Ch.175Aria – 1

As soon as Aria mentioned the word “possessed person,” my body reacted before my mind could process it.

I pounced on her, pinning her down, sealed her arms and legs with magic, grabbed her shoulder with my left hand, and brought Eternal—gripped in reverse in my right hand—to her throat. The blade touching her neck emitted an eerie blue light.

“That hurts, Miss Mira. You could be a little gentler, you know.”

But Aria remained calm. Despite feeling Eternal’s edge against her throat, she showed no surprise or tension, smiling sweetly as usual.

“…Who are you? And where did you hear about that?”

“Oh? Was this supposed to be so surprising? That someone other than those directly involved knows that you, Priscilla, Rosaria, Laura, and Elysier are all possessed people?”

In her words, the honorifics for Priscilla, Rosaria, and Laura disappeared, and she referred to Ciel as Elysier. This was clearly no coincidence or mistake.

It was deliberate and intentional.

“Wouldn’t you be surprised too?”

I pressed Eternal harder against Aria’s throat. The blade dug into her Adam’s apple.

“You seem quite shocked. Perhaps you should calm down a bit? You might stop breathing at this rate, Miss Mira.”

“Just answer the question. Don’t change the subject.”

“In this position?”

“Your mouth still works. Don’t try anything unnecessary.”

A light sigh escaped between her lips.

“Hmm… I suppose I have no choice. I would have preferred to tell you in a more comfortable atmosphere. It’s fine. I understand. So, what would you like me to explain first?”

“Everything you know.”

“Ah, that’s a bit difficult.”

Aria made a troubled expression. I couldn’t tell if it was an act or if she genuinely felt that way. Judging by her expression alone, she seemed genuinely troubled.

“If I were to tell you everything I know, we’d have to stay here together for over a hundred years. I wouldn’t mind, but you need to return as quickly as possible, don’t you? For the sake of those you left behind. But if you’re okay with that, I’ll tell you everything as requested. Is that alright?”

“…”

I took a deep breath internally. Though I was the one holding the weapon, Aria clearly understood that she held the conversational advantage. She even knew I wouldn’t be able to kill her.

Or perhaps she had something else she was counting on.

“Since you seem to be having trouble deciding what to ask first, I’ll give you some options. First, you can ask who I am. Second, you can ask what my purpose is. I’ll end up telling you both anyway, so feel free to choose either one. Pick whichever interests you more.”

I wondered if I should go along with her proposal. Rather than choosing from her options, wouldn’t it be faster to just ransack her mind and force her to talk?

“I should mention that trying to force me to talk won’t work. I’ll forgive you once if you don’t believe me and want to try. It would just be a waste of time though.”

She seemed to have figured out what I was considering from my hesitation. Aria struck while maintaining her bright smile.

After much deliberation, I reluctantly opened my mouth.

“…The first one.”

“Yes, about who I am? I knew you’d want to know about me, Miss Mira. Now, could you please let me go? I understand your desire to straddle me, but this doesn’t look very proper.”

“Should I cut off one of your arms first to stop you from talking nonsense?”

“How scary. It’s a joke, just a joke. Don’t be so hostile—I’m still on your side, you know?”

Aria calmly spouted nonsense while pursing her lips, seemingly deep in thought.

“Where should I begin… Ah, wait a moment. I just realized—is there any point in telling you about my identity?”

“What are you—”

“Think about it. You already know who I am. Aria April, the protagonist of Laura’s yuri romance novel. Do you need any more explanation than that?”

In that moment, my limbs went limp.

The protagonist of Laura’s yuri romance novel. Those were words that should never come from the mouth of a character in the novel. It felt like being hit hard with a hammer on my already about-to-burst head.

Taking advantage of my dazed state, Aria slipped out with an “oof.” I wondered when she had released the binding magic on her wrists and ankles. I just stared blankly as she got to her feet.

After dusting off her skirt, Aria stuck out her tongue slightly and added:

“Or should I say Seo-ah Lee instead of Laura? She wrote the novel before she was possessed.”

Hearing the name Seo-ah Lee, my limbs that had gone limp began to move again. I stood up, using Eternal to support my weight.

“You… just how much do you know?”

“‘How much do I know’ isn’t quite right. I’m the one who brought those people here, so wouldn’t it be faster to ask what I don’t know?”

“What?”

“Come on, don’t pretend you didn’t hear me. You heard everything. I said I’m the one who brought Seo-ah Lee, Ha-yoon, Kang Ye-na, Yoo Chae-won here. And you too, Miss Mira. I almost forgot the most important person.”

There was no room for doubt anymore. Those were names we had barely used even among ourselves, saving them for when we returned to our original world. The fact that Aria knew them had an obvious meaning.

“…Then, you also knew they were repeating regressions until they were on the verge of mental collapse.”

“Yes, I knew. Because I brought them here.”

“Don’t tell me you also killed the goddess…”

“That was me, yes. I killed the Evil God too. I sealed their powers so they couldn’t use them without my permission, and planted a parasite in each of their hearts to ensure a terrible death if they tried anything foolish. I didn’t expect the parasites to grow like that since I made them just to kill, but that’s how it turned out.”

“You—”

“Let me say this first: please don’t get angry. Everything I did had a reason.”

