[If your partner learns the secret, that possessor will be disqualified and immediately returned to their original world.]
[Even if you inform someone other than your partner with the intent to attack, you will be disqualified instead.]
This is the game’s only disqualification rule.
We can do anything to win here. There wasn’t even a rule saying we can’t kill competitors’ characters. But only one thing—we must not reveal our identity. We can’t be discovered on our own either.
So probably, the other possessors are also deceiving their partners appropriately right about now. Pretending to be distant relatives. Pretending to be mysterious benefactors. Things like that.
However, this rule is extremely disadvantageous to me. My partner has the ability to read people’s minds, doesn’t he?
Still, there’s no law saying just die…… I have one special provision.
[Special Provision: Information related to possession cannot be read through the Reading ability.]
I can tell from Belsus’s calm expression right now too. I’m protected by my special provision.
‘No matter how much I think possessor possessor possessor, I’m safe.’
Like all the other possessors, I just need to provide an alibi other than possession.
Then my choice is.
“I can’t tell you how I know about you. I’ll tell you later, so can you keep quiet for now?”
First, cover it up and put it off until later.
It’s not that I’m avoiding it because I can’t think of another method. I judged this is best.
There’s a high probability Belsus won’t betray me no matter what happens going forward.
This isn’t based on vague faith but on statistical numbers. Judging from all the choices in Belsus’s victory route I saw in the game, and the monologues and tendencies Belsus showed there.
—I’m sorry. You must have reported me to the knights because times are hard…… Since I escaped, you won’t receive your reward.
Belsus has met too many people who lie. NN number of villagers who gave him one meal then secretly colluded with knights behind his back to sell Belsus out.
From the possessor’s perspective who knows all that.
‘There’s no need to lie.’
Even without lying, Belsus won’t betray me.
So rather than fabricating lies to cover it up, I think it’s better to deflect by saying I’ll tell him later. Because lying is unsettling.
In a situation where the game scenario and reality have already diverged considerably, I don’t know what situations will arise going forward. I had to eliminate risk factors as much as possible.
“……”
For a while there was no movement from Belsus, making me slightly tense. Even his eyelashes frozen as he stared at me blankly for a moment.
Belsus changed the subject.
“How much do you know about me?”
I know a lot.
For instance, Belsus’s origins that he would never reveal even if he died, no matter how much of a sucker he is.
Belsus is rolling around as a mercenary, but he’s actually the last descendant of the fallen old royal family.
In the middle of the continent, the country that has the territory where the Tower rose is Demihard. Twenty years ago, Demihard was a country with a different name.
Demihard I, who drove out the old dynasty and ascended the throne, has been tracking Belsus with knights for twenty years. Thanks to that, Belsus has been wandering the continent for 20 years without being able to live a proper life even once.
As a possessor, I know this content from the game…… but I have the ability not to pretend I don’t know even this.
“Well…… as much as I can read through Reading.”
“……”
Silence flowed from Belsus.
Not a fool, but in other words, a bastard who acts like a sucker even while knowing. Belsus maintained a consistently calm expression.
He was composed even after seemingly resigning himself to the fact that I essentially know everything about him.
“Will you permit me a name to call you?”
After a while, Belsus asked for my name. I thought for a moment.
What’s my name?
‘No, I obviously know what my three-syllable name is, but can I give a Korean name here?’
My game nickname came to mind instead of my name, but because it was something unreadable and half-hearted like ‘scrteww’ or whatever, I couldn’t use it.
Let’s just use my Korean name.
“Hian.”
My name was Kim Hian. Come to think of it, ‘Hian’ seemed like it could work reasonably well as an English name too.
Belsus’s eyebrows curved slightly. The corners of his mouth drew a very faint line.
“Hian. Thank you for giving me food and a place to stay.”
He seems to be pronouncing it wrong…… but it’s similar enough, so it doesn’t matter. What does it matter what he calls me?
Anyway, what’s important right now isn’t the name.
“Yeah. But you know there’s no such thing as a free lunch in this world, right?”
