"Each Seven Calamity differs in degree, but every one of us harbors a longing for life — and beyond that, every one of us carries a desire greater even than that longing."
Minerva eased back against the sofa and began to speak.
It was the same thing Sbeungali had told me once before, and what Minerva herself had hinted at to me as well.
Each of the Seven Calamities has a single purpose.
And every one of them lives only to see that purpose through.
"Margo. His purpose was survival. To be precise, he sought to evade every death that could ever come for him. That, tangled together with his longing for life, drove him — in a way bordering on the pitiful — to live solely for the preservation of himself."
…When I thought about it, there had been plenty of things about Margo's behavior that hadn't added up.
For someone supposedly cautious and timid, he'd thrown himself at me half out of his mind, just because of the single fact that "I could kill him."
Looking back on it now, if he'd been more careful and more composed, the one to end up dead would've been me, not him.
"Sbeungali… he dreamed of a world flawlessly controlled by his own will. Time would still flow, peripheral things would still shift, but the central trunk of it would never bend."
[……]
Sbeungali, for once, said nothing in response.
He listened to her quietly, and so I listened too.
"And as for this Minerva… what has driven me through this life was, before anything else, the will to do battle."
She murmured the words.
"From the day I first opened my eyes, I have wandered this world seeking one stronger than this Minerva — one whom I could understand and acknowledge as my equal. I had sworn that if I should ever find such a being, I would gladly accept death — that desperate was the wanting."
After saying that much, she turned her head slightly to look at me, and a small smile crept onto her lips.
In her original form, that smile would've carried something otherworldly about it; now it just looked like pure, simple joy.
She reached out as naturally as breathing and brushed her hand against my cheek.
"And in the end, I found you, did I not? Far beyond what I deserved, I have even been granted a life as your Minerva… how could I call this anything but bliss?"
It was at that moment that a voice — ghastly, in stark contrast to her song-like one — rang out.
[Couldn't the lovey-dovey wait until later?]
Sbeungali slipped free from my right hand. I stared, wondering how on earth he'd managed it, and he rolled his eyes around to answer.
[Seems that, with your body shrunken, the restraint on me has weakened along with it. That… and you've unconsciously dropped your guard around me, which made it easier to slip out.]
At the sight of him, Minerva clicked her tongue and sighed.
"Sbeungali. How can you have no sense of timing? Moments like this — when I bare my heart so earnestly to him — do not come often."
[…My apologies for that. But right now isn't the time to be picking those battles, I'm afraid.]
At the curt reply, Minerva eyed him for a long moment.
Then she nodded as if to say she'd let it pass.
"Very well, I shall continue. Milited sought to know all things in this world, and along the way, to bend time itself. Venus, true to the indolent fish-spawn she is, wished only to drift off into a deep sleep, untroubled by anything for the rest of her days… and Juno, that lunatic rock, said she wanted to behold the end of the world with her own eyes."
I couldn't hold the question back any longer.
"What about Ahriman?"
"……"
[……]
For some reason, both of them fell silent.
The two sat there reading each other for a moment, and Sbeungali was the first to break it.
[I don't know.]
"What?"
[I don't know. What he wants, what he's after — he never once said a word about it.]
"…It's true."
Minerva nodded slowly.
She blinked quietly and went on.
"Honestly speaking… I'm not even sure he can be called a Seven Calamity in the way we are. None of us has ever truly spoken with him. None of us has properly seen his face."
"Wait — what's that supposed to mean? Even you guys don't know what his face looks like?"
"Just as I said. He always swathed himself in black cloth. There was one time I happened to glimpse beneath it, and it was like…"
Minerva creased her brow slightly, as if she couldn't find the word she wanted.
"…I can't describe it. Black, and black again — that's all that comes to mind."
She glanced at me for a beat, lips working.
"But there is one who is sure to know more about Ahriman than the rest of us."
"Who?"
"Milited."
She said it with absolute conviction.
