A World Where You All Are The Villains - Chapter 126

—————

This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com

—————

126.

“What in the world….”
“….”
“How did this even happen?”
I stared blankly at the screen, my expression hollow, muttering to myself.
“This isn’t inside a novel, is it?”
I had considered the possibility that this might be some form of dimensional transfer.
But this was truly….
Beyond imagination.
I possessed a villain in a novel, yet the novel’s heroine possessed my real body?
What kind of absurd mess was this?
“A novel? Ah….”
Sephiroth, who had heard my muttering, responded.
“It seems you must have seen the Book of Prophecy.”
“The Book of Prophecy?”
“A dragon’s treasure that Ruellin stole from me. When you make a wish upon it, it reveals in detail the method to fulfill that wish….”
I was dumbfounded.
‘So it really wasn’t a novel possession?’
Then what was all that plot I’d stayed up all night reading?
Edith Blake’s death?
A stepping stone for Ruellin’s success?
And the ending was dimensional transfer?
This is infuriating…!
“The wish Ruellin made was to take over my body?”
“No.”
Sephiroth shook his head firmly.
“The wish she made was ultimately my wish.”
“Your wish?”
“Yes. To enter the Imperial Palace and retrieve a certain artifact….”
She trailed off and turned to face me with a bitter smile.
“I’m in exactly the same predicament as you. Ruellin backstabbed me, and I’m left bewildered.”
“Who exactly is Ruellin anyway? What’s your connection to her? Are you two siblings or something?”
“Something like that. To put it simply, Ruellin is my alter ego—created by splitting my soul in half and pouring it into her.”
I had no desire to know why she had done such a thing.
What mattered was that my real body hadn’t died, and now someone else was occupying it.
That was when it happened.

“Hey, Yu Sol!”

The scene on the screen suddenly shifted.
Having finished my meal, I was emerging from that damned hovel of a house.
No—it was Ruellin, inhabiting Yu Sol’s body, and Yu Ji-han following behind her, calling out to her, whose faces were reflected on screen.

“You’re… really okay, aren’t you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it hasn’t been long since you were rescued from the Gate, and I was worried you might be pushing yourself too hard….”

Yu Ji-han narrowed his eyes and scrutinized me thoroughly.
A cunning glint in his gaze, as if probing for something.
With that face so disturbingly familiar to me, he whispered with calculated softness.

“You… still don’t remember anything from back then?”
“No. I told you—I have amnesia.”
“Ah, right.”
“I’m not sure what things were like between us before, but having died and come back to life, I’ve come to understand something.”
“What’s that?”
“That having family is truly precious.”
“….”
“So I want to live well from now on. You feel the same way, don’t you, brother?”

Ruellin—no, Yu Sol—answered him with a tender smile.
That alone was enough to drive me mad with fury, but then Yu Ji-han let out a sinister laugh and spouted something even more insane.

“Well… I mean, you’re offering to let me participate in clinical trials… but if that really works, the black fog will be completely purified and we won’t have to worry about runaway corruption anymore, right?”
“It’s not at the completion stage yet, but it should still be more effective than before.”
“Is that so? Man, family really is something special. I’ll forget everything that happened before, so let’s get along well from now on. As a gesture of that, how about we shake hands, Dr. Yu?”
“Sure, brother Ji-han.”

