Chapter 46: White - Interlude
After returning to normalcy, I couldn't withstand the toll of the battles and ended up losing consciousness.
When I opened my eyes again, everything was white.
"Ah, shit…"
A hospital.
"Phew."
For a second I thought I'd done that crazy bullshit again and it still wasn't over, but once I realized I was in a hospital, I let out a sigh of relief.
"Seriously, why do they make hospitals all white? I almost passed out from the shock."
A place that's supposed to give you peace of mind actually triggers your anxiety — talk about terrible design.
Thinking that, I tried to sit up.
"Huh?"
Only then did I notice Luna, hugging me while she slept.
"Ah, woke you up. Sorry."
Sensing my movement, Luna woke from her sleep.
"It's okay."
With a face that looked like she hadn't fully woken up yet, she shook her head side to side. Her disheveled hair swayed along with the motion.
Creak—
"Oh, you're awake?"
Luna and I turned our heads toward the sound.
Standing there was a man with golden hair and purple eyes.
A man I'd seen once before.
"Uh, hello? You're... Estelle's brother, right?"
"Why so formal? Just call me by my name."
He casually pulled out a nearby chair and sat down.
He said to call him by his name, but there was one big problem.
"What was your name again?"
I don't actually know this guy's name.
The man before me blanked for a moment, apparently not expecting me not to know his name.
"What? Wait, you don't know?"
"No."
"Seriously? No matter how little interest you have in noble houses... Actually, wait. Estelle never told you my name either?"
"No."
Slap—
He smacked his forehead with a crisp sound.
"Okay, I'm Ciel. Ciel Pendragon. You're Yi Seoha, right? And the kid next to you is Lu... na. Nice to meet you."
"Yes, nice to meet you too."
Luna also inclined her head in greeting.
"Honestly, you're probably wondering why I'm here. Other than that one time we met, there's nothing connecting us."
He wasn't wrong. It would've been much easier to figure out what was going on if Estelle, Mikhail, a professor, or someone high up from the Alchemy Department had come instead.
"To be precise, I was chosen because I can explain things without any emotional bias. Estelle's a bit too emotional, the Spirit King couldn't be sent just in case, Shadow had some suspicion issues so the higher-ups called her in, and the Alchemist... well, no explanation needed there."
As if reading my thoughts, he calmly explained why each of the candidates that had come to mind couldn't make it.
"Anyway, for various reasons, I ended up being the one to come — someone in a high enough position who can stay neutral in this matter. Honestly, you just woke up, so you probably have no idea what's going on, right?"
He pulled something from his pocket and manipulated it.
"From what I heard, you took down the White King... no, the White Star, then immediately lost consciousness, right? So you don't know what happened afterward."
As he said that, a video played as a hologram.
"I don't know what method you used, but you didn't just dethrone the King — you even brought down the Star of Conquest."
A single star was falling, broken into countless pieces.
"One star in the Starry Sea shattered into numerous fragments and fell. You might not know this, but it didn't just fall randomly — a broken star falling means that star will never rise again."
The fragments of the star were all falling toward a single point. As if they'd made a pact.
"But there was something strange. Instead of scattering, the star fragments were drawn toward one place as they fell. The Star Engraving group managed to snatch some of them on the way, though."
He walked over slowly.
"Here."
Then he pointed his finger at Luna.
Luna smacked his hand away.
"Ouch, quite the grip you've got."
He spoke as if nothing had happened. I frowned at what he said and asked,
"What does that mean?"
"We don't know either. This is a first for us."
Since it's a completely unprecedented phenomenon, nobody can predict what's going to happen.
"Whoa, don't get so serious. I phrased that in a misleading way. At the very least, there's no demonic reaction at all. Meaning you won't be chased like last time. I'm just telling you so you know, just in case."
He pulled some documents out of his bag.
"This is the main point. The bill."
I stared at the bill.
One, ten, hundred, thousand, ten thousand, hundred thousand, million, ten million... Why are there still more digits? Why do the numbers keep getting bigger?
"I'd like to file for bankruptcy."
"Awakened individuals can't file for bankruptcy."
A revolution. We need a revolution.
"Actually, I'm not an Awakened one. This is just a tattoo I got because I was bored."
"Then you're an impersonator."
"Isn't that better? Actually, no, this whole thing is a prank show. This is all forged too — if you look closely at the details..."
"No. This is the bill for everything you destroyed while running away. At least I didn't charge you for impersonating our family."
