My Possession Became a Ghost Story - Chapter 96
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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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“You’ll regret it.”
I gave sincere advice. He might not realize it now in his prime, but later when he graduates from his chuunibyou phase, he’ll be kicking his blankets every night until there are no intact blankets left.
“How thoughtful of you to even give me advice.”
Azazel sneered, not knowing I was worried about him. Yeah… during that phase, even if someone tries to stop you, it goes in one ear and out the other. His vertically slit yellow eyes blinked boldly.
“So you’ll play with me, right?”
Azazel swung his sword. I couldn’t respond quickly and just stared blankly when someone strongly pulled my shoulder, barely helping me dodge the sword. Perhaps due to shock, I realized what was happening to me a beat late. Ah, it was Jelly who saved me.
“Lady Evangeline!”
Pudding’s shrill shout sounded muffled as if submerged in water.
“That crazy bastard dares to swing a blade at someone…”
Jelly protected me and stepped back while Pudding rushed at Azazel.
“Plauros. Could you not interfere between us two?”
“It’s disgusting, so please don’t lump Lady Evangeline together with the likes of you.”
“The likes of me? Acting arrogant when you can’t even beat me.”
So he calls Pudding Plauros. Is that Pudding’s real name? I felt uniquely irrational for calmly searching for Pudding’s real name in this situation.
It was the same just now. Even when Azazel swung his sword at me, I strangely wasn’t scared. I was confused enough to wonder if I’d left my amygdala that makes me feel fear at home when I possessed this body.
Maybe it was because it didn’t feel real. This was just inside a novel after all, and Evangeline was nothing but fiction. Even while eating, sleeping, and living daily life, I often had such thoughts, so just because a chuunibyou villain pointed a sword at me didn’t mean I’d suddenly feel a life crisis and become alert. Yeah, that’s why.
Perhaps because of that, even watching the fight between Pudding and Azazel unfolding before my eyes, I could only think it looked like an action game. I was having such peaceful thoughts like ‘our Pudding is a mage but fights well in close combat even against a warrior’ when it happened.
“Ugh…!”
Suddenly Pudding staggered. Blood dripped from Pudding’s tightly shut eyes. He had shed bloody tears when overexerting himself in the prison earlier too, so his body didn’t seem fully recovered yet.
Azazel showed no mercy and tried to continue attacking Pudding who had lost his sight. The tip of the sword aimed at Pudding was red. This could turn serious, I thought, and before that thought could finish, my body moved on its own. I got between them with my back to Pudding and caught Azazel’s swinging blade with my hand. It was truly an impulsive act I committed without knowing it myself.
“…It hurts.”
It hurt like hell. Because it hurt, I suddenly came to my senses. So this is why people pinch their cheeks to check if it’s a dream or reality…! Come to think of it, I could have asked Jelly to save me, so I deeply regretted why someone as weak-hearted as me stepped in front of a blade.
Blood dripped onto the floor. Azazel’s eyes were shaking as if hit by an earthquake, seeming very flustered himself. You could replace the ‘why are you coming out from there’ meme with the expression Azazel was making now.
“Your blood is red too.”
Yet he maintained his concept even in his lines, which was impressive. Then what, would my blood be blue? I couldn’t tell anymore whether Azazel was spouting chuunibyou-like lines, or chuunibyou was spouting Azazel-like lines. Wrong, Azazel had just become chuunibyou itself.
When I let go of the sword I was holding, Azazel stepped back.
“Blood…”
Pudding seemed shocked that I got hurt saving him. With burst blood vessels and bloody tears flowing, his eyes flashed as if he’d rush forward and bite someone’s throat off any moment. Pudding, having lost his reason, staggered forward.
As Pudding approached Azazel, the atmosphere changed and the surroundings darkened. I looked up thinking clouds had covered the moon, only to meet eyes with a giant eye. Even after rubbing my eyes and looking again, thinking I’d seen wrong, the giant orb floating in the air didn’t disappear. The bloodshot pupil stared intently at Azazel.
