Path of the Extra

”Why... why is Nol here...?” Yelena asked, her face ashen with horror.

Her [Instinct] would not stop screaming. It sent tremors through her body every time she looked at him.

”I don’t know...” Lumine whispered.

But seeing him here, standing in the middle of all this...

A dreadful premonition crawled up Lumine’s spine.

”Yelena, perhaps you should—”

”If you are about to tell me to head back, I will seriously hit you, Lumine.”

”Right... sorry.”

A wry smile touched Lumine’s face for a brief moment. He glanced at her. She glanced back and nodded.

Then, together, they leapt down from the stands and landed in the arena.

Nol did not move.

He showed no expression at all. He merely watched them with that same casual stillness, as though nothing around him was worthy of concern.

Slowly, Lumine and Yelena approached him.

It was Yelena who spoke first.

”Did you do... all of this, Nol?”

”Why would you assume that?”

He tilted his head, looking so perfectly confused, so painfully innocent, that both Lumine and Yelena stopped in their tracks.

But Yelena’s expression only hardened.

”Don’t bullshit me, Nol.”

”Y-Yelena...?” Lumine muttered, startled.

”Eh?” Nol blinked at her. ”Why are you jumping to such conclusions about me? All of this was already here when I came!”

His explanation was reasonable.

Far too reasonable.

There was barely any blood on him, aside from a few dark stains smeared across his clothes. Even those looked less like the traces of slaughter and more like something he had carelessly sat in without being bothered.

And that made Lumine hesitate.

Because somehow, that was even more unsettling.

”Do not let him fool you, Lumine,” Yelena suddenly whispered beside him.

Lumine turned to her, surprised.

Her eyes remained fixed on Nol.

”My [Instinct] is warning me about him...” she said quietly. ”He... he is the evil it was trying to warn me about.”

”...!”

Lumine’s head snapped back toward Nol.

Nol only stared at them, looking like a bewildered child who had been unfairly accused.

’No... Nol? But that doesn’t make sense. He is the reason so many of us are even still alive in this scenario...’

”You are being quite rude, Yelena,” Nol said, having heard her despite how quietly she had spoken. His face fell into a wounded pout, as if he were on the verge of tears. ”I thought we were friends...”

Before either of them could answer, Nol said something that shook them to their very core.

”Besides... it was Master who did all of this. Not me.”

”...!”

Their eyes widened.

And at that moment, Lumine remembered something Azriel had told him before his first loop.

’He said I had no idea what he had done inside the colosseum... that if I knew, I would never think of saving him...’

Now, as Lumine looked at the horror surrounding him, his stomach turned for an entirely different reason.

’Azriel... Azriel did all of this?’

With all his heart, Lumine did not want to believe it.

But he remembered the blood on Azriel’s body. The wounds. The same on Lioren.

Only... the way they had been injured was different. The blood on them was different.

And Azriel had never lied to him.

He had said he would do this.

He had said he would wipe out anyone who stood in his way.

Lumine curled his fingers into a trembling fist and lowered his gaze.

’If I had stopped him... if I hadn’t just stood there like some useless fool, I could have prevented this...’

”Lumine, don’t believe him,” Yelena said, her voice strained. ”He is... he is probably lying.”

”Why would I lie?” Nol asked softly. Then his gaze shifted toward Lumine. ”But it seems Lumine already knows the truth.”

”Lumine?”

Yelena looked at him with a troubled expression.

”It is quite amazing though, isn’t it?”

Nol’s voice rose again, filled with pride.

Both of them looked back at him.

A smug smile had spread across his face.

”The moment Master decided he had endured enough, he did this. With a single action, Master toppled the true military and political power of this kingdom in mere hours, with his own two hands!”

His smile widened.

”No more heirs! No more powerful figures! All that remains is a king left to rule over the corpses Master handed him!”

Nol’s laughter rang through the ruined arena.

”Hahahahaha!”

The entire House of Aureliath was finished.

The royal family had practically been erased.

”What... what do you mean there are no more heirs?” Lumine asked.

”Huh? Look over there.”

Nol stopped laughing and pointed toward one of the heads mounted on the stakes.

”That is the prince of the kingdom.”

’They didn’t have to die like this... right? Killing them is one thing, but... but to do it so gruesomely? To desecrate their bodies like this... did Azriel have to go this far too?’

That was just...

”Oh, and this...” Nol said, his smile widening.

