Nice, Just Nice / The Methodology of Lies

Huh?

???????

There'll be another update this afternoon. Please like, bookmark, and vote for me—waaah!

Section 6: Chapter Six—Needle Nice, Needle Nice

Late at night, the girl named Yelena had already fallen asleep, while Chlorine Sodium had no need for sleep and was instead looking through her new identity.

As a veteran actress, knowing a little about everything was an essential skill. For example, her new identity was that of a psychiatrist from Rhine Lab. This identification had been produced by the world's will, so it was naturally genuine.

Or rather, under the distortion of a certain power, it was "real." Even though she had come here for the first time, that remained true.

Her new employment contract came from an institution called Giant Mountain Psychiatric Hospital. However, all of this identity information had been exchanged for points, and time for her to travel there had naturally been left for her. There was no need to hurry for now.

The current priority was this girl.

Her blue-black eyes stared at the sleeping girl on the bed without the slightest emotional fluctuation.

Should she say the girl was easy to fool, or that this was simply fate?

She had been sent here by an elf's miracle.

That statement was true to a certain extent. After all, she had orchestrated the whole thing herself.

It was both a lie and the truth.

Although it had yet to be determined whether Yelena was actually the protagonist, this mark could not lie. Even if she was not the protagonist, anyone bearing the protagonist's mark would not be some random nobody. Being cautious was always a good idea.

Advance step by step, plan far ahead, and even display acting skills that reached the heavens. After all, she had been forced to put on an absurd number of performances in order to disguise herself. It had practically become instinct.

Harmless to humans and animals by day, terrifying by night.

Although this approach was very time-consuming, Chlorine Sodium's greatest trait was her immense patience.

As long as she was headed in the right direction, victory was only a matter of time!

Of course, this was also due to her personality. She hated meaningless struggles; fighting and conflict ran contrary to the life she pursued.

She was clearly a god, yet she was excessively cautious.

After glancing at the girl sleeping on the bed, she saw that at least once the girl had escaped danger and her harsh environment, her naturally fine qualities had begun to show.

She had to admit...

That enormous, vulgar chest of hers was not very big yet, but it was already beginning to take shape. Combined with its silver main color and the uncontrollable Originium Arts that were colder than winter itself, she truly looked like the embodiment of this white land.

Tsk. For some reason, merely thinking about that made her inexplicably unhappy.

But then again...

"Hmph."

Although this possible protagonist was rather good-looking, she was still far from enough for Chlorine Sodium. She was far too easy to fool, believed other people's words too readily, and could not even distinguish truth from falsehood.

But that worked to her advantage. Only someone easy to fool would place absolute faith in the lies she wove. She could also remain beside the protagonist without any pressure, break apart the protagonist's group if one formed in the future—or infiltrate it. No one would guard against an attack from behind, right?

Who would suspect a frail psychiatrist caring for this girl? Right?

Stabbing someone in the back was a wonderful thing.

Her next task was to build bonds, trip them up in secret, and carry out her schemes. In the end, she could use their emotional connections to drive their hatred to its absolute peak!

The more familiar they became, the harder she would cut.

Wouldn't this be a massive profit?!

Chlorine Sodium never did business without a return.

She had to admit, looking harmless to humans and animals was really nice.

At the same time, several hundred kilometers away, at an unnamed mine.

This originally lifeless place had once again been visited by a group of uninvited guests.

Several days earlier, a pillar of light that connected heaven and earth had alarmed the nearby garrison. However, when they sent people to investigate, all they found was a massive crater.

Everything originally marked on the map had vanished. Only this huge pit, as though a natural disaster had passed through, remained, along with the forest around it that had been uprooted or knocked outward by the shock wave.

Now, dozens of members of the Infected Enforcement Squad were clearing the ruins, investigating what had happened, and searching for any useful information.

Standing above the crater and supervising everything were several figures wrapped from head to toe in black uniforms. Even their heads were covered by pitch-black metal masks, with several tubes connecting both sides of each mask directly to their backs. Their viewfinders, shaped like an insect's compound eyes, emitted red points of light.

At first glance, they looked like radiation troopers. They were the most terrifying existence within the Ursus armed forces.

The Emperor's Royal Guard.

They were the blades of the Emperor of Ursus, executors of his will, the embodiment of Ursus's terrifying war machine. They were the winter of Ursus.

A single one of them could inflict devastating damage on several squads. Entering and leaving in pairs, they could even annihilate entire organized legions. They were beings of terrifying strength.

Moreover, almost no information about this unit was known. They appeared and disappeared like ghosts, and wherever they appeared, they left behind only terrifying legends. To this day, there was no record of the Emperor's Royal Guard ever suffering defeat.

Mysterious and lethal, technological yet terrifying in appearance, they radiated an aura of invincibility from head to toe.

Whenever the Emperor's Royal Guard was deployed, they might not necessarily be able to solve the problem, but they could absolutely solve the people and objects that had caused it.

And one member of this mysterious group had appeared here, radiating a cold, slippery air as he silently supervised the labor of these wretched commoners.

The greatest fear did not lie in words, but in silence—the fear of silence.

Although there were plenty of people in the mine's ruins, the place was terrifyingly quiet. All the members of the Infected Enforcement Squad had restrained their usual arrogance and bullying manner, silently working as hard as they could.

However, the Emperor's Royal Guard were not foremen. This sort of matter did not require a combat force of their level to intervene. The reason they had come here was primarily because of a transaction.

And the other party to that transaction was here as well.

"Have you found anything, my dear friend?"

That aura was even more sinister and vicious than that of the Emperor's Royal Guard. It was like a cold, venomous snake.

