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“Able to do just that…”
“In other words, though Aberration Slayer I felt scared that all of his underlings had disappeared by the time he noticed, he felt no unease whatsoever about the possibility that he may be the next to vanish.”
“Huh… Your tone makes it sound like you’re criticizing him, but weren’t you the same? Despite your presence, no negative aura, none of the stuff that aberrations are made of, was gathering there─if you were to think of that as aberrations vanishing, wasn’t it just as likely for you to vanish too?”
“…”
I’d only voiced my straightforward impression, and honestly, I was expecting a logical counterargument from Shinobu, but she was giving me a stunned look.
Her expression eloquently stated─
Wow.
That’s true, isn’t it?
She really did live without a care… We’d been referring to concepts like “danger” and “fear” and “anxiety,” but maybe you didn’t have to deal with those kinds of things if you were as absurd (in more ways than one) as Shinobu at the height of her powers.
We sometimes talk about animal instincts, but maybe it’s only weak animals that have them…
Shinobu was too extreme to be an example, but maybe the strongest animals just lie around sleeping all day.
Just as humans lost their feral nature─
“W-Well. Well, well, well,” she openly fibbed, but she was just as bad at it as she was at narrating, and all she said was well─she wasn’t actually going to bother. “An existence on my level is able to handle any situation. Of course I remained cool, as I didn’t feel any pressure.”
“And didn’t Aberration Slayer I feel the same way? But you sounded like you were criticizing him for it…”
“I did not mean it as criticism─and by the way,” Shinobu changed the subject by brute force, “what would thou have done?”
“Huh?”
“If thou had been in that situation─in the same position, what would thou have done?”
“What could I have done? I’m not an expert like Aberration Slayer I, and I’m not a monster like you. In that position I’d be trembling like a normal person… I’d probably try to run away for real. To the other side of that boundary.”
“A wise decision. But the boundary I spoke of is but a convenient expression that arose as a result. The actual distinction was made not according to geography but knowledge. In other words, thy fate was sealed if ye knew me as a god─coming into that notion, what would thou have done?”
“Do my best to forget about you, I guess… Fiddle with my brain or whatever?”
While I said this half as a joke, Shinobu replied, “Indeed. Ye ought to,” and showed me a deep nod as if I’d read her mind. “That was most likely─the only method.”
“…?”
“Or so I say, as if I am giving it consideration, but in truth there was no time at all to make any sort of decision. I suppose ye could say the timing was the worst─it happened so suddenly.”
Suddenly─out of nowhere.
It appeared.
“Once we visited the last home of the last village and discovered that ’twas uninhabited─at the very site where Aberration Slayer I acted so depressed and delicately wounded. It appeared there. To quote thee, the Darkness─for no good reason whatsoever, despite it being the middle of the day.”
“──”
And so it finally appeared.
We’d reached the main subject.
I wasn’t getting free rein over Hachikuji’s chest.
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