Only then does Belsus show signs of being troubled. He had an expression of not knowing what to do. Of course he would.
I grinned.
“Pay for your meal.”
The moment I said this, exactly 3 seconds are created.
The time remaining until Belsus kneels before me and begs, saying he has no money for the meal…….
“However, one month from now.”
I quickly added words before the scene I’d seen several times in game footage could replay.
Belsus, who had been about to stand up with a blank face, stopped awkwardly. Now he seemed flustered in a different sense.
“Do you know what lodging is?”
While proposing that Belsus lodge at my farm and waiting for the dumbfounded Belsus to grasp whether this was reality…… briefly, the content of Belsus’s original story flashed through my mind.
‘What happens to Belsus when I don’t pick him up?’
Belsus, whose life is threatened by the Royal Knight Kaline, receives protagonist buffs if chosen as the protagonist by the player and kills Kaline in reverse.
Belsus’s heart breaks at the thought of having murdered a righteous knight.
……But he steals money and valuables from Kaline’s corpse. He flees.
Belsus wanders around unable to settle down even with money. Even though no evidence remains that Belsus killed him, the royal court confirms the knight’s death as Belsus’s crime and issues a public wanted order.
Belsus is chased by even more knights. The future is even more miserable. There’s nowhere his wanted poster isn’t posted on bulletin boards. Even hunters whose eyes rolled back at the snowballing bounty join in.
Hunters are different from Royal Knights. They’re as vicious as bandits, and they too are the worst criminals. They kill innocent people without a second thought.
Belsus continues to bring death. Some hunters, as a threat to make Belsus appear directly, even kill all the civilians in places Belsus passed through.
The innkeeper where Belsus stayed dies. The cook at the restaurant where Belsus bought bread dies.
A child who handed an old blanket to Belsus lying on the street. Belsus, drunk with sleep, just let the child go, then later chases after the child with regret. And discovers the parents wailing while holding the child’s corpse.
—Why am I alive?
If not for the final sense of mission of being the last heir of the royal family, he might have given up on life long ago.
Poor even with money, nowhere to rest his body even with money, a person who must desperately enter and exit dungeons to desperately build his strength.
I was curious.
The reason I chose Belsus as my partner was because Belsus was the most destitute and easiest to handle, but I also had another reason.
I want to see how far Belsus can achieve when he fully enjoys what he should enjoy.
Even on the victory route, groveling, being abused, getting beaten, being treated like a beggar by bastards much younger than him.
A life where he hurriedly picks up a coin after glancing around when one drops in front of him.
“I…… can stay here for a while.”
After a long while, Belsus repeated. It was a trembling voice.
I hid my slightly proud feeling and nodded nonchalantly.
“You can see it, right? Since it’s my space, no one can enter at all unless I permit it. If I grant you spare key authority, you can also go in and out freely.”
“I can stay here.”
Belsus, muttering haltingly, seemed to be talking to himself rather than asking me back.
I watched Belsus quietly without answering for a moment. Belsus kept murmuring.
“If knights chase me after going outside, I can come in here, I don’t have to hurriedly swallow stale bread lest anyone see, I don’t have to get hit by stones from children just trying to use the well briefly, I can keep eating warm meals like what you gave earlier, I can close my eyes and sleep in a sunlit spot, I don’t have to wake up sensing a presence in the middle, all of these things not just for one night but tomorrow and the day after I can enjoy them.”
“……”
It’s an emotionless, dry voice, but listening to it makes deep breath rush to my lungs and exhale a sigh. My breath naturally grew heavy.
Lodging is similar to an inn, but it’s a relationship where you eat from the same pot and share joys and sorrows at someone’s home rather than a commercial facility.
Inns have long-term guests too, but they don’t call the inn ‘home.’
But lodging, even if it’s a relationship where money changes hands, even if it’s a relationship connected by money, can be considered more of ‘my home.’
What Belsus needs isn’t just food and a place to lie down, but a place that provides psychological stability too.
“……I must decline.”
Huh?
