My Illusion Is Survival - Chapter 10

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 10

Now that I think about it, Azel is actually ridiculously handsome.

The kind of face that would make ten out of ten people turn around to look. Honestly, this was the first time in my life I’d seen someone this good-looking.

That’s why I didn’t know.

The fact that I was this weak to handsome men.

‘This is overwhelming.’

I hadn’t noticed before because he always had an irritated expression.

A handsome man looking at me with such an intense gaze, without any disgust or annoyance, was more dangerous than I’d thought.

“…Azel?”

I called his name, meaning for him to stop staring now, but his gaze still wouldn’t leave me.

And right then, an unexpected question came flying at me.

“You’re nervous.”

“What?”

“You know you’re really strange, right?”

What, is he picking a fight?

It was something I’d heard often, but it felt out of nowhere to hear it now.

‘If we’re talking about strange, you’re not exactly normal either, you know?’

I wanted to retort, but I was already intimidated by his incredible handsome aura. The timid part of me was infinitely weak.

“You approach me without hesitation, but then freeze up with nervousness the moment our eyes actually meet.”

“…!”

“Look at you now. You’re completely flustered like this.”

His quietly whispered words sounded somehow very dangerous.

“At first I thought it was because you were scared of me. But it’s different. People who fear me don’t make faces like this.”

“…Ah…”

‘That’s because you’re too handsome…?’

It seemed Azel had already noticed my condition.

But somehow, he seemed to be misunderstanding it in a slightly different direction.

“That’s not it,”

At that moment, Azel’s face suddenly came closer.

It was even closer than when I had rushed to sit beside him earlier to tease him. At about half a span’s distance, his bright red lips moved.

If this were a drama, it would be the kind of scene where you’d scream ‘Ahhh! Kiss scene incoming!!!’

“Why, why are you doing this all of a sudden?”

“I’m curious.”

“About what?”

“What kind of relationship did we have?”

His pleasant low voice dropped even lower.

Now I was getting goosebumps all over for a different reason. I hadn’t consciously realized it, but his voice was completely my type.

“Why do you go so far for me? Why do you look at me with those eyes.”

“Wait, wait! Time out! Just back away for a moment,”

What kind of eyes!

I wanted to protest, but the sudden face attack had left my mind completely confused.

I tried to step back, thinking I had to escape somehow, but a firm arm had already wrapped around my waist.

When I looked up in panic, red eyes stared directly at me as if binding me.

“What was I to you?”

What should I say? I couldn’t think of anything.

My reflection in Azel’s pupils looked endlessly dazed.

But I couldn’t help it.

We were close enough that my face was reflected in his pupils. There was no way I couldn’t be nervous.

“And what were you to me.”

Somehow it felt like my heart was going to burst.

“Th-that is, so, w-we were,”

I was just stuttering like an idiot, but nothing came to mind. At this rate, Azel might notice something was strange.

‘Please get it together!’

I felt like my head was going to explode from worry about making some slip of the tongue, but my mouth kept opening on its own.

“Actually…!”

Just as the words were rising to the tip of my tongue.

My mouth was about to betray its owner’s will,

‘…?’

My wavering eyes caught sight of something whitish beside Azel’s face.

‘What is that?’

Even my barely hanging on rationality had to question it – the thing before my eyes was something extremely out of place.

Looking closer, it was the shape of a person.

But semi-transparent.

Something with a very interested expression was watching me and Azel.

And from mid-air, no less.

“…!!!”

Thanks to that, it became clear.

That was a ghost.

Along with the realization, a sudden heart attack struck me.

“What’s wrong?”

Around then, Azel, sensing something was strange, asked a question, but his voice no longer reached my ears.

“Hey?”

With the ghost’s sudden appearance, I was already losing my mind.

“Hey! Get it together!”

Azel shouted something at me as I collapsed weakly, but I couldn’t hear it properly.

Right.

Sorry, but I was weak to the occult.

*

Azel supported the suddenly collapsing woman and held her firmly.

“Hey! Hey, get it together!”

