CHAPTER 95: CHAPTER 16

Retsu stared intently at Seijirou, her beautiful blue eyes wide with a fragile, uncharacteristic fear.

She looked so timid, trembling as if afraid of getting scolded, her hands clasped tightly together.

"Seijirou-kun," she whispered, her voice barely audible. "T-Tell me honestly...a-are you disgusted by me? A-Are you afraid of me?"

Seijirou remained silent, his own severe injuries, the adrenaline crash, and the sheer confusion of her question and her current timid actions, making him incapable of immediate response.

Seeing his silence, Retsu’s facade of control began to crumble as she rushed to explain, her words tumbling out quickly.

"I-I was just angry seeing you hurt, S-Seijirou. I am normally not like that, I swear. I just... I just lost control when he hurt you. I, I promise you, I only have your best interest at heart. I would never hurt you."

Her voice became softer and lower, until eventually she lowered her head, the shame, or perhaps fear of his disgust, was overwhelming her.

She bit her lips hard enough to draw a pinprick of blood.

"Please, Seijirou, don’t hate me," she pleaded, her voice trembling. "I won’t be able to handle it if you hated me."

Seijirou stared at her for a few moments, observing the intricate look of despair in her face, before he asked the critical question.

"Retsu... tell me honestly, do you want to harm me, or the people around me?"

Retsu raised her head to stare at him, and slowly nodded, but then she quickly shook her head, making Seijirou raised an eyebrow at the contradictory response.

Before Seijirou can asked what she means by that, Retsu immediately confessed, her tone chillingly casual, "I was only fantasizing about paralyzing you or turning you into a vegetable so I could take care of you for the rest of our lives, ensuring you could never leave or look at anyone else. But I never really thought of actually doing it for real. I still maintain some self-control when it comes to you."

Hearing that, Seijirou’s eyes widened as he immediately felt a bone-deep shiver run down his spine.

Crazy! This woman is truly insane!

His current memories, inherited from the original Kageyama Seijirou, painted her as a kind-hearted, perhaps slightly eccentric, nurse who always spoiled him.

And he had believed those memories simply because he had little information on her beyond those, as she was a minor, non-playable character in the original game.

Who knew she was actually this insane?!

..but, if she’s so crazy, why didn’t she do anything when he was clearly has been with many women?

"As for those girls around you..." Retsu continued, her voice hardening with contempt as she referred to Suzune, Yukina, Emi, and the others. "They are mere toys. You can toss them aside when you’re bored and you can play with them when you wanted some fleeting fun. Honestly, if they weren’t useful for you to relieve stress or boredom, or as status symbols, then I really couldn’t care less about them."

Seijirou felt his cheek twitch.

So, the reason why this woman appeared so reasonable and unbothered even when he was openly with other women is because she doesn’t consider them as human beings?

Holy hell, this woman is a high-functioning sociopath!

Seijirou then took a deep breath and stared at her for a few moments before finally speaking, choosing his words carefully. "For someone who thinks like that, you act remarkably humane. You’re convincing, Retsu."

Retsu smiled, but this smile was unnervingly empty and mechanical, not a forced one like Haruka whose expression was almost frozen solid, but as if an emotionless creature was simply imitating the geometric shape of human emotion.

"I do, don’t I?" Retsu said, still holding that smile that invoked a deep sense of uncanny feeling,"I am a master at imitating human emotions and behavior. Seijirou-kun, do you know? I can’t actually feel anything at all. Humans, toys, animals, all of them feel exactly the same to me. For me, killing a human or an animal isn’t philosophically different from simply breaking a toy. I do feel joy, though. Whenever I see someone suffer, whenever I see someone fall into despair and hopelessness, I feel a rush, a sense of euphoria."

Seijirou trembled at her sociopathic views, but he narrowed his eyes, as the gravity of her confession weighing heavily on him. "What about me? Was everything you did for me, everything we’ve shared, just an imitation of a human relationship to you?"

Retsu’s eyes immediately widened, the mechanical smile finally dropping away, replaced by genuine distress. "No! You are different! You are special! Everything I did, everything we’ve been through, none of it is a lie! I swear it!"

