The Secret of House Citrine (1)
Phew, thank god.
Terre let out a long breath of relief.
The tension that had frozen her legs melted away, and her breath, which had been stuck in her throat like a cork, finally found its rhythm again. With a reliable ally she could trust her back to having appeared, Terre slid back into her usual energy.
"Where on earth have you been? I've been looking all over for you."
"Sorry, sorry. I was just taking a look around the area myself."
Solis answered her honestly. His casual, easygoing deflection was exactly as it always was.
But his gaze wasn't on Terre. It was fixed on someone else entirely.
"What? Does that bother you?"
"Uh, a whole lot."
"Hey, put more back into it, will you? Your reactions are so lukewarm it's killing my mood."
"...Yes, sir."
Beyond the door, a woman's wretched figure was visible. The men were pouring their lust onto her as she lay collapsed across the bed like a discarded doll. Somewhere deep down she was resisting, carrying on a soundless protest, but not one of them so much as blinked.
"That's rough."
"Agreed. Torturing an innocent person like that—it's hard to watch."
Terre offered her short verdict on the scene, and Solis nodded along, adding his own two cents.
"Huh? But I thought coercive stuff like that was your thing?"
"Roleplay's one thing, but ignoring someone's actual will like that is just... I did try it once on a real scumbag, and honestly? I had a bit of an existential crisis afterward."
"...I'm going to pretend I never heard that."
She'd only been teasing him, and somehow she'd stumbled into a fact that made her hair stand on end.
In any case, Terre reminded herself of her original purpose for coming here—taking the Connector and returning to where the elder was. Whether that woman was being raped or not, escaping this place came first, so she asked Solis quietly.
"Do you know a way out of here?"
"And what makes you so sure I'd know that?"
"It's all over your face. You've already assessed the situation and you're figuring out how to prepare for what comes next."
She hadn't been close to Solis, not exactly, but she'd often dropped by the café where he held his regular meetings, and they'd gotten to know each other's faces. His small habits, his behavioral patterns—she had them all mapped out. The way he was calmly surveying everything meant he was already three steps ahead.
That composure of his, like a man who already knew what was coming, made her nudge his shoulder.
"Come on, hurry up and go wild like you always do. It's what you're best at, isn't it?"
Show me what I hired you for, she urged. She naturally assumed he'd handle it as easily as he had back in Atlantis.
"Sorry to disappoint, but this is a problem only you can solve."
"Huh? What did you say?"
"I can't give you anything but advice here."
Bewildered by the cryptic answer, Terre showed a flicker of panic, but Solis pressed on without a care.
"I'll only say this once, so listen carefully. Long story short—this place is a recreation of something that happened in the past."
"A recreation of the past? Then that woman over there... she's someone from back then?"
"You'll find out soon enough. Because you're the one who's about to reconstruct that past, in that era, in that very place."
"What is that supposed to mean?! Explain properly—"
There were still mountains of things she didn't understand. She demanded a more detailed explanation, but the situation wasn't giving them the time.
"Solis, your body—!"
"Ah, looks like time's up."
His once-solid figure was slowly turning transparent. She thrust her hand out desperately, but all her fingers closed around was the cold, stinging air. It was like trying to grab a ghost, a shadow with no substance at all.
"Just remember this one thing. When you come to, don't panic—play the role that matches the face you're wearing."
"A role? Acting?"
"That's everything. Don't you dare forget what I told you."
"Hey, hey, HEY!"
Terre cried out, begging him not to go, but Solis vanished without a shred of mercy, her plea falling on nothing. Then, like ink blooming in water, the space itself drowned in darkness.
In that pitch-black void where she couldn't see a hand in front of her face, she swallowed hard.
What do I do now?
Terre clutched her forehead, utterly lost. She had no idea what she was supposed to do, so for the moment she did the only thing she could—turn Solis's words over in her mind, one by one.
'Play the role that matches your face...? What on earth is he talking about?'
"Anna, the maid!"
"Wah!"
Just then, a voice cut in right beside her. She shot up with a start and whipped her head around.
"What's all the fuss about? Did I do something wrong?"
"..."
Terre swallowed her breath.
It was a familiar face—and yet, standing before her was someone subtly, unnervingly different from the figure she remembered.
Yupi?
Platinum-blonde hair like the glow of evening dusk, and matching golden eyes. The proud, dignified bearing of a noble matron—it was the face of the person Terre hated most in all the world.
But something's off here?
Yet she was different from the woman carved into Terre's memory. Different by a wide margin.
She's so young!
This was not that Yupi—the one whose hawk-sharp eyes would sweep a room and command it with sheer charisma. This woman had a fresh, unripe quality about her, a youthfulness that the Yupi Terre knew had long since burned away.
