Chapter 59

The Yggdrasil main building, where the festival was in full swing.

In front of a hotdog stand.

“Hmhmm.”

A girl was waiting there, humming to herself.

Black straight hair and a white beret.

Her looks were a little small but charming and cute.

She looked around like a tourist fascinated by everything, rolling her eyes here and there.

But since she wore a school uniform, she had to be a cadet of Yggdrasil.

Anyone would think so.

‘At this level, they won’t recognize me, right?’

The girl admired her own ability and laughed inwardly.

The truth was, this girl was none other than……

‘No one will know that I’m McGrim.’

It was Miss McGrim, the rookie singer who had reached the peak of popularity.

She had changed her appearance with her unique skill, ‘Infinite Disguise.’

Her McGrim-like cuteness still remained, but now she was nothing more than a cute cadet.

From appearance alone, no one could ever imagine her as McGrim.

“Here you go, hotdog~.”

“Wow! Thank you!”

“Oh? That voice sounds familiar……”

“Ahem, goodbye.”

McGrim coughed and lowered her voice.

She could change her appearance, but her voice remained the same.

‘Every time I disguise myself, I keep forgetting to lower my voice.’

First, she took a big bite of the large, freshly fried hotdog.

Nom nom……

Zap! McGrim’s eyes widened.

Back in the car, she used to stare enviously at people eating these hotdogs.

‘This is insanely delicious! Do these students get to eat this every day?’

She herself only ate a strict diet to maintain her weight.

That made her jealous.

Should she just eat whatever she wanted every day?

Or maybe she should just hire that hotdog stand owner as her personal chef?

‘……What am I even thinking. Let’s just complain for today. Just today.’

McGrim took another bite and looked around.

People gave her no attention.

Sometimes their eyes met briefly.

But that was all.

No one paid her any notice.

‘It would be nice if it were always like this.’

Whenever she wanted to get some fresh air, she disguised herself like this.

As the popular singer she had become, people recognized her everywhere she went.

‘I thought being popular would make everything good.’

In her nameless days, she had desperately wished for someone to notice her.

But now she lived in fear of being recognized.

……Not that she preferred being nameless either.

‘Since it’s festival time, I’ll take a break for once.’

Even as she resolved that, she couldn’t shake the stuffy feeling in her chest.

‘My manager must be frantically looking for me.’

He probably thought she had run off because she didn’t like the shabby concert hall.

But that was only the trigger.

The stress had piled up.

It was finally time to let it out.

‘I held it in all this time and kept performing.’

She had often thrown tantrums, saying she wouldn’t perform.

But it always ended as complaints, and she went on stage anyway.

This was the first time she had actually escaped the waiting room.

When had it started?

The stage that she once could stand on for 24 hours without tiring had begun to feel like a burden.

‘Somehow, people fixed an image of me, and now I feel like a puppet moving for that image.’

Partly it was because she had performed without any break.

But maybe it was even more exhausting because of the cheerful image she had chosen as her concept.

Every time she faced people, she forced herself to appear bright.

Just like she had with the hotdog stand owner.

‘……It feels like my personality is getting stranger and stranger.’

How many people truly knew her real personality?

Probably only her manager.

……She had vented her frustration unfairly on the manager who had cared for her since her nameless days.

Thinking of him always made her feel guilty……

‘Ah, whatever! I’m done thinking about this.’

It was the perfect time for a break anyway.

McGrim hardened her resolve.

She wasn’t going to perform today.

Whatever with contracts or penalties—her manager could deal with all that.

She was going to have fun!

As McGrim took another bite of her hotdog.

A clear voice suddenly reached her ears.

“Ren, eating ice cream with it smeared on your cheeks makes you look just like a child.”

She looked in that direction, where golden hair shimmered.

“You too, Princess Remi—you’ve got it on your lips.”

“Don’t joke.”

“I’m not joking.”

A black-haired boy and a blonde girl.

Come to think of it, the princess had also enrolled at Yggdrasil.

‘That’s Princess Arlhardt?’

Her steps were graceful and elegant.

An aura of nobility radiated from her dignified figure.

There was an unmistakable air of refinement.

‘……Is she really the princess?’

But the ice cream smeared at her lips made McGrim a little doubtful.

Was the boy beside her also royalty or nobility?

No, he seemed more like a simple……

‘Commoner?’

His face wasn’t bad.

But the calluses on his fingers and the scars on the back of his hand made it clear he came from a humble background.

‘Why is the princess hanging around with a commoner?’

……Ah, so that’s it.

McGrim looked at the princess with eyes filled with scorn.

‘How like a noble to care about appearances.’

She was probably using the commoner as a tool to boost her own image.

Pretending to show compassion by treating a commoner as an equal.

It was all a masquerade to fit the image others had placed on her.

In a way, she seemed similar to McGrim herself.

But also very different.

At least McGrim never intended to deceive anyone.

‘Wow, what a bundle of hypocrisy……’

McGrim already didn’t have good feelings toward royals or nobles.

Every noble she had met only tried to curry her favor.

Having grown up on scraps at the bottom, McGrim could easily read their intentions.

Seeing such deceit with her own eyes only made those people more disgusting.

“Miss McGrim’s performance is starting soon!”

“We should go grab seats early. Let’s hurry!”

McGrim saw the people bustling around and instinctively checked the time.

……There was about one hour left until the performance.

