Future Diary Survival Game-Chapter 47 : Search – 4

Chapter 47: Search – 4
We followed the woman who introduced herself as Jenel.
“Jenel is my real name, so please call me comfortably.”
“Ah, yes.”
“I only take on the request at my sister’s behest and later collect the commission fee. Other than that, I know nothing.”
“……”
“My sister told me that if anyone recited the book title you mentioned earlier, I should guide them to her. That’s the extent of what I can do.”
We silently nodded.
Jenel led us to a small hut.
She lightly knocked on the door and spoke.
“Sis. The people asking about that book have come.”
No reply came.
But as if that was all that was needed, Jenel turned to us.
“Please, go inside.”
“Aren’t you coming with us?”
“No. My sister, well… how should I put it…”
A faintly bitter smile appeared on her lips.
“She’s extremely reluctant to let anyone step into her ‘non-ordinary’ life.”
“……”
“Oh, right. Don’t be too shocked when you see her face. Though it’ll probably be hard not to be.”
Leaving behind that cryptic remark, she disappeared.
This was making me uneasy for no reason.
I steadied my mind and turned the doorknob.
“Excuse me. Ms. Sernia, your alias.”
“Sorry for making you greet me that way. My real name is Sienne Katrin.”
Sienne?
That name… I’d heard it somewhere before.
But my thoughts froze in the next instant.
The face of Sienne, illuminated by the small candlelight, was completely unexpected.
She said ‘sister,’ right? I’m sure of it.
Now I understood why Jenel had warned us not to be surprised.
Sienne was a slender woman with light green hair.
If she was the sister of Jenel, who looked to be in her fifties, there should have been quite a bit of gray in her hair.
But the woman before us clearly had soft green hair.
A face and skin untouched by wrinkles.
And one striking feature—both of her eyes were tightly wrapped in bandages.
Is she blind?
But even that couldn’t hide Sienne’s beauty.
Then, I heard Armelia’s trembling voice.
“Sienne? Don’t tell me—you’re the missing Knight Commander of the Kingdom of Partikal, Sienne?”
“Yes. If you recognized me right away, you must be someone of considerable standing.”
“F-forgive my rudeness. I am…”
There, Armelia’s self-introduction stopped short.
She looked as though she couldn’t say anything more.
Berseum spoke in a bitter tone.
“There’s no need to hide it, Your Highness the Princess.”
“……”
“The Empire’s destruction of the Kingdom of Partikal was His Majesty the Emperor’s will. You bear no responsibility for that.”
Aina pressed her fingers to her forehead.
“The Emperor again. Should’ve just killed him during the Fourth Quest.”
Careful with your words…
Anyway, I also knew the name Sienne.
The Empire, under the current Emperor, had pursued a fierce policy of expansion.
Many small kingdoms had fallen beneath the Empire’s sword.
The Kingdom of Partikal was one of them.
“The Kingdom of Partikal was a formidable enemy the Empire couldn’t bring down for nearly five years. There were many reasons, but the one person everyone commonly pointed to was—”
“Me, of course. The guardian knight of the kingdom. I’ve gained a similar epithet even here.”
“That’s not the important part. The problem is that the Kingdom of Partikal fell twenty-seven years ago.”
And twenty-seven years ago, Sienne, as the Knight Commander, would have been in her mid to late twenties.
Meaning, her actual age should now be in her mid-fifties.
So how was she still maintaining such a youthful face?
Armelia crossed her arms, lost in thought.
Then, as if struck by realization, her face turned pale.
I cautiously asked,
“What’s wrong, Your Highness?”
“Mason. Do you know how the Empire finally managed to bring down the Kingdom of Partikal?”
“It was because Lady Sienne here disappeared. She was presumed dead in battle, though her remains were never found, as I recall.”
“Yes. But what if that wasn’t death—what if it was disappearance?”
“…What?”
“Disappearance. We’ve seen quite a few of those, haven’t we?”
My heart thumped hard.
Aina’s mouth hung open.
Berseum trembled, muttering in a low voice.
“Twenty-seven years ago… that was when my son participated in Magireta’s Quest as part of the ‘previous generation.’”
Our gazes all turned toward Sienne.
Though her eyes were wrapped in bandages and she couldn’t see us, Sienne nodded slightly.
“Yes. You’re thinking correctly.”
“……”
“I am a participant from the previous generation. You could call me a survivor. And…”
She continued in a voice laced with pain.
“I am also a participant in this generation’s Quest.”
A person who had taken part in the Quests twice in a row.
Someone who had even survived to the end of the previous one.
And for some unknown reason, still retained her youth.
I didn’t know where to begin with my questions.
But in the end, I didn’t even need to ask.
Sienne spoke first.
“I did leave behind a coded message asking you to come find me… so I feel quite embarrassed to say this, but…”
“……”
“Please, first explain the Quests you’ve gone through so far.”
“…Excuse me?”
“I’m asking you to tell me how you survived until the end of the Fourth Quest. Let’s start with that, and then continue our discussion afterward.”
It was a request I didn't have to grant.
But Sienne's tone was polite and her manners were proper.
Since the night was long anyway, I slowly began to explain the steps we had taken up to that point.
Sienne nodded exactly toward the direction my voice came from.
She was a rather good listener.
The others had, before long, become absorbed in my explanation and didn't even breathe.
How long had it been like that?
“Impressive.”