”I think the two of you might recognize her.”

Something in them broke.

Nol smiled mischievously, as though he had just pulled off some harmless little prank. Then, from nowhere, a stake appeared in his hands.

He swung it like a flag.

Impaled on its end was the head of a child they knew.

”No...”

Lumine took a step back without meaning to.

Yelena froze.

Her face lost all colour as she stared at the severed head, her voice trembling when she spoke.

”That... that is the kid... Lia. Lia... Azriel brought her to the count’s estate...”

Lumine said nothing.

He could only stare at the nefarious scene before him, his eyes frozen wide with disbelief.

”Then... my [Instinct] has never lied to me...”

Lumine slowly turned toward Yelena, not even aware of the expression on his own face.

Nol looked at her too.

Neither of them understood what she meant.

”My [Instinct] has always been confusing when... when it came to you and Azriel...” Yelena said, sounding devastated. She could not bring herself to look at the stake in Nol’s hands.

Lumine glanced at it again, and something hot and incensed began to boil deep inside him.

”At first, whenever it... it came to Azriel, my [Instinct] would tell me he was bad news... but also that he was good. It put me in a dilemma I... I could never quite understand. Then it kept changing, especially when we all went on that void dungeon trip...”

Her eyes sharpened.

”The same happened with you.”

Yelena narrowed her gaze at Nol.

Nol only stared back with a friendly smile.

And yet, something cold lingered behind his eyes.

”The difference is that, after we... we went to the void realm with you guys, my [Instinct] eventually saw Azriel as ’good.’ And ever since then, it has stayed that way. Maybe it was... was never about whether Azriel was good or bad. Maybe it was about whether he saw me as... as a friend or an enemy.”

Her voice tightened.

She looked straight at Nol.

”But you... I don’t think my [Instinct] ever saw you as either.”

Her hands curled into fists.

”Until now.”

Yelena gritted her teeth beneath the shocked gazes of both boys.

”I only feel a deep disgust when I look at you, Nol.”

”That...”

Nol’s face twisted.

”That is so mean, Yelena...!”

”Ugh...!”

”...!”

Both Lumine and Yelena flinched.

Nol suddenly began to cry.

He bawled like a child, his wails echoing through the ruined arena with such raw, shrieking intensity that a terrifying frisson ran through them both.

”I-I didn’t think you would be so c-cruel to me! Waaah! So mean! Mean! Yelena is a meanie! Master would n-never talk to me like that!”

Still sitting cross-legged, Nol suddenly tossed the stake aside.

The head rolled across the ground.

It came to a stop near Lumine’s feet.

Lumine stared down at it, trembling with anger, before lifting his glare back to Nol.

”There is something... something seriously wrong with you, Nol! How... how can you treat death like this..!?”

”H-huh!? W-wah!?” Nol cried harder. ”Why do you care!? They are not real anyway! They are just artificial lives created for this s-scenario! Their deaths are even more w-worthless! Lumine is such a meanie too!”

”Life is still life!” Lumine shouted. ”How can you devalue them just because of that? They don’t know they aren’t real! They lived like any other human! Even if the gods created them, that doesn’t give you the right to strip away the dignity of their lives or their deaths!”

Nol’s face went pale.

He let out a low, miserable moan, tears pouring down his cheeks.

”Shut up...”

His voice shook.

”Shut up! Shut up! I don’t want to hear you lecture me! I thought you were my friends, but you are all the same!”

His expression collapsed into something far uglier.

”Everyone always becomes so sadistic toward me when I say something they don’t like or do something they don’t condone! I hate you!”

”Lumine...” Yelena whispered, her own face pale as nausea twisted through her.

”Is this really... Nol?”

”Why don’t you hate Master then, huh!?”

Nol’s voice cracked like thunder through the arena.

”Your feet are covered in that little girl’s blood anyway! Blood that Master spilled when he killed her! But you judge me when I have done nothing wrong!”

He sobbed, shaking his head like a furious child throwing a tantrum.

”See!? This is why I got rid of that stupid girl in the void dungeon! She was so mean to me too! Stupid Kanae! Stupid! Mean! Stupid! Mean! Stupid!”

”...”

”I was right to kill her!”

Silence fell.

A silence so vast it seemed to swallow even the echoes of Nol’s cries.

Lumine did not move.

Yelena did not breathe.

”...?”

”What...?”