“…Reason? Did you just say ‘reason’? You dragged us here, left the other four to repeat the same actions until their minds broke, killed both the goddess and the evil god, and you call that having a reason?”

“Of course. Why do you think I’m doing all this? Why am I trying to answer all your questions and giving you these lengthy explanations? It’s all to convince you, Miss Mira. I need you. And once you hear my explanation, you’ll have no choice but to understand why I had to do what I did.”

“Understand? You? Me?”

“I’m confident. It’s a complicated story with many twists and turns. Since you were curious about my identity, let me answer that while changing our location. This dreary space isn’t suitable for my explanation.”

Aria’s toes moved lightly. Instantly, the black sky transformed into a brilliant blue. Flowers bloomed across the ground, leaving no space untouched.

Aria crouched down with her knees together, plucked a black tulip that had bloomed at her feet, and brought it to her nose. A bright smile, completely out of place in the current situation, blossomed on her face.

“Miss Mira.”

After savoring the tulip’s scent with her eyes closed for a while, Aria spoke. Her eyelids opened, revealing the eyes hidden beneath. Pupils like the blue sea itself turned toward me.

“How much have you heard about this world, Miss Mira? The author who created it was right beside you. Her identity was revealed quite some time ago. What did Seo-ah Lee… no, Crown Prince Laura tell you about this world?”

“…Just that it was a novel she started writing out of interest, but lost interest in and hastily concluded.”

I don’t believe her claim that she’ll convince me. But her so-called “explanation” seemed worth hearing. Just in case.

Of course, I remained vigilant, ready to draw my spear at any moment.

“At least she didn’t lie. She could have mixed in lies that would benefit her.”

Aria slowly rose to her feet. Her fingers extended. The tulip she had been holding fell among the brightly blooming flowers. Aria lifted her foot and crushed the fallen tulip.

I thought I heard a squelching sound.

“…You see, Miss Mira, I woke up in a world that had been arbitrarily concluded.”

With a cold expression I had never seen before, her lips began to part.

“It was a world where time had stopped for everything except me. A world without sunlight, without wind, where I could do nothing. Looking back, it might have been better if I hadn’t awakened at all. It would have been much better if it had ended with the fairy tale of defeating the Demon King and, despite being two women, living happily ever after with Leona.”

“What do you mean you ‘woke up’?”

“I don’t know either. But one thing was clear: in a world where everything else had stopped at the novel’s end, only I was experiencing not an end, but a beginning. Only my time was flowing, and for a mere character in a novel like me, that was nothing short of a curse.”

Her expression became profoundly wistful. A face that seemed both smiling and crying.

“For a very long time, I wandered a world where time no longer had meaning. All alone. I don’t know how long it was. I gave up counting after a thousand years. Does that remind you of someone? Not a fictional character like me, but a ‘real person’?”

Aria emphasized the words “real person” strongly, pulling up the corners of her mouth. The upturned corners fell again in less than a second.

“My position as a saint, all the knowledge I had acquired, my magic—none of it was of any use in frozen time. No matter how much magic I unleashed, no matter how much holy power I poured out, not a single scratch appeared on the world. Honestly, I truly wanted to die then. I tried every method I could think of to die, but while I could move around perfectly fine, I couldn’t get injured at all.”

“…”

“Then one day, as I was breaking down day by day, a miracle happened. Miss Mira, can you guess what that miracle was?”

“…How would I know?”

“A fragment from another world.”

Aria’s gaze shifted slightly downward. Her eyes were fixed precisely on my left hand.

“A fragment from another world appeared. A world where not a single life remained, a world crumbling into pieces because it no longer had a medium to maintain its space-time, flowed into this place. Does this also remind you of something?”

I know. I couldn’t help but know what she meant. But I couldn’t answer.

“When I absorbed the fragment of the broken world, completely different knowledge seeped into my mind. Knowledge about the world of the author who wrote this work. You can never understand how shocked I was then, Miss Mira. I think I remained frozen for about a hundred years.”

“…”

“Anyway, after learning about the author of this novel, I was burning with revenge. She was like my creator, and even if I lacked the ability to kill her, I at least wanted revenge. So I dragged her into this world and stuffed her into the body of Crown Princess Laura… and another miracle happened. Time, which had stopped, began to flow again. And it rewound to the beginning.”

A bright smile bloomed again on Aria’s face, which had been frozen cold.

“This is the first reason why I called you destiny, Miss Mira. If you hadn’t existed, or if you had been possessed but died without escaping, or if you had escaped but left living beings behind, I would still be trapped in a world where time had stopped, going mad all alone. My entire life essentially originated from you.”

“So, was it also destiny that this world fragment thing came here?”

“What? Of course not. That was inevitable. A world that can no longer maintain its space-time is drawn to the nearest world. They try to merge. It had no choice but to come here.”

“Inevitable?”

“Oh? You didn’t know?”

Aria opened her eyes wide. Her round eyes gradually narrowed, transforming into seductive eyes.

“You really didn’t know. She didn’t tell you this? Really, she may not have lied, but she had her own agenda. Omitting the most important part.”

Her seductive gaze soon changed back to a bright smile.

“Her previous work was the dark fantasy world where you were first possessed. I’m glad you know now, even if it’s late.”