I walked behind Saintess Alyssa, who proudly led the way, her feet moving with absolute confidence. And I couldn't blame her. Seemingly without reason, she got more and more powerful.
"Hey, manager! How long are you gonna lag behind? What, you trying to catch a peek at my ass? Impure…"
She asked, after simply and easily putting a few bullets through the head of an Abnormality.
"Yes, yes, coming." I tossed aside one I had grabbed by the neck, walking side by side with her now.
"By the way, we haven't eaten yet, right?" She hummed, tossing her pack around to the front and taking two bags of chips out. "Want any?"
"For me? Why, you're so considerate…!"
"Oh, shut it…and take it already!"
She blushed, forcing the bag of chips into my hand. I took them without too much question, opening the bag and eating.
That's right, the two of us, in the apocalypse, were just casually walking, killing monsters, and eating chips.
This reality we were living in really was stranger than fiction.
"By the way, Manager…" Alyssa actually stopped eating to speak to me, something that was as rare as…well, I would say pigs flying, but impossibilities like that were commonplace these days, now aren't they?
"I know this is gonna sound weird, but…I've been hearing…voices recently."
I, meanwhile, emptied out the entire chip bag into my mouth, crunching and swallowing in one go, like a true gentleman, before speaking.
"Voices? You're already going crazy? Look, I know it's easy for this world to get to you, but-"
"Ahh, not like that, smartass!" She shouted, her red eyes flaring with annoyance. "I mean…ugh, I don't know. Recently, whenever I go to sleep, sometimes even when I'm just walking around, it's just like I keep…hearing stuff...like...a voice. The voice." She muttered, her voice lost.
I was frankly as lost as she was.
Voices? As far as I knew, neither of us had come in contact with an Abnormality that did such a thing…unless she was affected by a thought-based Abnormality, which I doubted. The Saintess had a strong willpower. I had never seen her look sad, depressed, or even doubtful of herself even once. Given, I've only been by her side for a few days, but it was frightening how quickly she adapted to this new world.
"...I feel like I need a cigarette." She muttered, and I made a note of that. She did always have someone on hand to fetch her cigarettes, didn't she?
That one guy…she even mentioned him just before she died in the second Regression. The only problem was that I…
I…
'I can't…remember how he looked?'
—--
"...do you have faith, manager?"
During the night, while she was fiddling with a flashlight in her hand, Alyssa asked me that pointed, random question.
I gave her a strange look.
"Weird. You didn't strike me as the philosophy type."
"Ugh, no smartass remarks, just...be real, alright?" She asked, her voice sounding...unusually genuine. Of course, Alyssa usually never lied, but her usual bluntness and violence weren't anywhere present in there.
"...if you're asking if I think 'gods' exist...then probably, yeah."
Maybe I'd have been more unwilling before I had seen the true potential of Abnormalities. But considering the fact that anything from human history, culture, or consciousness could emerge as an Abnormality at any time...it was possible there were Abnormal 'gods' out there somewhere.
"That's a shady as hell response. What do you mean by 'gods'? That's where most people would answer with whatever religion they believe in, yknow."
I shrugged, leaning against the nearby wall.
"I don't really believe in any one religion. But I believe that the beings we call 'gods' are definitely...probably out there. For sure, maybe."
The Saintess groaned, narrowing her eyes at me.
"What a half-assed answer from a half-assed guy...whatever." She muttered.
There was silence between us for a while, before she spoke again.
"Since I was a kid, I was forced to believe in god. Not 'gods', but god. You know, the Christian one? I was raised in a...well, a group. Let's say that I eventually...separated from them, when all this crap happened."
It was a heavy story. I wouldn't pry without being given permission, but I wondered if her situation was like Liliana's - killing the people who had kept her captive by motive of the Tutorial.
"I thought I'd managed to escape all that bullshit, but...I can still feel them... God's thoughts... they're getting even louder than they used to be..."
She curled in on herself, hiding her expression away from me.
I wanted to say or do something to cheer her up, but Alyssa was different from Viola and Liliana. She never looked vulnerable. She was more like a wounded animal, that was lashing out just to protect herself.
The rest of the night was chillingly quiet.
-----
A few days and a few Abnormalities killed later, and Alyssa and I had managed to find another convenience store to raid.
"Sweet!" She grinned, moving to rush into the store. But I moved faster than her, brusquely rushing past her. "Damn, ouch! What the hell, Manager?"
Thankfully, she didn't notice me going straight behind the counter and swiping every pack of cigarettes that was left. I made sure that I was fast, stuffing all of it into my bag.
Of course, when the world came to shit, not many people were thinking cigarettes, so the stores actually had a lot of cigarettes left, just like this one.
Why did I swipe and hide them? Well, I wasn't going to let Alyssa smoke herself to death. The moment she got her hands on one pack, a day ago, she almost went through it all in a short time of two hours.
