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“-You’re saying the person who stole Tiana’s body is the young lady of Marquis Iven?”
“Yes.”
“How could that young lady have done something like that…?”
If she was the young lady of Marquis Iven, she would definitely be the marquis’s eldest daughter and the one named as his heir. Lucious remembered seeing her with the marquis at palace parties he’d occasionally attended.
She had striking, deep scarlet hair like the marquis and sharp eyes. Other than that, she seemed as ordinary as other noble daughters.
‘Surely the Marquis Iven’s daughter isn’t a mage… I’ve never heard anything about that.’
Even if she’d been hiding the fact she was a mage, there was no way a spell to steal someone’s body could exist. And even if such magic did exist, only a high-ranking mage with tremendous power could cast something that close to impossible.
‘In this empire, aside from you, only the mages of the palace’s magic tower can use that kind of high-level magic. And high-ranking palace mages are rare.’
There were only ten high-ranking palace mages. Each had reached their level after years—sometimes decades—of grueling training. Unless she were a genuine prodigy, a noble daughter of that age couldn’t surpass those mages. Moreover, if the young lady actually possessed such power, the Iven household would never remain quiet about it. If such a talented person emerged in the marquis’s family, they’d boast about it rather than hide it. So the theory that the Iven young lady was a mage didn’t hold much weight.
‘Then how on earth did she steal Tiana’s body?’
If not magic, what other explanation could there be? What kind of power allowed the Iven young lady to do something like that? Lucious’s thoughts spun without stopping for a moment. He ran through every possibility but couldn’t land on anything convincing.
His head throbbed from the endless worry. He pressed his left fingertips lightly to his temple, narrowing his brow against the sharp pain. He’d already had a headache several times today from hearing so many shocking facts, and the ache wouldn’t subside easily.
Seeing Lucious’s expression remain tense, Rayel flicked his hand toward Lucious’s teacup.
“You look like your head hurts. Calm it down with some tea. It’s not something you’ll figure out no matter how hard you think.”
A sprinkle of luminous dust moved from Rayel’s fingertips to the teacup, lingered for a moment, then vanished. Fresh hot tea filled the half-empty cup, steam rising gently.
“…Yes, understood.”
Lucious released his hand from his temple and took the cup, inhaling the aroma of marigold tea Rayel had poured. He had been thirsty, so he accepted Rayel’s kindness, took a breath to savor the marigold scent, and sipped. The warm tea slid down his throat, and his stiff body loosened; the headache eased a little.
Seeing Lucious relax a touch, Rayel spoke.
“Honestly, there’s no use worrying. Just hear it and accept the truth as quickly as you can.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s something that’s impossible to explain sensibly. Even the explanations wouldn’t make sense.”
“Is she… that strange of a person? The Iven young lady?”
“Strange, huh. To put it simply, yes. What she’s done until now is definitely ‘strange.’”
“‘Until now’?”
Lucious felt a chill from Rayel’s offhand phrase. “Until now”? So besides stealing Tiana’s body and pretending to be her, she had done other things? Lucious turned to Rayel, suspicion in his eyes.
Rayel smiled softly at Lucious’s expectant look. Lucious frowned and asked directly.
“Has that young lady done other things as well?”
“Yes, you could say that.”
“What sort of things? You know about them too? Did she do something to you as well, besides Tiana?”
“She did things to me… and to everyone in this world, I suppose.”
“What do you mean…?”
Once again, Rayel’s words were baffling. How should Lucious interpret that? He was on the brink of another spiral of questions, but Rayel’s calm, grave gaze stopped him.
Lucious recalled what Rayel had said earlier: ‘Just listen and accept the truth as quickly as you can.’ The look in Rayel’s eyes meant he wouldn’t explain in detail no matter how many questions Lucious asked. It was a silent pressure: accept it for now. Lucious wanted to pry at the hidden meaning, but his head threatened to explode if he kept digging—so in some ways, he was relieved. Still, he sighed at the frustration.
