The Hotel of Mirrors and the Two of Them (2)
A hotel room. Is it going to open?
Just a short while ago, while searching for An Yumin, I had checked the guest rooms briefly. They wouldn't open. If I could have gone inside beforehand, I might have gathered more clues about this Hotel of Mirrors — but I didn't have that authority.
Click.
An Yumin was different. She opened a room as if it were nothing at all. And for a moment, I was startled.
This place...
An Yumin grabbed my hand and pulled me through the doorway.
"Let's go in together!"
She turned and beamed at me — a feminine expression I had never once seen from her, not even back in high school. And in the instant we crossed the threshold, looking at that face of hers, my heart gave a sudden, traitorous thump.
Wait. What the hell is going on?
It was impossible. Yes, I had liked An Yumin — more than liked her. I had loved her. But after my hidden awakening, after I acquired the hidden title Cold Fire Avenger, that title had kept me in absolute composure around her. It meant I could maintain my reason no matter the situation when dealing with the three members of Aegis.
But something was wrong now. I was aware of An Yumin — clearly, unmistakably — as a woman.
"Hurry up and sit down in class!"
My thoughts cut off. An Yumin was urging me forward.
Wait. Where is this?
We had just opened a hotel room door. But this was not a hotel room. The space beyond the doorway was, absurdly, a lecture hall at Theia Academy.
"Don't tell me you don't want to sit with me?"
When I hesitated, An Yumin looked at me. The loving smile from a moment ago had gone cold. Our eyes met.
Her pupils...
An Yumin's eyes glittered. A pentagram — that star-shaped pattern — was etched into her gaze. Eyes full of Chaos. In that instant, I knew.
An Yumin is not normal right now. Don't tell me...?
The suspicion I'd had earlier hardened into certainty. The An Yumin standing in front of me looked, by any measure, like a villain. Not the Association's definition of a "criminal" villain — something more fundamental. A villain who wielded the power of Chaos itself.
The effects of the Hidden Title 'Unknown' are partially restricted.
The Hidden Title 'Cold Fire Avenger' cannot be activated.
A chill ran through me at the system windows that floated up.
What the hell is happening?
Something had gone wrong with my absolute weapons — my hidden titles. Nothing like this had ever happened in the original story. Not once had An Yumin ever turned into a villain.
"It's not like you want to sit with someone else, right? Like Choi Hana or Song Sia...?"
I forced myself to get a grip. Unlike Cold Fire Avenger, which was completely locked, the title Unknown was only partially restricted. That meant I could still think as Unknown without issue.
It seems the titles are only restricted when it comes to An Yumin.
I scrambled to reason out what was happening.
This place — the Hotel of Mirrors. Leticein's mansion... An Yumin's villainization...
There had to be some causal link. The tenth floor of the hotel was almost certainly a space meant for the protagonist, An Yumin. And Unknown's ultimate goal was to unravel Theia's secrets — the secrets of this Hotel of Mirrors.
I need to keep my head clear and keep An Yumin under control.
I didn't know whether this state would persist even after we left the hotel. But the An Yumin who had suddenly changed was more dangerous than the Fatal Blood I'd encountered before coming here. The fact that my hidden titles weren't applying properly might itself be proof that her potential as a villain had surpassed Unknown.
Some kind of protagonist buff that never existed in the original?
No — thinking about it, there had always been breadcrumbs about An Yumin's father. Her mother had been a great hero, but the original An Yumin had refused to even mention her father.
The odds that her father was a villain were always high.
It might have been the influence of that bloodline. And if so, that was nothing but good news for me. I had already completed my awakening as a villain.
Is that it? Because I'm a villain...
Maybe the reason my absolute composure had cracked was that I found her attractive precisely because she had become a villain. An Yumin, who had wanted to become a true hero more than anyone — if she fell into villainy, my revenge would still be as good as complete.
Well, for now it's all just speculation...
I decided not to overthink it. This lecture hall was still a space under An Yumin's dominion. In the original story, she had overcome her own weakness and escaped the Hotel of Mirrors. Once whatever she was trying to do in this classroom was finished, we should be able to return to Theia Academy.
This state won't last forever.
I decided to keep watching An Yumin a little longer.
An Yumin was happy.
It was an ordinary day, no different from any other — and yet, to her, it was special.
"......"
The man sitting beside her in the lecture hall. Lee Junwoo. Her boyfriend, their fingers laced together. She had accepted his confession at their high school graduation ceremony.
— I... I like you too.
