Celebrity Lady - Chapter 4

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

Celebrity Lady
Chapter 4
He patted my hand gently, as if to soothe me, and added quietly.
“I came out because I thought you’d need an explanation—wanted to see your face while I explained.”
“No, I don’t need an explanation. You’re an alien who can cast spells with a single gesture, right? So send me back to my original body right now. Please. If you need compensation, I’ll pay it.”
He fell silent for a long moment at my demand, then spoke as if dragging out words he’d rather not say, his gaze drifting away.
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“……You can no longer live as Juliet Karenina.”
The alien’s voice was cold and absolute, and somehow that finality drove home the truth—no amount of my tantrums would undo this reality.
My grip on his collar loosened, strength draining from my hands.
“I understand your confusion, but try to calm yourself first and listen to what I have to say.”
“…….”
Dazed, I stumbled toward the bed and sank onto its edge.
The alien who’d followed me stood before me in silence for a moment, then finally spoke.
“My name is Wisht. I’m a Spirit.”
“…….”
“This Dekard Empire is a nation protected by Spirits, and most of the powerful here are Spiritists who command them. Rubet belongs to the ancient Spiritist house of the Diolrus Duchy, and I was her Servant Spirit.”
I didn’t understand what he was going on about, but I listened as if reading through a fantasy novel.
There were only two pieces of information I could grasp.
This place, unlike Earth, had strange aliens who performed magic, and the alien standing before me was named Wisht.
“Spirits have various powers—in my case, I’m what you might call a Spirit of Wishes.”
“An alien that grants wishes?”
“Something like that.”
“Wait. Don’t tell me Rubet’s wish was……”
I asked, desperately hoping it wasn’t true.
“……to swap bodies with me?”
“…….”
The alien said nothing. His silence was confirmation enough.
“Damn! Are you kidding me?”
“Compose yourself.”
“How could you expect me to? Without even asking me? I wake up in some random girl’s body I’ve never met and immediately get mocked by children, and now……!”
“You’re right, you must be shocked, and I apologize. But I’m Rubet’s Servant Spirit, so I’m bound to absolute obedience to her commands.”
“That’s not my problem! I’ve lived all these years and never experienced anything so absurd. This is outrageous—you’ve stolen my life, my very existence!”
Tears threatened to spill over, and I yanked at my hair, grinding my teeth in frustration.
“Why me? How did you even find me on Earth, in this bizarre place?”
Then, a memory flickered through my mind.
“Wait……Rubet?”
That unknown fan who’d left strange comments on my SNS. Her account name had been Rubet.
I recalled seeing her last comment, something melancholic about wanting to die, and suddenly it wasn’t coincidence anymore—it was certainty.
Wisht must have seen the realization dawn on my face, because he nodded.
“Rubet asked me for a wish: to show her the life of a ‘perfect and wonderful’ human. She knew that countless worlds exist beyond this one. Disgusted with her own world, she wanted to glimpse the life of a human living in a completely different reality.”
“So you chose me to show her?”
“Yes. I thought your life matched most closely with the kind of life Rubet always longed for.”
“Haha……This is absolutely ridiculous. If I’d committed some crime that got me caught up in this, I wouldn’t even complain. But this is pure, dumb luck—or rather, complete misfortune.”
Wisht fell silent again.
This girl Rubet had spied on someone else’s life in secret, and that wasn’t enough—she’d borrowed an alien’s power to steal my body.
Rage kindled in my chest, my heart hammering against my ribs.
“Is she an idiot? She has access to an alien who grants wishes, and she envies my life? Why didn’t she just wish to be thin, or beautiful, or to punish the kids who bully her? That would’ve been easy!”
“A Spirit can only grant three wishes.”
“Wow, that’s pathetic.”
Wisht swallowed a sigh at my blunt assessment, his expression turning to something like pity.
“At least hear me out completely. To explain what’s happened, I need to tell you about Rubet first. She was……a very unfortunate child.”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
