episode_0073

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I don’t dream often.

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Even when I dream, I always dream of a time before I became possessed. Even though it has been quite some time since I started living as Karl Maynor, in my dreams, I see Kim Se-jin, an image I want to erase.

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That’s why I hate dreams.

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I didn’t like it, but this time it was different.

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In the dream, the sword was not in its original form, but was the same blond young man that was reflected in the mirror. The holy sword in my hand and the scenery that I saw were all the world of the novel I was living in.

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It was such a vivid dream that I couldn’t even tell if I was dreaming or real. That’s why it was such a strange dream.

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There was the unknown, a hateful turquoise staring at the sword from within the helmet.

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In the dream, the sword did not swing the holy sword or rush at Unknown. It just watched. After watching for a while, Unknown gently placed both hands on his helmet.

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I couldn’t see his expression, but it seemed like he was smiling. It just felt that way. The smiling Unknown slowly raised his helmet.

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The hair that had been fluttering down inside the raised helmet fell down.

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The moment when the identity of the unknown that we have longed to see is finally revealed. The moment when we discover the heroine with blue-green eyes.

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Carl opened his eyes.

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I woke up from a deep sleep.

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The identity of the unknown that I had been so curious about, when I woke up and saw its bare face, I was filled with a sense of emptiness and desolation.

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Carl lay still and looked up at the ceiling.

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It was a refreshing but stuffy morning.

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I felt refreshed as all the accumulated fatigue went away, but I also felt uneasy because of the strange dream.

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I should be thankful that I woke up feeling so refreshed after so much that happened the day before, but my consciousness, which is slowly returning, tells me that I am missing something important.

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“!”

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The ceiling felt unfamiliar.

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It wasn’t the ceiling he looked at every morning. It wasn’t the arabesque ceiling of the Manor House or the antique ceiling of the first class. It was a ceiling he had never seen before. Carl woke up in a room he had never seen before.

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No, some people might feel disappointed if I say that it is a room they are seeing for the first time. It is a room they have been to before, but they felt unfamiliar because they did not pay attention to the ceiling.

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Tossing and turning-

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Carl carefully raised his body and looked around.

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“Ah… .”

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A sigh came out naturally.

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When I saw the chair in the corner of the room, I remembered it. I used to sit there and sigh deeply. But just because I remembered, the embarrassment didn’t go away.

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Before he knew it, Karl was fiddling with the blanket and pillow he had covered himself with all night. Then he brought it close to his nose and sniffed.

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It was instinctive.

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He tried to smell the scent without realizing it. Not the scent of Karl himself, but the scent of his original owner. Maybe he was thinking of her sleeping in the same bed.

It was also an unconscious action to find body odor that might be lingering in the bedding.

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He could smell the scent at the tip of his nose. It was a powdery scent. The scent of the cosmetics and perfume he usually used mixed with the owner’s natural scent, creating a captivating scent. Karl knew this scent. He knew the owner of the room.

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‘Beatrice.’

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When I smell Beatrice, memories come flooding back. The scent I smelled last night when I held her close to me. Even if you aren’t sensitive to smells, it was a scent that tickled my nose as if it was protesting that I should remember this pleasant scent. It was a provocative and bold scent.

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Carl slowly went back through his memories.

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I clearly remember grabbing Beatrice and embracing her, with the help of alcohol and longing. But I don’t remember what happened next.

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After hugging Beatrice for a long time, I woke up here. I had no memory of going from the commercial district to Beatrice’s dormitory room.

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“Fuck.”

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Carl picked up the uniform jacket that was on the bedside table and put it on. He put it on roughly and looked in the mirror. There didn’t seem to be anything else he needed to pack, except for the jacket. Fortunately, he didn’t take off the rest of his clothes.

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I barely managed to calm my pounding heart and went out of the room.

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*

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Clank-

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The sound of the door opening was unusually loud. It was even more so when I thought about the awkward situation of facing Beatrice outside the room.

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That’s understandable. He suddenly hugged her and went into her bedroom. But he had no memory of the rest of it. What kind of absurd situation is this? He had nothing to say even if the other person slapped his cheek with a trembling hand.

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Karl looked around the living room, holding his breath.

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The living room was filled with silence waiting for Karl. The master of the bedroom was not in the living room. Karl looked around the living room, thinking that it might be a good thing.

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with a splash-

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I heard the sound of water splashing.

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Bathroom.

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It was a sound coming from the bathroom. It also means that there is someone in the bathroom, and the sound of clear water means that the person in the bathroom is Beatrice.

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Carl swallowed hard.

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“……”

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Is there anything you need to do to wash your body?