"I'd wager Milited alone has met Ahriman more times than the rest of us combined. From what I've heard, the two of them used to make small talk together for hours. If anyone knows something about Ahriman, it's Milited."
After saying that much, she flushed for some reason, looking embarrassed.
"…So after building it up like I had something incredible to tell, all I can offer is this. I haven't the face to look you in the eye. I am a failure as your Minerva…"
She let her head droop, gloomy.
I took her hand to tell her it was all right and gave it a careful pat.
She kept her head bowed as if still sulking, but her tail was thrashing in furious circles.
I pretended not to notice.
After a beat, Sbeungali snapped his attention back.
[…I, for what it's worth, spoke with that one — with Ahriman — relatively recently.]
Sbeungali rolled his eye once more and met mine head-on.
[He hinted to me that going after Yu Ji-hyeok — that is, you — would be the wise play. He added that taking your life would, of course, secure my long-cherished wish.]
"……"
At his words, I recalled the last screech Margo had thrown out in his death throes, like a man clawing at the air.
Ahriman.
He, too, had clearly been steered toward me — pointed at me by Ahriman.
But why?
[And there was a time I overheard him muttering to himself. I shrugged it off as nothing then, but… I remember exactly what he said.]
"…What did he say?"
[Finally, I've found it.]
[…And there isn't much left.]
At that, even Minerva's expression turned grave.
I might've been chasing a shadow, but I couldn't shake the sense that those words of Ahriman's had been aimed at me.
Found it.
Not much left.
I turned it over and over in my head, then absently opened my status window.
And then I called to mind the three characteristics that I could never find inside the status window — the ones that no search would surface, but that I knew, beyond question, belonged to me.
[Stranger.]
[Seven Calamity Slayer.]
And [World-Changer.]
Without so much as a name or description in my status, I couldn't be sure of the details, but I'd been able to piece together a rough idea from everything that had happened.
Stranger first.
This seemed to be the characteristic that nullified the curse and karma automatically inflicted upon anyone who killed a Seven Calamity, and also made it possible to deal meaningful damage to one in the first place.
Seven Calamity Slayer.
It had appeared after I killed Margo, and since then nothing about it had changed or been mentioned, so I couldn't say much for certain.
I just guessed it was a characteristic that, like other titles of its kind, conferred some sort of advantage when facing a Seven Calamity.
And lastly…
'World-Changer.'
Like Stranger, it let me wound a Seven Calamity.
Beyond that, I knew nothing.
What if this was the one most deeply tied to him?
"……"
Beyond those, my mind drifted to the game console I'd found at home.
The nameless book that had only responded to Han Su-yeong.
The pendant the Seven Calamities were after, capable of holding their power inside it — countless things surfaced.
And above all…
"There's something wrong with my memory. With my head."
If I didn't say it now, I had the feeling I might never bring it up again — and so I forced the words out to them.
Minerva looked at me as if to ask what I meant. Sbeungali rolled his eye in a way that said he'd more or less guessed.
"…At the time I didn't feel anything off about it. But thinking back now, why did I say those things? Why did I act and think the way I did? There are too many things I can't explain."
The more I talked, the more memories surfaced.
It felt like someone had cracked me on the skull with a hammer.
"Yeah — that's right…! There've been so many times I had doubts about things connected to Ahriman like this. And every single time, I'd forget about it…!"
[There were. The house where you found that game console, and when you discovered that book — same story.]
While Sbeungali and I went back and forth, Minerva — who had been thinking hard about something — opened her mouth.
"…You must know already that my memories surrounding you are incomplete."
I nodded.
She'd been saying as much since the moment she first laid eyes on me, and more than that, I'd caught a glimpse of it myself during our resonance.
"The reason I had myself sealed in the first place was to preserve, even a fraction more, my memories of you. At that time, you had told me that those who meet one who has slipped against the flow of time will forget those meetings. I took that to be the reason for the gaps in my recollection."
"You don't mean…"
"Yes. I, too, met Ahriman once in the past and spoke with him. Looking back now, it was only a handful of days before I 'first' met you."
