Chapter 66
Chapter 66
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 66
Chapter Title: Aquarium Holding a Whale (8)
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I avoided the Crown Prince’s gaze and recalled the game’s happy ending scene.
During the original story’s progression, Thymeus Sequoir confesses his love to the heroine, Anemone, revealing the true feelings he had kept hidden all this time.
He explains that he couldn’t accept those around him because he worried his position would drag them into danger.
Just like his mother, who had met a tragic fate due to the birth of too powerful a hero, he feared others would meet ruin as well.
In truth, he admits he lived like an isolated island out of fear.
‘Saying all that doesn’t erase the sins you’ve committed so far.’
But seeing that, I gritted my teeth inwardly while mashing the game controller.
Was it because I’d played while immersing myself in Dahlia?
He just seemed like a damn villain.
Still, I knew the Crown Prince’s twisted personality wasn’t entirely his own fault.
“There’s a bit of that side to you……”
It was irritating.
In the end, it made it impossible to completely hate the character Thymeus Sequoir.
Even so, I resolved to hate him.
The Crown Prince was someone who treated Dahlia cruelly.
Dahlia’s enemies were my enemies!
So if he later tried to make a fuss about marrying Dahlia or breaking off an engagement, that would be a problem.
From now on, the Crown Prince should continue living a lonely, isolated life, miserably meeting his downfall.
His romances should fail too.
I would make it happen.
That was my revenge for Dahlia, who had been rejected dozens of times across my playthroughs.
I had resolved to do that.
So the Crown Prince shouldn’t be exuding this pathetic, dog-like vibe, like he was about to reflect on his life.
“Just keep acting like you are now.”
“……”
“You decided to endure your loneliness yourself, Your Highness.”
[Sierra Penetration Trait Activated]
“Wallow in your loneliness all you want.”
Don’t torment my Dahlia just to get yourself a girlfriend.
“You……”
Amusement crept into the Crown Prince’s voice.
Startled, I turned to look, and damn it, he was actually smiling.
“Huh?”
An expression I’d only seen in event illustrations?
When I checked the status window, it seemed like the Crown Prince’s favorability hearts were sparkling.
[Favorability condition checking.]
[Favorability condition met.]
“You’ve changed.”
For a moment, my vision went white, and the background around us shifted.
Just moments ago, Enbi had been swimming in the deep blue sea, but now it was gone.
A new backdrop appeared behind the Crown Prince: a well-manicured artificial garden, complete with the laughter of children……
It was one of the academy spaces from the game.
‘A hallucination?’
I wasn’t the only one sensing something off.
Ragiya, who had been silently listening to my conversation with the Crown Prince, vibrated and whispered.
[Strange magic is in the air. It feels familiar…… It’s magic bursting from you, Sierra! What is this? I’ve definitely felt it before. This was at your house, Sierra…… What is it? Ahahaha! There’s something in this world even I don’t know! ]
The Crown Prince seemed to move in slow motion.
The hallucination played out like a movie of its own accord.
It was a noisy scene from the academy.
Two people stood in a wide training hall.
One was the Crown Prince as a child, and the other was an extra whose face was too blurry to make out clearly.
The Crown Prince had his sword pointed at the extra’s throat.
The extra panted heavily, shoulders heaving, while not a single hair on the Crown Prince was out of place.
The expressionless Crown Prince lowered his sword.
The extra fled the scene like a coward.
‘Thymeus Sequoir wins!’
The tense silence broke, and the surroundings grew noisy.
‘As expected of His Highness Thymeus.’
‘The opponent didn’t stand a chance.’
‘Amazing. To think someone like that is the Crown Prince……’
Amid the admiration, an uncomfortable tension flowed.
They were all feeling fear.
Like wild animals facing a predator, they whispered nervously in dread.
Then the Crown Prince turned his head, and our eyes met.
Had I made eye contact with the hallucination Crown Prince?
Ah, looking closely, there was a boy in front of me.
It was Sierra who was locking eyes with the Crown Prince.
The Sierra Gluttony from the original story.
“While everyone else looked at me with unease, only you glared at me with insolent eyes.”
Piercing through the hallucination, the real Crown Prince’s voice reached me clearly.
He was right.
The young Sierra’s gaze was alive with spirit.
After glaring at the Crown Prince for a moment, Sierra slowly backed away.
As if uninterested in his duel, Sierra left the area and blended into another group.
Then, unfamiliar voices seeped into my mind.
‘We need to curb the Gluttony Duke’s momentum.’
‘The Duchess’s influence will become a problem someday.’
‘I hear the child about to be born is a daughter? They might propose a marriage alliance.’
The scene shifted to another academy location.
Extras of all ages trailed after the young Crown Prince, nagging him.
Most were telling him to check the Gluttony Duke’s family.
They added that the heir, Sierra Gluttony, would one day bring disaster.
Even then, the young Crown Prince watched Sierra reading alone at a distance.
His face was expressionless, like he was staring at roadside dust.
Whenever the Crown Prince looked, Sierra was alone.
People approached her multiple times to talk, but she avoided them.
It was as if she deliberately chose solitude.
‘He knows his own limits.’
Through the hallucination, the Crown Prince’s emotions flowed into me.
He felt a sense of kinship with the self-isolating young Sierra.
