“You… why are you here?”
Ariella instinctively took two steps back, clearly not expecting Lin Yue to appear in this place.
“I don’t know…”
Lin Yue tried to speak, but he found his voice was muffled and indistinct, as if he were submerged deep underwater.
He tried to say a few more words, but the result was the same.
“This is Ariella’s mental world. You cannot say anything clearly because her subconscious is rejecting your presence.”
It was that girl’s voice again…
He hated the concept of a “mental sea.”
It was always so vague and confusing in stories, but the power of idealism in this world was incredibly strong, leaving him with no choice but to endure it.
‘Can I try to contact her?’
“…”
There was no response.
It seemed even that mysterious voice could no longer hear him.
While Lin Yue stood there speechless, Ariella observed him closely.
She eventually concluded that he was merely a hallucination.
This was her own memory, after all; how could anyone else break in?
‘I must be thinking about him too much. My subconscious has taken his form to come find me.’
“Um… you, step back. I don’t miss you that much yet. I’m busy taming beasts!”
Hearing Ariella’s tone—which sounded like she was ordering a subordinate—Lin Yue was momentarily stunned.
‘I don’t want to stay here either…’
However, trying to forcibly wake Ariella was dangerous. In the original story, after Ariella activated the Taboo Magic Beast, it took a full-strength Liya and all the remaining high-level mages to deal with the beast tide.
He didn’t know if they were even awake yet.
If Liya had to do it alone, the beast tide would likely throw the already battered Avelina into utter chaos.
That wouldn’t be good.
Fine. Since he wasn’t welcome here, he could just turn around and leave.
Staying wasn’t doing much anyway; he couldn’t solve Ariella’s fundamental problem this way.
Seeing that Lin Yue actually intended to leave, Ariella immediately reached out to stop him.
“Hey, hey, hey! Actually, forget it. Having a Lin Yue to keep me company isn’t so bad.”
She was indeed too lonely in her mental world.
Having her subconscious take the form of the person she liked to accompany her was a nice consolation.
Looking at the girl’s duplicity, Lin Yue was reminded of Isabena.
The difference was that Ariella was more honest with her own heart; she would say something bold and then immediately backtrack out of embarrassment.
Helpless, he stayed.
Lin Yue crouched down beside her near the white light.
Finding it uncomfortable, he eventually just sat down.
Seeing his reluctant expression, Ariella let out a soft chuckle.
She remembered that the real Lin Yue was just like this, always resisting anything he found troublesome.
“You really do resemble that guy. As expected of me, even my fantasies are so realistic.”
‘Fantasy?’
‘Does this girl think I’m just a part of some little theater in her mind?’
“By the way, you’re much rougher in bed than you are now. Why are you so gentle when you’re not talking? It’s actually making me a bit uncomfortable…”
‘In… bed?’
‘What exactly does she do with me in her head?’
Lin Yue knew this topic had to end.
If she blurted out all her little secrets, he definitely wouldn’t be able to handle it.
However, now wasn’t the time for banter.
He didn’t know when the erosion of the darkness would arrive, and stalling indefinitely wasn’t an option.
“You really… are just like him.”
Ariella’s eyes suddenly dimmed as she fell into deep thought.
“Do you want me to tell you a story? You’re bored anyway, aren’t you?”
She spoke in a tone one might use with a child.
Without waiting for Lin Yue’s consent, she began to talk to herself.
“Once upon a time, there was a very strange noble. His hobby wasn’t luxury or indulgence, but camping and making strange friends. Among those friends, there were weird kids, wicked witches, high-born ladies, and all sorts of characters.”
“To be on such good terms with a witch… that noble who helped her must have been so stupid, so foolish…”
“The witch fell hopelessly in love with him. She wanted to brew a potion to make him hers, yet she could never bring herself to do it.”
“He definitely had his own female lead already. The witch wanted to steal him away. Don’t you think she’s especially, especially evil?”
She spoke vividly, as if she were the protagonist of the tale.
She lifted her head and looked into the distance.
In this illusory space, there was only a horizon between them, yet it felt like an insurmountable barrier.
“In the end, she gave up. Because that noble had already completely changed her heart. So, she could only go to the seaside alone, wanting to feel the wind and the rain.”
She spoke with intent, her words heavy with subtext.
“Unexpectedly, he came. The rain stopped, and the sea became calm and boring.”