I hate poverty. Can I even pay all that back? With an amount like that, even in my original world, there's no way I could ever repay it unless that bastard father of mine was the one paying it off.
"Yeah, I figured. This clearly isn't something a single Academy student could repay, right?"
"Yeah, let's cross back over to the Demon Realm. I'll cross into the Demon Realm again and come back to overthrow this filthy society."
"Hey, can you listen to me for a second?"
"Raise the sickle and hammer! Debtors of the nation, unite!"
"Wait, wasn't it 'workers,' not 'debtors'?"
At some point, Luna had made a sickle and hammer out of glass and pressed them into my hands.
"If there's no one left to repay the debt to, isn't that the same as having no debt at all?"
"Birds of a feather flock together, bullshit. Snap out of it — you're not as strong as when you used that Authority, you fucking weakling."
"Waaah. Luna, what are we gonna do now?"
"Dad..."
As Luna and I hugged each other crying, Ciel pressed his hand to his forehead like he had a headache.
"Please, just listen to me."
BAM—
"Nobody can stop me!"
At that moment, a ninja... no, Estelle appeared.
"How did you get here?!"
"Ah, don't you know? Escape is my specialty."
"That's not escape, that's breaking in. Don't talk like someone locked you up!"
"Escape and breaking in aren't all that different."
"They're different, you crazy bitch!"
Ciel grabbed the back of his neck and tilted his head back.
"Ah, I don't wanna work. What a bunch of fucking pain in the asses."
"So what was the original thing you wanted to talk about?"
"Yeah, brother, hurry up and finish what you were doing. Don't neglect your duties."
"I really hate you guys."
"There's a saying — hate the sin, not the sinner. You shouldn't do that, brother."
"Fuck it. You probably already know the gist anyway, so you take over."
With that, he slammed the door and stormed out of the hospital room.
And so, in the hospital room, two people and one spirit stared at each other with an awkward atmosphere hanging between them.
"Uh, hi?"
"Oh, hi?"
The awkward atmosphere flowed again.
"Long time, no see?"
I tried to break the tension. I didn't know how long I'd been unconscious, but it couldn't have been more than a few days, right?
"We saw each other yesterday."
"Oh... right."
To be honest, I'd expected it would be years before I properly saw Estelle again. She probably didn't expect us to meet again so soon either.
"Uh, been doing okay?"
"You said we saw each other yesterday."
"Yeah... right."
Aaaargh.
Ciel, come back. We're sorry.
I felt like I was suffocating.
With my limited social skills, I couldn't think of what to say in this situation.
"Ta-da!"
When neither Estelle nor I could resolve this awkward atmosphere, Luna used her power to create a glass flower.
It was a flower crafted so intricately that it perfectly resembled a real one, glittering in the light.
"Pretty, right?"
Luna said as she handed the flower to Estelle.
"Huh? Oh! It is pretty. How did you do that?"
Catching on to Luna's intention, Estelle quickly started playing along.
Well, I couldn't be left out of that.
I snatched the glass flower out of Estelle's hand.
"Can't let someone else get a gift I haven't even received myself."
Looking at me with a dumbfounded expression, Estelle got a smile from me.
"You're dead. For real."
I twisted my body to dodge, but—
"Guhk."
My physical condition was absolutely terrible.
It felt like almost every muscle in my body had been torn. How the hell did I even snatch that glass flower in the first place?
Naturally, Estelle — who'd expected me to dodge — ended up falling right on top of me.
"Oof."
"Aaaagh."
My scream echoed through the hospital room, and someone opened the door at the sound.
"You finally got yourself fucking kille— oh. Uh, my, how embarrassing."
Ciel opened the door, walked in, saw the scene, then closed the door and left again.
It was summer.
"No, you crazy bastard!"
She ran out quickly.
Not long after, the blonde woman and man returned.
"So, my brother-in-law?"
"I said no, you crazy bastard."
Estelle promptly kicked Ciel's leg.
"Yeah, so how much did you two talk?"
"We exchanged greetings."
"Ugh, are you two just trying to piss me off?"
"No, seriously."
Seeing from my eyes that I was telling the truth, he turned his head toward Estelle.
"You — why are you being all reserved?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Well, there's no way this bastard would ever be reserved."
He turned his gaze back to me.
"Anyway, back to business. Business mode. As you can see, I'm the best negotiator in our family."
I glanced slightly toward Estelle, but she didn't react much. I guess he wasn't wrong.
"Alright, so you're worried about the debt, right? First of all, our side will pay it off for you."
Right from the first word, it was an offer so incredible I couldn't have imagined it.