The two people in the video held hands face-to-face, smiling warmly at each other.
The moment I saw it, my mind went blank and I began to tremble uncontrollably.
“That insane woman―!”
Who in the world was she getting friendly with?
Yu Ji-han—what kind of man was he?
Throughout our school years, he’d beaten me down, made my life miserable, and ultimately left me to be sucked into a Gate while he escaped alone—the worst bastard under heaven!
And what was he doing with her?
A clinical trial?!
To someone I wouldn’t purify even if it meant my own death…!
Trembling violently, I couldn’t hold back and lunged toward the screen.
“What are you doing with my body, you damn―!”
“W-wait, it’s dangerous!”
If Sephiroth hadn’t rushed to stop me, I would have plummeted straight down into the writhing mass of scorpion monsters below.
But I was so consumed with rage that I couldn’t even process such a thought.
I spun around to face Sephiroth and screamed desperately.
“Tell me. Right now—how do I get back? Can I just jump through that Gate? Will that let me return to my body?!”
“No! If you attempt dimensional travel recklessly, you won’t return to your body at all. Instead, your form will become grotesquely mixed with other life forms, just like the monsters that appear in your Gates!”
At those words, I finally froze.
Ah.
So that’s why the creatures in my world had such indescribably grotesque forms, unlike the relatively intact monsters here….
The unexpected realization was brief.
“Then what do I do? Just watch that insane woman do something completely unreasonable? I’d rather die than let that happen!”
“For you to return, you must first call Ruellin back to this side. That way, your body becomes an empty shell. Then you need to find the Book of Prophecy and make a wish.”
“Where is it?”
“It’s wandering through different dimensions. Because you took it with you when you got sucked into the Gate….”
Sephiroth looked at me regretfully and clicked his tongue.
What she said was true.
When I received word from the Military and headed to the black fog resurgence zone with Yu Ji-han.
I had that damned novel with me—【How to Save an Abandoned World】.
There were several reasons: first, it was an item discovered inside the Gate, so I thought there might be a connection; and second….
I hadn’t finished reading it.
I’d planned to read it during the car ride, but damn it all.
If I’d known it would come to this, I should have left it safely at the Research Institute….
‘No. If she had it, who knows what other wish that insane woman might have made.’
Even in this maddening situation, I had to desperately cling to hope, and it was pathetic.
But there was no choice.
As long as there existed a possibility of returning to my original body, whether it was the Book of Prophecy or whatever else.
I would find it and undo everything.
Having barely regained my composure, I asked in a calmer voice.
“…You said dimensional travel can cause your body to mix with other life forms. So how was she able to travel so cleanly?”
“That child is a fragment of my soul that separated from me, so even without a vessel, she won’t simply cease to exist. Since there’s no body to merge with, dimensional travel is entirely possible.”
“Then how do we summon her back to this side?”
“That’s the crux of it.”
Sephiroth turned her head and met my gaze.
Her face, identical to Ruellin’s, was utterly repulsive and unsettling.
“I suspect you understand this better than I do.”
“You call her a fragment of yourself, yet you expect me to know how to retrieve her?”
“Because that child’s desire was….”
“….”
“To become someone beloved by all—a heroine of the world itself.”
“….”
“With such overflowing magical power, all she could manage was to blind people’s eyes and entrance their minds.”
Sephiroth let out a faint laugh, offering a hint of how Ruellin had become a Purifier beloved by so many.
Ah.
Somehow, I felt I understood what needed to be done.
Whoosh!
In an instant, the light pouring from the crystal sphere extinguished.
Along with it, that repugnant visage reflected above the Gate vanished like a television switching off.
“Soon I’ll drop a dragon’s crystal into that dimension so that child can see this side as well.”
Sephiroth swayed the crystal sphere she held, speaking softly.
“I hope it reaches Ruellin safely.”
“….”
“Until both you and I achieve our desired purposes….”
Boom―!
That was when it happened.
Without warning, a dull impact sounded, and Sephiroth, who had been standing before me speaking clearly, vanished.
As if struck by a vehicle hurtling at full speed, she flew backward and crashed into the rocky outcropping looming in the distance.
Crash―!
A deafening boom accompanied by thick smoke billowed upward.
In that instant, her figure disappeared from my sight.
Because everything unfolded so instantaneously, I could only stand there with my mouth agape, my mind blank.
But that lasted only a moment.
“Wh, wh…!”
Suddenly, the ground beneath my feet gave way.
At the same moment, my body, suspended high in the air, plummeted downward.
As a vertiginous sensation seized me, I began to fall helplessly into the abyss.
“Aaaaagh!”
Just as I screamed in panic with my eyes clenched shut.
Thud―!
Something solid wrapped around my body, catching me securely.
The moment my eyes reflexively opened.
“How have you been, Princess? A support request came in.”
“….”
“What do you think? Do I look like a prince on a white horse now?”
With the backlighting behind him, my gaze met the Black-haired Man’s, who was laughing heartily.

—————

This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com

—————