She nodded.
"I cannot recall a single word we exchanged. Strange, is it not? If forgetting were due to a warp in time, then it should be the memories from after meeting you that have gone — and yet, every memory from before is crystal clear in my mind."
After saying that much, she let out a low growl, displeased.
"It seems even this Minerva was played for a fool by him."
To dare make a mockery of me.
As she muttered the words, her pupils sliced into vertical slits and gleamed blood-red.
Apart from the fact that her outward form had become a child's, nothing about her had changed at all.
The aura pouring off her was sharp enough to make my skin prickle.
"Minerva."
I said her name softly, and she snapped out of it at once, hastily reining the aura back in.
Once I was sure she'd settled, I let go of her hand.
"Oh."
For some reason, her face fell a little, and her tail swished slowly back and forth.
In the middle of it, Sbeungali rolled his eye and spoke up in an uncertain voice.
[This is… not something I can say for certain, mind you, but…]
He muttered it like he was still half-unsure.
[Whenever I came face-to-face with Ahriman, my head would start to ache. And that particular kind of ache — it was the same sensation I used to get when too many people's thoughts were crowding into me at once. And…]
Out of nowhere, he swore — something I'd rarely heard from him.
Then he spat the words out as if frustrated past bearing.
[Damn it all. This conversation isn't getting anywhere. There's something there, I can feel it, and I can't get hold of it for the life of me. Maybe we really do have to drag Milited out and beat it out…!]
I was just as frustrated as he was.
It was worse, even, because the answer kept dangling right in front of me without ever coming into reach.
How much longer was I going to have to keep doing this before I could break free?
"……"
Ahriman.
A Seven Calamity who, even in the original game, only ever showed up as three bare syllables of a name.
Not even properly mentioned in the sequel.
And the existence I suspected was most directly tied to my being thrown into this world in the first place.
"What the hell am I even supposed to do…"
As I heaved a heavy sigh, frustrated, I felt something curl gently around my wrist.
Minerva's tail.
She was sitting there with her hand half-extended, fidgeting awkwardly.
Embarrassed to take my hand with her own, maybe.
For whatever reason, seeing her like that lifted some of the weight off me — a little. Just a little.
I reached out and carefully wrapped my fingers around her tail.
"Hng…"
She twitched, and a strange little noise slipped out of her.
I froze and stopped, but she shook her head, signaling it was fine.
After playing with her tail for a while like that, I felt some of the tightness in my chest ease.
"…All right, Sbeungali. For once, you said something on the mark."
[Which part?]
"That we have to wring it out of Milited."
A confrontation with Milited had been unavoidable from the start anyway.
If they knew the truth about Ahriman in detail, that was simply one more reason I needed to take them down.
"And if even that doesn't turn anything up — Venus and Juno. Kill them both, and that's that. If every Seven Calamity falls, then even he'll have no choice but to show himself in front of me."
Yeah. That's all it was.
Hadn't I steeled myself for exactly that from the very beginning?
I was muttering it like an oath to myself when—
"…Venus and Juno are strong."
Minerva, having recovered, said it as she fixed her eyes on me.
"I myself could only barely take the upper hand against one of them at a time, and against both at once, even this Minerva would be driven back without recourse.
…That is why I shall fight at your side.
You and I together — we will more than match those two."
She bared her fangs and grinned, bright as a child.
"In any case, I am yours. Your Minerva will move according to your will — I swear it to you once more."
I just stared at her, struck dumb, unable to say a word.
Why was she willing to do this much for me?
And it wasn't just her.
Han Su-yeong, Lee Ye-eun, Jin Ye-seul, Lee Yu-na… and Choi Hyun-woo, Ivan Hunt, too.
What was I, that they were all willing to go this far for me?
Why on earth…
"Minerva, I—"
I forced my mouth into motion, fumbling for something — anything — to say, when—
[Well, like it or not, I'm in the position of having to live as a parasite on you, so I'll lend what feeble help I can.]