Was I still half asleep? No, my cut hand hurt too much for that. I wondered if I was seeing things from blood loss, but Jelly also seemed to see the eye as he exclaimed softly.
“Wow. Pudding is really angry…”
Pudding? Ah. Pudding must have cast illusion magic. He lost his reason so his targeting got messed up, dragging us into it too.
Giant wings spread from Pudding’s back. If the wings had been made of white feathers, I would have gushed about our cat being an angel, but since what tore through flesh were made of flesh pieces and countless eyeballs embedded in the meat, I could barely hold back my nausea. If it was a device to exploit Azazel’s weakness by targeting trypophobia, it was perfectly successful.
But why wings of all things? Does our Pudding have an interest in fallen angels or something? Chuunibyou seemed to be contagious after all. Contagious chuunibyou is a complete social menace.
If the eyeballs set the mood, the real thing started now. Flames rose from Azazel. Since they didn’t spread around or produce smoke, that too was an illusion. However, Azazel couldn’t distinguish properly and groaned in pain, thinking his body was really burning up.
“Hot, it hurts, it hurts.”
Azazel rolled on the ground. The fire was so hot that Azazel’s flesh melted and his form became distorted.
“How dare you hurt someone, you must pay the price.”
Pudding, who had been watching quietly, seemed unsatisfied and crushed Azazel’s hand.
Awakening due to a comrade’s injury is also a cliché, but Pudding was extreme. It’s fortunate this is inside a novel, otherwise he’d be arrested for excessive response.
“That nasty cat bastard.”
It wasn’t just me who felt that way, as Jelly also looked disgusted. Our Pudding… so he’d been acting coy with me all this time, but actually has a bad personality. Jelly clicked his tongue and turned my head toward him.
“If you watch too much, that guy will hate it, you know? He’s already trying to show only his well-packaged side, but now he seems to have lost his reason. And you should only see good things, Master.”
He was being playful and smiling brightly, seeming to appeal that his face was the good thing to look at. Well, continuing to watch would probably be bad for my mental health too. I decided to ignore Azazel’s screams.
“Is your hand badly hurt?”
“No. It’s fine.”
For blocking a blade with my bare hand, the wound wasn’t that serious. It was bleeding, but it was just like a big paper cut. Azazel must have pulled back his strength when he saw me intervene.
Still, a cut is a cut. This was the second time I’d been hurt since possessing this body. When I got pricked by a wooden floor splinter while drawing a summoning circle before, it hurt enough to bring tears to my eyes, but it couldn’t compare to catching a blade with my bare hand.
“I didn’t expect you to intervene like that, Master.”
I didn’t know that either.
Jelly examined my hand. Perhaps due to the illusion’s influence, grass rotted where my blood had dripped on the ground. I hastily wrapped a handkerchief around it to stop the bleeding. After Jelly tied the handkerchief, Azazel’s screams finally stopped.
The illusion disappeared, so there was no giant eyeball and no wings visible. He must have used his body during that time, as the back of Pudding’s clothes was torn. It’s precisely the same position where the wings had protruded.
Azazel was panting on the ground in tatters.
Pudding wasn’t satisfied even after completely shattering Azazel’s mental state. Looking at Azazel with bloodshot eyes, he seemed to want to chop Azazel into sand-like pieces too. But Azazel’s mental strength seemed already broken…
“Azazel.”
“I hurt you. What should I do? I’m excited and overwhelmed, but I feel like I’ve committed such a grave wrong that my heart is trembling. Why? I feel so sorry and apologetic that I want to cut off my neck and offer it to you. What have you done to me?”
Cast illusion magic, you fool. Azazel was confused, clutching his head.
“Did you reflect on hurting me?”
I reached out and stroked his cheek to tell him to come to his senses. I couldn’t slap someone who’d gone insane from excessive mental damage.
“I’m afraid. I feel so ugly for having harmed you that I’m afraid.”
