Farewell, Annette

I returned to where Annette-chan was.

As always, that ominous red horn grew from the upper left of her head… What can I say. There's apparently no way to save her.

Worse, she's apparently already past her limit. Because she missed one dose of the activator, that's probably what pushed her over. In other words, under normal circumstances, I wouldn't have even gotten to meet her.

And yet, we did meet.

So this really must be a game, I think. Such convenient coincidences don't just happen. It's like an event that won't trigger until the player goes there. That kind of thing.

Annette-chan was, from a game scenario perspective, a character meant to die from the start… That's probably it.

I decided to accept that.

But still, how am I supposed to tell her?

Plus, her sister wasn't there either. At least not in this facility.

Ugh, if this were a game with dialogue choices, I could just click an option and be done with it.

"Welcome back… Miitei-chan."

"Yeah, I'm back, Annette."

Right now, I had Miitei-chan keep Annette-chan company in Auto Mode.

What am I supposed to do in this situation. Let me think about what to do next while she keeps her company.

"Annette. Want to eat this?"

"A potato. Thank you. Let's split it in half."

Taking the potato, Annette-chan sizzled it with her hand, then gave half to Miitei-chan.

The cooked potato was fluffy and delicious.

"Annette. Couldn't find your sister."

"Sister? Miitei-chan's? That's too bad."

"No. Your sister, Annette."

"Huh? I don't have a sister."

Annette tilted her head, looking puzzled at Miitei-chan.

… Hm?

"Annette, you said you had a sister. Was that a lie?"

"… Oh, yeah, I do. Sorry, sorry. Just kidding. She's this small, you know. A cute younger—"

"You said you were twins?"

"Ahaha. I'm the older sister though… Ahaha."

She laughed weakly, but the smile quickly gave way to confusion.

"… Why? That's right, she existed. My sister's, name, face, I can't remember…?"

"Annette? Are you okay?"

"I'm not okay…"

"… …"

"Something's wrong with me. Hey, help me, Slime-chan. I, I, ahh, no good."

Saying that, Annette scratched at the corrupted part—her head. Her hair sizzled and burned. But it healed almost immediately. Even her hair. Something seemed to be going haywire.

Then she grabbed the red horn growing from the upper left of her head. Gripping it as if to rip it out.

"This, this is it, this is the problem! Aaaahhh!!!"

"Annette, wait. That's dangerous!"

"… Eh, urp, blurgh, uugh"

While vomiting up the potato she'd just eaten, Annette tried to tear out the horn. Her left eye rolled back. With a squelch, the horn shifted outward by one centimeter. Blood poured from the joint.

That was her limit.

Annette collapsed, gastric fluid splattered everywhere. She was convulsing. Twitch. Twitch.

"Guh… uuu…"

"A-Annette…?"

"Ah… mm… hah… hah… ngh, s-sorry for… scaring you… sorry…"

The horn was pulsing. Thump. Thump.

"… Ahaha… no good… this is no good… my sister, my precious. Ahh, huh? Precious? I can't remember…"

Tears spilled from Annette's eyes, rolling down her cheeks.

"… Miitei-chan. I have two requests."

"What?"

"Will you… remember my sister for me? In my place. I had a sister. I definitely did. I did, you know…"

"Yeah. Okay. I'll remember… What's the other one?"

Annette rolled onto her back on the stone floor.

"… Can I think of you as my sister, Miitei-chan?"

"That's, up to you… Spirit-sama. Is that okay?"

"Yeah."

I couldn't say no to this. There was no reason to refuse.

"They said it's okay."

"… Good. I have a sister. A cute sister, a sister I love… Miitei…"

Saying that, Annette's expression softened into peace.

And then… she drew her last breath.

"… Annette?"

"… …"

"If you don't wake up, we can't escape. Hey, Annette? Let's go?"

Only the red horn continued to pulse. Thump. Thump.

I could see the corruption spreading. Fast.

"Miitei. Let's eat Annette."

"Spirit-sama!? Why would you say that!? Annette's just sleeping!"

"If we don't eat her quickly, the red horn will take everything!"

"… …! P-Predation!"

Miitei-chan reached toward Annette's motionless body. When she touched the parts corrupted by the red horn, there was a hiss as moisture evaporated.

She consumed half of Annette's head and her torso. The mission count went up by one. The tips of her hands and feet apparently had red horns embedded in them too—they were corrupted and couldn't be touched.

The leftover parts—everything the red horn had fully consumed—turned into dried, blackish-red meat.

The red horn, losing its support, rolled across the cell floor.

Miitei-chan couldn't touch the red horn.

Consuming this red horn was… beyond what Miitei-chan could do right now, at least.

"… I'll take you to your sister. Annette."

Miitei-chan murmured softly.

Taking everything before the red horn could claim it—that was probably better.

Probably.

"Spirit-sama."

"Hm?"

"What do we do now? Kill them all? We're killing them all, right? Everyone who did this."

"Y-yeah."

"Right, right! Ahaha, ahahaha!"

Well, I still need to eat eighteen more people, so that was the plan anyway.

Also, um, Miitei-chan? You suddenly got really talkative? Maybe because the activator and stuff had accumulated in Annette-chan's body, like bioaccumulation or something.

"Leave it to me, Spirit-sama. Let me do it? I'm gonna eat every last one of them."

Saying that, Miitei-chan wrapped her tentacles around the iron bars and… hiss, dissolved and erased them.

W-wow, so reliable. But I wanna do some monster action too…

"Oh. We can just use Fission. It's a competition to see who can eat more, Spirit-sama!"

"Oh, smart thinking, Miitei-chan! Alright, I won't lose! This is Annette's memorial battle!"

"Yeah!"

I deliberately said it cheerfully, to help move past Annette's death.

Miitei-chan was probably forcing herself to act cheerful too, but she was fully ready to rampage in Annette's memory.