"... ..."

The vision faded away, as the quiet space began to tremble violently; the surroundings began to return to normal. My arms still reached outwards in empty space while the skill started to deactivate itself forcefully.

I lowered my hands.

As shouting, screeching, metal clanking, and various other unfiltered sounds continued to enter my ears, I just continued to look down at my open palms.

...I couldn't catch her again...

...

Origin [Field of Memories] has expired after 643 seconds.

It seems like you're starting to run out of chances, White. Did you notice already?

Looks like your skill isn't the best way at keeping up our stealth act... That 'thing' has caught wind of what you are trying to do to its host. If it somehow manages to spot you and put you in the spotlight, then things will turn sour incredibly fast. I have taken note of every stationed guard elf around here. Escaping unnoticed won't be easy.

I think I don't have to remind you, what happens when you're caught by the elves around here... Look around, the countdown's already started. We are fighting against time now.

I lifted my head slightly dispiritedly, and saw the chaos unfold before me. My mind was in disarray.

"Grruuaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!"

At the center of this large space down in the Stalite Caves, was a gigantic... abomination...

The malformed mixture of man and monster shrieked loudly, its sharp tone bouncing off the cave walls like an unending echo. It was using all of its arms to clutch all of its heads, probably in an attempt to douse the mental interference I had caused with my Origin...

It seemed as if the monster began to realize that the disturbance in its heads didn't stop there just with that, thus it became even more violent shortly after and started to thrash around to appease the anomaly forming in its head.

"Wh-what is going on?!" "The wheel! Man the wheel!" "No, its going crazy! The abomination is going loose!" "We can't contain it!" "I... I'll be killed!" "Run-!" "Ack!" "Don't shoot us!" "Nooooo!!!" "Stop running!!!" "They're going to shoot us regardless!!!" "Aaahhh, this is impossible!!!" "Help meee!!!"

The male elves around were scurrying about like ants in an attempt to salvage the situation. Some of them tried to run away amidst the confusion, but were quickly shot down with arrows from the bows of the guard elves watching them.

They were stationed on watchtowers near the entrances and exits of the other interconnecting tunnels in the cave.

Ignoring the screams, I was trying to contain my despairing thoughts within my head.

...I have already used it six... six times, but I still cannot get to the end goal without that woman interfering each and every time.

... ...My face... must look really terrible right now huh... Am I going crazy already, I wonder?

"...Haha... hahaha... hahahahahahahaha..."

Without me noticing, I was already laughing in a robotic tone from all of my failed attempts...

I grew even more weary and desperate every time Hikari died in front of my eyes.

...I was... powerless to stop it from happening.

No matter what I did, it would be too late to stop that inexplicable situation from happening.

I could trace the majority of her memories, but I would not know things beyond Hikari's mental lock. There were things that she didn't want to remember, just like me before. And Kuro would immediately stop me in my head from breaching that sensitive part of her memories.

"You're not prepared to shoulder it."

Was what he said. And I instinctively knew that he was right. I had begun to have an awareness of what I could contain within me since my second real death.

I couldn't escape far enough to find other possibilities either. I would not escape the guard elves she brought along to look for me every single time I reattempted a new run.

...Finding her through that crack in the wall before she exploded into pieces was the best that I could do.

And that was why I was stuck in this dilemma.

This ability... it is impossible... the hurdle is too high from the start... Sieving out and experiencing the painful memories of the target of Field of Memories, repeatedly on that 'thing' even with Kuro's help... was extremely unhealthy for my mental condition. I was taking in the dark emotions of every single person inside of that thing. To have such a costly prerequisite before activation... my Origin is... truly...

...A self-destructive one...

“What were you trying to do, accessing my memories like that... ...Well, …I didn’t expect anything different… although, it’s slightly surprising that you held out for a bit before you let go. A normal person would’ve died from the mental overload."

“Khh…”

I clutched my head to alleviate the throbbing pain inside, as I tried to discard all of the information that I had seen.

“... ...Hikari.”

I looked at the little girl defiantly, trying to get the last word in while still trying to keep my composure. I was already hyperventilating.

"?!"

