chapter 16
16 – Alcohol’s Assistance (3)
Returning to the drink scene,
Louisna, unawares, was happily opening a new beer can.
“Pheew~!”
“Is it okay to keep drinking like this?”
“Are you starting to worry about me? You’re so kind. I really like you♡”
Louisna clung to me, rubbing herself on me slowly like a cat.
“Heeheehee. If you say yes then tonight we……..”
Louisna’s eyes sparkled as she rubbed her face against mine.
She stares at me intently.
Her beautiful gaze, as usual, but thanks to alcohol, it somehow seemed subtly sticky.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
I didn’t drink for this…
No…
Well to tell the truth, it’s not that I never hoped for it…
Staring at me longingly is a pretty girlfriend that I never thought I would have in my life.
The atmosphere was so overwhelming it was hard to bear sober.
My heart was beating wildly out of control.
Louina placed her hand on my pounding chest, feeling my heartbeat while giggling with a playful expression.
“Honey. You’re really nervous right now, aren’t you? Here. You’re about to explode.”
“Ah, I suppose in this situation…”
“If we share a deep kiss here… you will probably forget what the original purpose was, won’t you?”
Louina deliberately sticks her tongue out a little for me to see.
On the tip of her tongue was her enticing saliva, transparent and beading.
Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!
Te, te, test.
I’m being tested…
Being torn b
Just before my heart is about to burst.
Just before the devil’s whisper to intoxicate Ruina’s lips takes over my mind.
As she coolly distances herself, she reveals a bow imbued with the meaning of an apology.
“Ha, haugh….”
My face is burning hot.
No, my entire body is hot.
Is it due to embarrassment? Or the influence of alcohol?
“Uuhh.”
Gulp, gulp, gulp!!
“Haaa….”
I washed down the heat building up in my body with a cold beer.
I’m only working half a day tomorrow anyway.
It’d be okay to drink a lot and pass out.
“Ru, Ruina.”
“Yeah, yes. Darling♡”
She, who responds like a puppy wagging its tail that can’t be seen, just at my call.
With my increasing drunkenness, I opened my slightly relaxed mouth.
“Who are…you?”
A very abstract question.
But it was everything.
Everyone knows the villain who wears a baggy hooded jacket and a mask.
Those who know me and a few others know me as an attractive girl with black hair.
But.
No one knows her true identity hidden within.
I wanted to know that.
To like her even more.
“Um. What should I say? It’s a very complex question.”
“Just say it normally like always─.”
“No, no. I thought I would give you my all, so it’s okay.”
Luyina took another sip of beer, more than a gulp.
She approached me on all fours.
“Instead, you won’t betray me, will you?”
“Betray…?”
“I’m yours, but you’re also mine. I can’t give myself to anyone else. I can’t compromise with anyone. It’s unlikely, but if you ever betray me…”
Luyina, who had lowered her head to the ground, looked up with a gleam in her eyes.
“I’ll destroy everything.”
Those coldly spoken words.
They were the honest words of Luyina, a SSS-class villain who had destroyed countless things.
“…I promise. I won’t betray you.”
If you say you didn’t feel any fear in that moment, it would be a lie.
But now, in my current state,
With the assistance of alcohol, I dared to lay my hand on her warm cheek.
Lewina’s previously frosty expression quickly melted away.
“hehehehe. As expected, you are like an angel sent to me. An amazing angel who takes over my everything within two days of meeting.”
Lewina gently caressed my hand with both her hands, meeting my gaze.
“I’m just an orphan with no parents.”
“………..”
The true side she eventually showed was too heavy from the beginning.
“I don’t have a given name. So the name Lewina given to me by the country is no different from my real name.”
Lewina closed her eyes for a long time, and began to unravel her secrets to me for the first time.
* * *
A newborn baby abandoned in front of an old convent.
The first name given to her was Grace.
It meant a child who has received grace.
But by the time she had grown old enough to be conscious of who she was at the convent,
She had no choice but to leave as if she’s been driven away.
A damn ability she had congenitally from birth.
This ability of destruction had blossomed and caused harm to the nuns.