A Fedia nobleman dressed in white stood nearby, elegantly folding his arms as he watched the Emperor's Royal Guard beside him with an ambiguous smile.

"......"

The metal helmet had nothing on it but a red point of light that flickered faintly with each breath. The Guard seemed to be concentrating on sensing something.

"Even the Emperor's personal guards have been struck speechless by the shock?"

The nobleman's vague smile seemed to grow more pronounced.

"No. I merely sensed something unfamiliar."

The voice was filtered through some device inside the metal helmet. Its gender and the speaker's identity could not be distinguished. The mystery had indeed been executed well.

The Guard spoke slowly.

"I suggest you take back what you just said, Duke. That was an insult to the Guard. Power of this level is nowhere near enough to shake us, much less Ursus."

"Is that so? Good, good. You must understand, as the lord of this land, I was extremely worried after learning that such a thing had happened."

His oily tone was accompanied by a lie he did not even bother to conceal.

The Guard did not care. Since they intended to cooperate, they naturally knew what sort of habits this nobleman had.

"However, regarding our cooperation, I do have a new proposal."

The nobleman changed the subject and raised a new possibility.

"Please, go on."

"The previous transaction now seems to include another option. How about investigating the person responsible for this accident? I imagine you are just as curious as I am about who could have done this. Someone possessing such power ought to be put to use by us, don't you think?"

"After all... you were the one who said that this was not enough to shake you. I..."

The duke smiled as he spoke.

"...trust you completely."

"No matter. It is merely destructive power. If things are truly as you say, then it is indeed a useful tool, but only a tool. Compared with those capable of contributing to the great Ursus Empire, it is far too lacking."

The Guard spoke disdainfully.

Section 7: Chapter Seven—The Methodology of Lies

The Beast Herd around here was truly sparse. Ever since she had killed a wolf last time, the pack seemed to have scattered. If she wanted something to eat, she had to fly a very long distance before finding anything.

As for the nearby villages and towns, she could fly there, but she had no currency to exchange, was unfamiliar with the area, and both Kiana's appearance and her Herrscher appearance were far too conspicuous. She looked far too much like an outsider. To maintain her disguise, it was best to avoid contact with other people until everything was ready.

This time, Chlorine Sodium had completely returned to an old-fashioned approach. Although she was a psychiatrist by identity, she carried an old double-barreled hunting rifle on her back and dragged behind her a wolf that had been shot dead.

After all, overly grotesque and bizarre wounds would remain on the animal's body, which would be bad. An act had to be performed completely, including the method by which the prey had been killed. It would be troublesome if some clue exposed her later.

As for the identity... ummmm.

As an experienced psychiatrist, there was nothing strange about her knowing how to use a hunting rifle, right?

The drifting snow would cover all traces in the snowfield. This place was basically impossible to track through. Moreover, in weather this cold, it was hard to see even a single person outside the Beast Herd.

However, when she turned the doorknob and flew inside, she discovered that the interior was as cold as a refrigerated warehouse.

"Wow."

After pausing for a moment, the girl forced out that exclamation. When she had left, the place had still been relatively warm. After several days of basic contact, Yelena, now relaxed, had already gained a certain degree of control over her Originium Arts. Of course, since Originium Arts were highly dependent on the mind, she could manage that only in a comfortable environment.

Although she still could not control them completely, the cold current should no longer have been capable of turning the whole house into a refrigerated warehouse.

But now, the instant she opened the door, the cold current that poured out was several times colder than the frigid weather outside.

The entire house had become an ice cellar.

On the bed inside, Yelena was curled up, her brow anxiously furrowed. Although she was still asleep, she was probably having a nightmare.

The low-temperature cold current released by her self-protection response to the nightmare had affected the entire house.

People could escape darkness, but it was difficult to completely erase the nightmares in their hearts.

That required long-term companionship and counseling. Unfortunately, this place had no such conditions.

Yelena no longer had any family, so there was no one to accompany or counsel her.

As for Chlorine Sodium...

Give her a break. She was a bad person. How could a bad person provide psychological counseling to a good person?

Without continuing to stand there in a daze, she realized that this house clearly could no longer accommodate people. The icicles hanging from the roof were enough to smash through someone's skull if they fell.

Ignoring the low-temperature domain created by the frigid Originium Arts, Chlorine Sodium was not harmed in the slightest by this level of cold. The girl secured the hunting rifle, reached out, and picked up Yelena, who was curled into a ball and looked utterly devoid of any sense of security. Then she carried her to another house.

Although this village was dilapidated, there were at least enough empty houses.

In her arms, the girl trembled because of her dream and kept muttering something.

"So cold... I'm so cold..."

"Grandma... don't... don't leave me..."

If gods existed in this world, then why was this world still so full of malice?

Weakness, helplessness—the anger people felt was usually anger toward their surroundings, as well as anger toward themselves.

They hated the malice with which their environment targeted them, and they hated their own weakness and incompetence. All regret was caused by the inadequacy of their own abilities.

If she had been strong enough, then why had she watched everything happen with her own eyes?!

If her Originium Arts had arrived sooner, then why had she still watched the entire mine be destroyed without doing anything?

Anger and unwillingness.

Yet she still remembered the faces of those overseers. Her hatred made her want to pounce on them and bite through their necks! To drink their blood!

But what she had failed to do, the "god" had done.

If that really had been a god.

A pillar of light connecting heaven and earth descended into the mine. When she, like the people around her, raised her head to gaze upward, a shock wave that destroyed everything, carrying flames hot enough to sear her retinas, swallowed everything around her.