She bowed her head and averted her eyes submissively, yet showed no true fear of him.
Her timid life was Sierra’s choice.
The Crown Prince read a restrained wildness in the child’s eyes.
Stand out, and the Crown Prince would eliminate her.
So she deliberately suppressed herself.
Hiding her abilities, making no friends.
Who would’ve thought that groveling, pragmatic demeanor would win his favor?
‘Don’t touch Sierra Gluttony until she changes. He won’t bare his teeth at me.’
The hallucination ended there.
[Insufficient magic to color.]
Coloring? Was this related to Dahlia’s trait?
The status window flashed repeatedly, and the hallucination vanished entirely.
It felt like I’d peeked at a crucial event scene in the game.
Yeah, it was an event scene.
I’d glimpsed the Crown Prince’s memories!
During the hallucination, I could feel a bit of his heart too.
Loneliness, emptiness, and even a hint of betrayal.
“I haven’t changed, but you have, Sierra.”
The Crown Prince’s matter-of-fact voice pulled me back to reality.
We were still on the ship.
He looked down at me.
It was different from the gaze he’d given the young Sierra in the hallucination.
The emotion in his eyes now was a subtle emptiness.
And a touch of betrayal.
“……”
Was Thymeus burning with loneliness right now?
Well, being born human, it couldn’t be easy adapting to a world with no one on your side.
His future looked pretty bleak too.
I’d even stolen Pippin, who was supposed to become his guard knight.
“How about recruiting a guard knight, Your Highness?”
Well, unless it was someone on Pippin’s level, no guard knight for the Crown Prince would be a match for me.
I could afford to yield one guard knight.
The Crown Prince stared at my face before scoffing.
“Seeing your guard knight has raised my standards.”
I flinched.
“I won’t be keeping any dogs for a while. The one I had my eye on has changed his gaze.”
“Dogs……?”
The Crown Prince turned away.
Staring blankly at his retreating back, the status window flashed cheekily.
[Event reward available.]
So that hallucination earlier was the event……
The Crown Prince’s favorability was now at three hearts.
Events triggered under certain conditions once favorability was met.
Since I wasn’t the heroine, I couldn’t know exactly what conditions, but it wasn’t unexpected.
Events with important illustrations usually happened when alone together.
“So what’s the event reward? Some item?”
[Skill ‘Karma’ acquired]
“Huh? Karma?”
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New Skill
-Karma: Read the sins a target has accumulated thus far.
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“You can see the target’s karma……”
What kind of skill is this?
What’s the point of seeing someone’s past sins?
But since it was a new skill, it seemed worth trying.
Using it was simple: extend a hand toward the target whose karma you wanted to read and concentrate your magic.
My first test subject was the Crown Prince.
He was still trudging back to his cabin.
I extended my hand toward his back and activated the skill.
“Karma.”
In an instant, the surroundings shifted like when I’d seen the event scene.
It was as if ink burst around the Crown Prince, altering the landscape.
The dingy ship deck turned into a battlefield in a heartbeat.
Blood pooled everywhere, and beast corpses littered the ground.
Not just beasts.
Those purged by the Crown Prince’s blade lay impaled on gleaming spears, paving his path.
In the blood-soaked world, only the Crown Prince shone.
He walked casually over his karma, as if it were the most natural thing.
“Ugh!”
It was revolting.
He had slain far more beasts, far more brutally, than I’d imagined.
The karma hallucination spread endlessly around him.
“No wonder he has no friends.”
As the Crown Prince entered his cabin, the gruesome scene faded.
“That was the Crown Prince’s karma……”
Once the hallucination fully dissipated, I was gasping for breath.
That was way too damaging to my mental health.
I shuddered like a dog and let out a sigh.
If not for Ragiya’s vibration, I would’ve stood there dazed.
[Hey, Sierra! I sense a new power. This one’s pretty intense? Hahaha! Your magic’s gotten even darker! Feel it, Sierra?]
“Darker, huh. In a way, yeah. I got a nasty new skill. Not sure how to use it—wait!”
In that moment, my magic moved on its own, creating a small door of death in midair.
The flat iron plate grew larger, then turned three-dimensional with a pop, spitting out a furry lump.
The heavy fur ball dropped right into my arms.
Ragiya clattered to the floor because of it.
[I keep getting dropped like this……]
The fur ball’s four legs latched onto my face.
When I pried it off, red eyes blinked up at me innocently.
“Cosmo! What are you doing popping out like that? At least you came out small……”
[Master! I smelled it!]
“Smelled what?”
Cosmo had no visible nostrils but sniffed the air.
Then it opened its mouth wide, drool dripping steadily.
So much drool that my sleeve got soaked.
[Beast blood scent! Grudge of the undead! Sniff sniff, where? Where? Why’d it disappear?]
Cosmo whined, chewing on my drool-soaked sleeve.
[Share some with me! I wanna eat beast! Eat beast! Undead’s good too! Undead’s good too!]
“You were quiet earlier! We cleaned up all the beasts, and now you come whining!”
[Earlier? During the day, it was just low-level beasts with nothing special. Those just ruin your appetite. Ptooey.]
“So what you smelled just now was……”
Definitely the Crown Prince’s karma.
Cosmo must have detected the karma I’d briefly summoned with the skill.
‘That means karma isn’t just any hallucination……’