A Death Outside the Script
All the way back along the path she had come, not a single thought rose in her.
Her mind had gone completely white. Or else her thoughts had simply frozen. Perhaps it was both.
In not a single route did the male characters die. Not unless you counted Dietrich, who had taken his own life together with her.
And even Dietrich had done so only in an ending—never in the middle of the game, and certainly never this early. No one had ever died at the very beginning.
Right. There's no way. There can't be…….
But Presepe's meaningless muttering vanished a moment later, gone in an instant like foam.
“…….”
The flower garden had sunk into darkness.
Presepe returned to the very place where she had struck Atar across the cheek with all her strength and fled—and she could not even manage an ordinary scream before her legs gave out and she collapsed where she stood.
Prince Atar is dead! He's dead!
He's lying there in some—some horrible way…….
The man had been right.
Atar was dead.
And he was dead in a way that made no sense at all.
Presepe clamped a hand over her mouth and stared at his corpse, which still looked as though it might hold a trace of warmth. Atar lay twisted on the ground like an insect, and around his throat a shackle had been locked.
"Then let's try the same thing. So you'll learn to open that mouth of yours properly."
"Wh—what? Aaah! What are you doing?! Stop!"
It was the very shackle Atar himself had been about to fasten around Presepe's wrist only moments before.
The iron was exceptionally solid, exceptionally strong. Purely a matter of Atar's taste. He used to laugh at her again and again as she suffered, crushed beneath it, insisting that no amount of struggling would snap it easily—daring her, if she thought she could break it, to go ahead and try.
He had been right. The shackle did not break easily at all.
Only his thick neck, jammed inside iron far too narrow for it, had turned a deep blackish red. As if it might burst at any moment and spray blood.
“H-hik…….”
I've never seen anything like this, not even in a horror movie. Is that even possible? How do you even do something like that…….
Collapsed on the cold earth, Presepe clutched the left side of her chest with one hand and braced the other against the soil, scrambling backward. She did not get far. Her back struck someone's leg.
“…….”
Rigid with terror, she flinched and looked up.
Dietrich stood there, his face set hard as stone.
“Your Majesty—!”
Not long after, the knights came running. They must have had the report from the guards.
“Wh-what is that…….”
But the knights who drew up beside Dietrich found no words easily either. Their faces stiffened. Well, of course they did. Atar's corpse was that kind of sight.
“Right now…….”
Dietrich's tightly closed lips moved, slowly.
“See to it that no one approaches this garden.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Keep word of this from leaking. The Imperial Palace as well. Not even an ant is to slip out.”
“Yes.”
“Check the guest list for the celebration once more, and sort out everyone who left the banquet hall.”
Atar Hanan was, after all, a prince of a neighboring empire—and he had come to attend the celebration of Atelloia's newly crowned emperor, Dietrich. In a situation like this, Atar's death was nothing but trouble for Dietrich as well.
“And why are you here?”
His gaze turned to Presepe, who was still sitting on the ground.
“Presepe.”
“…….”
“Answer me. Now!”
She had no idea what she was supposed to say, and no choices appeared. This time her mouth would not even open. Her lips stayed shut like a clam.
This is probably because, with Dietrich, I never picked a Bugged Choice the way I did with Atar. Presepe thought it to herself.
“Your Majesty…… Lady Presepe seems to have had a terrible shock.”
One of the knights, taking her silence for fright, glanced between them and spoke with care.
“We will begin the investigation at once. Searching the area will take time, so perhaps Lady Presepe might compose herself in the meantime and then tell us what happened.”
“…….”
“Your Majesty.”
“When…….”
Dietrich's eyes were so cold they seemed to drip frost as he glared at the man, as if he meant to kill him.
“When did I ask you about Presepe's condition?”
“…….”
“You dare.”
“……Forgive me. I was thoughtless, and I overstepped. I beg your pardon.”
The knight bowed his head low. Dietrich ground his teeth, then looked down at Presepe again.
And it was in that very moment.
“Your Majesty.”
A voice she had never heard—utterly unfamiliar—reached her.
Presepe's gaze snapped, on reflex, toward the sound. A man stood there whom she had never once seen in any mode. A man she was looking at for the first time.
“……Fenrik.”
When Dietrich spoke the name, the man called Fenrik bowed in formal courtesy.
……Fenrik?
No matter how she ransacked her memory, she had never even heard the name. And with a face like that, she would not have forgotten him to begin with. He was a complete stranger.
“Did the Grand Duke come because of the commotion as well?”
“Yes. The mood in the banquet hall seemed unsettled.”
“Prince Atar's guard is looking for him. I heard he said he would step away for a moment.”
Fenrik went on.
“They've already searched everywhere near the banquet hall, so they'll be coming this way soon. Would it not be better for Your Majesty to meet him first?”
His cold gaze, in which not a single emotion seemed to stir, fell upon Atar's corpse.
“We can hardly show him that sight as it stands.”
There was sense in what he said. If Atar's guard laid eyes on this first, the uproar would only grow worse. Better, then, for Dietrich—the emperor—to meet the man himself and explain.
“…….”
Dietrich twisted his face, pressed hard at his temples, and looked to the knights.
“Siegfried. Have Knight Commander Siegfried stand by. Together with Prince Atar's guard.”
“Yes.”
“While I speak with them, see to the prince's body. Get that damned shackle off him, too. And…….”
His gaze returned to Presepe.
“……Fenrik. Take Presepe to the tower.”
“…….”
“Make certain she goes inside, then come to me.”
“Yes. Understood.”
That was the end of it. Dietrich looked at Presepe for a moment, then slowly turned his back and left the garden at a pace a little quicker than usual.
“Lady Presepe, please come with me.”
Fenrik strode over and stood beside her, his face blank, looking down as if to say they ought to go. At last Presepe rose on trembling legs and walked, still half out of her mind.
And so she did not see it. She did not see Fenrik, his face twisted in disgust, crush beneath his foot the large, limp hand of Atar that had been reaching toward her—as if he were stepping on an insect.
Presepe moved with Fenrik.
“…….”
There was no expression on her face as she walked, unsteady on her feet. She only looked exhausted—as if she had never possessed any vitality, or any color, to begin with. It could not be helped. Her mind was nowhere near her. She had been through countless things while playing, yet there had never been a day as shocking as this one.
The farther they drew from the banquet hall, the deeper the quiet grew. A heavy silence settled between Fenrik and Presepe like lead. All that could be heard was the short sound of breathing, nothing like the chaos of the garden. And so what had happened earlier began to feel distant, like a dream—ironic, when the shocking sight of Atar remained burned so vividly into her mind.
“You must have been badly startled.”
Fenrik broke the silence only long after they had left the garden together, about the time the tower came into view ahead.
“It was likely an assassin's work. Gatherings like this celebration are sometimes the best chance they have to carry out a task in quiet.”
Presepe slowly turned her head and looked at him. Dazzling moonlight fell across Fenrik's face as he walked steadily on, eyes forward, and only then could she truly see him.
Grand Duke Fenrik was…… one of the NPCs in Secret Mode, wasn't he?
But for an NPC, he's quite—no. His face is handsome to a ridiculous degree.
In games like this, NPC designs were usually much of a muchness. There were already too many characters, and pouring effort into the art of useless side roles bought you nothing but exhaustion. Fenrik, though, could stand beside any of the male characters in the game and hardly come up short. That made it stranger still—all the more so when she remembered how highly the art of Presepe Outside the Birdcage had been praised. A skilled illustrator had no reason to make an NPC who was not even a main character needlessly beautiful.
On the off chance, Presepe checked above his head several times. No affection window appeared.