He seemed traumatized and couldn’t escape his guilt.
Azazel found my hand disgusting and recoiled, yet instead of shaking it off, he buried his face in my hand. Why, why is he like this…? When I pulled my hand away in surprise, Pudding immediately kicked Azazel in the stomach as if he’d been waiting. Violence against someone who doesn’t resist is perfect venting… I’m sorry our cat is so jealous.
I didn’t feel guilty since Azazel brought it on himself. Even before attacking us, his sword had blood on it from cutting someone else.
Wait. He didn’t kill someone, did he?
“Azazel. Whose blood was on your sword?”
Pudding trampled Azazel’s head as if telling him to answer. Our Pudding, since he can’t chop him into sand, he’s planning to bury him in sand.
“Jeremiah.”
“Jeremiah?”
Not Tenebray but Jeremiah? Why would Jeremiah be in the forest I entered chasing Tenebray? When I asked back, Azazel corrected himself.
“No. Was it Tenebray?”
Azazel giggled while buried in sand.
“Did you kill them?”
“If they’re lucky, they might still be alive.”
Saying they might be alive if lucky means he inflicted serious wounds.
Whether it was Tenebray or Jeremiah wasn’t important. Whichever it was, the problem for me was that both were Gabriel’s nephews. I followed Tenebray because I was worried Gabriel might commit fratricide, blinded by the desire to clear me of charges.
I haven’t told Gabriel about the secret of his birth yet. I should have told him during our last visit if I knew this would happen. It was a disaster from momentarily forgetting the novel’s law that you shouldn’t postpone important conversations. Though I admit I also wanted to secretly take the Princess to help investigate the truth of the case.
“I should go see the Princess.”
I got up and gathered my energy.
“I’ll play a little more before going.”
Pudding’s anger didn’t seem fully cooled. Azazel wasn’t just a fashion chuunibyou but a real madman who swung swords, so there would be many actual victims. Since Pudding and I, his owner, were among those victims, I understood why he was so angry. Plus Jelly said they were archenemies. For such a person to be a Holy Knight, the world is ending.
“I’ll go ahead, so have a thorough conversation and come back.”
“Yes. I’ll definitely return to Lady Evangeline.”
Pudding smiled brightly then looked at my injured hand and sadly furrowed his brows. Pudding took my wounded hand and rubbed his cheek against it like he was being cute. If his face were clean I would have pushed him away saying he’d get blood on it, but since he was equally covered in blood, I let him be. Pudding’s cuteness was destructive even with blood on his face.
“And Lady Evangeline. You don’t need to get hurt trying to save something like me.”
Pudding licked my wound like a cat would. Is that disinfection?
“But then you would have been hurt.”
Others might be different, but how could I just stand by when our house cat was about to get hit by a sword? But Pudding objected to my words.
“Just let me get hurt. It’s better for me to die than for Lady Evangeline to be wounded. Even that fishy-smelling snake lost his mind from the fact that he hurt Lady Evangeline, so how much more would I?”
Jelly nodded vigorously in agreement.
“To hurt Master, die and apologize, Pudding.”
Pudding ignored Jelly’s words.
Pudding’s words reminded me of Gabriel. Did Gabriel feel the same way? Did he hate seeing me hurt more than dying, so he took the glass in my place? The kindness I’d only found awkward suddenly struck me anew. Pudding noticed I was thinking of someone else and tapped my hand to get my attention.
“Remember. I exist for you.”
With those words, Pudding issued an eviction order. Usually it’s Jelly’s role to get kicked out by Pudding, but experiencing it myself left me feeling empty. It’s like the sense of loss when your teenage son puts up ‘No Entry, Do Not Disturb’ signs on his room door. If Pudding is the son, what’s Jelly? Obviously the unemployed uncle preparing for job interviews.
“Jelly, let’s go first. Can you find the Princess?”
The job-seeker nodded.
“With Astaroth’s influence weakened, I think I can find her.”
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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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