Sienne offered that appraisal.
I felt a little awkward and reached to scratch my head.
But what followed from her was cold.
“Still, you won't be able to survive until the end like that.”
“Huh? Ah, well… I suppose from your perspective I might be lacking. You were the final survivor of the previous generation, after all.”
“I was not the final survivor.”
“What? You're alive here now, aren't you?”
“No. I was eliminated midway.”
Then how was she alive now?
As I was about to ask that, Sienne spoke first.
Until now she had seemed unusually warm for a Knight Commander, but an air of severity had already settled across her face.
“Mason. You're the leader of this party, right? Your comrades seem to trust you, and you seem to trust them.”
“Yes. Of course.”
“That's why I said you won't survive.”
“……?”
“It's common to band together as needed for each Quest. But you are clearly acting to ‘save’ them. The others are likewise struggling to save each other. From listening to your journey, one can reasonably infer that.”
At that, Armelia stepped forward.
Her voice was a little prickly.
“What’s wrong with that?”
“If you keep trusting each other like that and moving forward, at some point you'll be betrayed.”
“W-what did you say?”
“In fact, the final winner of the previous generation was betrayed at the end and… died.”
“How strange. You said you were eliminated midway. How would you know the final winner’s fate?”
Sienne let out a small sigh.
Then she finally began to tell her story.
“The previous games, twenty-seven years ago. I was eliminated in the ninth Quest.”
“……!”
“I died, and I think Magireta dragged me to hell. My memories from that time are gone, so it's hard to say.”
“…….”
“But when I came to my senses, I had been resurrected. Magireta looked at me, blinking vacantly, laughed, and for some reason explained what had happened.”
A chill laced her voice.
“Magireta's Quests don't specify how many final winners there must be. Anyone who survives until all the game rounds are over can be a winner.”
“I see.”
“There were two final winners in the previous generation. Both were people I knew.”
“……!”
“One was my lover. The other was my lover's close friend.”
We couldn't help but be quite surprised.
For two people who had survived that wretched set of games to be acquaintances—too contrived to be mere coincidence.
“My lover used the privilege given to the final winner—the ‘wish right’—to bring me back to life. That immense power, able to grant any desire, was used only to resurrect a lover who had been eliminated midway.”
She clenched both hands and trembled.
I could feel her desperately suppressing emotion.
Even twenty-seven long years were far from enough to soothe Sienne's heart.
Armelia asked cautiously.
“You said earlier ‘the previous generation’s final winner was betrayed and died.’ Surely you don’t mean—”
“Yes. My lover was betrayed by the close friend. The moment the wish to resurrect me was granted, the friend drove a sword into my lover's chest as if waiting for the chance.”
“……!”
“Apparently Magireta was quite surprised too. She asked why the friend had killed the companion who had endured so much together, whether the friend had held feelings for a woman named Sienne.”
That would be a reasonable inference.
But the friend’s reply exceeded imagination.
—No. Isn't it more fun this way?
Silence.
No one dared speak.
The reason given for killing the companion who had stayed until the end was ‘because it would be more fun that way.’
They had resurrected the lover only to prevent them from meeting the other, who had been killed.
Apparently that was a more entertaining outcome than reuniting two lovers from death.
“What kind of mindset is that?”
At that point Sienne spoke.
“My lover's close friend was someone I knew too. He had a fine character, great ability, and was kind and gentle. He was well respected by many.”
“…….”
“When we first realized we had been drawn into the Quests, he loudly proclaimed we should trust only him. He urged forming a team to overcome this ordeal together.”
“…….”
“My lover and I trusted him. What we received in return was a vile betrayal.”
She curled her fist and pressed it to her chest.
“I begged Magireta to resurrect my lover. You know that you can ‘trade’ with that witch, right?”
“Yes.”
“But to resurrect someone, you had to offer a life as the price. I wanted to give my life immediately, but my base selfishness stopped me.”
The desire to meet again while alive. The wish for both of them to walk the world breathing instead of one falling into hell. How could that be called base?
“So I thought differently. I tried to find a way to revive my lover without offering my life.”
“You're not serious?”
“Yes. I asked to participate in the next Quest. And until then, I asked that my body be preserved so it would not age.”
“…….”
“Magireta asked, ‘Two requests? And what will you offer in exchange?’”
I realized the answer there.
A sound slipped from my lightly parted lips.
“Left eye. Right eye.”
“……Your group's leader is really clever.”
“Sienne had both eyes intact up until just before she disappeared, as far as I knew.”
“Correct. As with anyone, for someone who wields a blade the eyes are among the most important organs. My dynamic vision surpassed that of ordinary people. I accumulated countless victories because of it.”
She had offered those eyes.
Magireta, satisfied, had laughed that ‘that would be a sufficient price.’
So Sienne had not aged and had lived on to participate in the current Quest without issue.
Her long tale ended.
Sienne let out a sigh and said,
“If you give Magireta an equivalent price at each Quest, you can play the games together in the same team. Ah, you said you already knew that.”
“Yes. In fact, in the Fourth Quest we who had been scattered were reunited by a shuffle.”
“In any case, Magireta's games allow parties to form and survive together. In that sense, I want to be with you. Those who noticed that cipher and came this far must be quite capable.”
But she attached a caveat.
“I won't lie, so I'll say this in advance. Just before the final Quest, I will kill every one of you.”