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The knife was filled with pure doubt.

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I wondered if something had happened between them last night… whether it was something that required soaking in a hot bath and washing every nook and cranny of my body.

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I felt like if I sneaked out of here, something irreversible would happen. If I didn’t wait for Beatrice to come out of the bathroom and talk to her, I didn’t think I could handle the cold anger she would feel.

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Beatrice’s burning eyes were vividly replayed in my mind.

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In the end, Karl chose to sit quietly on the sofa and wait. And soon after, the door opened. Karl, who had been wrapping his head in thought, raised his head.

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Squeak-

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But the bathroom door that Karl was looking at was still firmly shut. Instead, another door opened. He had overlooked the fact that the second-class dormitory, unlike the first-class dormitory where he lived, was a double room.

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The last time he came, he knew he had a roommate, but Carl was so flustered from the morning that he completely forgot about it.

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“… Gasp!”

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The brown-haired woman who had opened the door and was coming out froze in place. She was about to wake up and go out with her hair disheveled.

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“Oh, hello?”

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Carl greeted her anyway, even though it was an old acquaintance. He spoke in an awkward voice, as the situation was extremely inappropriate.

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“Ah… Ah, no… .”

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Leticia, in her pajamas, tried to answer frozen but couldn’t. She just kept her eyes wandering around. Carl Maynor sitting in someone else’s dormitory living room since morning, the bathroom with the sound of water, the unmade bed visible through the open door…

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Leticia quickly came to a conclusion.

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“You, beast!”

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I mustered up my courage and blurted out a word. Then I made a whoosh-! sound and slammed the door shut and went back inside.

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“No! That’s not it… .”

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He reached out to call Leticia, who was hiding in the room, but he couldn’t stop the door from closing. Strictly speaking, he reached out and then withdrew his hand. It was not that he didn’t think it was right.

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Maybe something really happened, just like Leticia’s illusion.

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I pressed my throbbing temples with my fingertips again.

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At that moment, there was a click and the bathroom door opened. The hot air from the bathroom escaped. And Beatrice, wearing a bathrobe, appeared.

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“Leticia~ Let me use your room. I’ll put on some clothes there.”

“……”

“!?”

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Beatrice found Karl sitting on the sofa, staring blankly at her. She soon stared blankly at Karl too. There was a slight delay before embarrassment came over her.

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“What, what, what, what, what!!! Why did you wake up so quickly!”

“Just opened your eyes?”

“What if I just come out to the living room without thinking-!”

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He said this while belatedly closing the shower gown that had been loosely draped over his head. Karl did not miss the white flesh visible through the loosely draped gown. He took in the moment and looked at Beatrice’s face as if nothing had happened.

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Beatrice, of course, noticed the gaze. That made her feel even more embarrassed. Her face turned red.

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Looking at Beatrice’s flushed face, Carl figured the bath water must have been quite hot. Just then, the door opened again and Leticia, with her hair tied in a ponytail, popped her head out.

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“I’ll give you a heads up in advance… .”

“What?”

“Beatrice, change your clothes in your room… or ask Prince Maynor to put them on you. Since I took them off, you should take responsibility for putting them on too… .”

“What is he, what is he talking about!”

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As Leticia continued her indifferent words, Beatrice became more and more contemplative. Karl was also shocked, as he listened to Leticia’s words with his mouth open in a daze.

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“No matter what, you cheated right after the engagement ceremony… and the other person was your best friend… What would you do if Chloe found out?”

“……”

“Beast! Beatrice, you were bad too, really! Aren’t you ashamed to look at Chloe?”

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Leticia, muttering softly with lifeless eyes, is scary. She looked back and forth between the two of them with a desperate expression on her face, as if she had lost all sense of humanity.

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“Oh, no. Leticia, nothing happened. Really!”

“Lies. You called me into the bedroom not once, but twice.”

“That, that! I met him on the street by chance, and Carl lost consciousness… .”

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“I lost my mind?”

“Yeah, that’s right. You hugged me and then suddenly… Huh-!”

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The shocking news caught the sword. Beatrice was about to explain the events of last night in detail, but she was startled as if she had slipped her tongue, and she quickly tried to cover her mouth with her hand.

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But it was already too late.

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“Hug, hug?”

“……”

“As soon as the engagement ceremony is over, you meet your fiance’s friend!?”

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Every time she shook her head in shock, her neatly tied hair moved. Leticia stepped back and pointed her finger at Karl.

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“Beast! Trash! How could you….”

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The pointed sword just sighed and pressed his temples.

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There was nothing I could say to make excuses.

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The intentions are different though.

There are many things that have been omitted, though.

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Because it’s all true… .

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