39. Lillian (3)

The vine writhed pleasantly under Lillian’s caress. I kept my eyes on that grotesque sight as I asked.

“So this vine has your poison inside it, Sis?”
“Not just this one.”

Lillian sipped her herbal tea calmly, then walked over to the window and gazed out at the forest beyond the glass.

“It’s inside every single one of the children I showed you under the name ‘experiments.’”

The flowers that breathed fire up from the soil, the bees that sprayed acid rain, every last one of those ominous creatures held her poison.

“I’m going to hell.”

Sharing in Lillian’s pain had turned them into monsters.

“Since I sacrificed innocent lives to keep myself alive, I have to pay for the sin.”

I’d have done the same thing.

A human life is worth more.

I couldn’t bring myself to say any of it, not with the way Lillian had turned to look at me, her face unbearably sad.

“That’s why I can’t go back.”
“…”
“I’ll die together with these children.”

By now I had a perfect grasp of the situation.

She’d chosen a solitary life as a child, the moment she realized something was wrong with her, and the desperate things she’d done to survive inside it had come back like a boomerang of guilt, coiling around her throat.

Eve had taken in the full misery of it too, and big, heavy teardrops were rolling endlessly down her face.

“Sis.”
“Hm?”

The Lillian I’d first met and the Lillian in front of me now might as well have been two different people. The bright, bubbly girl I’d taken for nothing but cheer was gone from the room. In her place sat a girl who’d given up on life, her face perfectly blank.

I don’t like it.

I didn’t like this story, the way it was shaping itself into a tragic tale of self-sacrifice.

I picked up the teacup with Lillian’s poison in it and poured the contents over the vine at her side.

“— Kyeeeeeeek!”

“What are you doing!?”

Startled out of her wits by what I’d done, Lillian shoved me away.

“Let’s say things straight. All of this — in the end, it’s a choice you made, Sis.”

Lillian’s pupils trembled at that, but I paid it no mind and pressed on.

“Running off into this forest, dumping your poison into innocent lives just to survive — every bit of it was the result of your choice.”
“That’s…”

This was on her.

“If you made the choice, you have to take responsibility for it. Why are you playing the victim?”

These were unbelievably cruel things to say.

I ignored Eve’s reproach and kept unloading the venom.

“Sitting here beating yourself up with ‘I’m going to hell’ — does that change anything? Sorry, but the answer is nothing. Not one thing.”

For the first time, Lillian’s blank face twisted.

“Then how was I supposed to handle it!?”

Lillian shouted.

“Was I supposed to kill our family? Was I supposed to wring your neck!?”

She slammed her fist against the window, and the glass shattered with a deafening crash! The shards turned scarlet.

“I don’t want to die alone in this forest either! I want to live an ordinary life too!”

Heavy tears dropped from her eyes one after another. A decade of grief, spent tightrope-walking between the urge to kill and the will to survive, broke out of her all at once.

“…But the idea that I might kill the people I love with my own two hands is even more terrifying.”
“You could’ve just said that earlier.”

I was deliberately scraping at her wound, all so she could come out of this forest and into the wider world.

“That you couldn’t handle it alone. That you needed help. You could’ve just said that.”
“…”
“Look around right now. Do you really look alone?”

Before I’d even noticed, the creatures of the forest had come in through the broken window and gathered at her side. The bee that once sprayed acid rain was easing a glass shard out of her hand; the vine was wiping the wet streaks from her cheek with its leaves.

“Why are you killing yourself trying to carry this alone?”

Lillian couldn’t answer me.

When I rose and stepped toward her, the monster plants crowding around her bristled their thorns at me. It was less an attack, though, than the instinct to protect their wounded master. I gestured at the strange, tender scene.

“How is this alone? Even the things that grew out of your poison — they’re scrambling right now to protect one single person. You.”
“…”
“You’re confused, Sis. You thought running into this forest would make everything okay. But how did that turn out?”
“…”
“You haven’t solved a thing. You only turned the forest’s innocent creatures into monsters.”

I stared straight into Lillian’s eyes as I said it.

“You aren’t some incredible hero who can save the world all by herself, Sis. You’re just an ordinary human being — without the caliber, without the talent for it!”

The instant I grabbed her hand, a vine slammed me away. I went flying through the air and crashed into the wall.

Fortunately my back was only scraped up; nothing serious. The real problem lay elsewhere.

Just as Eve said, dozens of vines were knotting together with Lillian at their center.

“No… no…”

But that wasn’t the half of it. The vines rushing in from the forest now lunged to attack me.

“I… have to be alone… I’ll hurt… someone…”

The vines came at me as sharp, spiked needles.

“…I want to die.”

I drew the sword at my waist and cut down the oncoming vines.

— Slash!

Even from between the severed stalks, a voice spilled out.

“I don’t want to die…”

— Slash!

“I want to go home… I want to be loved… I don’t want to be thrown away…”

I knew these were all the cries of a young girl who’d shut herself away in a forest and borne her suffering alone. This was the bare face of Lillian, who had called herself a monster and chosen solitude when in truth she’d been the loneliest of them all. The sound of cut vines and her terrible confessions wailed and echoed across the whole forest.

This was different from the earlier fight. Knowing they couldn’t beat me, the vines still threw themselves at me, desperate to protect her. After hacking through one wave of them, I reached for the thickest stalk coiled around Lillian.

“Ugh!”

In that gap a vine cracked across my side. My ribs throbbed, but I didn’t stop.

“I’m going to fall into hell.”
“No one’s going to love me.”

