the security guard, whose voice I knew quite well.
"Are you eating the fucking desserts? What the hell are you doing!"
"N- no-"
The guard ca rushing up to , tugged on my arm, and pulled out of the kitchen. No matter how much I tried to explain myself to him, he wouldn't listen, and it didn't take long to realize that we were in the headmistress's office.
I rember begging security, I knew this wasn't going to end with a simple beating, what we had done was technically theft. The punishnt for this would be much, much greater.
I was struggling with the fear of these thoughts, but then I stopped struggling when I saw sothing as I passed through one of the corridors.
Carl was looking at from around the corner with a smile on his face. On his arm was the bracelet he told to look for.
That's when I knew... I was... a bait from the very beginning.
Carl and the others wanted more dessert than they had originally planned. In doing so, it was clear that they would be exposed. After all, there would be a shortage of dessert packets, and when the headmistress found out, and on top of that, if no one took the bla, each of the kids would be punished.
So they needed a victim, they needed soone to take the bla. And… that person was .
I had spent a lot of ti trying to forget the days when I slept in the cold basent for a month and got caned on my bare feet every night because of my own selfishness, and my own greed for friendship.
I never spoke a word to Carl and his friends after that day, and they never paid any attention to either.
I think that was one of the first mories I had of greed, and rembering it all again helped a lot.
The darkness behind my closed eyes was slowly covered with a purple glow after my recollection.
I had achieved my goal and I opened my eyes with relief.
Half of the world looked purple, or rather mixed with purple, but the mont I realized this, I frowned.
It shouldn't normally be like this.
At first, I closed my left eye and the world returned to its original color. Then, when I opened my left eye and closed my right eye, the world turned a more purplish color.
Does this... an that only my left eye is purple? Is it because I'm half wiera?
That's really interesting...
It was a really strange feeling to co across things I didn't know about this world, but I couldn't think about that right now. I had to do what I had to do.
I opened both my eyes and imagined touching that warm feeling that surrounded in the atmosphere. Still, I didn't try to direct it like mana.
Ordea and caora were not things that could be controlled like mana. Even if I could control mana as my own limb, just by imagining it, I could not do the sa for caora or ordea.
Controlling mana is like raising one's arm. When one raises one's arm, the body provides the energy for this work with the nutrients that are eaten spontaneously. Then the arm is lifted up by signals from the brain to the arm muscles through the nerves.
The mana is exactly the sa. The only difference is that the energy expended cos from one's own mana reserves. The signals needed to move it are processed through the system.
So when I imagine using mana, I simply use it. For ordea and caora, it's not like that.
In order to move my arm, I have to bring the food to it myself, I have to offer it to it personally. I have to carry it to my arm, saying 'please', rather than waiting for the signals from my brain to go to my arm on their own.
And even if I do that, my arm may not rise, aning the caora may reject . This is what caora and ordea are like.
In short, I cannot 'command' these energies as I can with mana, I can only 'ask' for them, and in doing so I have to provide them with the necessary food.
As for food, I have to give them positive or negative emotions and thoughts, as their kind is predisposed to do, so the choices are many, but there are certain emotions and thoughts that I would call their 'favorite foods'.
For the ordea they are simply chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, kindness, patience, and humility. For the caora, it's the opposite: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, envy, wrath, and pride.
Well... the ga has stolen directly from the seven cardinal sins and virtues instead of trying to work on them, but that's not important right now.
I have to focus on my work.
As I thought, I fed the caora that started flowing in my body with negative emotions from my past and then it was ti to ask for sothing...
I wished for the caora, the caora in the atmosphere, to move to the corpses in front of . I put almost all my will, and all my ntal strength into it and 'wished' for it.
Yet, no matter how long I waited, the caora did not obey , and did not move toward the corpses.
With each passing second, I panicked. I thought I couldn't do it, but then Absolute Mind took over. I cald down. My mind cleared quickly.
I have to focus more, what I am trying to do is not an easy thing in the first place.
I put all my willpower into the caora again. If I didn't succeed, there would be big problems for Olivia and for afterward. So I 'had' to do it and concentrated especially on this desire.
And then sothing happened that I never expected, sothing I never even imagined could happen.
I heard a voice.
'Hi!'