I folded my arms and spoke sarcastically.
“Could she possibly be as unfortunate as someone who’s lost everything in an instant?”
“Rubet lived for forty-five years being oppressed, and on her deathbed, she made her first wish to me.”
“I said I don’t want to hear this……”
Even as I gritted my teeth, something odd occurred to me.
“Forty-five years old? But this girl looks like a middle schooler at most?”
“At forty-five, she received a terminal diagnosis from a physician. That’s when Rubet made the wish she’d saved her entire life for—her first wish. She wanted to live again from the beginning, to give her tragic life a second chance.”
“Ah, I see. So she used the wish to rewind time like this?”
“Yes. She’s fifteen now. I sent her back thirty years, to when she first met me.”
“So she should’ve lived harder the second time around. Instead she just messed up again, didn’t she? And why didn’t she wish to be thin in the first place? Your comments on my SNS talked about how you envied my beauty and figure——”
“She wouldn’t waste one of only three wishes on becoming thin. Still, Rubet did try to lose weight on her own without the Spirit’s help, although……she did always end up eating anyway……”
His voice trailed off as he flicked a finger, and something materialized in mid-air, falling onto my lap with a soft thud.
It was a worn diary. I opened it immediately.
[Imperial Calendar Year 1519, January 1st.
A new year has dawned. From today, I’ll eat only one meal a day. I’ll definitely become thin this year. I want Cedric to ask me to dance too.]
[Imperial Calendar Year 1519, March 24th.
I ate again. But the macarons from Francois Dessert Shop are so delicious. Still, I’ll stop eating after today.]
[Imperial Calendar Year 1519, April 4th.
Why isn’t the weight coming off? I ran for thirty minutes yesterday……]
[Imperial Calendar Year 1519, May 6th.
I really must stop eating after today. If I eat tomorrow, I’m not even human anymore.]
[Imperial Calendar Year 1519, May 7th.
I’m not human.]
[Imperial Calendar Year 1519, May 31st.
I mustn’t despair. Just this month, I’ll eat, and from next month I’ll exercise hard without eating.]
[Imperial Calendar Year 1519, June 1st.
It feels like someone else is controlling my body. When I come to my senses, I’ve eaten everything. There’s so much delicious food in this world. But starting tomorrow, I’ll definitely……]
“Ugh.”
I couldn’t bear to read any further, so I hurled the diary into the corner of the bed.
“So she wishes to live magnificently a second time, even winds back time, but ends up failing because she has no willpower. Then, as a substitute, she makes a second wish to spy on someone else’s life instead?”
“Exactly right.”
“Don’t ‘exactly right’ me!”
My irritation flared, and Wisht’s gaze slipped away nervously.
I couldn’t fathom which part of this stranger’s life—a woman not only unknown to me but also weak-willed and voyeuristic—I was supposed to pity.
And worse, I was the one whose body had been stolen without her consent.
Something snapped in me. Like a madwoman, I lunged at Wisht and seized him by the collar.
“You’re saying her life was pitiful? That justifies stealing mine? You commit such a shameless act and then expect my sympathy with some sob story?”
“…….”
“You idiot! Say something! It doesn’t matter what kind of life she lived—it has nothing to do with me! She’s a thief, plain and simple!”
In that moment, Wisht’s eyes flashed dangerously. He wrenched his collar free and spoke sharply.
“Watch your tongue.”
“What.”
“As you’ve guessed. Rubet used her last remaining wish to ask me to swap bodies with you.”
Wisht’s eyes flickered with something like sorrow, and he turned it back on me accusingly.
“With your body, which had only ten minutes left to live.”
“……What?”
“Have you forgotten? The last memory you had before you opened your eyes in Rubet’s body? When you were still Juliet Karenina?”
“…….”
“Don’t you remember how your story ended?”
“What do you mean, ‘my end’? I just……”
I’d finished my schedule and come home to sleep quietly in my bed.
A sharp pain suddenly shot through my skull.
‘Oh……that’s right.’
That wasn’t where my memory ended.
‘I did wake up. Someone……my throat. My throat was being strangled……’
The memory that had been completely erased began creeping back, piece by piece.

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