149

Lark’s “turn” started again, and I ended up having to listen to all sorts of noble-society nonsense I didn’t particularly need, but when it came to the research-facility information I wanted most, it ended with a single line: “I’ve got something I scribbled all over a map back when I was bored.”

He also told me where it was, so even if he suddenly dropped dead in front of me, I’d be fine.

“Oh, right. There’s something important I forgot to say.”

I cut into Lark’s endless chatter with that.

He frowned for a moment, but the moment he heard “important,” he went quiet and waited.

“Turns out I looked into a few things… and while the Empire lost the war back then, it seems it gathered its remaining forces and pushed south, wiped out Reberen and Haile, and survived as a state by renaming itself the Furon Council-State.”

Lark’s eyes widened.

He looked genuinely shocked—mouth half open, staring at me—so I nodded to confirm it was true.

“I see… I thought it had fallen…”

He lowered his face and muttered while thinking, nodding to himself, then looked up at me with a smile.

“That’s good news. Very good news. Thank you.”

His eyes were slightly watery as he nodded again and again, so I tossed in one more piece of news.

“Also, I found a soldier who looks exactly like my sister. I talked to her, and personality-wise, it’s completely my family’s woman.”

For a moment, Lark looked blank, then he laughed and gave me a skeptical look.

“Seriously?”

“She was so similar it was scary. Even her voice sounded the same—I almost called her ‘Sis’ by accident. Oh, and her figure’s close too, but since she’s a soldier, she might be a bit more muscular.”

“That almost makes me want to see her,” he said, sounding genuinely tormented, folding his arms and groaning again.

Then he shut his eyes and fell silent, as if thinking hard.

Until a moment ago he’d been moving his mouth nonstop—now he wasn’t saying a word.

“By the way, you can use electricity here, right? Do you have anything that can play a data disk?”

I asked, but there was no answer.

As I reached toward Lark, who’d stopped moving with his arms folded and head bowed, I noticed something.

The smell of blood—a thin red line slipped from his closed lips, beading at his chin before dripping down.

“Hey—don’t push yourself!”

My voice came out harsher than I meant, but Lark raised a hand to stop me, spat out the blood in his mouth, and took a deep breath.

“No, today I felt unusually good, so I got careless. Don’t worry—coughing up blood happens all the time.”

“…What’s wrong with you? I’ve got potions. Want one?”

I reached into my pack to pull out the blue and green bottles, but Lark shook his head.

“Unfortunately, this isn’t something mass-produced medicine can fix. Even after choosing genetic modification, it only becomes possibly curable if you prepare a dedicated drug. I’m not even sure it would buy time.”

He waved a blood-smeared hand and wiped at himself with his white coat, putting on a brave front.

“I told you earlier—literally, ‘a life that might end tomorrow.’ Honestly, I’m impressed I’ve lasted this long. If I think it was all to meet you and learn what became of the Empire… it almost makes me want to thank God.”

The way he said it—like he’d survived only for this moment—left me with a complicated feeling, and I didn’t know what to say.

“I want to tell you not to make that face… but, well, your expression really doesn’t change, does it?”

Lark joked with a laugh. He probably didn’t like heavy atmospheres.

So I opened my mouth.

“Yeah, but at first, I couldn’t even talk like this, you know? The second I opened my mouth, all that came out was ‘Gaa gaa.’ I had a hell of a time whenever I ran into humans.”

So he wouldn’t overdo it, I started talking instead.

How I’d woken underground and struggled to reach the surface.

How I’d begun surviving in the forest and gradually started getting used to this body.

How I’d run into humans and rescued a naked, big-breasted beauty.

How I’d encountered another subject, fought, and killed them.

As I went through everything in order, the story finally shifted to the elves.

“—And she was perfect, just from looking at her. So I named her Number Six-san and kept watching her as my top-priority observation target.”

And then, at last, Dame Oppai entered the story.

That level of “dame” probably couldn’t be conveyed with words, but he seemed to grasp something anyway, because he cut in during a pause in my breathing.

“How should I put it… you seem to be enjoying that form of yours quite a bit, don’t you?”

I couldn’t exactly deny it.

But I wanted him to understand that it was the result of overcoming countless hardships—I wasn’t just living carefree.

“You look a bit better now, yeah? Then sorry to be blunt, but back to my earlier question. Is there anything left that can play a data disk?”

He made a thinking gesture, but the answer didn’t meet my hopes.

“No… there isn’t. In the first place, normal methods can’t endure two hundred years. If anything does exist, it would be…”

“Magical methods,” I finished.

Seeing Lark nod turned my suspicion into certainty.