The black-haired student and the princess were also talking about McGrim.

“Seems this singer called Miss McGrim is quite famous.”

“Oh? Ren, you sound interested?”

“No, not really……”

He really looked uninterested, but the princess was different.

“Why don’t we go together instead?”

The princess grabbed the commoner’s hand.

“In truth, I’ve grown interested in that culture. I’m begging you. Come with me.”

“……If Remi wants it that much, I’ve no reason to refuse.”

The two walked toward the distant performance hall.

McGrim saw them and let out a sigh.

The singer herself had slipped out of the concert hall.

‘I did want to perform. It was the academy’s fault for not preparing the hall properly.’

She thought about stopping her childish complaints and returning to the stage now.

But she shook her head.

……She wanted to hide in some dark and narrow place.

She wanted to run away to where no one was.

‘Should I try going there?’

She spotted a narrow space between buildings.

It looked like a passage leading somewhere.

There weren’t any people around, and it was fairly dim.

‘Finally, I can breathe a little.’

Walls lined both sides, and the long passage twisted and turned.

With no one around, she felt her chest loosen.

‘Let’s see where it ends.’

For some reason, it felt like an adventure through a jungle.

Where would the end of this passage lead?

Or would it just be a blocked wall?

Curiosity led her to keep walking.

The ceiling was open, but the deeper she went, the darker it became, blocked by the buildings.

Time passed, and she finally reached the end of what she thought was an empty passage.

But the passage ended at a wall.

‘Someone’s already here?’

……Looking closely.

Someone was already standing there.

Yes, there were two people.

Thud.

One of them collapsed powerlessly.

The fallen person…… soon burned into pitch-black ash.

……

……Huh?

Burned away?

McGrim’s mind froze completely.

“……Hic.”

The shocking scene passed in an instant.

Had the shock paralyzed her breathing? She couldn’t inhale.

She felt like she would collapse, like she was dreaming.

……And then.

She met eyes with a killer wearing a black mask.

She could still run away now.

But……

McGrim couldn’t.

“Whooo……”

His terrifying breathing sound bound her feet.

Her mind went blank.

She could no longer move.

“……Hiiik.”

McGrim froze on the spot.

‘That makes sixty.’

I shook the ash clinging to the Heart of Ilawne and looked at the ground.

Once they turned to black ash, they immediately vanished.

‘I wondered how I’d deal with the corpses after killing them…… thankfully it’s the same as in the game.’

If I attacked the mark on their necks, they turned straight into ash and disappeared.

It completely saved me the trouble of disposing of bodies.

Thanks to that, I had defeated as many as sixty enemies faster than expected.

‘Though I am getting a little tired.’

I rubbed my stiff shoulders.

‘I’d better finish off the rest quickly and move to another spot.’

I brushed the leftover ash away with my foot and thought.

Even if they were corpses, they looked just like normal people on the outside.

‘And I’m assassinating them.’

The usual me would never have been able to do this.

Even knowing they were corpses, I would have hesitated to attack.

Yet my hand cut their throats without pause.

Not even for one second did I waver.

It was definitely the effect of this body’s influence that I had become so cold-blooded.

‘Am I being swallowed by Villed?’

If more time passed and my personality completely changed.

Would I become Villed?

‘……I don’t want to remain as Villed.’

That would mean my death.

Even if I borrowed Villed’s body, I must never forget the self that was ‘me.’

I realized that all over again.

Rustle.

As I was lost in thought, I heard footsteps.

‘Another one’s coming.’

I hid my body behind a stack of boxes, just as I had done all this time.

Step, step.

The footsteps came closer.

I gripped the Heart of Ilawne in reverse and clenched the air with my other hand.

‘Hwayo.’

Fwoosh!

A small but powerful flame clung to the Heart of Ilawne.

Its shape resembled a dagger.

I had learned the trick of compressing the flame by reducing its size.

The reach was short, but it was several times faster and stronger.

Step, step.

The male corpse’s footsteps grew very near.

‘Now.’

I aimed for the mark on its neck and finished it in one strike.

Crack!

The blow landed true, and the thing collapsed without a sound.

Soon after, it turned to black ash.

I shook the ash off the Heart of Ilawne again.

‘That makes sixty-one……’

Step.

Another set of footsteps followed right after.

‘Already?’

It was the first time a corpse appeared before I could even hide.

Not giving me any chance to breathe. I exhaled sharply and looked at the target.

This time the corpse looked like a little girl.

I grabbed the Heart of Ilawne, ready to rush it immediately……

‘No, wait.’

I looked more carefully.

……Something was different this time.

Her pupils looked slightly glazed, but there was no mark on her neck.

That left only one answer.

‘……A normal person.’

This time it wasn’t a corpse.

If I hadn’t paid close attention, I might have done something horrible.

‘……But her look seems familiar.’

I’d seen this character somewhere.

Definitely……

Somewhere……

‘……Yes, that was it.’

I figured out the answer easily.

It was the outside-disguise version of Miss McGrim, the famous idol of this world.

‘But why is she here?’

She wasn’t a lead role in this episode.

But she did have a small part to play.

Could it be…… she had witnessed me disposing of the corpses?

“Hic, hic.”

Her pale face stared at me.

She couldn’t even run, too shocked to move.

‘……What do I do with this.’

Could this single incident change the main story?

It was a headache of a moment.

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