Sbeungali cut in a beat ahead of me.
A small grinding sound slipped out from between my teeth.
[Hmm — well, you should feel honored, you know. The mighty Sbeungali himself, willing to perform the labor of a dog or horse to assist you. Whatever else may be said, I keep my obligations.]
"……"
For a guy talking like he had no choice and yet preening about it, there was only one possible reply.
"Oh, what an enormous help that's going to be. Thank you ever so much, Lord Sbeungali."
At my answer, his eye curved into a shape suspiciously close to a smile.
[Awfully short with me, considering you're about to be split five ways.]
"Just a thought I had, though."
On the way to the lounge Lee Ye-eun had led them to, Han Su-yeong tossed it out offhandedly.
"If we teach Ji-hyeok something now, when he changes back, won't something stick?"
Lee Yu-na nodded quietly.
"Um… maybe it's possible. Earlier, I could see what looked like little habits from his childhood. It seemed like he was being affected naturally as his body got younger. So shouldn't the reverse work too?"
"Huh? Wait — Yu-na, you can spot stuff like that?"
"I've taken care of a lot of younger kids since I was little. So a little, I guess…?"
Lee Yu-na answered with an embarrassed smile.
While she said it, she kept locked away inside her mouth the impression that Yu Ji-hyeok had been mistreated as a child.
It wasn't something she could speak to with any certainty, and even if she could, it wasn't her place to say.
"Then let's not let him lie either, and no more pulling weird stunts trying to read the room."
Jin Ye-seul said it offhand, like she was just lobbing it into the air.
"And no shutting people out, while we're at it."
"Right? Seriously."
Han Su-yeong nodded with vigorous agreement.
Walking beside her, Choi Hyun-woo gave a small shake of his head.
If past-life sins existed, then Yu Ji-hyeok had definitely sold out his country.
"That Minerva, though."
Jin Ye-seul went on, still in her quiet voice.
"Can we trust her?"
"What?"
"You know what I mean. Just a few days ago, we were trying to kill each other."
She blinked once.
"And she's a Seven Calamity. What if she tries to do something to Ji-hyeok?"
"I'm not sure you of all people get to be the one asking that."
Han Su-yeong said it with a bright smile, and Jin Ye-seul, too, smiled in silence.
Jin Ye-seul wasn't dim enough to miss what Han Su-yeong was alluding to — the conflict over Shadow Walker that had once put her and Yu Ji-hyeok at odds, and the fact that, in the course of it, Jin Ye-seul had choked him and otherwise injured him.
'Oh, my stomach…'
And Choi Hyun-woo, caught right in between the two of them, simply closed his eyes.
Why hadn't he done what Lee Yu-na had and quietly slipped to the back? Why had he ended up squeezed in between these two?
He kept thinking he should just pretend not to notice and fall back, but he also couldn't shake the feeling that the moment he wasn't between them, something would actually go off.
He was fretting that if things kept going this way, he really was going to end up with a hole in his stomach, when he caught sight of the door up ahead and let out a sigh of relief.
"That's the place, looks like. Ji-hyeok must be waiting."
The savage tension that had been rolling off the others a moment ago melted away like snow.
Choi Hyun-woo, desperate to escape it as fast as possible, hurried forward and pushed the door open.
"Hey, Ji-hyeok…?"
He froze the moment he opened it.
On the sofa, two small children sat side by side, leaning into each other, fast asleep.
"……"
Then Minerva quietly cracked one eye open, looked at Choi Hyun-woo, and lifted a single finger to her lips.
Shh.
She closed her eye again, and her tail uncoiled and wound itself gently around Yu Ji-hyeok's body.
A satisfied little smile sat at the corner of her mouth.
"Oh — my god, I can't, what is this, that's too cute…!"
"…That's cute."
"Whoaaa…"
At the reaction from the women who came up behind him, Choi Hyun-woo decided to bury what he had just seen deep inside his memory.
Forever.