“So nobles really do know about it.”

“Of course. You need it to understand your enemy, and there are plenty of situations where you’d be in trouble without it. But a data disk…”

He seemed to guess my circumstances on his own—because I was asking only because I knew the contents were intact.

I felt a little nostalgic. This is exactly how conversations with my family used to go.

“There was a theme park nearby, right? I found a disk there—combat data preserved through magical processing. I want to know what’s on it.”

“Combat data… ah, the ridiculous ‘spirit weapon’ thing?”

“No. The footage is a tank getting pierced by a long-range snipe.”

Apparently there was data for the spirit sword somewhere too, and I assumed he’d mistaken it for that—right until new information stabbed me in the face.

“Hm? You mean the spirit bow, don’t you?”

“…What?”

“Hm?”

A human and a monster stared at each other.

“Wait. What’s a spirit bow?”

“I mean spirit weapons.”

While I clutched my head—There are ones besides a sword!?—he hit me again without mercy.

“Besides the sword, there’s a spear and a bow.”

Reading that I’d only known about the spirit sword, Lark added more information with a pale, amused smile.

And apparently the elves had all of them, because he kept talking like there was more.

“As far as I know, the Empire confirmed five spirit weapons in total. Three swords, plus one spear and one bow. There was one particularly large sword, I think, but that’s just the difference between a one-handed and two-handed sword… there’s no need to split hairs beyond that.”

I’d thought it was four total with what I knew—turns out it was five.

‘So I was getting cocky about being the ultimate lifeform, but there are this many things that can kill me?’

And that was only what had been confirmed.

I’d just concluded I should stop getting carried away, when he dropped another bomb.

“Elves have something called the ‘Three Great Clans.’ Those three clans each possess a sword, a spear, and a bow—and they produce the users for them. In the Empire, the most famous one was Corner, the spirit sword clan, but the others barely surfaced publicly, so surprisingly few people knew them.”

Three Great Clans—that phrase rang a bell.

Right—who had I heard that from again?

“Corner for the sword, Asterio for the spear, and the bow’s…”

“Forshna.”

“Yeah. Forshna.”

Lark looked slightly annoyed at being cut off.

“I want to confirm something. That spirit bow is…”

“That beam—more like a laser weapon? Yeah. That thing is straight-up cheating.”

Even from what was known, it could casually punch through a tank, and the range was at least a kilometer.

On top of that, the wielder excelled at hiding their presence, and the Empire never managed to identify the owner to the end—an absurd explanation to be forced to swallow.

‘That monster is in the same Forshna clan as Number Six-san…’

It was two hundred years ago, so maybe they were already long dead, but with elves, it was entirely possible they were still alive—old like that grandpa, but alive.

Only now did I realize how dangerous a tightrope I’d been walking, and as I thanked my luck, I also swore to keep sexually harassing Number Six-san while being careful not to make her too angry.

Maybe he sensed something from my demeanor, because Lark burst out laughing—then spat blood.

“Hey!”

Blood spilled every time he coughed.

The amount was nothing like before.

I scooped Lark up with both arms, followed where he pointed, and slipped through a door.

I laid him down on the bed inside and asked, “Is there anything I can do?” but he only shook his head in silence.

His condition deteriorated rapidly.

No—more like the wall that had supported him finally collapsed.

Because I’d come. Because I’d told him.

I’d destroyed the reason he’d kept living.

I’d given him a reason to stop the days he’d endured through clenched teeth.

“Don’t… worry. I told you—‘a life that might end tomorrow.’”

“Don’t go making that a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Lark gave a weak smile and opened his mouth as if squeezing out his last strength.

The fact that he still wanted to talk meant he really was a genuine chatterbox noble.

“This illness… is a symptom… of those who couldn’t… adapt… to magic… Little by little… you lose your senses… and now… I… don’t… ah… my vision’s blurring…”

I couldn’t get the words stop talking out.

All I could do was place his hand on top of my fingers.

Even while coughing and spitting blood, Lark kept trying to speak, but his voice gradually grew smaller, thinner.

Then his mouth moved, but no sound came out.

But he was still alive.

So I decided to talk in his stead.

“If you can’t speak, squeeze my fingers instead as an answer,” I said first—then continued from where I’d left off.

How I’d eaten another subject without knowing who they were.

How I’d fought in the Kingdom of Canaan, and how I’d teased mercenary groups for fun.

Each time I spoke, Lark’s hand weakly touched my fingers.

And when the story moved to him—the third subject, Inos—my gaze slipped away from Lark for just a moment.

The story continued, but his hand stayed resting on my fingers, and it didn’t move again.