Chapter 102

“So cute.”

He really did love beautiful things.

Dezeb pulled {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} Erabelle close, pressing their bodies together, and planted quick, affectionate kisses all over her flushed face. Whenever she couldn’t tear her eyes away from him like this, he felt an urge to be incredibly gentle.

Meeting her eyes again, he took her small hand and gave her wrist a light nip. The mere contact of their gazes made his cock leak profusely.

As he watched her writhe through her climax, he licked the mark he had left on her wrist.

The countless tiny ridges of her twisting, tightening vaginal walls caressed his erect cock. He shifted his weight to thrust deeper into her spasming passage, and a thrill shot up the back of his neck.

“...But couldn’t we stay up all night?”

“Please, have mercy—!”

“Sure. I’ll fuck your ass, too.”

Dezeb snorted at the sight of her face, pale as a corpse’s, as though she had just dug her own grave.

Early dawn.

Dezeb stepped outside with a robe draped over his shoulders. The heat of his body, still damp from sex with Erabelle, began to cool in the air. He didn’t want to bring the Dogs inside, so he sat on a bench near the camper and lit a cigarette. That was when they arrived with their report.

“The Prince knew nothing about the Link.”

Right. I had a feeling.

“We’ve conclusively confirmed that the cause was the divinity.”

As Dezeb exhaled a long plume of smoke, he heard a faint hope vanish.

“Shall we erase all related records?”

“Leave them.”

The words came out casually, almost like a sigh.

“I can’t do anything about it anyway.”

“But just in case...”

“If I could, I’d have done it already.”

Ol fell silent at the curt reply. He seemed worried, but it was the truth.

Dezeb gave a soft, dry laugh.

“Why don’t you believe me? I’m telling you, if I could actually do it, I’d have done it by now.”

I didn’t let Erabelle hold this much sway over me simply because I liked her. It was closer to a necessity. I couldn’t let go, and it would hurt too much to try.

Otherwise, I’d have gotten rid of her long ago. I couldn’t bring myself to do anything to Erabelle.

It wasn’t something I could prove. I simply knew it. Besides, even if memories faded, the body would remain, bound tight in its shackles. The greedy part of me would never let her slip away.

If only out of curiosity about why I’d placed her above everything else, none of them would dare treat her poorly. They’d take the utmost care of her.

“If something does happen, by any chance...”

“Then that’s the day you all die. It’ll be the end of every one of you.”

Seeing the sadness in Ol’s eyes, Dezeb shrugged with a smile that seemed to ask, What do you expect from me?

“Erabelle is the singularity of this timeline. Even if I rewrite the Akashic Records and turn back time, there’s no guarantee I’ll meet her again. If I lose her in this timeline, you’ll be trapped forever with a version of me who has lost her.”

Ol’s face turned deathly pale.

“You’d better tread carefully, then.”

Dezeb exhaled a long stream of cigarette smoke and tilted his head back toward the darkening sky.

Rumble...

The pinpoint was narrowing.

Rooooar...

It was time to move again.

“Is it to your liking?”

A few more days had passed.

They had traveled without pause, visiting mountains and seas, warm places and cold ones. They had seen breathtaking landscapes and ordinary ones, famous tourist spots and places only the locals knew.

Sometimes they huddled together beneath a single blanket before a campfire. Other times they walked barefoot across sandy beaches or left footprints in snowy fields in their fur-lined boots.

“Yes, it’s delicious.”

And almost every day, Dezeb blended juice from the enormous supply of strawberries that had gone largely unused for its intended purpose.

“Once we finish this, how about we go trekking today?”

Trekking. That was something I’d only ever heard of other people doing.

“Yes...”

“Sounds like it’d be good for our health, doesn’t it?”

“If you slip, you might say goodbye to your health for good.”

“Then I’ll carry you on my back for the rest of our lives.”

“I’ll make sure to walk carefully.”

“Good.”

He bent forward with a brief laugh, then sighed and took away Erabelle’s empty juice cup.

The trekking course wasn’t far away. It lay beyond a quiet, secluded neighborhood with a small town center at its entrance.

“Should we live somewhere like this someday?”

“Yes.”

I’d agreed, but perceptive as ever, Dezeb asked again.

“You don’t want to? Why?”

“I noticed they don’t get many TV channels here. Just three local stations.”

“That sounds even better.”

