Chapter 28
“Hap, hat!”
The wooden swords left to gather dust in the armory sliced through the air with a sharp whoosh.
“Lift your arms higher!”
“Hrg!”
“Breathe regularly!”
On this hot day too, the training ground was thick with heat. Noah swung her sword repeatedly, then brushed back her light brown hair plastered to her forehead.
Her emerald eyes, which usually looked dull, sparkled beautifully. Julianna twirled around her, smiling with satisfaction.
“It’s still a ways off, but this isn’t too shabby.”
Though she spoke nonchalantly, Julianna was genuinely astonished by Noah’s talent.
Teach her one thing, and she gets ten! She could master techniques in just a few hours that would take ordinary folks a month. You could say her skill was a divine gift, no doubt about it.
Noah, meanwhile, was acutely aware of her growing strength. This just made her more impatient.
“I gotta get stronger faster!”
It’s one thing if there were no answers, but she could almost taste the sweet fruit of success dangling just out of reach. It was only natural that she pushed her gifted body harder.
If Noah had an average level of talent, she would have collapsed before truly gaining any skill. But her dazzling talent only made her stronger as she wore herself out.
Because of this, day by day, Noah was turning into a training addict. Her eyes shone brilliantly with hope.
In stark contrast to Noah, there was someone exuding a gloomy aura.
“Ugh, ugh…”
Pia was huddled in a dusty wardrobe in the neglected guest room, moaning softly.
{ Sister, it hurts, sister, it hurts, sister, it hurts, sister, it hurts, sister, it hurts, sister, it hurts, sister, it hurts, sister, it hurts, sister, it hurts, sister, it hurts, sister, it hurts, sister, it hurts… Don’t you see?! I’m suffering here?! }
“AHHH!”
She screamed while gripping her hair. Her fingers clenched so hard on her scalp it felt like they might pull it off!
“Ah – aah…”
Her dark cocoa brown hair had darkened to near-black from the roots, and now half her head was pitch black. Her eyes, once a warm amber, were slowly washing away into purple, like clean water being sullied.
Continuous exposure to the potent black magic was making her body react strangely.
“Huk… Mom, Momma…”
With her eyes squeezed shut, Pia let the tears flow. And then, her mom’s voice echoed in her ears.
{ Pia, take care of your sister. You’re strong, so I know you can do it. }
A warm voice and a soft laugh painted vivid imagery right before her. Pia trembled as her tears streamed down continuously.
“Mom, mama…”
Just like a child her age, she bawled and ran toward the crystal-clear illusion of her mother.
“Why are you still alive?”
The once bright scene turned a hellish red, and her smiling mom glared down at Pia with a terrified expression.
“I told you! You had to PROTECT your sister!!”
“Ughh! I was wrong, I was wrong…”
Pia shook like a leaf, gripped by infinite terror, begging for forgiveness.
The words “you should have died” rang endlessly in her ears like a catchy tune. Everything around Pia started to fade into darkness.
“Lian…”
Pia instinctively thought of Lian, who once brought her comfort. But reaching out to him was impossible because of her stubbornness and the spell she was under.
Why did her sister’s voice fade away when he was around? Was Lian really a good person?
If Pia had positive thoughts about Lian, her mind might have wandered in that direction. But instead, she saw him as a “fake actor putting on a show.”
Her thoughts naturally turned negative. Plus, the black magic from Dovan amplified her negative emotions and made her avoid places where the magic faded. That’s why she distanced herself from Lian.
“It’s all HIS fault…”
Pia dumped all her endless fear onto Lian. Only by blaming him could she breathe.
“That’s right, sister! Everything is his fault!”
As Pia’s mind was crumbling, and her logic unraveled, her sister began whispering different words.
“It’s all because of that white-haired slave. Let’s get rid of him.”
“Get rid of him?!”
“Yeah, chase him out so he can’t bother you anymore!”
Had Pia retained any composure, she might’ve found her sister’s sudden change in tone bizarre.
But no, her psyche was hanging by a thread. She felt she could end it all at any second. That’s how smothered she was by guilt.
When someone sins, they usually instinctively try to make amends with the victim to ease their own conscience.
Pia was no different. Overwhelmed by distant guilt and enslaved by the hallucinations, she began blindly following their lead.
“What should I… what can I do?”
Her once venomous sister began sweetly laying out her tasks.
Creak –.
Pia crawled out of the wardrobe, staggering as she left the room, her presence nearly snuffed out by the dark magic.