'Even when I was a kid, she didn't look this young.'
Then, without warning, Solis's words came back to her.
—This place is a recreation of something that happened in the past.
'That's what Solis said, right?'
If that was true, then the woman before her was Yupi's phantom—her true self, from a time when she had actually lived.
She walked her way through it step by step. There had to be a hint in what he'd said.
—Play the role that matches your face.
'A role, huh...'
Yupi hadn't called her Terre just now. Instead, she'd spoken the name of another person—one Terre knew very well.
The moment the thought connected, Terre ran her hands down her own body. Sleeves in an unfamiliar fabric. The uniform worn by the maids of House Citrine. Even a faint burn scar on her right hand.
She wasn't Terre right now. She was Anna, in service to House Citrine.
Her mind raced, and without panicking, it produced the correct answer.
"Forgive me, Lady Yupi. I was off in a daydream—not at all like myself."
She dredged up every memory she had. She recreated the mannerisms, the gestures, the speech of the servant she had known. She copied how that woman had been—haughty and reserved with guests, warm and doting with the family.
"It's quite all right. These things happen, in the course of a life."
Whether it was the acting or not, Yupi smiled brightly. It was the soft, warm gaze one gives to someone they've long known and cared for.
In that instant, something hot and corrosive surged up in Terre's chest.
'Why did you kill them all?'
The question she had murmured to herself thousands upon thousands of times since childhood. The answer to words she had believed she would never, ever hear—she wanted it. She wanted it more than anything.
Hooo... calm down.
She wanted to grab the woman by the collar right now and demand the truth. Instead, Terre threw every ounce of her willpower into holding onto the thread of her reason. The being before her was nothing but a residue of the past. She knew all too well that crying out to an empty illusion, no matter how long, would never bring the answer she wanted.
"Well then, I should be going."
"Going... where?"
"To hunt monsters. You know how it is."
"Ah... right."
Of course. Hadn't Yupi trained under the Headmaster since she was young, building her strength? She didn't know exactly what point in time this was, but as far as Terre knew, Yupi had spent those years working as a Guardian—wandering the world and protecting humanity from the monsters that preyed upon it.
"Allow me to see you out."
"No need, I appreciate the thought."
Terre, staying in character as Anna, spoke the words the maid would have said. Yupi's reply, too, fell perfectly within her expectations—until.
"But more importantly—don't forget what I told you."
"What you told me... my lady?"
"Tiss. While I'm away, take good care of that sick girl. Make sure she's comfortable. Understood?"
'Tiss...?'
At the unexpected name, Terre fought desperately to keep her composure. For the briefest of instants, the muscles of her face twitched out of true.
'It was in the information Yuri brought back, wasn't it?'
Tiss Citrine. Yupi's younger sister, and Terre's other elder sister. A name that House Citrine had never even deigned to record. Terre herself had only learned of her existence quite recently.
'Then this is a time before I was even born?'
"And are you alright to be dawdling here? Weren't you just singing about how you had to get to Father's office right away?"
"Ah—my apologies!"
A perfect excuse to extract herself had fallen into her lap. Terre hurriedly bowed and slipped away from the spot. Any more back-and-forth here would only expose how shallow her well ran—she'd be eyed with suspicion before long, guaranteed.
'Father.'
That word, circling in her mouth, turned the rims of her eyes red. The face of someone she would never see again, someone she ached for with every fiber of her being, rose vividly behind her eyes.
It's fine even if this place is nothing but a phantom of the past. Just once—if only once—I want to see his face again.
Terre's feet set off down the hall, finding the way by pure instinct.
Here it is.
A corridor so familiar she could have walked it with her eyes closed. Passing along the path she must have scurried up and down thousands of times as a child, the memories of those brilliant golden days surfaced, tingling through a corner of her chest.
Beyond this door, Father is...
There was no reason to linger, so she moved to push the door open at once.
Smack!
"Ughk!"
The sharp crack of a blow and a strangled moan, crossing in the air. Terre recoiled from the door before she could think.
What—?
Her heart plummeted. In that instant, fear rooted her where she stood, and her hand refused to turn the knob. Instead, holding her breath, she pressed her eye to the gap in the door to see what was happening inside—
"Why won't you listen to me! Hah!"
Crack!
THWACK!
'...Father?'
The gentle man who had never once raised his voice in his entire life was nowhere to be found. In his place, someone was raging, swinging a wooden club down in brutal, merciless arcs.
"St—stop it! Please, Father, that's enough!"
Beneath that pitiless beating, a woman lay curled into herself. Her whole body mottled with deep blue bruises, trembling uncontrollably, tears streaming down her face—her condition was pitiful beyond words.
Terre stood frozen, having forgotten even how to breathe.