“The pharmacy is tiny, and I haven’t seen a single shop selling signum discs.”

“Erabelle, those are military supplies. It’s illegal to sell them.”

Ah, right. Still, it was awkward to hear the word “illegal” from the very superior who was selling those goods to a hostile nation. Whether she called him her superior or the Division Commander was a matter of semantics. Erabelle racked her brain.

“There are only two cafeterias. Anyone living here would end up malnourished.”

“We can cook for ourselves.”

“And getting to work...?”

“We can open a Gate. Or you could resign.”

Both options were extreme. It would take a hundred years of her salary to cover the daily cost of maintaining a Gate.

“We could build a house on a mountain like that one over there. Or live by the sea. You prefer the ocean to the mountains, after all.”

For an instant, thoughts of secret burials and disposing of bodies flashed through her mind, but she had no time to respond.

“The two of us can live like that for a while. Later on.”

Erabelle blinked slowly.

Rumble...

Rumble...

“This is as far as we go.”

Dezeb sighed and kissed her in the middle of the road.

The surroundings plunged into darkness in an instant, as though a veil had been drawn across the sky. Her fingertips grew cold, and each breath left a cloud of white mist. A chill was setting in.

“I wanted to go trekking.”

He whispered it with a smile.

“We can do that later, too.”

In the blink of an eye, Dogs appeared around them, as if they had been waiting there all along. It was strange. There was nothing for them to do in this area.

Erabelle blinked slowly again as she watched the Antares pierce the murky smog and enter the troposphere.

An Imperial battleship under the command of a divisional-rank officer had entered Nover Federation territory without authorization. Such incursions happened often, even near the Imperial capital, so that alone was hardly surprising. What Ol had just told her was. It wasn’t so much shock as the sudden blankness of her mind.

“Memories... Do you mean his memories?”

After Erabelle boarded the Antares, the Dogs had escorted her away separately.

Ol was both the Dog closest to her and, as her direct superior, one of the most distant. They weren’t the sort of people who wasted time on idle chatter.

“Yes. That is the situation.”

“......”

When Erabelle said nothing, Ol added with more caution than usual, “It’s nothing to worry about.”

How could I not worry about this?

“Think of it as an assignment that will keep him away from base for a few months. He’ll be back soon.”

“When you say he’ll be back...”

“He won’t regain his memories. Well... there’s a very slim chance Dezeb’s body might draw back a few fragments, but realistically, it’s unlikely.”

Her clasped hands tightened instinctively.

“Then how...?”

“He will come back.”

Ol sounded certain.

Certain that Dezeb would return to the time he had shared with her. Certain that he would return to the person he was now.

“Why are his memories...?”

“I can’t go into the details.”

Erabelle looked up at Ol’s troubled face.

“I heard a few things while I was at Sanctuary.”

“Pay no attention to what you heard there. You really don’t need to worry about it. They have no right to speak on the matter, and they don’t know much anyway.”

Ol offered one polite assurance after another without giving her a straight answer.

He could have ended the conversation by declaring the matter classified, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

“You really don’t need to worry. Nothing bad is going to happen. In fact, things are taking a turn for the better. Just carry on as usual, Lieutenant.”

“...I see.”

Relieved that she seemed ready to let the subject drop, Ol gave her a list of private communication channels to use in an emergency.

The list included the lines of Aries Cedar and Virgo Hag, people she wouldn’t spare a glance even if the universe were ending.

“......”

Clutching the slip of paper Ol had given her, Erabelle walked heavily down the battleship’s corridor.

Lost in thought as she headed toward Dezeb, she stopped to look outside.

The Antares was anchored near an uninhabited planet in an empty system. A rift lay nearby, leaving the view pitch-black except for the battleship’s indicator lights glowing silently in the darkness.

Hummm...

In many ways, it was a familiar sight.

Hummm...

That eerie, low sound made by a monster rift opening, and a world that seemed to contain nothing but darkness...

After gazing out for a moment, she slowly resumed walking.

She entered the inner room of the restricted zone and found Dezeb brewing coffee at the dining table.

“You’re here?”

Erabelle stopped. He smiled and beckoned her inside.

“Want some coffee?”

His memories were fading.

“I guess you didn’t like what you heard.”

Everything was vanishing...

“It’s nothing special.”

How could this possibly be nothing special?