Maid? (Part 2)
I was fine. This wasn’t the dangerous era of the old days anymore. Nothing bad would happen. “Yeah. I’ll definitely call you, so wait for me!”
“Okay. Autumn. I’ll be waiting.”
Damn. Even I had to admit I handled that perfectly. When Monica first tried to hypnotize me, Cassandra stepped in to save me, got stabbed and collapsed, and then Bathory Hosa showed up, I seriously didn’t know what the hell to do. But I actually broke through that total mess of a situation! I’m proud of myself.
That terrifying ‘Pink Devil,’ Bathory Hosa, was completely obsessed with me. Maybe I really was an incredibly charming alpha male? But she had the Eye of Truth, so why hadn’t my true identity been exposed?
Anyway, I needed to get home as fast as possible and figure out how to deal with everything moving forward. If my delusions were really turning into reality, there were way more shocking ones waiting in the wings. If even those manifested, Bathory Hosa would become absolutely nothing in comparison.
At this rate, wasn’t I going to be the reason the entire Earth got destroyed?
After parting ways with Bathory Hosa, we smashed through the shopping mall’s locked doors and stepped outside. She said she’d take care of the broken door later. That made sense. As one of the highest-ranking figures in the vampire world, and with vampires basically controlling this country, handling something like that would be child’s play for her.
A person with real power, huh. Maybe I should’ve just begged her to take me in and let me live under her protection. She was an incredibly beautiful woman of power who only had eyes for me. Prime first-wife material.
No. Absolutely not. If she ever found out the truth, I wouldn’t be allowed to die a clean death. I’d end up in a state so miserable that simply dying would feel like mercy. It was better to part ways like this. She said she’d wait, right? Ugh. I really did feel bad about that. There was no way Autumn’s memories would ever come back to me.
“Hey. You made me carry this girl for two whole hours.”
“Ah. I’m really sorry. But you know how it is. If I carried her myself…”
“I know. Bathory Hosa is insanely jealous, so she wouldn’t have let it slide. That’s why you’re only helping me this once?”
“Thanks, Gaeul.”
It felt weird hearing my own name used to address me.
“Once we get out of here and walk a little further, I’ll carry her myself.”
“It’s fine. I don’t want you getting covered in blood too. Just leave it to me. We’re one and the same, aren’t we?”
That’s right. We were the same person. It felt so good knowing that ‘me’ was right here like this. She understood every single one of my feelings. And since ‘I’ was here to help come up with countermeasures for everything that was about to happen, somehow we’d manage.
It was past two in the morning, so the streets outside the shopping mall were completely empty.
Having such a huge space with no people around felt strangely scary. Even earlier inside the mall, it had been frightening with just the two of us.
Hm? Come to think of it, didn’t the other ‘me’ get punched by Monica and sent flying? Was she okay?
“Female Gaeul.”
“What is it, male Gaeul.”
“Earlier you got hit by Monica Grace and slammed into the wall. Are you really okay?”
She was walking around like nothing had happened, but getting hit that hard could’ve easily killed someone, right? She flew like a baseball and smashed straight into the wall.
Wait… did that mean I asked Cassandra to carry someone who’d just taken a blow like that?
“Ah. That. I forgot to mention it earlier, but strangely enough, there isn’t a single wound or any pain on my body.”
“Huh?”
“When my body was sent flying, I only felt the sensation of being thrown and hitting the wall. I didn’t feel like I’d been struck at all, and there was zero pain. It was like I took no damage in a game.”
“Maybe one of the superpowers we used to fantasize about actually manifested?”
“I think so too. Do you remember that passive ability from Deus Ex Machina?”
“No way… ‘Physical Nullification’?”
“Yeah. I think that ability we imagined back then has appeared in me.”
Deus Ex Machina, or DeExMa for short, was a game I—we—used to play a lot. It was about fighting with summoned creatures, and you could teach your summons passive skills like ‘Physical Nullification,’ ‘Flame Nullification,’ ‘Lightning Nullification,’ and so on. Once a summon learned a nullification passive for a certain attribute, it would gain complete immunity to that attribute and take zero damage from it.