The place where the quite young girl unintentionally headed to was a research lab in the forest.
It was a good place, with the purpose of studying unique abilities to contribute to society.
There, she was given a name that didn’t even sound like a name: RF-35.
And according to that name…
She was treated as less than human.
Forceful rectification of incomplete abilities.
The administration of drugs to control these abilities.
Brainwashing to improve her affinity with these abilities.
Although the original purpose of the research center was, supposedly, to contribute to the era of superhuman abilities…
In reality, the experiments they conducted were nothing short of creating human weapons drenched in the madness of science.
Whilst all this was happening…
One by one, her fellow test subjects, who had arrived through various routes, began to die.
Most of them were of a similar age to her, and they simply could not endure the harsh experimental conditions.
The friend who had been laughing and chatting yesterday turns into a cold corpse today.
The sister who joked about dying today may scream to death tomorrow.
Despite enduring this hell, she persevered, surviving day by day.
[“You’re truly amazing, #35. You’ll surely become the most powerful user of abilities.”]
A praise from someone else, the first she had heard in her life as she desperately survived.
Though she didn’t want it, it was distorted praise.
As time passed…
The girl, who had become the embodiment of perfect destruction, managed to escape from this hell herself.
By utterly destroying the entire forest area where the research center was located.
At the time, the news only reported it as an unexplained catastrophe.
It was inevitable.
Everything there had ceased to exist, not a trace of it could be found.
The girl, whose identity was still unregistered in the state, remained hidden among the people.
All she had was uncontrollable power.
Inevitably, she was tainted with the darkness of the world.
Despite meeting countless people, the ending was always suspicion and betrayal.
Even her innocent hope that “this time might be different” was gradually crushed.
In the end, all those who betrayed her turned into mere specks of dust.
The city’s transformation into a deserted field during the process was not even an issue.
Gradually known to the world, the girl eventually was marked as a villain.
As assured by the scientist responsible for her,
As the strongest S-tier villain, Ruina.
* * *
“And that’s how I willingly got captured when I became bored and miraculously met you. Well, the end of my story.”
“……….”
It was her past, utterly bleak and frosty.
He wanted to say something, but dared not open his mouth.
After all, he had never experienced anything similar in his life.
“Was it a boring story after all? hehehe.”
“No….”
Instead of speaking.
I hugged her tightly.
“Now, dear…?”
“I’m sorry…. It seems this is the only way I can help.”
“Ah, hahahaha~. I just confessed doing terrible things…”
“It’s okay. From now on, I’ll stay right beside you.”
“……….”
The haziness of intoxication was definitely swaying in her head.
But even so, at that moment,
I was perfectly sober, wrapping her in my arms.
Soon the little stir from Luina’s shoulder buried in my arms could be felt.
“Dear. Are you sorry? I don’t think I’ll be able to lift my head for a while…”
“You can stay like this.”
I continuously stroked Luina’s hair softer than the finest silk.
I have stroked it so much these past two days.
The top of her head was shiny from so much touch.
The quiet atmosphere.
Her weak breath.
We were just holding each other, not speaking.
“Louina…?”
A few moments later.
He carefully called her unique name.
But there was no response.
He tentatively reached out his hand, lifting Louina’s warm face which was buried in his arms.
“Ah…”
She was perfectly fine just a while ago.
Louina, with her cheeks reddened, had unknowingly fallen into a deep sleep, her eyelashes wet with tears.
“No wonder, considering how much beer she drank.”
On the table, four empty beer cans were lying around.
As Louina was telling stories from her past.
When I barely managed to finish one can, she single-handedly downed three.
“Good heavens.”
He slipped his hands under Louina’s shoulder and behind her knees, swiftly picking her up.
No matter that she was a villain capable of destroying everything in the world, her weight was far too light for such a role.
“Even when drunk and asleep, habits are hard to break.”
As he carefully laid Louina on his bed, she crossed her arms in front of her chest on her own.
He gently brushed her bangs aside and whispered quietly to her.
“Don’t worry and sleep well, I will always be by your side. I love you.”
I wonder if she heard my words in her sleep.
Louina gave a faint smile.