THE CURSED GAMER

Chapter 466: Just What is Up With Her?

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“Leave him to me for now…” the girl in a witch dress said and quite reluctantly cast a binding spell.

Pristine white shackles came out of thin air and wrapped around Neji like a cocoon. If the paralysis wasn't enough to stop him, this did.

She held one end of the chains and looked at Godmother. “I'll take him to my room. The other half should have appeared there by now.” 

“Take your time with him,” Godmother said, waving her off and picking up the needle to return to her sewing.

While the Director… ‘No, this one doesn’t act like the director. I think it really is Kimi… maybe.’ She dragged him through the air deep into the castle.

Neji passed by the garden he had seen last time, and he also found the quotes that hung on the wall. It held the same sayings, so she was the Director already. But she didn't act in the same cold-hearted way…

What had happened to Kimi that she was so different back in the present time? Did she just have a personality change, or was there a more significant thing?

While being dragged through the hallways, he came across a mirror. There, he got to see his current appearance for a single second. ‘Black hair and golden eyes, huh…’

Dragging him to a looming, ornate door, she snapped her fingers, and it creaked open ominously. She strode in confidently, while Neji's gaze, drifting and curious, suddenly fixated on a shadowy figure inside the room.

‘What?’

“As expected, you're back,” the witch said with a mixture of relief and wariness in her voice, eyeing the maid who was waiting inside. There was a magic circle on the floor, seemingly active just a while ago but now unused.

“Huh, who is that?” said the Kimi who was inside the room, wearing the exact maid dress that Neji had seen the Kimi Doll wear.

He recalled what the doll had said—that a part of Kimi had been sent to the future, and that part made the doll before leaving. So could this be her…?

“Huh? What is that question supposed to mean? I sent you to the future to bring the young master here, and here he is. You are back too. The mission was a success.” The witch Kimi said with a bright smile.

“I… well, this is embarrassing,” the maid rubbed the back of her head. “I am pretty sure the ritual didn’t succeed. I even left a ‘Kimi Doll’ to notify him later that the ritual didn’t succeed.”

“What?”

“I am certain the spell didn’t succeed. And from where I came from, the young master looked just as we remembered him to; white hair and blue eyes.” with a shrug, the maid said. She looked at Neji suspiciously. “Anyways, take me back in. It's better to merge than to answer every question manually.”

“...Come here,” the witch said as the maid came closer to her. 

Witch Kimi's eyes, filled with a mixture of sadness and concern, briefly met Neji's before returning to the approaching maid. The two of them held up their palms and gently touched, and light shone brightly.

The two luminous figures converged in a dance of light, slowly merging into a single form until only one remained. The light vanished as Kimi, with a tie hanging between her cleavage now, looked at Neji with a blink.

“...Ah. There has been a previous Gamer before the young master,” She looked at Neji with a scowl. “It’s you… you’re the reason that everything went to hell. Despite having done nothing wrong, the young master suffered because of your mistake…! You’re the first gamer!”

Shit.

She looked pissed.

She raised a hand and shot him with thin beams of energy. Neji screamed, trying to tell her to stop, but his mouth was bound.

‘What the fuck is this?!’

He struggled and screamed in pain as thin beams of energy penetrated holes into his body. To his relief, she stopped after a few minutes. She didn't mean to actually kill him when she yelled die.

She looked at him with a frown, while her fingers twitched in barely restrained anger. “But it doesn't make sense. How did you appear out of nowhere? You are very strong, so your Level must be high, which means you must have been wreaking havoc in the Omniverse. Yet, I haven’t heard about you. Then how…? And why would you appear now of all times?”

At this point, Neji was sure this was Kimi, even if she was titled the Director right now, she was yet to change into the Director he met. Neji was starting to feel relieved.

She continued frowning at him for a bit longer, before scoffing. “It doesn’t matter. I probably summoned you from the future instead of summoning the young master, who is further into the future. Stupid spell. But no, that’s not the issue.” she glared at him. “You… you are the reason for all of the young master's problems. You must die!”

“....?!”

With a flick of her wrists, she snapped her finger to cast a few more binding spells just in case. Then luminous orbs of light formed around her hand, and a second later, they rushed at Neji and pierced his body painfully.

“....!” Neji couldn’t even talk due to the restraints, causing him to release muffled groans. It was extremely painful, as he’d expected Kimi to hurt someone who was the cause of her young master’s problems.

“Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die-”

At that moment, despite the pain, Neji felt relieved. This was her. It really was. His muffled laughter echoed throughout the chamber as the angry witch-maid threw spells after spells at him, barely keeping him alive.

* * *

Kimi’s anger burned as she watched the broken figure before her, writhing and bound, yet emitting muffled laughter. Her heart grew tight, frustration filling her. 

She was old. Very old. At this point in life, where her name was known across the verses, she was a calm and emotionally mature person. However, this was related to her young master — the only man she loved in all of existence. 

Despite having lived for this long, despite having been pursued by countless men—men who could destroy the Neji she knew back in the day, with a mere thought, men who could give her more pleasure than he could as he was just a mortal—but Kimi never gave in.

She knew it wasn’t healthy, nobody would blame her if she forgot him and found a new life, but she couldn’t. She didn’t want to. It wasn’t her mentality, nobody was that strong. It was magic—the Succubus tattoo she had from eons ago, the one that forced her to stay loyal to him. 

Naturally, such mere magic was nowhere near enough to control the current her, and that was why she had been upgrading it every now and then to make it stronger. To never allow herself to have thoughts of abandoning him. It was self-hypnosis.

Some might call this self-torture, but she didn’t care. Kimi Sugihara didn’t want to move on from him. She just didn’t want to forget…

She loved him that much.

It might not be pure love at this point, the magic having messed with her mind a lot, but it was still love. Her love for her man was incomparable to anybody else.

And now, she had the single man who was behind all of Neji’s pain right in front of her. How could she not torture him? How could she not… kill him?

She wanted to kill him. She wanted to make him suffer so much that he wished to be killed. But… she was unsure what changes it’d cause if he died; she wouldn’t want the butterfly effect to make it so that ‘Neji’ is never born or something like that.

As a time-mage, the strongest in existence, she knew the threat of butterflies more than anyone. She couldn’t take the chance.

“—Mhammhha!” his continuous muffled laughter brought her back to reality. She struggled to understand why he was laughing, even if he was a masochist, her spells were supposed to hurt like the 9th hell.

“Why… why are you laughing?!” Kimi’s voice was a harsh whisper in the dimly lit chamber of the Dreamweaver’s Fortress, filled with more anger than she had shown in the last millennia.

Taking a breath in, she calmed down for a second. She would torture him more after hearing what was so funny. If he were to boldly claim this didn’t hurt, she’d show him true pain right away. This worthless bastard deserved all of it!

As she stopped the attacks,  the First Gamer fell to the floor from where he had been hovering in the air until now, his body riddled with injuries from her spells, each one proof of her anger. The shackles vanished from his mouth, yet instead of cries of pain, it was more laughter that escaped him.

“....” Her hand, trembling with a mix of fury and confusion, reached out to cast another spell, to see an expression of pain on his face, but she hesitated. 

‘Why does he have to… look so much like the young master? Stupid system.’ she was unsure if she could endure seeing his face make painful expressions.

Instead, her eyes burned with a thousand unspoken questions, studying his pained yet strangely serene face.

Just to test something, she released all of his shackles. He immediately leaped up, despite his body oozing with holes, and tried to scratch her face with his nails.

Kimi willed the spell to return, and it restrained him once more, this time pulling him against the wall and tying him up.

“Heh…heahaha,” he laughed while grinning at her, a crazed obsession flashing in his eyes. That look pissed Kimi off, how dare he look at her like that?

“You… disgusting bastard.” she slammed her hand into his chest, grabbing his heart and clutching it tightly. It burst, and his HP must have plummeted like a broken watergate during a flood. Yet, of course, he didn’t die. At this power level, people are hard to kill, moreover for The Gamer who had the Gamer’s Body.

Kimi knew little about the Gamer System, the Beyond Omnipotents don’t like to share information like that. But from her future self, she had learned at least a bit. 

“Argh…” he groaned, his face morphing in pain. Though she prepared for it, she couldn’t help but imagine Neji’s face there. It almost made her release him and heal him, but she held strong.

“Why are you only laughing? Don’t scums like you have taunting stuff to say in these situations? Or are you too scared to threaten me?” Her voice almost cracked seeing more pain on his face as she held onto his regenerating heart, the facade of the witch almost cracking to reveal a deep-seated concern.