Reflexively, I turned around, and when I saw the person standing in front of , ti seed to freeze, and I stiffened hard.
"H- how...?"
Standing about three ters away from was a person about my height.
He had curly brown hair. He wasn't handso, he had what I would describe as an 'ordinary' face and he was… thin. Really thin, he looked like he would collapse if I pushed him. It was a very hard body to see in this world. And on top of that, he had bright, violet eyes, but I didn't care about any of that.
Because the person in front of was... .
Or rather, it was the sa old , except for the violet eyes, it was Ethan Subter. He looked like right before I died. Yet he had such a smile on his face that even though he looked like , he looked like everything but .
'Oh? You're trying sothing fun! Can I help you?
He ca running toward . I couldn't do anything but stand where I was. I couldn't move a muscle.
He grabbed the right one of my two arms that was resting on the bodies and widened his smile.
'You have to do it this way, not that way.'
At his words, his evil eyes glowed even more fiercely and my hand began to burn as if I had put it in lava.
I scread from the instant pain, pulled my left hand away from the pile of corpses, and squeezed my right hand as hard as I could, but it was useless.
It was as if my hand was lting before my eyes. It wasn't happening, of course, but it felt like it.
Still, when I saw what happened next, I couldn't even focus on the pain.
The purple-colored caora, which ca out of nowhere after gathering around my burning arm as if it was literally on fire, surrounded the corpses as if they were a crackling fla.
Not only that, it splattered all the excess things in the area like 'blood'. The next thing I knew, a notification I never wanted to see was in front of .
>
I rembered what I saw last ti before I went crazy. I had seen this notification at that ti and when I thought about it a little more, I started to guess what this notification could be.
For a short while, I just froze where I was, but I quickly shook myself out of it, because the intensity of the caora coming out of my arm and the pain I was in was so intense that I was having trouble breathing.
I was having difficulty standing as if the gravity had increased several tis, but then the caora coming out of my hand suddenly stopped.
I had exceeded my limit, and the pain that ca with it was gone.
>
'Ethan' stopped holding my arm, pulled back and I lost my balance. Then I fell to the ground.
I was trying to crawl away from the corpses that were literally 'lting' in front of , but more importantly, I was scared.
For the first ti since I had the Absolute Mind skill, I was so intensely terrified that I was trembling.
The source of this fear was the person with a look of amusent on his face.
"Wh- what are you? Who are you?"
He tilted his head to the side and narrowed his eyes at my words.
'Co on, Aiden, have you forgotten about ?'
He took a step toward and spread his hands to his sides.
'I'm you, Aiden!'
His violet eyes glowed even more fiercely in the darkness of the night. The big smile on his face, which resembled a mad demon, widened even wider.
'Have you already forgotten your promise to ?
As he said these words, what he was talking about ca to the surface of my mind.
I rembered the person I had faced in that dark place, in the place that had caused my body's state.
I rembered nine-year-old Ethan, and how his eyes turned purple before he went behind that door. And then… I rembered the abnormal status effect I saw in my statistics window.
'You got that right!'
His expression beca mocking.
'I am the other half of your soul that you abandoned.'
I felt like the world was closing in on , I didn't know what to do, or how to act.
Why wasn't the Absolute Mind working? Why wasn't it clearing my mind and calming my fear as usual?
It was wrong... sothing was wrong...
'h, I thought you would have a more drastic reaction.'
He pouted and lowered his outstretched arms to the floor. Then I realized sothing, his body was slowly fading away.
'Well, I won't be staying long anyway!
His sullen expression gave way to a smile and he started waving at . Of course, while this was happening, his body continued to dissolve into thin air and I could do nothing but watch him.
'See you next ti...'
When only his head remained, he narrowed his eyes again, then whispered.
'A-i-d-e-n.'
The last remnants of him faded away. Where he had just stood, now there was nothing.
All I could do while all this was happening was just watch. Apart from that, almost all of the corpses in front of had been eroded to dust and disappeared into the air.
The purple caora slowly began to fade, and with his departure, a silence fell over the area so heavy that I felt like I was in an endless void.
The most important thing, though, was that the Absolute Mind was now working and I was calming down. So that only one question was on my mind.
What exactly have I... experienced...?
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