The Logmaster - Chapter 6
Koji Iiyama was called into the manager’s office with a face as pale as a living corpse.
As he walked unsteadily, Ayumaru Omiichi watched him leave with a cool smile.
——A complete victory.
That must have been it.
While basking in the sweet feeling of accomplishment, Omiichi suddenly looks around the office.
He looked around for his junior, who would normally look unsettled and worried if he witnessed such a scene.
(…Hmm?…Where is she…?)
The moment his eyes landed on her desk, Omiichi’s excitement froze.
A chill runs down my spine, as if ice claws were scratching at me.
Tomaru Shizuka was sitting exhausted, leaning back in her chair.
His unfocused eyes stare into space, his expression lifeless, like an empty shell.
Her complexion was no longer sallow; it was strangely pale, like a wax doll’s, her always lustrous hair was now disheveled, and her neat white blouse had deep, unnatural wrinkles.
I could see her delicate fingertips trembling slightly, as if all the life force had been sucked out of them.
Her friendly smile, once described as “like the sun,” had vanished without a trace.
(…Tomaru-san? What happened? That’s not normal!)
The drastic change in appearance filled Omiichi with a bad feeling.
The afterglow of victory he had felt moments before was blown away, and instead, an indescribable anxiety and fear began to eat away at his heart.
“Tomaru-san…?”
I instinctively got up from my seat to call out to him.
However, she seemed completely unaware of Omiichi’s presence and stood up, like a puppet with its strings cut.
Then, unsteady on his feet, he weakly begins to walk towards the office exit.
His fragile back looks like it might collapse at any moment…
(Could it be… that Tomaru-san got the blame for something that happened with Iiyama…? But… strangely, he looks so exhausted… he’s like a different person…)
My heart was pounding violently, and I couldn’t stop feeling palpitations.
Omiichi quickly took his smartphone out of his pocket and opened the website with trembling fingertips.
Search for the name Tomaru Shizuka.
Normally, she would never open her [History]. But now, she couldn’t afford to do that.
I need to find out what on earth is happening to her.
Could this have become irreversible? The thought crossed my mind, and an unpleasant sweat broke out down my back.
I moved to the window to avoid being seen and took a deep breath.
Then, with determination, he reached for the “History” button next to Tomaru’s name.
The moment I was about to touch the screen
–Her latest history item caught my eye.
Last night, Omiichi had rewritten Iiyama’s future and tapped [Save], and the time recorded was immediately after that, but that item was not her action.
There was just one word displayed in red English letters.
——Dead Link
It’s a sign on the site that someone’s “history” has reached its final point.
As my brain spun, trying to make sense of that ominous word, out of the corner of my eye I saw a dark shadow falling headfirst past the window.
I reflexively looked up and through the glass.
–Tomaru Shizuka falls upside down in front of his eyes.
Even though it all happened in an instant, time seemed to stretch strangely, and I could see her face clearly, as if in slow motion.
Her large eyes were wide open to their limit, the black pupils narrowing into tiny holes.
–His expression was filled with the most intense anger and hatred I had ever seen.
Resentment, curses, despair…she glared straight at Omiichi from the window with a terrifying expression that seemed to condense every kind of negative emotion into her face.
“───!! Ah, ahh…”
Her throat tightens, and a voiceless scream escapes.
My feet felt as if they were glued to the floor.
His knees tremble, and Omiichi freezes in place.
—From far below in the building, there was the vivid sound of something shattering violently, along with the echoing sound of multiple screams.
The sound that hit his eardrum with a delay brought Omiichi back to his senses.
Cautiously, I crept over to the window and peered down at the ground level, 15 floors below.
At the base of the building, a huge pool of bl00d spread out on the dark gray asphalt.
In the center, Tomaru Shizuka’s body lay in a pitiful state, a dark red stain slowly spreading.
His limbs are bent in unnatural ways, and his white shirt is stained crimson.
However, by some miracle, her face was facing upwards.
And the tremendous anger he had shown earlier had completely disappeared, and his expression was now eerily clear and expressionless, as if he had realized everything.
There was no sparkle in her wide-open eyes anymore.
And yet, his vacant gaze seemed to be fixed straight on Ayumaru Omiichi, who was standing there in a daze by the window on the 15th floor, and would not let go.
“…That’s a lie…”
My mind goes blank, my thoughts stop, and my comprehension is unable to keep up.
It’s a bad dream, some kind of joke
— I repeat this in my mind.
However, the bright red of the bl00d spreading on the asphalt and Tomaru’s vacant eyes looking up at me made me realize that this was the undeniable reality.
She was one of the few bright spots in my grey days.
He was a precious junior whom I felt close to and even wanted to protect.
And to think that she would lose her life so suddenly and cruelly…
Omiichi collapsed to the ground, his hands on the cold floor.
I was hit by intense nausea and felt so dizzy I couldn’t stand.
The meaning of the phrase “first chain” inevitably popped into my mind, and I was overcome with terrible confusion and fear.
The sacrifices caused by the power I unleashed
–The moment I realized this reality, a sense of guilt slowly seeped out from inside my chest and began to fill my heart.
“Tomaru…san…I…I…”
Muttering in a husky voice, Omiichi covered his face with trembling hands.
I feel crushed by a deep, indescribable sense of loss and self-loathing.
Strangely, at the bottom of this whirlpool of self-loathing and despair, Omiichi felt a faint but definite sense of elation stirring in the back of his mind.
That excitement, which should never have existed, was pulsating eerily deep in my heart.