Vol. 2 - Chapter 4.4 - Cursed Puppet Doll (4)
At that moment…
Suddenly, a sad man's crying voice echoed in Duma's head.
(Ah…?)
With a snap, a crack appeared around Duma's chest as if an impact had struck her. Then, the next moment———.
Duma, who should have been fighting Suzuki on the ship, was in a dimly lit room.
(A-Absurd…? W-Where, am I…?)
She was lying on an old bed, looking at the wooden ceiling. And Duma was shocked.
It was because a young human man was standing beside her, holding her hand while crying.
(W-What the, this man is… ah, AHH…–?)
Seeing her own hand clasping his, Duma became even more agitated. It wasn't her usual hard doll hand but the soft and slender hand of a human woman.
(W-What the f-hell is going on?)
The vision was from her point of view, but the body didn't belong to her. Holding the confused Duma's hand, the man continued to call out, "Deene" while tears streamed down his face.
"Don't be sad. Elmer."
This time, Duma's mouth moved on her own, and she uttered a beautiful, pearly voice, one that was like an angel, different from her usual voice.
"I'm so happy, to have met you!"
The woman's fluent voice was interrupted by a sudden wet cough.
"Deene!"
A gurgling cough, sounding as if coming from deep in the lungs, came from her current body. With the man rubbing her back, Duma looked at her hands. The soft, non-doll-like palm was now covered in sticky red blood.
(T-This gal, is she sick…)
Finally, the coughing stopped. The woman's voice was faint as if she was about to disappear.
"Even if I die, my… heart will always be with you!…"
The man held the woman's blood-soaked hand tightly without caring about the blood. The man's hands were trembling slightly.
"DON'T! Please don't die and leave me behind!"
*** "I love you! Elmer"***
Duma's vision flickered.
The man shook the woman's body, but she was like a puppet with broken strings—never to move, never to speak again.
…A humid sea breeze hit her cheeks, and Duma's consciousness returned to reality.
The vision of the woman lying sickly on the bed had vanished, and Suzuki was standing a short distance away. Duma was confronting Suzuki on the deck of her ship, which had come to a halt at sea.
(F-For a few seconds, I-I was knocked unconscious, right?)
She was shown a hallucination of a person she didn't know and a human woman on the verge of death. The hallucination now was definitely an attack by Suzuki. However…
(Ha-llu-ci-na-tions of a s-tran-ger hu-man? Is that… really what happened?)
Her feet wobbled, and Duma's eyes widened.
(I-I'm perturbed? This me?)
If so, it was only because she was shown such a strange vision. Duma's fingertips became sharply pointed and stabbed her temples without hesitation. She laughed as she drilled a hole in her own head and fiddled with it with her fingers so that she would never be tricked by those strange magic arts again.
"T-That's quite an interesting trick y-you used there…"
"It's not a trick. It is Pritis."
Pritis——— Suzuki had said that earlier. The nonsensical crap that he declared to have surpassed magical and offensive power.
(A-All that for such a trivial power that o-only produces illusions!)
Just as Duma was thoroughly thinking this to herself, the undead on the deck started screaming and shouting, "Ahh AHh AHh a Ahh." They were probably trying to join forces with Duma, the captain of the ship. However, this was not because of the will of the group of undead, but because Duma had ordered them to do so in advance.
"Y-you guys need to stay out of this and stay put!"
She was so irritated that she shouted to the undead——— Duma was shocked to her core.
(T-This… is…!)
Quickly looking around at all the undead on deck, Duma's irritation became even more intense.
All of the undead's faces resembled the face of the man that Suzuki had just shown her.
For a moment, she thought the hallucination was still continuing, but upon closer inspection, she realized that every single one of them had a slightly different face from that man. They were truly the people that Duma herself had kidnapped from all over the world and turned into undead.
(I-In other words, this is ——!)
Duma couldn't believe it herself.
(Does this mean that all this time I've been collecting undead with a face similar to that man's?)
However, she had no choice but to realize it.
(I-I, that man's appearance, I've been subconsciously pursuing it…?)
That's right. The man she just saw was not a hallucination. She definitely recognized that man. Someday, somewhere, a long time ago…
As if trying to mend a broken puzzle, Duma unconsciously collected and gathered undead that resembled that man.
(What in the world... Her... for what purpose …was I?)
"I love you! Elmer"
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