Seijirou shook his head despite her seemingly genuine distress, "I can’t trust you, Retsu. After all, you admitted yourself that you were great at imitating humanity. How can I distinguish truth from your routine?"

Retsu bit her lips again, looking desperate and determined. "I can die for you, Seijirou-kun! I can prove my feelings!"

"If my parents hired bodyguards for me," Seijirou countered dismissively, "they would also die for me to protect their paycheck. That doesn’t mean they actually like me or have genuine feelings."

Retsu opened her mouth to argue, her expression fraught with internal conflict, but she couldn’t come up with any words to counter his logic.

Seeing that, Seijirou shook his head, pushing past his pain, and was about to stand up and leave, when Retsu grabbed his hand, her grip surprisingly strong and desperate.

"You are real!" she exclaimed, her voice raw, causing Seijirou to widen his eyes in shock and profound confusion.

Retsu continued, her eyes searching his face desperately. "Ever since I can remember, I’ve felt like everything in this world isn’t real. That I am the only one who truly exists."

Seijirou narrowed his eyes. "What... does that even mean?"

Was she aware?

Retsu’s gaze swept over the arcade floor and the closed doors. "This world feels like a cheap set design. The people here feels like they are just NPCs or mobs in a game. Everything feels fake! Those so-called emotions they all display? How do I even know they really exist and are not just programmed routines? Those conversations? How do I know they are real and not just simulations? Everything feels fake!"

Seijirou was shocked to his core. This girl... She really was aware!

He doesn’t know how or why, but for some reason, maybe through some sheer miracle or just some ’bug’, an impossible, infinitesimally event had occured.

A character became self-aware.

"I thought I was the only one in this world who truly exists," Retsu continued, tears of genuine frustration now gathering in her eyes. "That everyone else was fake. That’s why I don’t consider others as living things. The way I enjoy inflicting pain and torment? That was my way of trying to feel that I’m alive, that I exist, that I’m different from the rest of the scenery."

Seijirou’s eyes narrowed as he began to understand the horrific logic of her twisted worl view.

’She is basically just like a gamer,’ he thought, recalling his own past life.

Gamers like them, they would also enjoy tormenting mobs, or finding new ways to inflict pain and kill them to satisfy some twisted sense of humour, power or superiority over those virtual creatures.

Because for a gamer, those mobs aren’t ’real’; they don’t ’exist’.

These weren’t done out of malice, but simply for enjoyment or for whatever reason. The feelings of mobs? They were not real to begin with, so why would they consider such feelings?

For Retsu, the logic was terrifyingly similar.

She sees the world for what it really is; a game. And she believes that she was the only one who is ’real’, and everyone else was fake.

For her, it was like growing up as the only human in the world surrounded by dolls imitating humanity.

"I thought I would just live out this simulated life alone, knowing no one else was the same as me," Retsu concluded, her voice barely a whisper. "Until one day, I saw you. You were young then, but you were different from everyone else. I don’t know what was different about you, but you stood out from the rest of the fakes. That’s why I wanted you to be like me, to think of this world as nothing more than entertainment, to think of the people as nothing more than disposable toys. To drown in ’depravity’ like I do."

Seijirou’s eyes widened for a moment as he realized, at this moment, that Retsu was probably the main reason why the game Seijirou became so twisted and depraved.

"Although I succeeded in influencing your behavior," she admitted, referencing his original scumbag tendencies, "you still felt ’fake,’ just like everyone else. So, even though you were ’different,’ I never really actively got close to you. And it was only until recently that you actually... became ’real.’"

Seijirou shivered. Recently? Could it be... "By recently, when... When exactly was it? When did I became ’real’, as you said."

Retsu replied honestly, "During that time when you and your crew decided to take down the Yurei Highschool."

Seijirou stood up straight, staring at her with fear in his eyes as cold sweat poured out of body, a chill going through his spine.

The day they took down the Yurei High... That was also the day that he transmigrated as Kageyama Seijirou!

This... How could this be?