Chapter 151

Javert's Iron and Justice (15)

[You have successfully cleared Regret ‘Memory’.]

[All traumas have been cleared.]

Floor 90, where the clear was complete.

One woman's story had passed through a terrible ordeal and finally been tied off.

The paragraph written as an ending became a connection instead, remaining as a memory that linked reminiscence and imagination.

"So, Investigator."

"I hope you will live a little longer."

That moment, whispered like a dream.

Afterward, we held each other for a long time.

"Ugh..."

Javert had kept her face buried in my arms the entire time.

I quietly patted her back.

Was it because the air was winter-cold?

The sharp chill stung, and each time it did, we felt each other all the more desperately.

Javert had always been so cold, but in this moment alone, I could feel the heat of her body.

"Investigator."

"......"

I steadied my body, which had gone pathetically limp.

When I breathed out, a sudden, brutal pain came from the nape of my neck.

Throb.

"......Ugh."

Was it because I had died nearly three hundred times?

The aftermath seemed to have left me crawling with phantom pain.

My neck had been seared by fever, strangled, and broken again and again.

As my shoulders flinched, Javert noticed the change, and her eyes trembled.

"Stu, Student Viktor..."

The woman's face hardened like stone.

Did she think it was her fault?

"Are you all right? No, is, is something wrong somewhere...?"

Javert looked up at me, restless.

Belatedly realizing my mistake, I fixed my crumpled smile.

I could not let her worry right now.

The woman before me was in a precarious state, like a glass bowl on the verge of shattering.

"I was only a little dizzy for a moment."

"Do you feel anything, some kind of aftereffect...?"

"I am not sure."

"Even if it was a loop, you died hundreds of times. There is no way your body could be fine..."

"There is truly no problem. If anything, I feel refreshed. Perhaps even more so because you are worried about me, Investigator."

Javert asked while looking utterly haggard.

I had to repeat that I was fine several times.

Trying to loosen the sunken mood, I changed the subject with a needlessly mischievous remark.

"Puhu... I did not know you had this side to you, Investigator. You are quite an emotional person."

I gently reached out and brushed her tear-streaked cheek.

The rims of her eyes were stained red.

Maybe it was my calm reaction, as if I were talking about someone else.

Javert furrowed her brow and brought her face close to mine.

Bonk.

Forehead met forehead.

Thanks to that, our lips hovered dangerously close to touching.

Our breaths mingled across the short gap between us.

"......"

Javert gripped my clothes tightly.

Her softened eyes shimmered.

It was a complicated expression.

Her emotions were surging back up, yet she seemed confused, unable to decide what words to bring out.

Gratitude, apology, sadness... all kinds of feelings showed clearly beyond her pupils.

The faint sound of breathing colored the moment with nothing but tenderness.

"Investigator."

I opened my mouth in a whisper.

The air was cold.

White breath bloomed in puffs like flowers.

The two flowers entwined, and a bouquet kept drawing itself in the air.

Whoooosh.

A world that bloomed from that alone.

I wrapped my arms around the woman's back.

Then I lifted her slender body without hesitation.

"Up we go."

"......?!"

A princess carry.

Javert looked up at me in surprise.

Regardless, I stepped forward with a bright, smiling squint.

"It is not over yet, is it? There is one last place to visit."

"......Ah."

There was something left for this finale.

One gift to give through Purgatory.

Javert held her breath.

Creeeak.

An old wooden door appeared in front of us.

As if retracing our steps, we took hold of the doorknobs we had passed and turned them.

***

The Regret that had been cleared first.

Past, Reminiscence.

""......""

The boy and the woman visited that place once again.

Night had passed, and morning had arrived.

Sunlight lay softly over the winter air.

Black and red crossed the snowfield piled soft and white.

Crunch, crunch.

The two walked without any sign of hurry.

Before long, Javert stopped in front of a certain mansion.

"......"

The house where she had lived as a child.

The woman walked slowly, as if sinking into memory.

Whenever she passed each part of the scenery, complicated feelings came back one by one.

On the street.

At the front gate.

In the garden.

In the corridor.

All of it made her remember the past.

After a soft, deep breath, only the final space remained before Javert.

'The study...'

Her hand could not easily take hold of the doorknob.

A presence could be heard beyond the thin door.

She knew who it would be.

The woman hesitated for a long while, but in the end, as if resolved, she opened the door.

Creeeak.

Light poured in.

Right after that, Javert's eyes met those of an older woman.

"......"

"......"

Then silence settled for a moment.

Had she been in the middle of reading?

The older woman held a thick book in her hands.

Her blue eyes stared blankly at the woman who had suddenly appeared, as if her soul had left her.

'What if she doesn't recognize me?'

The reaction made that worry meaningless.

A mother clearly recognized her child at a glance, even when that child had changed so much.

"Javert...?"

The older woman murmured blankly.

It was understandable for her to be stunned.

Her daughter, now fully grown, had suddenly appeared before her eyes.

Serian seemed flustered, but soon, as if she had grasped the situation, she spoke.

"......You are not the Javert from this time."

The older woman's response was calm.

Javert could only look at her mother.

That voice she had missed.

It was exactly as Javert remembered.

