~Chapter 123~
People stared into the darkness. Even those who had been nervously whispering a moment ago fell silent at the strange wailing echoing from all around.
There had been a blackout earlier. Back then, the audience felt uneasy too. It wasn’t just the lights going out—it felt like they had fallen into another, terrifying world.
This time, that feeling was even stronger.
“Aaaaah!”
Suddenly, a sharp scream burst out nearby.
“Kyaa!”
“What is that?!”
The screams spread like a signal. People panicked and started shouting in terror.
“Lyla!”
Through the chaos, Lyla heard someone calling her name. It was the bishop. As she reached out toward the sound, the bishop quickly grabbed her hand.
“A m-monster!”
“Help!”
The place became chaos in an instant. People rushed toward the exits to escape the unknown creatures, but many were grabbed and pulled into the darkness with a scream.
From the thuds of heads and knees hitting the ground, and the sounds of bodies dragging, people realized something was capturing them in the dark.
‘Monsters have entered the theater!’
Lyla’s father, Gernant, thought in terror. He shoved aside the person next to him and ran toward the exit.
“Kyaa!”
It was only after hearing the scream that he realized he had pushed his own wife. But the fear for his own life was stronger.
He shoved and tripped everyone in his way. Then something sticky wrapped around his ankle. He felt it pulling him.
“Damn it!”
Gernant cursed and kicked at whatever was holding him. He felt the formless lump squish beneath his foot.
Did it work?
He kicked wildly until it stopped moving and he was exhausted. Breathing heavily, he looked down.
As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw what he’d been kicking. The thing was like mud, but now he could see it was rotten human flesh.
The lump he’d kicked was slowly regaining its shape and started looking more and more like a person.
“Oracle…?”
Gernant muttered in shock.
In front of him was a corpse, rotted beyond recognition except for the familiar pink hair and small frame.
Oracle. The woman who died under a hail of stones from the crowd. Cambiata led the witch hunt, but many citizens joined in. Gernant himself was one of the people who threw stones at her.
Was this really Oracle? But—
“W-why are you doing this to me?”
Gernant asked in terror.
He knew, as a friend of Cambiata’s members, that Oracle was innocent. But it was safer to join in the attack and keep his place in society.
Everyone did it—he was not the only one.
The monster in front of him had a dent in her forehead—the wound from the stone he threw. The Oracle-shaped monster opened her mouth wide. Inside, instead of teeth, there were just black, rotten holes.
“Eek!”
Gernant twisted away in fear. Just then, he saw a faint light. When he looked up, his eyes widened.
“Lyla?”
Lyla was hanging in the air.
He couldn’t tell how, but a knight was floating in the air, holding the bishop’s hand, and the bishop was holding Lyla’s, pulling her up.
‘An Eshafe knight?’
Maybe because of the knight’s power, the crawling corpses on the ground couldn’t reach them. Realizing this, Gernant desperately crawled toward them.
“Lyla! Lyla!”
“Dad?”
He shouted her name until his throat hurt. Lyla saw him and reached out. Gernant grabbed her arm as if it were a lifeline.
“Pull me up! Hurry!”
“D-dad, behind you.”
Rotten corpses were crawling up his legs and back, reaching their arms out toward Lyla. Cold, sticky hands wrapped around her arm.
“Ugh, Dad, it hurts…!”
“Shut up and pull me up!”
“B-but the monsters are climbing up!”
“Are you trying to let me die? Even if you die, you have to save your father! Useless girl!”
Gernant screamed, face red with anger.
At that moment, Lyla couldn’t stand the feeling of her father’s hand on her wrist any longer. He felt as disgusting as the monsters crawling up.
“Aaaah!”
She screamed like she was covered in bugs and kicked Gernant in the face.
The shock made Gernant lose his grip for a second.
As Lyla freed her wrist, the bishop pulled her upward.
“You—! You wretched girl!”
Gernant rolled on the ground, clutching his face.
He felt a burst of anger, but there was no time to be mad. Sticky slime quickly wrapped around his whole body.
“Lyla! Help me! Please save me!”
“……”
“I don’t want to die like this! Please…!”
Lyla’s eyes trembled.
Yes, her daughter was always soft-hearted. She could never abandon her father—he felt hope rising.
“Lyla.”
The bishop whispered in her ear, his hand on her shoulder. Gernant saw the look in Lyla’s eyes change.
When the bishop was about to die on stage, Lyla wanted to help. But Gernant had forced her to sit down and yelled at her.
‘You idiot. Are you trying to make trouble for us? Just sit still.’
He remembered how the light in Lyla’s green eyes faded at his scolding. Now, she had that same look—giving up.
Giving up on him.
‘Lyla… gave up on me?’
Lyla touched her swollen cheek, the place her father had hit. He felt the sticky slime drip onto his forehead and screamed.
“S-sorry, Lyla! I’m sorry, it was my fault! Please, forgive me, just this once!”
He struggled and reached out to her. But Lyla, with a resigned look, pulled her hand away. Gernant’s eyes filled with despair.
“Lyla! Lyla…!”
A sticky hand covered his mouth. Gernant was dragged away in agony.
Lyla turned to the knight.
“Is all of this a nightmare the princess made?”
“Yes.”
When Lyla tried to reach for her father, the knight told her—through the bishop—that this was all the princess’s illusion.
“But why would the princess do this…?”
She didn’t know the princess’s real identity, but the “Sera” she met in Greymoss had always been kind. She couldn’t believe the princess would threaten everyone like this.
Seeing Lyla’s confusion, the bishop said,
“She reached her limit.”
“Limit…”
Lyla repeated the word and looked down.
The once-elegant theater lobby was now hell on earth. People were throwing others to the monsters to escape, trampling each other, and in the end, all were devoured together.
Looking at that, Lyla finally understood what it meant to reach one’s limit.
“When everyone ran to the princess for help… She looked used to it, but she seemed so tired.”
Lyla looked at the knight and bishop.
“I think I understand how that feels.”
Her parents had always called her gentle heart “weak.” But Lyla felt that gentleness inside her fading away.
Sometimes, when her father hit her or shouted at her, she wondered—if she lost all her softness, maybe one day she would kill him.
Thinking like that made her sad. She felt herself becoming what she hated most.
“Do you think we can come back from this?”
“Of course.”
The bishop and the knight looked into the darkness at Lyla’s question.
They both wondered—could a hero who became a disaster ever return?
