Frondier’s sin.
Even if they told me to uncover that, I hadn’t taken much interest in the original Frondier over the past three years.
I had moved only to solve the game over.
Even though I’d lived as Frondier for three years, Atjie would know more about Frondier than I did.
The only things I really knew about Frondier were,
“......Ah.”
At that point, I reached one thought.
“The diary.”
“The diary?”
Atjie asked back.
And Frondier’s eyes changed, and he shouted.
“That’s bullshit! I don’t have anything like a diary!”
Then he looked at Atjie.
“Hyung! Don’t believe a word he says! It’s all nonsense! It’s bullshit!”
At those words, Atjie’s eyes instead sank.
He looked at me and said,
“Tell me.”
“......I read Frondier’s diary in the cabin. The contents were mostly ordinary at the start.”
It had been quite a while, so my memory was faint.
Back then, Frondier played with Elodie. It was written in there.
But that record, covered with Frondier’s jealousy and inferiority toward Elodie, gradually grew harsher.
And then Frondier,
“......Ancient script.”
I stopped there.
Ancient script.
Right, Frondier had learned ancient script.
At the time, Hagrighly of Manggot had secretly approached Frondier, and Frondier had been played by his charm magic and smooth tongue, and learned ancient script.
The purpose of that was clearly.
“You.”
I looked at Frondier.
“You said you could put Elodie in the same position as you.”
“Wh-what?”
“It was written in the diary.”
─In just a little longer, the interpretation of the ancient script will be complete.
─Once that happens, everything will be over.
─My inferiority, this depression.
─I won’t have to see Elodie’s thoughtlessly smiling face anymore.
─Elodie will end up in the same position as me.
At the time, I had thought that was an act of erasing divine power.
It probably hadn’t been that far off. It must have been at least half-correct as a guess.
And when I came to this world, Elodie’s divine power had been intact.
So I misunderstood.
I thought Frondier had failed to erase Elodie’s divine power.
That the attempt itself had come to nothing.
But if that wasn’t it.
“You, what did you do.”
I asked Frondier, and Frondier turned eyes full of rage on me.
“How can you spew that bullshit so easily. I told you, I don’t have anything like a diary. It’s all just stuff you made up in your head,”
“Elodie’s trauma.”
I understood.
I felt as if something had all connected into one.
“Was that your doing?”
Elodie’s trauma was certainly something Elodie had created herself.
But the emotion that had triggered it—the pain and the mental upheaval.
Elodie’s guilt was real. But for a mage of her caliber to be unable to manage her own feelings and let them grow until they became a trauma.
If that had been this bastard’s doing.
“......Ah.”
And at that point,
The bastard actually laughed.
“So that’s all.”
“......What?”
“Hey, fake. You’re making a big deal out of nothing. I had the right to do that.”
At that word, it was Atjie’s expression that changed.
The right.
Frondier had dared to talk about his “right.”
Right in front of Atjie.
'On top of that, the bastard’s relieved right now.'
When I brought up the diary, his face had gone white, but once I brought up Elodie, he was relieved instead.
There were definitely other sins beyond this. The one he didn’t want exposed wasn’t Elodie.
Without realizing that, Frondier kept talking.
“Do you have any idea how much pain I suffered because of that bitch? You wouldn’t know, since you’ve never gone through it. That bitch flaunted her precious talent right in front of my eyes and mocked me! She looked down on me, who had no divine power and no talent! I could only force myself to smile. So what’s such a big deal about dropping a single leech into that bitch’s heart,”
WHAM!
“Aaagh!”
I hit the bastard.
For me to punch a soul, there was only one way.
Ecleksis.
So the bastard,
“AAAAAAH!! IT HURTS!!! AAGH! What the hell did you do to your fist......! H-hyung! He’s hurting me......!”
He screamed in terrible pain and called out for Atjie. He even shed tears.
Good. I was glad it hurt.
I walked toward him.
But Atjie stepped in front of me.
“......”
Atjie didn’t say anything.
He only showed me a cold gaze filled with warning.
I looked at him for a moment, then turned my eyes back to Frondier.
“You fucking bastard. Do you have any idea how long Elodie’s been hurting because of what you did? You must have realized that she wasn’t mocking you. It was just your own self-indulgent delusion! Elodie told you, didn’t she, that she’d become a Grand Mage! That she’d make a world where you, who had no talent for combat, wouldn’t be persecuted! You’re the one who heard that over and over!!”
Aura tinged my shout. It had slipped out without my realizing it, so it wasn’t that powerful. But even that was too much for Frondier; he stumbled back like he couldn’t stand it.
“Shut up! How was I supposed to know if that bitch meant any of that! Listening to that just made me feel even more miserable! She blabbered about a wish that meant nothing and tried to soothe me with some pathetic consolation!”
“A wish that meant nothing? You’re saying that welcoming an era of peace is an impossible wish?”
“Yeah! Humanity can’t succeed anyway! It’s our fate to live our whole lives under attack from monsters! That’s the limit of humans!”
'......So that’s how it is, this bastard.'
Because he’d been stuck here, he didn’t know the situation on the surface right now.
More than that, what he’d just said.
“Live under attack from monsters? What do you think the Roach family is? Your brother and father are putting everything they have into the monsters,”
“Yeah! They kill monsters and protect the territory! That’s why Elodie’s wish is meaningless! The Roach family is safe no matter what! No matter what that bitch does, nothing changes for me at all! Our father is the ‘Iron Wall’!”