*
“No news is good news. No news is good news.”
As I walked down the slightly chilly corridor, murmuring, my mind wouldn’t settle.
“Where on earth is she?!”
Mia, when she heard the words “new test subject,” lost it and headed straight for the slave market. She scoured both huge and small markets but came back empty-handed regarding Iris.
That could only mean one thing: she had been sold off.
“It’s… it’s fine. It’s gonna be fine.”
While trying to reassure myself, my legs shook like they had a mind of their own. Other than relying on Mia, there wasn’t really a way to meet Iris, and it felt like I had swallowed a giant taro root, blocking my throat.
Eventually, I sank to my knees in the corridor, clutching my hair.
“There’s no way out! There’s no way!”
I shouted inside, tears pouring out like a waterfall.
“But there’s an original story, and there’s such a thing as causality—maybe it’ll be okay?”
Trying to escape reality.
“Why did Odil run away?! I treated him so well! I fed him good stuff, and dressed him nice!”
Getting mad.
“Should I just live here as a test subject? Sounds kinda okay, maybe?”
Acquiescing to reality.
After cycling through all those emotions, I ended up with a simple conclusion.
“Ugh! Please let the protagonist drop right in front of me! Or send me through a door to him! Where the heck ARE you, Iris?!”
Inhabitants of this comedic world shout out their wishes desperately when they feel hopeless. Then, they snap back to reality pretty quickly. Yeah, that’s me.
“Ugh, better prepare some meals.”
Up until that moment, I would have never imagined that what I had just shouted might actually come true.
*
Whoosh, whoosh!
“Whoa, you’re amazing as always!”
I was watching Noah skillfully swing her sword while I did some mending. She had only picked up the sword a week ago, yet she was already soaring through the air like she owned it.
“Wow… she’s practically a prince.”
(Note: In Lian’s eyes, Noah is a boy. I don’t wanna keep changing names and risk typos. It’s annoying.)
Each time she swung her sword, Noah’s short brown hair fluttered like a protagonist from a flashy martial arts flick. Her eyes reminded me of a fairy-tale prince, destined to make tons of girls swoon in the future.
“I guess I’ll just be her trusty sidekick. Yup..”
Tears started streaming down my face again. But these weren’t just tears. It’s like it was raining—inside a training room, but my point still stands!
Wiping my face, I got back to work with my hands flying.
“What in the world are you doing?”
Julianna strolled over during my break—or at least I think it was a break—and peeked at my sewing.
“Making a doll.”
“This?”
After a quick patch-up for Mia, I grabbed a needle and thread to repurpose some worn clothes into cute dolls.
I held up a doll resting next to me, about the size of a man’s fist.
“Oh, that’s actually pretty decent?”
The doll had a shape somewhat like a sock puppet, half the size of a baguette, all embroidered up with eyes, a nose, and a mouth.
“This is a breeze.”
Feeling smug, I whipped up a bunch of dolls quickly while Julianna stared at me, half shocked.
“Do you really need to make so many?”
“I started making one for Pia, ‘cause she’s been looking a bit down lately, but I thought the kids would feel left out if only one got a doll, so I made a bunch. This one’s for you, Julianna.”
“Me too?”
Julianna eyed the doll I lifted with a bit of distaste. It had the same round bean-like eyes and tiny mouth and nose as the others, but its hair was styled like Julianna’s.
“How would I even hold this… wait, what’s happening here?”
“Because it’s a ghost.”
“No way, I can’t hold it ‘cause I’m a ghost!”
Julianna huffed a few times, and just like that, break time seemed to be over as she zoomed back to train with Noah.
“Sigh… Not only is Iris missing, but Pia’s being a problem too.”
I thought about Pia, who had recently started avoiding me. Every time we crossed paths, she wore this gloomy expression, hinting something was off.
“I shouldn’t force a meeting. Lily said she seems more at ease if we talk.”
If she was avoiding me ‘cause she didn’t like me, it made sense to give her space. There was even a time in this comedic world when a girl who couldn’t handle an ugly guy ended up barfing right in front of me!
“If she thinks I’m bad news, might as well steer clear.”
More tears streamed down my face in rivers.
“Alright, that’s the last one!”
Once I finished the last doll, I cuddled them all in my arms.
“They’ll go on the kids’ beds, right?”
With a bright smile, I headed off to deliver the dolls to the dormitory.
And then… I got kidnapped.
