The World Mistakes Me for Terminally Ill - Chapter 98

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

The World Thinks I’m Terminally Ill Episode 098

As expected, the mask’s smile deepened. He clapped his hands. Clap! Clap! Clap!

“Your insight truly is beyond my reach, dear actor! I understand. Let’s see, what would be good?”

He pretended to ponder unnecessarily, dragging out time, then opened his mouth when he thought he had tormented me enough.

“When the first bell of dawn rings, the painting sealed in this place will be completed. Then there will be no turning back. You will be trapped here forever, dear actor!”

He spread both arms dramatically like a theater troupe actor and declared in a theatrical voice.

“The method to prevent this is quite simple. Before the painting is completed, you must complete the play that has been frozen forever in one scene! Then the preserved time will be released and the painting will crumble.”

However.

The white mask whispered maliciously.

“Unfortunately, while a female lead exists in this world’s play, there is no actor who can handle the male lead role.”

“What?”

“As I told you? Your companions have other roles, so I moved them accordingly.”

The sneer carved into the mask grew larger.

“When the play is completed, your husband will remain here forever as the ‘male protagonist’!”

The being who showed me the favor of information while never hiding his malice forced me to choose between two options.

First was losing Shubel as the price for returning to reality.

Second was everyone being preserved in this world.

“Now, what will you do, dear actor?”

He lightly tapped the cane he held in one hand. The staff transformed into a black magic gun identical to mine.

He aimed it at his own head and playfully made a ‘bang!’ sound.

Pop-!

Colorful paper that was terribly unsuited to this situation burst from the gun barrel.

And he loaded it again. This time too, he pressed the gun barrel against his own head without change.

Click.

“Fate changes according to your choice. Which scenario will you select?”

Bang!

A gunshot rang out.

With those words, the black mage disappeared as if he had never existed from the beginning.

I bit my lips while staring at the darkened ballroom full of bizarre monsters.

‘Shubel.’

I tried to find any trace of him somehow, but the malicious playwright didn’t make mistakes in such matters. Shubel and Erban were nowhere to be seen.

I hardened my expression as my thoughts gradually became buried in the worse direction.

‘Calm down.’

I began searching through the ballroom while clutching the crystal butterfly necklace Shubel had given me.

A space where only eerie darkness remained, as if the liveliness from just a few hours ago was a lie.

My feet, swollen from hours of dancing, walking, and running, were starting to hurt, but I had no time to feel the pain.

‘I shouldn’t believe everything that playwright bastard said. He’s shown me malice from the beginning.’

Even without telling lies, there are countless ways to hide the truth.

I frantically ran around, opening every door I saw to find any clue.

Click-clack.

Only the sound of my shoes echoed particularly loudly in the silent space. As I listened to it and was about to open the next door in the corridor, something flashed through my mind like lightning.

“Since when have we been inside the painting?”

Suddenly, my conversation with Shubel came to mind.

‘Didn’t you see any box office staff?’

‘No. I haven’t met anyone alive to begin with.’

His testimony that, unlike us, he had never met any box office staff from the start.

‘Then where did you get your mask?’

‘I didn’t receive it separately, but I was naturally wearing it right after entering the theater.’

He definitely said ‘right after entering the theater,’ not ‘ballroom.’

At the time, I thought he simply chose his words carelessly.

But what if it wasn’t that, and he really hadn’t seen the box office or staff from the moment he entered the theater, and this ballroom appeared directly?

‘There’s one difference between us and Shubel.’

Whether he had a real invitation.

If the real invitation was the medium that served as the ‘exception formula’ for black magic that Erban mentioned, it would make sense.

Since the invitation was sent by the playwright, the black mage, to trap us here in the first place.

‘Of course, that leaves the question of why Shubel can see the monsters.’

But what’s important now isn’t that, it’s the ‘box office,’ so let’s move on.

The mysterious box office and the mask I received from the staff there. Erban had said there was nothing wrong with the mask.

However, after I faced the black mage, he seemed like a being difficult to judge with human eyes.

I was half-convinced that the box office staff might have been that black mage as I brought my hand to my face.

“If it was given by an enemy…”

Naturally, there would be something malicious about it.

Click.

When I removed what had been covering my face for several hours, I felt liberated.

At the same time, I realized my guess was correct.

The ballroom that had been dark and gloomy was instantly filled with indescribably brilliant colors.

The appearance of the statues that looked like monsters became noisy, then changed into various human forms.

“—-, —, —-.”

The incomprehensible roars of the statues were also converted into human language.

“When will we be able to go outside?”

“Just hold on a little longer. Then our turn will come.”

“I want to get out of here quickly.”

“Me too.”

Their common point was that they were all wearing masks.

I approached the duty maids chatting in the corner and knocked on the wall. Knock, knock.

“I’d like to hear more about what you just said.”

“…!”

“…!”

The maids were startled. One of them unconsciously muttered.

“Surely our words can’t be heard-“

“Well. I wonder.”

What’s needed in this situation? Extreme acting ability and nerve, you could say.

Though I was an ordinary person with not even a mouse tail’s worth of power, it was important to give off the atmosphere of ‘I can dispose of you anytime.’

I twisted up the corners of my mouth and smiled kindly.

“Shall we have a conversation?”

Along with the midnight bell, I placed the funeral flower that had withered and lost its color on the head of the maid who seemed to have the highest rank.

Whether my aim to create fear worked, the maids collectively turned pale.

Probably the gun in my hand also contributed to that fear.

“Actually, that is…”

To summarize the maids’ explanation, it was like this:

1. The statues in this place are those who had their life force stolen by the ‘painting’ and were preserved as is.

They made excuses that they had no choice but to listen to the caretaker’s words to get out of this place.

2. When life force above a certain level gathers and the ‘painting’ is completed, they can go outside.

“Then what about the original bodies?”

“They fall into a coma. If there’s care, they’ll continue living, but for those who can’t get that…”

“They die. Leaving only the soul.”

3. If the outside body dies, they can only survive by entering the body of someone whose soul is trapped here. It’s a kind of possession.

“Then what happens if the soul dies?”

At my question, they only blinked and looked at each other as if they didn’t understand.

“I mean what happens when you die in statue form.”

“Uh, that’s…”

The maids mumbled, and the highest-ranking maid stepped forward.

“I don’t know about before, but ever since the caretaker came, even if it breaks, it returns to normal by the next day.”

The caretaker was another identity the black mage had disguised himself as, following the box office staff.

From her words, I realized that this ‘Painting Completion Project’ had been ongoing since before the black mage joined.

“What was it like when there was no caretaker?”

She swallowed.

“I only heard rumors…”

“Now, don’t be so nervous.”

When I smiled and reassured her, somehow the maid’s face turned even paler.

The maid squeezed her eyes shut and spoke.

“There were rumors that if you lose your soul, the body connected to that soul dies. So they called it a painting that devours people…”

I finally realized the true identity of the ‘painting.’

‘It’s [Black Swan Lake].’

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