There weren’t many words he could use to address the nameless woman.

So he had to call her by the word the woman disliked, but the unconscious woman said nothing.

‘Why suddenly? How come!’

He tried several times to wake the woman, but she just wouldn’t regain consciousness.

The woman had clearly been about to answer something.

It was the first time the woman, who usually just smiled quietly at all of Azel’s questions, had opened her mouth to speak about herself.

But then she suddenly clutched her heart and collapsed unconscious. It was definitely not a normal situation.

“Could it be…”

All those times she had subtly deflected questions.

‘What if it wasn’t that she didn’t want to answer, but that she couldn’t answer?’

A lightning-like realization awakened Azel’s mind, which had been dazed with confusion.

A woman who knew well about his identity and the regression stone.

Yet an existence that Azel couldn’t remember at all.

Plus the fact that she never said anything about herself.

Ominous thoughts swirled chaotically through my mind. Then finally, the fragmented clues led to a single conclusion.

‘…Black magic.’

“So this was it.”

At first, when the woman realized that Azel had forgotten his own existence, those words she uttered.

“…All black magic requires a price.”

What if Azel’s memories were that price?

And what if this current state,

…was the backlash returning because he tried to speak about the prohibition?

This would explain everything about the woman’s mysterious identity and attitude.

“No, no. That can’t be right.”

He tried desperately to deny it, but clear suspicion was already sprouting within Azel.

*

My whole body felt as heavy as cotton soaked in water.

‘Did I… faint…’

When I lifted my eyelids, the now-familiar ceiling greeted me.

I forced my heavy body up to sit, and the empty room came into view.

This was the room I’d been staying in lately.

‘In the midst of all that, he still thoughtfully moved me to my room, this good kid.’

I was grateful, but it would have been better if someone had stayed by my side. The existence of a ghost I’d never seen before was that shocking.

‘Damn it.’

Just thinking about the moment our eyes met made my hands tremble even now.

The ghost’s expression was still vivid in my mind.

It had been covering its mouth with both hands while making an excited expression.

“Creepy.”

That expression like a romance drama enthusiast was scary even thinking about it again…

‘-Wait, it’s not scary. Come to think of it, why was it making that kind of expression?’

Now that I think about it, it was somehow an unpleasant face.

‘Damn. The excessive mental stress is making me experience all sorts of things.’

I was repeating sighs that weren’t really sighs to hide my fear, when I heard a voice calling me from somewhere.

[Are you okay?]

The problem was that I reflexively looked up.

I immediately made eye contact with it.

“?”

[I asked if you’re okay.]

“???”

[…No, I’m asking if you’re okay. Can’t you hear me?]

By the time I came to my senses, I was already throwing a punch.

It was the ghost I’d seen earlier.

“Aaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!”

Thwack!

[Guh!]

The ghost got hit by my punch and fell backward, but that wasn’t important to me.

Having screamed with all my might, I was already out of my mind.

“Gh, gh, gh, ghost!”

[Guh! Ugh, hnngh! Can’t, can’t breathe!]

The thing clutching its solar plexus and rolling on the floor looked genuinely in pain, but I was already in a state of panic.

There was no way I could notice such things.

I could only think about getting out of this place.

“A, Azel!”

In the midst of this, a baseless belief surged that Azel would save me from this crisis.

“Azel!”

My body that had gotten up in a hurry ultimately couldn’t overcome the speed and fell to the floor.

Crash!

My whole body hit the floor, but I couldn’t even feel the pain. I just wanted to escape from this haunted room right away.

“Azel…!”

My half-sobbing voice was already no different from a scream.

“Azel! Aze-el!”

Like someone who only knew that one word, I frantically shouted only Azel’s name.

Then finally, the tightly closed door opened.

“You!”

“Azel!”

Outside the door stood Azel, who looked considerably shocked for some reason.

Whatever, please just save me.

I simply reached out desperately toward my savior.

Azel’s trembling gaze met my outstretched fingertips, but I never understood the meaning of it.

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