…
“The witch wanted to push him away and stay far from him, but do you know what he said?”
Ariella chuckled. “He said, ‘Are you in a bad mood? Do you want to go get something delicious?’ What a strange guy…”
Ariella gazed into the distance, her eyes filled with a longing for the beauty she described.
She smiled softly, not daring to fantasize any further, fearing that this fluttering in her heart would escape, leaving the memory to grow faint and hollow.
“That’s just the kind of person he is. The witch could never find the heart to be cruel to him at a time like that…”
“But she just likes that person. Because she likes him, she softens her heart again and again, letting down her guard again and again. Is ‘liking someone’ something that requires a reason?”
At some point, she stopped using the tone of a storyteller and began using “you” and “I.”
“I used to think that I only started walking because I was bored, that I only hurried to the sea to feel the breeze, and that I only stood in the rain to soothe my depression.”
“Only later did I realize… I didn’t go out for a walk, or for the sea, or for the rain. I was just hoping that he, who spent so many unforgettable moments with me, would look back at me.”
Lin Yue listened without saying a word, but ripples formed in the depths of his heart.
He hadn’t expected that he, an insignificant minor villain, would occupy such a large place in Ariella’s heart.
For a long time, he had never truly faced his own feelings.
Or rather, he was afraid of developing an unbreakable bond with them.
He was afraid… that if he had too many attachments in this world, he would slowly become numb and lose the drive to return to reality, never fulfilling his original wish.
Regarding Ariella, he didn’t actually dislike her.
On the contrary, he quite liked the girl.
It wasn’t that he was truly unwilling to develop a deeper relationship… he just couldn’t get past the hurdle in his own mind.
He had never intended to form an inseparable bond with anyone in this world.
This was why, even when he chose to change the plot at the beginning, he was unwilling to choose between the two sisters.
From the very start, he didn’t want his heart to hold anything other than his return to reality.
But…
He was a human, a living person.
They, naturally, were as well.
Every one of them had left their mark on his heart.
He wasn’t a fool; he had already been changed in silence.
He simply had to disguise himself as a stone, cautiously avoiding any change in their relationships.
He was also contemplating what the right thing to do was. He was lost…
While Lin Yue was deep in solemn thought about the future, Ariella fell into self-doubt first.
“Tell me… does everything I’ve done actually have any meaning?”
“Would it have been better to stay in the village and live a peaceful life as a village girl, marrying some man I might or might not like and spending my life with him?”
“Or rather…”
Ariella suddenly stood up, her eyes welling with tears.
“Should I try my hardest? Is it okay if I try?”
Lin Yue was startled.
Just as he was about to stand up and answer her, he saw the white light behind Ariella suddenly begin to shatter, turning into a void.
Tears fell like silk from the corners of Ariella’s eyes.
She reached out to touch Lin Yue, but she only grasped at an illusion.
She could hold onto nothing as she was forcibly dragged into the darkness.
[Witch!]
[Monster!]
[You don’t deserve to live!]
‘I don’t even have the power to protect those important to me… I…’
The voices of magic beasts and malice echoed incessantly in her mind, as cruel as the sound of beasts tearing flesh during the disaster of her childhood…
“Help her…”
As Lin Yue stood there, unsure of what choice to make, he noticed the blue-haired, red-eyed girl sitting nearby, her gaze fixed intently on him.
She seemed to be questioning the tremor deep within his soul.
“I…”
He seemed to understand something.
He reached his hand into the darkness.
The moment he touched the black hole, his pupils turned red once more, and his body slowly sank into it.
The blue-haired girl watched the two of them enter the darkness together and whispered softly, “Wasn’t it to change all this that you came here in the first place…?”
Lin Yue slowly opened his eyes.
He found his body felt ethereal.
The surroundings were bright with sunshine, making his eyes ache slightly.
Before him was a classic Western-fantasy village house.
A young girl was staring blankly at the house, her hand reaching out as if reminiscing about something.
‘Ariella?’
He wanted to call out to her, but he heard movement nearby.
Turning his head, he saw a girl with brown hair curled up under a large tree, hugging her knees.
“Green-eyes! Freak!”
“…”
He watched, dazed, and suddenly realized that Ariella didn’t seem to notice him at all.
She was simply watching everything unfolding with her crystal-clear green eyes, remaining silent.