Chapter: 176
In the endless void, the outsider, with her mouth agape, belatedly looked down at her own body and shouted,
“What the…?! Why am I in a body..?!”
Somehow, a massive soul had entered a perfectly fine body. And it was a body she had never seen before. Just as she was unable to hide her confusion—
Tap, tap.
Someone tapped her shoulder. With a face that clearly read ‘..! An enemy?!’ she whipped her head around, only to be met with an unimaginable scene unfolding before her.
“I’m not the type of dinosaur to say something like this, but… sigh…”
“Hey, hey, speak properly.”
“Okay, just give me a sec. Ahem! How about cooling off with me by the lake?”
A dinosaur over two meters tall scratched its chin awkwardly with its short arms, gazing at her from the most handsome angle it could muster. Next to it was another dinosaur, presumably a friend, giggling and messing around.
“What is this…?”
A silly remark escaped her mouth as she struggled to comprehend the situation. At that moment, a loud crashing sound echoed from afar.
Boom! Crash!
The sheer size of the approaching entity had even the dinosaur that had just asked her out floating in mid-air before crashing back down repeatedly. Worried about losing her balance, she flailed her arms but oddly landed gently on the ground.
“Sorry, I’m late!”
A dinosaur so gigantic that she had to tilt her head back uncomfortably just to see it spoke in an awkward voice. It looked as tall as a five-story building.
“Uh, but what do you need with my girlfriend?”
“Whoa… I-I’m so sorry!”
“Hey, hey! Let’s go!”
As the two dinosaurs hurriedly left, the gigantic dinosaur leaned down and winked at her.
“Are you alright? You looked troubled, and I hope I didn’t create a misunderstanding by offering help.”
She gazed at the massive dinosaur with a dazed expression, unable to muster a coherent response. It felt as if her brain had short-circuited. It didn’t take long for her to realize that this absurdity was the least of her concerns.
A tsunami of jokes crashed over her.
While the outsider was still in a daze, Iris sat blankly a fair distance away.
Beep~ Beep~
Hahaha~ Growl!
Upbeat, cute music and laughter from dinosaurs echoed around, but Iris, bearing the brunt of extreme mental trauma, remained utterly unresponsive, like a detached doll.
In her arms was a doll the size of a small child, resembling Lian. The corpse of Lian, which the outsider had conjured, had been transformed into a doll by the comedic filter.
Though the texture felt soft and squishy, it still felt like a cold corpse to Iris. The image of her blood-stained brother’s corpse lingered in her mind as she gazed down at the doll.
Approaching footsteps broke the silence.
Someone quietly came up behind her. So wrecked was Iris that she couldn’t even react if someone stabbed her with a knife; she merely continued to stroke her brother’s doll.
Whoosh! Suddenly, warmth enveloped her from behind as it wrapped around her shoulders, letting warm hair cascade beside her face.
“Iris.”
“…!”
Tap.
The doll she had been clutching like a lifeline fell to the ground. Trembling fingers reached out to touch the warm presence that had embraced her shoulders.
“O-O…Brother?”
It felt like she was gasping for air as she managed to choke out his name. In that warmth, Iris felt both joy and fear. What if that warmth turned pale and became a handful of blood again?
As such thoughts flitted through her mind, the tender embrace began to loosen. In a panic, Iris clutched tightly at his arm.
“Don’t… No… don’t go…”
tears surged up her throat, trembling at the edge of spilling over but barely contained. If she allowed herself to cry, it felt like he would vanish in that instant. A soft and comforting voice reached her, piercing through her fear.
“It’s alright.”
The cozy warmth, like being slowly pulled into a swamp, swiftly swallowed Iris’s anxiety.
“I’m okay, Iris.”
“Ah…”
Yet again, the warmth in his voice caused her grip to loosen.
It was only a brief hug, but as the warmth faded, her body began to tremble again. Just as her anxiety was threatening to resurface—
“Did you take care of yourself?”
At that moment, Lian sat beside Iris, completely at ease, his usual gentle smile radiant on his face.
“Ah…”
Without thinking, Iris reached out her trembling hand towards Lian’s face. He responded by holding her hand, gently pressing it against his cheeks. The delicate, warm feeling penetrated her palm, making her shoulders twitch.
“You look like you didn’t get much sleep.”