Something surged in her chest, and watery emotions choked her throat tight.

'What should I say first?'

There were so many things she wanted to say, and so many things she had to say.

She had stories she wanted to tell her.

She had things she wanted to ask her.

She had always imagined this sort of moment and practiced what to say over and over.

'What was I going to say...?'

Yet once it became reality, her mind went blank.

The sentences she had prepared shattered into pieces until she could no longer recognize them.

She froze stiff.

"Javert."

"......"

The one who woke Javert was none other than the older woman's voice.

A faint smile rested on her lips.

"Is there something you want to tell me?"

"......"

Nod.

Javert barely raised and lowered her head.

The older woman gave a short laugh, then patted the seat beside her on the sofa.

It meant she should sit beside her.

The daughter hesitated briefly, but followed her mother's words.

The cozy scent and warm body heat seemed to seize her heart tight.

"Ahem."

Viktor withdrew to the corner of the study so mother and daughter could speak comfortably.

A wrinkled hand stroked Javert's hair.

Her red hair shifted gently beneath it.

Serian quietly studied her daughter, now grown.

"You've grown so much, my daughter."

"......Yes."

"How old are you now?"

"......Well, twenty-three."

"You're an adult. Nine years from now, then."

"......"

"So you become terribly blunt once you grow up? You're not our innocent Javert anymore, are you? Mom might feel a little hurt."

"I am sorry. I try not to be, but I keep... the words do not come out well..."

She bit her lip as if holding back tears.

But it was a thin defense, one that could collapse from only a few words.

"Still, you cry just as easily."

"......"

Javert tried hard to calm her breathing.

There were words she had to say.

Once this clear ended, Floor 90 would no longer be possible to enter.

So, even if this was not real, there was an answer she wanted to receive from the version of her mother in this place.

"Floor 90 of Purgatory is an unusual place."

"It is certainly fake, but that does not mean it is woven only from pure fantasy."

"The recreations that unfold here are closer to copying than creation."

She remembered what the boy had told her.

"A recreation rate close to perfection."

"Purgatory learns information from the world, accumulates it endlessly, and forms scenes."

"A human's personality, habits, way of speaking... even the smallest details are implemented without missing any."

In short, a copied personality.

She could not send words to the real person, but it was possible to hear an answer to a question.

If it truly was a perfectly recreated personality, then it would recite the same answer the real person would have given.

"......Mother."

There was something the woman wanted to ask.

She calmly cleared her throat.

"There is something I wish to tell you."

"Tell me comfortably."

Javert laid everything bare.

The things that happened in the future.

Her own mistake, the older woman's death, and even the life that had broken afterward.

The woman spoke as if chewing over each scene, pressing her emotions into every word.

Her voice gradually grew watery, shaking as if it would soon spill over.

'No.'

But she could not cry carelessly.

Because she was a sinner.

Javert clenched her fists and swallowed the surge back down.

After finishing the whole story, the woman lifted her head and faced the older woman.

"Mother."

Not even the slightest agitation showed on Serian's face.

Only a quiet sadness could be seen.

Javert let out a deep breath.

"I wish to ask you one thing."

"Yes, my daughter."

"You must answer honestly. I do not want lies or consideration."

"Mom only ever speaks sincerely. I always will, to my daughter."

A request for honesty.

Then the girl spat out the question she had let rot inside her for so long.

"......In your final moment."

A certain winter night returned to her.

You, who had bloomed red and closed your eyes forever.

"In your final moment, the last moment before you passed away... did you resent me...?"

Her mother had only said that it was all right.

That it was not her fault, that it had only been bad luck.

"Did you hate me?"

She knew.

Her mother was not someone who would resent or hate another person.

Most likely, this was a single sentence she had kept behind as her own guilt.

The woman had lived her whole life being eaten away by that one sentence.

Now was the moment to face it.

Whatever answer came back, Javert was prepared to accept it.

"Javert."

"......Yes, Mother."

Javert looked precarious, as if she might break.

The older woman did not answer her daughter's question.

Srrk.

She only pulled that slender body into an embrace.

A warm chest. Javert helplessly spilled into it.

"As if that could ever happen."

That short line made the sobs she had held back burst.

The mother let her daughter's tears flow as she whispered.

Her voice was endlessly kind.

"Mom could die as many times as needed. For my daughter, I would make the same choice again and again."

"......"

"Because my daughter lived. Because you grew up into such a wonderful adult. That alone makes Mom feel as happy as if I owned the whole world."

"......Uht, uugh."

A sobbing sound.

The older woman quietly patted her daughter's back.

Only tender words rang through the study.

"You went through so much. It must have been hard, my daughter."

"Mom..."

"Thank you for growing up well. Thank you for coming to meet me like this. Mom is happy. I mean it."

"I'm sorry, Mom... Ugh, uheuk. Because of me, because I ruined everything..."

"It's all right. Mom is all right."

The frozen lump in her chest melted away.

The Thorn lodged deep in her heart was pulled free.

That moment felt nothing short of miraculous.

A moment that forgot it was fake and became real, if only for a little while.

"Because Mom would always have loved my daughter the same."

Javert Droit.

Only after nine years had passed could the woman be forgiven by her most painful scar.