Frondier, without understanding what his words meant, looked at Atjie.
“Hyung! This guy’s spouting nonsense! The Roach family protects me no matter what, this idiot!”
My hands shook as I clenched my fist. Then my whole body trembled.
Hatred that resembled fury.
There had been a time when I was proud to be Frondier.
Because that father was Angfer, that mother was Malia, and that older brother was Atjie.
Because this body had inherited Roach blood, and so even if it wasn’t fully developed, it was a warrior’s body, and thanks to that I’d been able to keep up with Atjie’s training.
I had learned much from Angfer, Atjie, and Malia.
I had been able to take pride in being a Roach.
And yet.
Why was it something like this?
Why was this the “real Frondier”?
“You’re the idiot.”
Unable to hold back the boiling inside me, I spoke.
“Angfer was thinking of sending you to another family to save you, because you used laziness as an excuse to do nothing.”
“Wh-what? Why would Father,”
“Why do you think. It was the same for Atjie. The entire Roach family agreed. Under normal circumstances, you would have been expelled from the ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) family.”
“E-expelled? Hyung, you’re lying, right?”
Atjie let out a sigh at that.
“It’s true.”
“......Hyung?”
“It was to protect you.”
Atjie’s words. But Frondier shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe it.
It seemed he had never even imagined he might be expelled.
I spoke.
“The Roach family guards the most dangerous place in the Empire. They have to keep killing the monsters that charge the Barrier. Someday that would have been your job too. Knowing you couldn’t do it, they decided to send you to another family. Fully prepared to be hated by you.”
“......Shut up.”
“You think the Iron Wall Angfer will protect you? You say that kind of thing so easily because you’ve never done a single thing, never even shed a single drop of blood. You think Angfer blocking the monsters is that simple? Every single moment is a desperate fight. Angfer’s reputation is the result of life-or-death battles to protect the people of the territory and his family.”
“Shut up......!”
“What the hell were you thinking. What did you plan to do with your life. While your brother and father were staking their lives to guard the Barrier, what were you going to do? Hole up in your room and laze around at your leisure?”
“Shut up shut up shut up!!”
Frondier shook his head and screamed.
“What do you know that you can yap like that! You shameless bastard who’s been playing at being Frondier all this time! Spout that useless bullshit all you want, it won’t change the truth! You’re the fake and I’m the real one! Give me back my body!”
“......Right now, it’s impossible.”
“Ha! See! So in the end you’re just a fucking dog who wants to keep my body,”
“It’s because we’re at war right now.”
“Wh-what?”
“The human world is at war with the gods right now. We have to kill all of them. Frondier, this body is one of the many warriors in that war.”
“Ha! What? A war with the gods? Hyung, he’s finally lost his mind,”
“Frondier.”
Atjie spoke.
“Just as he says, the surface is at war right now. The fact that I’m here is proof of that. I fought the gods as well.”
Then he jerked his chin toward me.
“And that ‘fake’ you’re talking about is also a warrior who joined this war. If you take your body back, you’ll have to fight too.”
“......Haha.”
Frondier let out a dry laugh.
“That’s bullshit. That’s my body. I know it well. I’m not a warrior.”
“You don’t know anything. Because you’ve never done anything.”
“I suffered from laziness! I found out after I came here! That I was afflicted by the curse of Sloth.”
“Yeah. I know that very well.”
A hollow laugh escaped me.
What the hell did this bastard think he was saying to me.
Who did he think I was.
“You think I would’ve been any different?”
“......You!”
Frondier stepped up to me.
Just like before, he grabbed me by the collar and started shaking me back and forth.
“Give it! Give it back!”
“If I give you this body right now, are you going to go out to war?”
“One person like me doesn’t matter anyway! The outcome won’t change either way!”
In other words, he had no intention of going.
“Then stay quiet until the war is over. I’ll give it back when it’s all done.”
“Don’t talk nonsense! How am I supposed to trust you! And what if my body gets hurt in the meantime.”
“Hurt? When I might die, what’s a little injury?”
“That makes it even worse! No way, give it back right now! What difference are you going to make in the war,”
Grip.
I grabbed the hand that was clutching my collar.
“You dumb shit!! You’re supposed to save people!!!”
“Urgh.......”
“No matter how big or small my impact on the war is, even if it’s a speck of dust, I still have to fight! So are you going to run away all by yourself? Are you going to let Atjie, Malia, and Angfer all die? They’re your family!”
At my words, Frondier glanced at Atjie.
Whose eyes was this bastard watching right now.
He barely managed to open his mouth.
“B-but Father will stop them all! Father’s still okay, isn’t he? So what am I......”
And there.
Frondier shut his mouth unnaturally.
As if he’d said something he shouldn’t have.
And after shutting his mouth, his eyes darted around again.
As if shutting his mouth had also been a mistake.
“......What?”
So I went over his words in my head.
“What do you mean, ‘still’.”
“No, it just slipped out, it’s not like it really means anything......”
Frondier made excuses, avoiding my eyes.
Frondier had said it.
Still.
That Angfer was still okay.
The words that had cut off at, “So what am I,”
What had he been about to say after that?
'......The diary.'
When I brought up the diary, Frondier’s expression had changed.
What had been clearly written there was only his hatred of Elodie and the record of his crime. I’d read all of it, so I was sure.
But he’d been relieved when it came to Elodie.
In that case. There had been something after that.
“You, don’t tell me.”
Now I even felt fear as I asked him,
“Was Elodie just a test subject?”