His affectionate hand brushed away the tears that had been trembling in Iris’s eyes. Her heart, which had been shaking in dread, began to thump for another reason entirely. In Lian’s eyes, filled with a warmth that seemed endless, Iris felt an overwhelming comfort.
“Brother… I…”
Every word she wanted to say was so heavy that it wouldn’t pour out, just swirling like tears welling in her eyes. Lian nodded slowly as if he understood everything even without her saying it.
“I’m sorry for being late.”
Hearing his apology sent a spike of irritation through Iris, like a thorn lodged in her throat. He hadn’t done anything wrong, yet hearing those words made her feel the urge to blame all her pain on him, and she loathed herself for it.
His gentle hand brushed away her tears, and he lovingly stroked her delicate white hair. The tension in her stiffened shoulders gradually eased, as if she were slipping into warm bath water—a magical effect.
“I tried to return as quickly as I could, but unexpected things happened…”
Lian smiled awkwardly, as though he had just gotten caught up in something trivial. Each of his words was precious to Iris, who simply listened silently, sealing her lips.
Like enjoying the warm breeze pouring down in spring sunlight, just as she was absorbing the comfort of his voice, a shocking revelation jolted her mind awake.
“So, you mean… you’re currently…?”
“Yeah, I’m at the Demon King’s Castle.”
Thanks to the fortune teller, Lian had briefly visited the depths of Iris’s mind, feeling deeply satisfied to share his news with her.
‘Will they believe me? But even in dark fantasy, a fantasy is a fantasy, right?’
As such thoughts crossed her mind, he tapped the ground lightly. Suddenly, a pure white flowerbed bloomed around them. Its fragrant aroma caressed Iris’s pale cheeks, returning color to her expression, and a breath of relief washed over her.
“For now, I’m… trapped in a prison, so I can’t escape immediately, but it’s not that dangerous, so could you wait for me?”
If she mentioned that his soul had been seized and he was in dire straits, her previously relieved expression might darken again, so he changed it to that he was simply trapped in a prison.
‘It’s not a lie, after all.’
As she nodded internally, suddenly—
Crack.
The pastel-colored world around them began to shatter. Lian quickly recognized that Iris was waking from her stupor.
“Ah, looks like you’re about to wake up.”
“…!”
In a rush, as the moment of parting drew near, Iris urgently stretched her arms out to wrap around Lian. As if she couldn’t bear to let him go.
Holding onto the warmth, the sound of her racing heart turned clear.
“Haha, I’ll miss you too, Iris.”
His gentle laughter danced in her ears, and his arms wrapped around her waist banished the chaos and fear that had filled Iris’s mind. For a moment, everything quieted, leaving only the sound of her heart pounding fiercely. A tingling sensation danced at her fingertips, and her ears flushed inexplicably.
“I’ll be waiting.”
The warmth cradled in her arms dissipated like a mirage, and her consciousness began to fade into oblivion.
*
“I can’t… I can’t let this happen…”
The outsider who had been hit with a “gag” muttered to herself in despair, biting her lips and starting to regurgitate the sins she had committed.
“I’ve waited so long for this day…!”
Her memories stretched back further than when Iris was just a baby—now it took her back to a time when the hero, who had perished and faded away, roamed the earth.
The hero was a swordsman with skills surpassing even that of a duke. The thought that such a hero died at the hands of the weakest of the Four Heavenly Kings was something that no one who knew him would accept.
The mysterious power lurking behind the scenes was none other than the outsider now sunk in despair.
She had tried to consume the body of the Four Heavenly King’s avatar to kill the hero and take their strength, but in return, she was crushed by immense divine power, almost to the point of disappearing. To survive, she had dug into Iris’s body, sharing the same bloodline as the hero.
Aydis, slowly growing in the duke’s womb, was too fragile to resist the outsider’s intrusion. Thus, the outsider relentlessly tried to seize Iris’s body.
It was the outsider’s doing that had whisked a newborn Iris into the realm of the Demon King and handed her over to the dark sorceress, who enjoyed conducting inhumane experiments.
Before her stretched the culmination of her efforts and time—all those years had led to the brink of ruin. How could she not feel rage? As her rationality slipped away, she could see nothing clearly.
“Enough of this nonsense! Show yourself now!”
Her voice, filled with fury, reverberated through the pastel-toned world.
Clip, clop.
An unfamiliar presence began to approach her.
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