Chapter 9.1

“What?”

The maid was flustered. I tried to relax my hardened expression because it was a maid I’d never seen before. I didn’t want to scare her any more than this. At a fundamental level, the maids from the other palace were especially afraid of me compared to my own.

“So, the g-gifts…have been piling up since, um, early in the morning, and we were wondering what, what we should do…”

“Gifts? Why is there a pile of gifts?”

“Wishes for your safe return…with that sort of intent…”

Bribes for the princess who hadn’t been confined for a day. They really had nothing better to do.

Then again, it was said that members of powerful houses went into exile comfortably as if going on a nature trip, while throngs of callers gathered in their front yard for a chance to associate with them. When I thought about it like that, this wasn’t that weird.

They were thinking of what actions the princess would take after six months. But it wasn’t such an urgent matter that they should be so obvious about it from the very beginning.

“They really don’t have any faith.”

In the second princess.

The onlookers in the hall must have spread the rumors far and wide. Relieved, I sank into the sofa.

“Just leave the ones that were already received since we can’t do much about those, but reject any that come in from now on.”

“Understood.”

“I see you are not a member of my palace.

“His Majesty…told me to attend to you…Pardon me.”

“What do you have to be sorry for?”

He must have had a hard time believing that I would quietly receive my punishment. To think that he was so worried about me scheming that he decided to stick someone to me.

“From now on, do not step foot in my bedchamber without my permission.”

“Yes, yes!”

I didn’t have anything up my sleeve anyway. I had really only come here to receive my punishment.

Suddenly, a voice rang out from behind me.

“Really?”

It was a voice that sounded like glass beads.

I whipped my head around. And then I saw.

It looked like a monster.

Black hair, black eyes, and a snow-white face and hands. Long hair fell to the floor in waves. A man stood in the middle of my bed.

It was such a foreign sight that I was briefly left speechless.

Monster.

It was definitely shaped like a human being, but I couldn’t shake the thought. Monster, monster, monster…

“Is there a problem?”

I turned back to the maid, who was standing in front of me. She looked clueless as she nervously waited for me to say something.

Could she not see that thing?

“Pardon me, i-if there is something I can assist with…”

“What…”

The man slipped past me. Then, he made his way around the maid and rested his chin on her shoulder. His face was like a white mask that looked like it could fall off at any moment. He asked again,

“Did you really come to get punished?”

I wondered if I had gone mad.

It was strange. His eyes didn’t look like they belonged to someone who was alive. They were dead. No, his eyes were never alive from the start.

“…”

I clenched my dress so tightly that my knuckles turned white.

“Your Highness?”

“That won’t do.”

The maid asked, confused. The man’s mumbling overlapped with her question.

I had experienced this ‘foreignness’ once before. The sense that something didn’t belong in this world. It was the sense that I got from myself.

The feeling that something went against the laws of nature. The feeling of having my very existence denied. The feeling of becoming a foreign body. That kind of feeling.

“How interesting.”

In no time at all, he was right in front of my face, peering at me.

I gritted my teeth. I had to stay calm. First, the first thing that I had to do right now…

“You may go.”

“Yes… yes!”

The maid scurried out of the room, closing the door behind her.

The man moved while keeping his body still. As though he were indifferent to the objects in this room, to this world.

“…What are you?”

The man poked my face with his finger.

“No, this won’t do.”

I faked a calm expression.

“Are you…a sorcerer or something?”

“This definitely won’t do.”

He gripped my chin and I roughly slapped his hand away. There was the sound of skin on skin. Then, he staggered back and fell onto his bottom. His long hair fluttered to the floor.

Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t keep calm.

“Stop talking nonsense.”

“I’m asking who you are.”

The man stretched out his legs on the floor like a child. Then, he rested his chin on my knee and looked up at me. There wasn’t a hint of humanity in his beautiful face, and it sent goosebumps running up my arms. He said,

“Do you want to know?”

“Right, so…”

“I guess you would call me this game’s… system?”

“What?”

“Is it hard to understand?”

I grabbed his collar with one hand and roughly pulled him toward me. Even so, his expression didn’t change once. Like he didn’t know that was a possibility.

“You’re the system? Don’t be ridiculous.”

I burst out in laughter. Even to me, I sounded unhinged and agitated, so I quickly shut my mouth.

“Who the hell are you?!”

I shook him by the collar.

“Tell me! Reveal your identity!”

“Are my words too hard to understand? Then…”

Ding!

Can you understand if I talk to you like this?

My breath caught. My heart sank.

The system window was in front of my eyes. The man said calmly,

“I told you.”

Ding!

I told you.

“I’m the ‘system’.”

Ding!

I’m the ‘system’.

“That…that’s impossible.”

He ran a white hand over my knee.

“But as I thought, you can see it.”

Ding!

But as I thought, you can see it.

“The princess isn’t even a player, but you can see the system window… That won’t do.”

Player. System window.

Ding!

Don’t you think so?

“You’re saying this is a…game.”

“…”

I slumped down on the floor next to him. Wobbling, I pulled him in close by the collar. I whispered,

“Can I leave? Can I leave this place?”

For a moment, he stared at me intently. For the first time, a dim light flashed in his eyes before quickly disappearing.

“Do you want to go back?”

“…”

“I’m the system. In other words…”

Ding!

I’m the master of this world. 

“You’re God.”

Ding!

To make things easier for my important guest from another world, I borrowed elements of her culture. 

“Things like games and systems. And she did in fact adjust quickly.”

An important guest from another world. That meant…

“…Yuriel?”

“This place isn’t a game but another world.”

You wanted to know if you could go back?

“My answer is…”

You cannot reverse your decision. Please choose wisely. Y/N

‘Y’ was already grayed out.

“That would be a no.”

“Why not! Why!”

I screeched.

“Do you want to see them?”

“…What did you say?”

Your parents?

My parents?

Or your friends?

My friends?

“…”

A feeling of terror clawed at my insides, like it was trying to gouge a hole.

Do you have a lover?

“Someone you love?”

A face?

A voice?

“How old are you?”

What do you look like?

“What did you want to be when you grew up?”

Do you remember a single thing out of these?

“If you can’t remember, then you’re just a pitiful child who isn’t even aware of what you’ve forgotten.”

I felt like throwing up. Because of his unchanging expression, because I couldn’t answer a single one of his questions, and, and…

Do you remember your name?

My name. My name. Not the princess’s name but my own name. My name. My…

He placed a hand on my cheek.

That won’t do. 

“There’s no place for you to go back to now.”

“No… That can’t be…”

That couldn’t be. My black eyes and… Black eyes, and what else?

I was shaking. My vision went white. It was dark.

“This is where.”

You have to die. 

It was the cruelest possible sentence.

“That.”

Is your only punishment. 

“Do you understand?”

So hurry up and die. 

I felt myself being pushed backward. I thought I would fall on my butt, but I was surprised when I didn’t feel anything at all.

“For the sake of the world.”

I felt the wind rush past my ears and saw the ceiling flip over.

Almost like it had that day.

I blew a fuse.