How common/natural is it to omit いい after 〜なくても?


I've noticed that in some visual novels I've played (mainly the ones set in
older periods) that some characters tend to omit the いい after 〜なくても

For example, a character's line after being apologised to:

> 謝らなくても

However, I don't think I've really come across anyone who has omitted it like
that, and after asking a native friend about it, he mentioned that if I just
said "謝らなくても" alone, it sounds incomplete and as if I was just muttering
something under my breath. Is the omission something that's not done anymore
or was it never popular outside fiction to begin with? Would it really sound
unnatural if I didn't add the いい at the back?




It would not sound unnatural if you have the right context and the right tone.
It'd be like having `...` in english for something like: "You could have
just...". If you ask an english speaker if that's natural, they would say no.
But this happens all the time in conversation. That's the same thing.

