Chapter 01
A Ruined Possession
“The world has ended!”
Rain poured down madly beyond the cracked window. The dark reception room was eerily silent.
Only the occasional sparks jumping from the fireplace and the rumbling of thunder and lightning broke the stillness.
Scrape, scrape.
While everyone stared at the archbishop with frightened faces, a pot-lid-sized hand covered in small scars kept moving without rest.
“So?”
A man hidden in the shadows asked without even lifting his head. His voice was languid and alluring, completely unfitting for the situation.
The archbishop, who had appeared not long ago with horses that were nearly dead, flared his wide nostrils.
“It is exactly as foretold in the ‘Book of Lavalet.’ ‘Thousands of pillars of fire shall pierce the earth, and the whole world shall be filled with ash! The enraged Lavalet shall bring sinful humanity to its end!’”
At that moment, a bluish lightning bolt struck behind the archbishop, who looked like he weighed at least 140 kilograms.
Boom! Craaash!
Thunder crashed directly into our eardrums.
Then, the young girl who had been playing with a cloth doll beside the fireplace grabbed the old man who had been trimming medicinal herbs by the waist.
Scrape, scrape, scrape.
“I-I’m scared! Grandpa Eugène!”
“Do not be so afraid, Lady Rita. Even if the world has ended, we are still alive and well, aren’t we?”
The old man smiled kindly, but my patience had already reached its limit.
I quietly closed my diary and stood up.
“Could you stop already? Prophecies and whatever—there’s a child here who’s scared.”
The archbishop glared, his tiny button-like eyes buried in his fat cheeks.
“Hah! A child? Where is there a child here? In two or three years, she’ll probably start her monthly cycle.”
What… did I just hear?
I broke out in a cold sweat trying to hold back the urge to kick him out on the spot.
Oblivious to that, the archbishop pointed at me with fingers as thick as sausages.
“Was it Marie? Even your name is one that appears in the scriptures.”
Then his lips, thick as two stacked sausages, twitched.
“You are the last woman in the world. You have the duty to conceive new life for the sake of humanity—”
“No, thanks.”
“What did you say? How dare you ignore the advice of me, Archbishop Sandro, a faithful servant of Lavalet!”
A sigh escaped me. Of all people, why did we have to let someone like him into the mansion?
I really wanted to smack my past self for thinking that anyone who survived should be helped, no matter who they were.
I should have just listened to Killian.
Meanwhile, the archbishop continued his sermon.
“You have a decent face, enough to attend me at night. Well then, how about it? Tonight, together with me, we shall draw a new chapter in the history of Lavalet—kyaaah!”
The archbishop’s shiny forehead was suddenly pierced dead center by a finely honed silver knife. With a dull thud, he collapsed.
“Ah, sorry. What did you say? I couldn’t hear you because you’re ugly.”
And then, silence again.
The girl clinging to the old man trembled and swallowed back her sobs.
The man who had been carving a bright red apple into the shape of a rabbit finally lifted his head lazily. A gray cat sat on his sturdy thigh.
“Marie, want an apple?”
He asked, smoothly curving his red eyes. His face was so carefree it was as if he had already forgotten that he had just killed someone a minute ago.
“Uh… sure. Apples are nice.”
I awkwardly accepted the rabbit-shaped apple. After handing a piece to the crying girl and the old man as well, he returned to the shadows and began peeling a peach this time.
“……”
He was so… domestic. Almost absurdly so.
But knowing the truth about him, I found this sight more chilling and alien than anything else.
The man now pretending to be gentle and simple was, in fact, the future mastermind of this story.
More precisely, he was supposed to become the mastermind.
If this world hadn’t already ended, as that holy fatty lying there had said.
No, if the author hadn’t stopped serializing.
To be exact, if I hadn’t abandoned the novel midway through writing it.
He would have devoured more than half the continent.
And yet now, that very man was in our house, wearing a frilly apron and peeling fruit.
Holding the apple Killian had given me, I stared blankly into the flames in the fireplace.
There was no need to go very far back in time.
It had only been three days ago.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Has this day finally come to me…?!”
The moment I opened my eyes and saw an unfamiliar ceiling, I covered my mouth and stomped my feet.
Ten years as a devoted romance fantasy reader. Had my chance finally arrived?
I got out of the wide bed, which looked like two king-sized beds pushed together, and stood in front of the mirror. After checking my face, I clenched my fists and cried out in excitement.
“What do I do? I’m so pretty!”
Long, fluffy waves of baby-pink hair like cotton candy, a small, pale face. Golden eyes beneath light-pink eyelashes.
How could someone be this pretty?
And from today onward, that someone was me?
“This can’t be real. It’s like a dream…”
My heart raced with excitement and anticipation. From today on, would I finally get to enjoy the romance I’d only ever read about in novels?
After admiring my beauty for a while, I suddenly looked around. The wide, luxurious bed I had been lying on, the table beside it, and…
“Huh?”
My eyes were drawn to a dark reddish-brown hardcover notebook lying diagonally on the table.
For some reason, it felt like something I shouldn’t touch. Maybe it was the diary of the body’s original owner.
I suddenly felt ashamed of myself for rejoicing so carelessly in this new world.
I didn’t even know what kind of situation this body had been in. I didn’t know what kind of world I had woken up in.
“Please don’t let it be some grimdark tragedy…”
It was better to understand the situation properly.
Feeling strangely uneasy, I picked up the diary and sat back on the bed. Then I opened the first page.
To you, who have probably taken over my body by now.
Tap.
The moment I read the first sentence, I slammed the diary shut.
What…? What is this…? This isn’t a diary at all.
Something felt terribly wrong. Was I dreaming?
Nervously, I looked around the room. Curtains covered every window. There were an unusual number of lamps and bright lights.
“No, no. There’s nothing strange about this.”
Swallowing hard, I opened the diary again.
To you, who have probably taken over my body by now.
Hello. Nice to meet you.
…I would dearly love to greet you properly like this, but you must be terribly confused right now.
I will get straight to the point.
I am sorry.
First, I must apologize to you.
“Gasp.”
Instinctively, I threw the diary away. Goosebumps ran all over my body.
How did the owner of this notebook know that I had entered her body?
Did I end up in some kind of horror game world? But judging by the atmosphere of the room, it was clearly a romance fantasy.
For some reason, the diary lying on the floor felt terrifying. But to understand what was going on, I needed to calmly read it again.
Reluctantly, I picked it up.
…You must find this situation hard to believe. I myself did not know such a thing was possible.
But the fact that you are reading this means that you and I, from beyond dimensions, have successfully exchanged our bodies.
You must be frightened and confused. You may be thinking, “What kind of nonsense is this?”
You might even want to believe that this is all just a dream.
But it is not. This is the result of my father’s experiment, Count Mathieu Arthur.
My father was the Second Mage of the Imperial Court. He was also an incredible eccentric and a remarkable prophet.
And he firmly believed that this world would collapse before long…
“…No, wait, what?”
My face twisted into a frown. So she brought me into a world that was about to be destroyed?
I couldn’t easily believe what was written in the notebook.
Maybe the original owner of this body had been mentally unstable…
But then why was it so quiet outside?
Judging by the size of this room, the mansion itself must be enormous.
Yet I hadn’t heard a single footstep from maids or anyone else.
“Don’t tell me…”
If this place was something like a mental hospital, that would be a problem.
I rushed to the window and pulled back the curtains.
What spread out before my eyes was—
A hellish world, no different from a wasteland of ashes, as if a massive fire had swept through everything.