So I decided that I'd 'manage' her cigarette smoking, too. I wondered if 'that guy' from the second Regression had managed her smoking like this, too.
The mysterious person who somehow escaped the boundaries of my apparently perfect memory. The Saintess's right hand man in the first regression, and my original life.
He hadn't shown up yet, but I wondered if Alyssa's slowly deteriorating symptoms had something to do with him, or if he had already known about this. Thinking about Viola...I found myself wondering if he was even human.
Alyssa walked in after me, rubbing her shoulders while she approached the counter.
"Come on man, you didn't have to rush in here like that. You don't need anything that badly...w-wait!" Her eyes widened as she approached the counter, looking from left to right. "W-what the hell?! Where are the cigarettes?"
"Don't know. I ran in looking for any good candy behind the counter, but I just couldn't find it, either."
Naturally, a lie. I already had my own candy stash prepared.
The Saintess grumbled...shaking her head at the sight. Maybe if she was still in a good frame of mind, she'd have been capable of reasonably doubting me, but right now, she wasn't even at that level of reason.
It was then that I came to 'accidentally' find packs of cigarettes every now and then. Almost like drip-feeding them to her through an IV.
It was messed up, but better than letting her practically inhale multiple boxes in a few sittings.
-----
"Another, damn it! Just pass me another smoke, Manager!"
Alyssa's voice, surprisingly juvenile in its anger cut through my thoughts. Camped out in an abandoned mechanic's garage, it was a little mortifying that she was willing to be so loud at night.
Her eyes were moving from place to place, full of paranoia, her body was shivering like she was caught out in winter cold without a coat...it was honestly worrying.
Day after day, she had just been deteriorating more and more...
Worst of all, I couldn't tell if this problem was naturally-born or not.
"Saintess. Alyssa, you've already had three. You have to slow down. Smoking isn't going to make whatever problem you're facing go away." I tried to speak in a soothing voice, but it only aggravated her response. I really wasn't good at that.
"Slow down?! Slow down...Ugh, no…you…you don't understand. I just…I just need it, alright?! I really do…can't you find another one anywhere near you...? Like how you always do?"
Her words were desperate, pleading. If I hadn't considered the Saintess 'vulnerable', then her words and expression right now served to make all my thoughts sound like lies.
I stared at her. I felt a bit mortified at thinking of just whatever the hell was affecting her this badly, but I had no idea how to solve it.
"Ugh...these damn voices..."
Alyssa weakly murmured, curling in on herself. She didn't have the strength to fight back anymore, and seemingly gave up, retreating into sleep, albeit unwillingly.
"-!"
Meanwhile, I was lost in thought.
It had come up again. The mention of the 'voices' that were tormenting her from the beginning of our travel.
"Ugh..."
Her voice weakened further, as she seemingly slipped into unconsciousness. Her body wasn't peaceful as she slept. She twitched and constantly thrashed in place.
As I watched the Saintess slip into a very deep sleep, I felt a presence behind me. Unlike the Saintess, who snuck up on me in the store, this person was very sloppy with their movements and in hiding their presence.
They were quiet, but compared to the things in the forest, all too loud.
"You-hrrk!"
I immediately acted, moving from sitting to standing in a flash. I grabbed the person by the neck, quickly noting that they had no weapon. I pushed them against the wall and stared into their eyes, my own gaze cold.
I imagined that before, I would've never done this sort of thing. Maybe through my hellish training, and losing my life so many times, this sort of instinctual violence was slowly being imprinted on my mind.
"You don't just sneak up on someone and start talking like that. Who the hell are you?"
I took a moment to look over the mysterious person fully and...
"Wait. What the hell?"
A priest's outfit...a very familiar one I knew too well. The outfit of the Saintess's right hand man.
I looked into his (?) eyes. It was...he was...weird.
There, I didn't see masculine face at all...but...I had never met someone I could call this in reality, but he looked completely androgynous, both feminine and masculine.
There weren't any visible breasts, and barely any curves...
I wasn't so sure of anything anymore.
Coughing, he(?) spoke, looking into my eyes with a wide smile. He had an unsettling pair of black eyes matching his hair. His eyes were emptier than the darkness that surrounded that security guard Abnormality. To put it short, he(?) was damn eerie.
"Y-you...won't be able to help the Saintess out...without...me."
For a moment, I really had considered crushing his throat, even if he was to be of some help.
Not because of the fact that he knew about her 'illness', and a way to 'help' her. No...it was that he had called her the 'Saintess', a name that nobody but us two should know.
Either he had been stalking us, or he really was a shady character somehow connected to Alyssa.
But...I'll admit it. He was cute enough for me to feel bad about killing him...and I was genuinely worried of what'd happen to the Saintess, to Alyssa. Even if I would Regress in the end, I wasn't callous.
"Alright. Let's hear you out, Priest."