Fired Characters from an Idle Game

30. 5★ Tempest of the Northern Sea, Mirien – (3)

The fierce rain and wind lashed against my face.

A sensation of floating, even as gravity tugged at my legs, anchoring them to the ground.

A dizzying lightness, followed by the sinking dread that my heart would plummet right out of my chest.

Thankfully, my body wasn’t destined to smash into the earth. From a certain point, something seemed to seize me, slowing my descent to a crawl.

Whoosh…

A strange, soaring exhilaration, like flying.

On the ground, Mirien frantically waved both hands, weaving her magic.

Truthfully, I’d considered this when I chose freefall. A calamity of her power could certainly catch a single falling human.

Well, even if Mirien had left me to it, falling from this height would only have broken a leg or two at worst.

“A-Actor!”

“Thanks.”

The moment my feet touched solid ground, my legs wobbled, forcing me to lean against a nearby guardrail. Mirien startled, her eyes darting back and forth, as if searching for injuries I might have sustained.

Seeing this reaction, I felt certain. Contrary to Selene’s anxieties, Mirien would never willingly harm me. Rather, she seemed excessively worried that she might have somehow injured me.

“A-Actor… Wh-what are you doing? You could have been seriously….”

“But it didn’t turn out seriously, did it?”

I dispelled the summoned Tempest Dragon, the Storm itself now gone from the sky, and continued.

“Besides, you were down there. If something had gone wrong, you would have caught me. Wouldn’t you?”

Mirien’s eyes flickered at my words.

“…Actor, why… why did you come all the way here? I-Is Selene…?”

“Selene’s drawing attention outside. No one will be barging in here for a while.”

A glimmer of hope flickered in Mirien’s eyes at my words.

Having just witnessed her self-recrimination, I needed a deeper understanding of Mirien.

What she possessed now was a form of dependency.

Or perhaps a desire for approval, I wondered.

“We have a brief reprieve. How about we have a little talk, you and I?”

In truth, I had a grasp on how to handle Selene, the Scorched Saint.

For Selene, Dominator Acter was her liege. Imposing, a cold strategist issuing orders with unwavering precision. That’s why Selene was moved when I resolutely pushed my will.

What then, was Acter to Mirien?

Coincidentally, the clue to solving this could be gleaned from her actions within the game.

I, Dominator Acter, had given Mirien an artificial heart, and she, accepting it, had succeeded in prolonging her fleeting life.

“We’re not that awkward with each other, are we?”

In other words, to Mirien, I am a savior.

Someone who would strive to repay a debt, no matter the cost.

She peered at me, hesitant.

“B-but I…I’m just a hindrance to…Acter….”

“Like I said, it was a misunderstanding.”

“….”

“The reason I went to the tower was solely to talk to you. Like this.”

There was no need to fear Mirien going berserk. The overwhelming calamity capable of threatening her life wasn’t nearby, and because Thunderstorm was a channeled skill, she couldn’t use it simultaneously with Blessing of Thunders.

This was the only chance to face Mirien while she was lucid.

“We couldn’t even properly look each other in the eye and talk inside the rift. We finally have an opportunity, so let’s talk face to face, person to person. It’ll be better for you, too.”

“…Acter.”

“I heard it was all you who sent Tempestra to save me, killed the pursuing tracker, and created the Ascendant Church.”

Mirien’s actions were ethically questionable, but all of them were for my benefit. The reason she had gone berserk was because she thought she had been abandoned by Acter.

Selene was similar, perhaps, but Mirien’s paranoia was excessively severe.

A monster awakened to human emotions, some might say.

But from my perspective, she just seemed like a powerful child.

‘Took you long enough.’

It had only been a little over two months since the world had been reshaped by the Disaster Order.

Through the trial and error of those two months, I had learned what stance I needed to take.

To bring about calamity, just like a Dominator should. All of the numerous calamities remaining in the world. I had to bring them all under my control, becoming a powerful being.

The absolute being the system spoke of. It had to be me. I was the only one maintaining the connections from the game. If anyone else were to command this great calamity, the world would meet its ruin.

Of course, it wasn’t like I was all that different.

I wasn’t that delusional of a person.

However, I at least knew my place.

“Mirien, listen carefully. Everything I’m about to say is the absolute truth.”

“…”

Mirienne could only nod, a blank look upon her face.

Compared to Selene, she was quite small, a head and a half shorter than me. To meet her gaze, I had to bend my knees nearly in half.

“Mirienne, I need you.”

“…Ugh.”

“And I need Selene too. It’s not that I need one more than the other, you’re both equally important. It was like that for me, remember? Those memories in the Rift. We were equals.”

“…Mm.”

Still, the feelings both Selene and Mirienne held for me were overwhelming.