Deciding he probably couldn’t get any more details today, Lucious made himself comfortable and asked,
“So what should I do from now on?”
“……”
“Brother?”
Rayel was surprisingly slow to respond, perhaps because Lucious had accepted the situation so readily. He had assumed Lucious would be stubborn, but Lucious had already shifted to practical thinking. Seeing his younger brother focus on the immediate problem made Rayel quietly pleased. He smiled faintly and began to speak.
“There’s not much you need to do right away. But that woman will likely start to move soon, so be careful. Especially, make sure the Duchess’s safety is well guarded.”
“Could the Iven young lady do something more to Tiana?”
“Yes. She won’t just barge in blindly or act overtly yet, but she’s the sort who has plans. She may have already set something in motion.”
“Is she really that thorough?”
“Don’t think of her as merely an ordinary noble daughter. She’s the most alien presence in this world.”
To Rayel, the Iven young lady was almost a transcendent being. But he didn’t want to give that label a positive connotation. To him and to their world, she was an obstacle blocking the way forward.
“I don’t fully understand, but I know you’re hostile toward the Iven young lady. I do have one question.”
“What is it?”
“I understand that she stole Tiana’s body and impersonated her for two years, and that caused harm not only to Tiana but to me as well. But that’s a matter between me, Tiana, and her, isn’t it?”
“That’s right.”
“Then why are you so worked up about it?”
“……”
Rayel’s eyebrows twitched as he listened silently to Lucious. His expression changed subtly, and Lucious hurried on.
“I know you worry about Tiana and me, and since you learned the truth first, I understand why you’d dislike the Iven young lady who did such a thing. But the hatred I sense from you toward her… it doesn’t feel like it’s only for that reason.”
“……”
“Did that young lady do something bad to you as well?”
At Lucious’s question, Rayel closed his eyes for a moment before answering. He felt Lucious’s gaze but ignored it; calming the surge of rage the memory brought was his priority.
‘Can I call it simply a “bad thing”?’ he thought. It wasn’t something that could be summed up with that ordinary phrase. It was cruel and brutal beyond what “bad” could capture.
Originally, Rayel would have met the companion of his life, spent the rest of his days happily—and that was the image he had of his end. But everything had been ruined by one person. Because of one alien person who didn’t belong in this world, he had even learned secrets he never wanted to know.
‘How could I accept that the world I lived in was actually a world created inside a novel from another world?’
But he had no choice but to believe it. Once he learned everything and accepted it, he could not go back.
‘If not for that person’s help, I wouldn’t have gotten this far.’
The one who had revealed all the truth to him and made him realize he was one of the protagonists of this world—the figure who claimed to have created the world—was the one sitting placidly by his feet: Rose. Appearing under the guise of a cat but in truth a strange being with an unknowable nature.
When Rayel had lost everything, this being had suddenly appeared and spoken to him.
‘This world is not the end I set.’
‘An out-of-spec character acted outside my control and ruined this world. We must restore it—for the fate of this world and its true ending.’
‘Only you can help me with that. For the sake of your original happy life, please help me, Rayel.’
The words that had been conveyed into his mind were difficult for Rayel at the time to fully grasp. He was confused and not entirely calm—similar to how Lucious had looked, or even more disoriented. Still, he took Rose’s hand because, after hearing the whole truth, one decision filled his mind.
‘So in short, you’re saying my world collapsed because of some woman, and I lost my people and my place because of her?’
‘Yes. An out-of-spec character behaved as she pleased, changing your fates. As a result, your world and its ending were ruined.’
‘Explain the complicated stuff later. The important thing is that everything was destroyed because of that out-of-spec woman. Then I have only one job.’
Whether this world was a novel or he was a created character didn’t matter. What mattered was that a person had ruined the life he’d been living and the world he belonged to.
‘You said “restore it,” huh? Fine. I’ll cooperate gladly—if that’s the way to save my world and take revenge on that person.’
‘Of course. If you help actively, you’ll get satisfying results.’
That was how he took the hand of the being wearing a cat’s mask.