She still remembered the trembling of that moment. Her answer had come so late that he might have rejected her. But Lee Junwoo had simply held her tight. And so the two of them had enrolled at Theia Academy together as a couple.
At first, even coming to lectures side by side, even sitting next to each other, had made her heart race and her hands shake. Now it was simply happiness. They were an undeniable couple — cadets racing toward the same goal of becoming heroes.
An Yumin turned her head to look at Lee Junwoo. Back in high school, that blonde-tanned punk look of his had been handsome and cute in its own way. But he seemed to have grown embarrassed by that pretentious image, and had remade himself into this clean-cut appearance.
He really was far too good-looking. Of course, he looked even better because he was the man she liked — no, the man she loved.
"Why are you staring like that?"
Lee Junwoo grinned at her playfully. An Yumin's cheeks flushed. She felt as if he'd seen straight through her thoughts, and it made her shy.
He's so... cool and lovely.
She had never been the type for girlish feelings. But ever since they had confirmed each other's hearts and become a couple, she could no longer hide it.
No. I decided I wouldn't hide it.
They didn't conceal the fact that they were a couple even at the academy. Her first romance. Her first love, her first boyfriend — both of them Lee Junwoo. It was terribly embarrassing, but public dating actually put her heart at ease.
Honestly, I don't have much confidence in myself.
Becoming a hero had always been the only priority in her mind. She had never once thought of herself as a woman. Still, a hero's public image mattered, so she had tried to keep herself neat and presentable in her own way. But a short skirt like the one she was wearing now — not a hero suit, not pants — still made her self-conscious.
So when Lee Junwoo had first approached her, she had pushed him away hard. And when they started Aegis activities, she had mistakenly believed he was betraying her and hanging around other girls, nearly destroying their relationship completely.
How stupid. To make such a ridiculous assumption...
It had all been a misunderstanding. The reason Lee Junwoo had been so kind to the other girls in Aegis was entirely for An Yumin's growth as a hero.
"......"
There were other cadets in the lecture hall, but An Yumin rested her head against Lee Junwoo's shoulder. Just the warmth of his body was enough to make her overwhelmingly happy. When their eyes met, he smiled softly and stroked her hair.
If only this moment... could last forever...
She still believed becoming a hero was important. But the most important thing to her was this — loving Lee Junwoo, and being loved in return.
And then it happened.
"Hello!"
A woman with long black hair strode into the lecture hall. Choi Hana. The happy smile on An Yumin's face froze solid.
Why is Choi Hana here...?
It wasn't just her. The door opened again, and Aegis's other members — Song Sia and Ha Yeeun — walked in as well.
"How's everyone been?"
Lee Junwoo, who until moments ago had been looking only at her, raised a hand and waved at the other girls.
Why... why is he doing that?
Slip.
And he let go of the hand he had been holding.
"W-why...?"
She was stunned. His girlfriend was sitting right here. Casually talking to other women — that was something she could not tolerate.
Junwoo is... my boyfriend...
Her whole body trembled. Her heart went cold. Without realizing it, her hand drifted toward the sword she had set beneath her chair.
— Are you just going to sit there? Those women are trying to take what's yours.
A voice rose from within her mind. No — it wasn't a voice from within. It was her own thoughts, her own feelings, exactly as she felt them.
"I'll kill them."
She had already accepted everything in her heart. An Yumin loved Lee Junwoo. So she would never again give him to any other woman. Even if it meant abandoning the path of a hero.
But right then, Lee Junwoo took her hand again and held it tight.
"What's wrong? Is the classroom a little cold?"
Saying so, he pulled her into his arms and pressed a light kiss to her hair. In that instant, the murderous intent that had been boiling so viciously inside An Yumin vanished.
I love him... so much.
And An Yumin stayed nestled in Lee Junwoo's arms for a long while. Before she knew it, she drifted off to sleep.
A short time later, An Yumin opened her eyes — not in the lecture hall, but somewhere else entirely.
For a brief moment, An Yumin had fallen asleep in my arms.
The An Yumin who had become a villain and been dominating the tenth floor — the fantasy she had been looping through in that place had stopped.
I see. She still doesn't have enough power to keep exerting influence over the Hotel of Mirrors... over Leticein's mansion...
Perhaps her strength as a villain simply wasn't sufficient yet. Every light in the lecture hall had gone out. I briefly replayed what had happened there.
Choi Hana. Song Sia... and...
An Yumin, sitting side by side with me in that classroom, had endlessly murdered the women who walked through that door. More than ten times over.