But of course, how could she let a simple face control her actions? If it was that simple for her to be swayed, she’d have found a man who looked similar to Neji by now.

She threw her knees between his legs and for once, the painful expression morphed into anger as he glared into her. That was more like it, she felt less guilty.

“Speak, tell me why you are such a stupid prick. Beg to be released,” she said, yet he just smirked.

A wave of silence filled the room, broken by the Gamer's stifled chuckles and the distant, haunting echoes of the fortress. ‘None of my attacks are simple, they should be doing damage on a multitude of layers, yet he isn’t uttering a single word. Why…?’

It’s not as if she had caught him for interrogation and he didn’t want to give her any. So why was he silent? His type, from what he knew about his character, usually talked too much during these scenarios. Or at least try to act tough by talking highly. Yet… 

Kimi’s mind raced, trying to piece together the enigma before her. He was supposed to be a harbinger of chaos, a being of immense power and threat. Yet, here he was, bound and helpless, more a victim than a villain. Someone who didn’t verbally fight back at all, and acted crazy when released.

A sudden doubt dawned upon her, a possibility that caused her to frown. “Are you... even capable of speaking?” she asked, a new wave of understanding washing over her.

It shouldn’t be possible. The [Gamer’s Body] should keep him in perfect health, even if it was a very strong curse… Unless he was to be cursed by someone like the Primordial or someone at least near him, he couldn’t be like this.

The Gamer's eyes, those windows to a soul wracked with an inexplicable plight, met hers. There was a depth to those golden irises, a story untold, a scream unvoiced. 

All this time, a system window floated in front of him, visible only to him. [Status Defect ‘Curse of Speech’ has reacted. You cannot speak.]

Unknown of that, Kimi stepped back, her mind reeling. The pieces of the puzzle started fitting together, but they composed an image far different from what she had imagined. 

This Gamer… this supposed harbinger of doom, was nothing but a puppet to his own mental illness. One way or another, he wasn’t sane… a slave to an existence he never asked for.

Her frustration grew, but her anger at him receded a little. “You… perhaps you’re not the monster I thought you were if your curses make you act crazy,” she whispered, her voice barely audible. 

Her hand gently reached out, hovering over his battered form, hesitating. Then, with a tenderness that contrasted her earlier fury, she touched his forehead. Her magic, now soft and healing, began to mend his wounds.

“Fuck, your system is so stupid. It should at least choose a different facial template for its users,,” she murmured, more to herself than to him. “How broken you are. Broken by the very power that was supposed to make you invincible. Hah. Make no mistake, I haven’t forgiven you for what your actions would cost my young master, but I suppose there is zero meaning behind torturing a puppet.”

The Gamer's laughter subsided, his eyes conveying a depth of something she couldn’t understand. To her, he was like a storm that had raged for too long, now yearning for a moment of peace. Just how much havoc he must have caused to become this strong, and she was unsure if any of those were by his own will…

Kimi's heart ached in frustration, as her output of anger turned out to be a false fool. She stopped healing him, allowing his own regeneration abilities to kick in. Her mind was a whirlwind of emotions – anger, sadness, and slight regret. But above all, there was an overwhelming sense of empathy.

She blamed his face for it. She shouldn’t be feeling this for another man… 

While he hung from the wall, she sat on a couch in the dim light, pondering. The man before her was a mystery, a paradox. He was powerful yet powerless, a Gamer trapped in a game that offered no respite, no victory.

Her thoughts wandered to the young master, the one she had vowed to protect and serve. What would he think of this situation? Would he see the Gamer as a victim or a foe? She knew that Neji was cursed too, by the Primordial God no less, although his one hadn’t made him lose control of himself. 

So would he sympathize with his predecessor?

Maybe, just maybe, he was not the enemy. Maybe he was another victim of the cruel world…

“No!” When that thought crossed her head, she slapped her own cheeks and stood up. This kind of line of thought might lead her to one day care too much about this, she couldn’t let that be. How would her young master feel, if he found out that she went ahead and cheated on him with a guy that was just like him, but stronger? The guilt will kill Kimi.

With a grunt, she made a decision. Even if he was a broken man, a puppet to his own curses, she didn’t have to take care of him. He was strong enough to survive on his own. No matter where he had come from,  she didn’t have to care. 

She’d just release him back in the wild. 

With that decided, she carried the First Gamer’s tied-up body through the halls of the Dreamweaver’s Fortress, and back to the living room.

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