Chapter 14: Glimpse of Reality
It’s already morning, so I decided to have breakfast with Augustus in an attempt to increase favorability. Today is my second day in this new world, and the first one was full of things, so I believe the other days will be more calm, I think.
"G-Good morning, Miss Evelyn," Clarissa speaks to me. It’s already morning, and she came to serve me. Now she’s kind of my personal maid, which is very good since I can give her orders and she will obey.
"I’m going to see my younger brother. I want you to stay here and organize my room. And don’t even think about touching my wardrobe," I say authoritatively without even saying good morning.
She doesn’t deserve my good morning after everything she’s done. I’ll only say good morning when she proves to be a good maid. Until then, she’ll only get cold orders. Moreover, my wardrobe has the puppets that I don’t want to be touched.
"U-Understood, my lady Evelyn," she says as I leave the room and close the door with her inside. I don’t have anything of value that could be stolen, and my [Minion] will inform me if she ends up doing something she shouldn’t.
Of course, "inform" in the way it can since it doesn’t speak, so it will only move in a way that tries to indicate what it saw while I have to interpret it. But she’s too afraid of me, so I doubt she’d have the courage to steal from me.
’If dinner was that delicious, breakfast must be equally good!’ I walk through the corridors excitedly. Thanks to having merged with Evelyn, I no longer feel that fear of leaving the room.
Of course, I’ve inherited some personality disadvantages, but just having the courage to go out, I’m already satisfied. Besides, being as beautiful as I am, I see no reason to complain.
"O-Ouch!" When I turn the corner, I end up bumping into someone and falling. However, as soon as I look at who I bumped into, my blood freezes, and I become paralyzed with nervousness.
’D-Damn universe!! I bet this is because of my curse.’ I bumped into Esther, someone who, let’s say, is the worst type of person to get angry. And I see that she got dirty with a blood-red drink.
Probably her dress is now useless. The color is very strong, and her dress is white. Getting this stain out must be very difficult unless there’s some kind of laundry magic or something.
And worse, I have no way to defend myself if she decides to do something, and I don’t have any money to pay for the dress. If she charges me, what will I do? I’m a poor bastard who doesn’t have a single coin!! If I had money, I’d obviously renovate my room.
All I have are things that Evelyn managed to grab around the castle or things I got as birthday gifts when the original Evelyn asked the Demon King.
"S-Sorry, sister, I..." I try to apologize quickly as I get up, but her chilling gaze makes me shut up. Her red pupils are naturally frightening.
However, her black sclera make her gaze, although beautiful, even more ominous and bizarre. So what she has in beauty, she has in scariness.
"You should be more careful where you’re going, Evelyn," she says politely to me as she checks her own dress. Her maids seem furious with me; the two of them look at me as if they’re going to kill me.
[Esther’s Favorability -2 (Total = -9/100)]
’D-Damn!! The favorability is the worst possible, negative, and it’s now less 9.’ I’m screwed if I depend on this negative perspective she has of me. I need to improve this favorability soon, as the lower it is, the harder it is to raise.
"I’m very sorry, it was just a brief accident. I’ll be more careful," I say, standing face to face with her. I’m shorter, so her gaze is as if she’s looking down on me from a superior position.
"..." She starts to pass by me, ignoring my apology, while the maids follow. When they pass by me, one of them intentionally bumps into me, pushing me against the wall as she continues on. At least they didn’t charge me for the dress... yet.
"...T-Tsk..." I just click my tongue, looking at the ground. I shouldn’t let the breakfast be ruined by a small accident, but seeing the favorability of the most dangerous person in the world in the negative is discouraging.
In the game, Esther is a very complex character, so many things easily reduce her favorability. Even this simple bump reduced two points. So while Augustus is one of the easiest to gain points with, Esther is one of the most difficult, below only the difficulty of Evelyn, who is very narcissistic and didn’t trust Grace.
"Damn... I have to come up with some elaborate and amazing plan to get her friendship." If I can get Esther to give up being queen and I obtain the throne, I’ll have enough power to stop Esther.
Regardless of whether Esther is powerful, if I obtain the power that comes with the position of Demon Queen, along with my puppets, I can defeat Esther and prevent her from destroying all life on the planet.
’Wait... will I... have to kill Esther?’ I look down at the ground. I hadn’t thought about that. I just thought I need to become queen and awaken my ability to stop Esther, but how exactly am I going to stop her?
Just defeating Esther doesn’t guarantee that she won’t try to destroy the world. The only option would be to kill her. I look at my hands, trembling at the prospect of having to kill someone.
’I... I...’ I’m not a demon. Evelyn never saw problems in killing because she was born in this dangerous world where it’s kill or be killed. And although Evelyn never killed anyone directly, she guided Grace to death when she distrusted her too much.
Of course, there’s the alternative route where Evelyn gets strong. In that route, Evelyn kills almost everyone who looked down on her. She causes the death of more than 70% of the castle staff, and even kills Marie by strangling her with her own hands while Marie is exhausted after fighting one of Evelyn’s puppets.
But I know the truth, which means either I kill or I die. But I was a simple human before. I’ve only seen death, blood, and violence in games, never directly in front of me.
The first time I saw something violent was when I died, as my body was brutally torn in two, and I had a glimpse of that before passing out. Other than that, I’ve never had any contact with anything like that.
’Will I... have to kill people?’ Okay, so they’re not "people," they’re demons. But they’re still living beings. They’re not much different from humans, and they’re not animals. To me, they’re people.
’It’s just a game... it’s... just a game, right?’ I don’t know. I can’t affirm that. What if this world is real and not a game? To begin with, I died for real and reincarnated how crazy is that?
Is this place really the game? It has the characters I knew, a system, and scenarios I recognize. But... there are also differences. The dialogues are more organic and alive, the feelings are more obvious and clear than mere game expressions.
If it were just a game, death would be nothing. But this no longer seems just like a game from the past. I was so excited about the fact that I was in my favorite game that I didn’t stop to think about the reality of what this means.
’I... I don’t want to have to kill Esther... but... will just trying to befriend her and make her give up on killing everyone work?’ I don’t want to kill anyone, but I can’t deny that I need to do it. At some point in the future, I’ll have to stain my hands with blood.
Not only for defense, but also to obtain materials for puppets. So I wonder, is my life really worth more than the lives of these people I’ll kill just to survive?
Is it fair for me to take other lives just out of pure selfishness? Unfortunately, even if I don’t want to, I don’t know if when the time comes, I’ll be able to control myself. Traits of the original Evelyn take over me, especially in moments when I’m too weak to decide.
I look at my fingers, a brief vision of them stained with the blood of future victims I’ll make because of this world. When it was a game, it was all amazing. The story was perfect, the internal logic was wonderful. But from a real-world perspective, this world is cruel, dark, and disgusting a world where the lives of most have no value.
"Haa... Haa... Haa..." I start hyperventilating. A reality check I didn’t expect hits me, my cowardice appearing. I’m not like Evelyn, who could easily take a life if she had the chance.
But no matter how much I try to deny it, Evelyn is the main part of my existence now. When the time comes, will I hesitate to take a life? Or will I kill someone easily without remorse just because I’m a demon?
Honestly, I’m afraid, truly afraid of what I might be becoming without realizing it. The more time I spend in this body, the more I seem to resemble Evelyn.
’I... I’m no longer hungry...’ I’ve completely lost my appetite. I start to go back to my room. I want to be alone and think, I want to know if I’m still myself, or if I’m now someone else.
"I... hope I’m still myself," I murmur with an insecure voice, one of the few remaining traces of my former self.