A vine tried to coil around my throat. I threw my sword aside and seized the thorn-studded stalk with my bare hand.

— Crunch.

Thorns drove into my palm and blood streamed out, but I gritted through the pain and tore the vine away.

— Thwack! Thwack!

From every direction the vines hammered at me, trying to peel me off. Even as my whole body turned into one big bruise, I didn’t stop.

“Help me.”

Through her screaming, through her despair, I finally tore through the last barrier of vines, and there inside it I saw Lillian curled up. A small pair of shoulders, face buried between her knees, hands clamped over her ears, trembling.

“Don’t come… please…”

I reached out my bloodied hand and caught her trembling wrist.

“Don’t run away.”

Lillian lifted her head, her wet eyes looking up at me.

“I’ll help you.”

“…Sniff.”

We were sitting across the table from each other again. The one thing that had changed was Lillian’s puffy, swollen eyes. She blew her nose hard and spoke.

“You said you’d help me, so take responsibility.”

The depression that had swallowed Lillian a moment ago was nowhere to be seen.

“But I’m the older one, you know? Why are you acting like the big brother here?”

Lillian grumbled, her lower lip jutting out in a pout.

The real me inside this body has plenty of years on you, kiddo.

I smirked to myself and poured tea into her empty cup as I answered.

“There’s no ‘older’ and ‘younger’ between family. Whoever needs it more gets to play little sister.”
“Pfft… you’ve got an answer for everything, don’t you.”

Lillian griped, but she drank the tea I’d poured all the same. Calmer now, she rubbed her reddened eyes and got down to business.

“So how are you going to help me?”

The teasing had left her voice; what came through now was earnestness. I went straight to the point.

“There’s a limit to how much poison you can transfer into the forest’s creatures, isn’t there?”
“Mm-hm. Even one drop is enough to transform them.”

I’d thought as much.

Whether they were alive or not, what we were dealing with were small animals and plants. There was no way creatures that tiny could endure Lillian’s poison.

“What you have to do is simple.”

She’d reached out a hand to help me, and I meant to take that responsibility to the hilt.

“Transfer your poison not into animals and plants — but into a different human.”

At that, Lillian shot upright.

“Are you crazy!? Transfer this onto a person!?”
“Calm down.”
“How am I supposed to calm down!?”

I serenely sipped my tea, even at her outburst.

“What if there were a special vessel that could withstand your poison?”
“A special vessel? Where would something like that…”

Her gaze drifted naturally toward me. I casually tapped my own chest.

“That’s right. That person is me.”

Lillian’s face went white.

“Are you out of your mind? No matter how sturdy you are, you can’t take my poison!”

She really had left home too young; she knew absolutely nothing about Arden. I spoke up to set her misunderstanding straight.

“First — I’m not sturdy. It’s only been under a year since I started looking like a functional person.”
“What does that mean?”
“Second.”

I leaned in and whispered to her.

“You wouldn’t know it, Sis, but I’m carrying way, way more poison than you are.”

She’d probably take it for a bluff, but my body was already nothing but a clump of curses. The ones still eating away at me imposed all kinds of restrictions on me.

Fight poison with poison, as they say. Lillian’s poison might actually do me a favor.

Between the curses and her poison, surely one of them would end up driving the other out of my body. A stronger poison, swallowing its rival.

“There’s nobody more optimized for poison than I am. Trust me on this.”

Seeing the certainty in my eyes, Lillian hesitated. Fear and worry, and beneath them a faltering Can I really trust him?

“Are you really sure?”

It seemed Lillian had decided to put her faith in my firm assurance. I rolled up my sleeve before she could change her mind.

“Hurry, give it to me. I’m getting dizzy here.”

Just in case anything happened, I’d merged with Eve.

Eve was my last line of defense.

“I’ll trust you.”

Her hesitation past, Lillian made up her mind and reached a hand out over my forearm.

Plip.

A single drop of jet-black liquid fell from her trembling fingertip and touched my skin.

And the result.

“…Huh?”
“Arden! Are you okay!?”

Lillian gasped and shook my shoulders.

“Yeah, I don’t feel anything.”

There was no pain at all. None of the auditory or visual hallucinations that had tormented Lillian showed up either. Just a faint sensation, as if a single drop of water had landed on my skin. Nothing more, nothing less.

Lillian asked, as if she couldn’t believe it.

“You’re really all right? You feel nothing?”
“Yeah. Honest to god, I’m fine.”

Lillian must’ve been seriously scared.

Looks like I was right.

I was only borrowing Arden’s shell; at the most fundamental level, I was an entity from outside this world’s system. And DV, at its core, was an anomalous stat that appeared only in NPCs.

This… this is huge.

Exactly how the world classified my existence was an open question. But if my body could act as a perfect filter like this, it changed the story entirely.

If Lillian and I combine forces, I can purify the DV of any NPC headed for demonification.

This was going to bend my future plans in a very, very good direction.

“Give me more. I’m fine.”

Relief and hope spread across Lillian’s face at my words. She wiped her tears and gripped my arm tight, and then a thicker, denser surge of toxic energy flooded into my veins like a dam giving way.

“A little… more… are you all… ri…?”

At some point Lillian’s voice had warped into something grotesque.

And it wasn’t only her voice.

Soon her shape was dispersing into a haze, glitching and breaking apart like a busted game screen.

— Bzzzt.

The world blacked out, then flickered back on.

“And you told me to trust you.”

And there sat Lillian, weeping tears of blood.