"I... Is this... enough... to show my conviction...?"

“... ... ...Hehhh… you even managed to catch that name through that tiny window. You move your eyes and mind pretty fast, don't you?" Ruler put both of her hands behind her back and bent forward towards me.

"Color me surprised... looks like I've really underestimated you. Aahhh, aaahhh... it's gotten just a little bit more interesting now..."

Her eyes narrowed into curved slits like a cat prowling in the night. The little girl looked at me without blinking for a few seconds, right at my strained face caused by that sharp pain earlier from me trying to read her memories. There was still drool leaking out of my mouth, revealing my unsightly appearance.

Nodding to herself, she started speaking again.

"...Although I may not know what you've managed to see through the Memory Archive, but you've shown your capability to withstand the mental strain it has on your mind. ...Although..."

The little girl turned to look at Kuro, who remained still with a poker face. Through a careful look, it seemed as if a light wrinkle had found its way in between Kuro's eyebrows, as if he had suffered a small headache from something.

It was clear that Kuro had taken some of the mental burden himself as well.

His protective instinct of their collective consciousness did not allow him to take unnecessary risks, even if White was trying to prove himself by doing something that reckless like using a console command to open up the Memory Archive.

It turned out that White had seen it back when Ruler had opened up her administrative windows earlier. He had emulated her pattern of speech in an attempt to open the window back up.

And he had clearly succeeded, even managing to access the memory of a Goddess, albeit temporarily. ...But it came with the hefty cost of receiving a powerful shock to his mental state...

Indeed, it was carelessness on Kuro's part to not stop him on time. He knew White was definitely someone who would resort to something this irrational after being driven by his emotions, but he could at least share the burden if he couldn't stop it.

"Tch... ...We're taking the appraisal together after all... It isn't considered as cheating isn't it, goddess?"

"...Compensating for each other’s weaknesses, is it? I see that as nothing but a flaw in human nature..."

"...Haha, you jest. You like these types of people don't you?"

"Hmm...? Why do you say so?"

"Hikari...was it? You slipped up the moment he mentioned that name."

"..."

Kuro put a finger up his cheek to imitate a smile.

"Expression. Your expression tells everything I have to know about you. ...It's enjoyable to see him suffer right?"

"..."

While trying to recover from a crouching position on the floor, White looked up at Kuro's unchanging expression with a sour face.

"...You're... really-"

"-Betrayed? Kukukuku. Well, I am just emulating someone too closely... People with strong desires leave a very strong impression on me after all, you probably didn't know that right?"

...Kuro...

...That's right... I don't know anything about this person. Aside from being my means of stress disposal, he was nothing else to me.

No one important. Not even worth remembering...

...Our relationship between each other was that shallow that I knew nothing about him, because I never felt the need to...

"...That's why... I continue to live in the shadows of people with powerful desires.

You, who tries so desperately to chase after incomprehensible ideals... But all I see is you continuing to follow empty shadows without meaning while I pick up after you.

...And the Parasite, who had already cursed me upon her death, with this ecstasy I began to derive... from your suffering-"

"-Pa...ra... ...?!!!"

Just as I started to remember something insidious, Kuro immediately tapped my forehead with his index finger.

"-Okay, stop right there. ...You're still not ready, aren't you... Wouldn't want you to remember too much or we might both disappear for real this time."

Ruler coughed lightly to return to the main topic.

"... I can agree to tuning the Origin Branches towards Memory which you've taken an interest in, but it's not like every single person has the perfect compatibility for it. The Origin will most definitely become flawed in some way or another, which might take an even stronger toll-"

But the little girl stopped before she completed her sentence, as she started to chuckle with a delighted expression.

“I guess that doesn't matter to you right, White. ...Although you were mistaken about something.

I don't particularly enjoy torturing humans like this, but... teasing? Hmm, that would be like teasing indeed. You see, managing a world for so long can be really boring without key players, and I've grown to enjoy adding spices to it as time passed.

Still, I still have to do my adminstration duties properly right? I can't meddle too much into the world that I manage, that was the rule. So I cannot give more than one Origin to the same person.