Yet, to dismiss it as merely a connection forged in a game… the attachment both Selene and Mirienne had to the figure of Actor was truly something else.

Just as the game had become reality, the real me was the same person as the game’s Actor.

From Mirienne’s perspective, Actor, a godlike being back then, and this mere human, Joo-yeon Nam, probably weren’t all that different.

The way she flinched at me simply approaching her, it revealed a girlish side.

“Mirienne.”

As Selene said, the feelings Mirienne harbored for me weren’t simple loyalty.

She didn’t want to be ignored. Didn’t want to be hated. Didn’t want to be a burden, but yearned for attention. She wanted to be of more help to Actor.

Having seen this much, the answer wasn’t so simple, was it?

It was, quite simply, infatuation.

“Will you… become my comrade again?”

However, to utter that truth in front of her was terribly embarrassing.

I decided to express it indirectly.

If Selene desired the position of a loyal retainer…

Then what Mirienne desired was undoubtedly to be a partner in grand designs.

And I would wholeheartedly play along with this game of make-believe.

“…”

Mirienne’s shoulders twitched. She then turned her gaze to meet mine. Her deep blue eyes stared intently at my lips.

“…You… won’t abandon me?”

“I won’t abandon you. Not ever again.”

“You… won’t kill me?”

“Why would I kill you? Who on earth could kill someone as influential as you, in the first place?”

Even Selene would have to aim for a mutual kill to take her down. The opponent in question was Mirienne, after all.

Who in this world could possibly kill Mirien?

“T-then…”

Mirien swallowed hard, asking one last time.

“…You, you don’t hate me?”

“I don’t hate you.”

Mirien gasped at those words, then slowly said,

“Actor, I, I need you.”

“I know. I need you too. So let’s start over, shall we?”

Perhaps it was because she was casting magic, but Mirien’s star-shaped pupils trembled as if an earthquake shook them.

Soon, she pressed her lips tightly and hung her head low.

Understanding that it was a silent agreement, I raised my hand and placed it on Mirien’s head. A sharp static shock ran through me. A cute level of resistance, considering she was the most terrifying magician using tremendous lightning.

“…Anyway, could you turn off that skill? I’m gonna catch a cold.”

Mostly me.

Mirien, startled by my words, waved her hand, and in that instant, the rain stopped as if it had never happened.

[5★ Mirien, Storm of the Northern Sea, cancels the concentration of skill「Thunderstorm」.]

I breathed a sigh of relief, watching the sunlight stream through the dark clouds.

Now that things were roughly settled, I could take Mirien to the Abyss…

“Nam Joo-yeon!”

At that moment, someone jumped out.

Short-cropped hair, a leather coat.

“Jo Geon-wook-ssi?”

An Awakened one belonging to the Management Bureau, Jo Geon-wook.

I wondered how he had managed to find us all the way here, but beside him stood the 3-Star Calamity Albert, and the 2-Star Moss Hunter.

Memories from the game surfaced.

Right, those two possessed tracking skills.

Come to think of it, I hadn’t been moving secretly, just as Mirien hadn’t been blocking tracking.

With a 5-Star Calamity rampaging through Jung-gu, Seoul, how many people would even bother tracking me?

But what I had overlooked was Jo Geon-wook’s tenacity. Even in this unprecedented situation, he had chosen to steadily track me.

And he had reaped his own reward.

“And what’s that mutt standing next to her?”

Just then, standing beside me was a Hellfire Hounds in a raincoat.

That calamity, regarded by many as the pet of Actor, the Lord of the Abyss, was now obeying my command.

This alone was enough to solidify Jo Geon-wook’s suspicions into conviction.

*Click.*

What Jo Geon-wook pulled out was a handgun.

The standard-issue revolver used by the police.

“Hands up! You b*stard! You’ve been deceiving us this whole time, haven’t you!”

“….”

I raised my hands.

But it wasn’t to express my surrender to Jo Geon-wook.

“Mirienne, hold it for now.”

It was to restrain the looming disaster, Mirienne, behind me.

Jo Geon-wook had his gun trained on me, but due to the dim lighting, he hadn’t detected Mirienne’s presence in the shadows.

To begin with, Mirienne was already concealing herself using magic. A 5-star calamity’s stealth skill possessed an intricacy that a mere 3-star Named couldn’t possibly penetrate.

“Mirienne, you want to be helpful to me, don’t you?”

“…Yes.”

“Then this is the first order I’m giving you in this dimension.”

Mirienne didn’t reply, instead raising a finger.

“Hey! What are you muttering about! Get down on your knees!”

“That man, kidnap him and keep him locked up.”

*Crack!*

Before I could even finish my sentence, a long streak of black lightning shot out.

It was the true debut of the Ruler Actor on Earth.