It was just a game, of course, but I had once wondered what would happen if I brought that ability into reality through my delusions. Let’s say you gained ‘Physical Nullification’ in the real world. You’d become immune to all physical attacks. Swords, bullets, even a direct hit from a cannon—your body wouldn’t suffer so much as a scratch. They were all physical attacks, after all. And since it was complete nullification, you’d be immune not just to injury but to pain itself. In the game, there wasn’t even any knockback effect.
Okay, fine. I mostly just wanted to fantasize about becoming an overpowered protagonist, so I tacked it on.
There were tons of other broken abilities I had imagined in my delusions. It seemed the other ‘me’ thought ‘Physical Nullification’ was the most appropriate one right now.
“So you’ve gained the ‘Physical Nullification’ passive skill?”
Whoa. I was so jealous. I wanted a superpower too! I wanted to be overpowered! I wanted to be a hero!
Wait, maybe I actually had gained a superpower and just didn’t know it yet? Since I was also ‘me’—Kim Gaeul—maybe I had the same ‘Physical Nullification’ passive? Let’s see… maybe I should try pinching my forearm?
“I think that’s likely. Since there doesn’t seem to be a status window or anything… Hm?”
That was true. If we had a status window, we could check my current condition and figure out exactly which delusion had become real. But when I said ‘Status Window’ earlier, nothing happened. It looked like the status window hadn’t manifested.
“Holy crap. It actually exists.”
“Huh? What exists?”
“The status window. I just said ‘Status Window’ and one appeared right in front of me. But it’s a little strange.”
What?
There was a status window? But I didn’t get one earlier—why did you get one and not me!
Maybe it appeared in the meantime? Just to be sure, I should try it again.
The moment I made up my mind and tried to shout “Status Window,” a woman’s voice came from behind us.
“Human. Put down that wolf bitch and step back, and I’ll spare your life.”
Huh? What the hell was it this time?
When I turned around, a woman with short black hair was standing there. Was she the one who spoke? And behind her, more than ten people had gathered in a group. I don’t know… what is this… I’m scared…
The woman in front widened her eyes and licked her lips. Why was she acting so scary? Her eyes were even glowing. If she wasn’t a True Ancestor but a regular vampire, wasn’t that a sign of excitement?
“Hm? A human with this level of handsomeness? No, never mind. I, Karen, shall grant you the honor of becoming my husband, male human.”
Karen?
Could she be that Karen Erzsebet, the head of the Grace family’s intelligence division?
No way. That character was supposed to be a man. When I was setting up the story in my delusions, I thought the intelligence chief should be a serious, reliable man.
Of course, later I decided he looked serious on the outside but actually had a silly personality for that gap-moe appeal. So why had he turned into a woman?
And “become my husband”? If she really was Karen Erzsebet, head of the Grace family’s intelligence department, and she was actually feeling sexual desire toward me right now, didn’t that mean I was about to get dragged away and used as a breeding stud? Oh shit, what the hell.
“This can’t be. Karen… Erzsebet?”
The other ‘me’ muttered in a stunned voice.
What? So the other me also thought she was Karen Erzsebet. Then it must really be her. But why was she so shocked? From her perspective, shouldn’t Karen Erzsebet have always been a woman? Wait a second. Originally a woman? Earlier, both Bathory Hosa and Monica were women, so they must be from my delusions. What the hell was going on?
At that moment, something fell from the sky between us and Karen Erzsebet’s group.
A powerful impact sent a massive cloud of dust billowing outward.
Cough, cough.
What was it this time? I hadn’t even been in this world for twenty-four hours yet! Save me, Bathory Hosa.
As the dust that had blocked our vision gradually cleared, a silhouette became visible in the center of a large crater.
And that person was…
“A maid?”
It was a beautiful woman with red hair tied back in a ponytail, wearing a maid outfit. Two cool-looking horns rose from the top of her head.
Horns?
A maid?
No way… it couldn’t be…
“I’ve finally found you. My Master♥.”
Dragon God
The one who can shatter the Earth with a mere thought.
In my delusions, there was only one red-haired ponytail maid with horns.
Rebecca Ignis.
If that woman really was Rebecca Ignis, then the Bathory Hosa I met earlier would become utterly insignificant by comparison.
That Rebecca Ignis was so powerful that, if she felt like it, she could reduce the current Earth to dust even in her present state.
Rebecca Ignis was a dragon.
But she wasn’t an ordinary dragon. She was a transcendent being who possessed divinity—a Dragon God.
This was seriously going to drive me insane.