But it seems to me... giving it to you in this state of yours wouldn't matter at all. Since you still wouldn't be able to accomplish anything significant with it anyway~ You're clearly underestimating the pain from overusing it..."

She proceeded to do a small twirl on the spot, her nightdress fluttered again in waves of black. Then she opened her mouth again.

"Ah, enough talk. Let's see then, what your Origin deforms into, ...to meld itself into the shape of that self-destructive nature of yours-"

"?! Wai-!"

In that instant she finished those words, the sigil that did the Origin Appraisal reappeared...

...And inscribed itself into my eyes without warning.

...I felt... my eyes heating up rapidly.

...To the point... of excruciating pain.

All sorts of information entered me during this process.

About the basics of abilities, the rules of being a Demon King Candidate, the existence of different worlds...

My two eyes slowly formed similar intricate symbols on both sides.

It wasn't a peaceful resolution at all. It was like a cage of sharp needles, enclosing both of my eyes in them.

IT HURTS! IT HURTS! IT HURTS! IT HURTS! IT HURTS!

I felt like I was going blind, as if a stinging laser pierced through my eyeballs while it inscribed the symbols without my permission. As various information passed through me while I experienced tides of pain, I could sense that Kuro at the side was unaffected by it.

...Of course he wasn't...!!! He was only ever linked to my mental condition, he wouldn't share the pain unconditionally...!!!

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaAaAaAaAaHHhhHhHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

As I continued to scream out of my lungs to keep myself sane, I could hear Ruler saying something to him.

“...Not… exactly, there’d just never been an precedents of this happening. In the first place, the fact that a single human housed two different souls was already an oddity in its own right...

If you intend to merge your Origin with him, I am not sure what will happen to the collective status of you two… This Origin Branch may have almost perfect compatibility with you, but it might still create some kind of glitch-"

“It’s fine.”

Kuro turned to look at me, scratching the edges of my eye sockets wildly.

“Inscribe it.”

Following those concise words, it started to hurt less.

It felt as if...

Half of the physical burden was being shouldered by someone else.

My left eye began to hurt less, and I regained vision with it again as the symbol started to fade away inside of it.

When I could finally muster up enough energy to look towards Kuro's direction to confirm my suspicions, my questions were answered almost immediately upon seeing what was happening to him.

He wasn't screaming like me, but he was definitely groaning from the searing sensation on his left eye. That eye began to glow brightly, as a different symbol from mine appeared on it.

...Kuro...

...He... had decided to take the Appraisal together with me in the end...

...What's wrong? You're done already?

The sudden provocation from him snapped me out of my recollection. I returned to the present, filled with slightly rejuvenized determination.

Despite his dark and destructive nature, Kuro was someone who was always beside me.

Realizing that I was not the only one caught in this mess, I began to think more clear-headedly. The gears in my mind started to turn and process all of the information that I had accumulated through the 6 runs.

"...No, there's more to be done. ...I just remembered, that I had just missed one variable."

A variable...?

"That girl was... most likely... not Hikari herself."

Kukuku... You've realized something already, didn't you?

"Yeah. It's her song. ...Amidst the melody, I remember hearing her hum someone else's name."

I clutched my right eye strongly with my hand. It was glowing blue, a physical response that would happen whenever I activated my Origin. The color would vary, depending on the unappraised Origin of the person whom I had targeted.

Someone... else...?

"Yes. Speak of the devil, here she is."

As I finished whispering to myself, I turned to look at the person who had sliced apart the hatch door.

There stood a woman with light blue hair and white skin, who used her arm as a blade to enter the place forcefully. There was another female elf strutting behind her with a smug face, accompanied by several other elves who acted like her attendants.

As the woman who acted as the vanguard surveyed the surroundings of atonished elves, she quickly found who she was looking for.

Our eyes met.

"...How ironic... It's just like... when we had first met. Master Craftsman... No... Hikari Lestia, or should I say... Mizutani... Inaho...?"

...Ah, so you meant her? We've crossed path with this person way too many times to consider it a coincidence at this point huh...

Then that means...-

"-She is here for us."

Mnn...

-The woman with many faces.

...Looks like, we'll have to call for help for this one.