Possession Is Always New (1)
The voice rang out crisp and clear, the way a professional narrator might read a line. That calm, detached tone—like something from a cutscene—pulled my sunken consciousness up from the deepest part of the abyss.
“Huk—!”
I exhaled sharply and slowly opened my eyes. A rush of vertigo made me blink several times. The moment my mind snapped back into focus, I grasped the situation and my face twisted.
This alien feeling. This unforgettable, sickeningly familiar sensation. Of course I remembered it. It was exactly the same as the first time I’d been dropped into a game.
Fuck. No, right? Someone, anyone, please tell me I’m wrong.
Naturally, no answer came.
I didn’t even need to wonder where I was. Having gone through this once before, I understood my circumstances instantly.
I had been possessed as a character inside a game I myself had created—this time, the sequel to the previous one.
I’d only said I wanted to see the hero party’s companions. I never said I wanted to possess anyone.
I cursed inwardly. Insane. This game is actually insane. Why does it only do this to me?
If someone asked why I was getting angry instead of being happy after experiencing possession twice—something no one else could ever do—I’d want to snap back: “Then why don’t you possess in my place? I’ll help you all you want if you do.”
Since I couldn’t say it out loud, I simply screamed inside my head. Thinking of the players still enjoying the game normally, I let out a long sigh.
Stop bullshitting me. You fucking operator bastard—if you have a conscience, pull me out of here.
I remembered comments from some online community I’d seen before and raised an eyebrow. It would be better if people like that got possessed instead. I genuinely didn’t understand why they kept dragging in someone like me—an ordinary person who had gotten into university and was living a normal life.
Even though my body still moved as I willed it, I covered my face with one hand. With a gloomy expression, I looked forward.
It seemed to be the moment just before the character’s prologue story began. I was seeing the scene through the eyes of Charlotte Cyclamen, the character I had created.
So this time I was going to directly experience Charlotte’s past story?
I frowned. Turning into a woman’s body was already a problem, but even the short synopsis I’d read made it obvious this was a bleak, miserable character. I was worried that if my mind synchronized with hers, I would end up just as broken.
But the most eye-catching thing is that.
The sky dyed crimson, houses engulfed in flames. Two moons floating above and ground soaked in blood.
Having visited this place once before as Damian Radius, I narrowed my eyes. The Demon Realm. The atmosphere was slightly different, but this was unmistakably the heart of the Demon Realm. The murderous aura was the same as ever, so I recognized it at once.
Right on cue, the story began on its own.
A calm narration started to tickle my ears.
I sat on the blood-soaked ground, clutching with a pale face the corpse of the boy I had called my little brother only moments earlier. Where exactly had it all gone wrong? No—perhaps from the very beginning, I had simply been judged for stubbornly clinging to a fate that was always meant to shatter. I should never have trusted them, even if they were family. At least I had believed we were happy, even if not ordinary. I had believed we were a family overflowing with love, even if not happy. Even when other demons pointed fingers and cursed our household, I had thought my parents were great and proud for accomplishing the impossible love between human and demon. But what returned was the cold punishment of my mother’s betrayal.
Regardless of my own will, my mouth opened and my tightly clenched fist trembled.
“Why… why did you do this?! Father, Karl, Shari… and me! Didn’t you say you loved us? Didn’t you say you would protect us? Is this all your love amounts to? Mother!”
I—Charlotte Cyclamen—threw a question filled with resentment and hatred at the woman standing before me. She held a sword that glowed crimson, every inch of the blade dripping with the blood of the family that had been alive only moments ago.
The woman was a beautiful beauty with the same black hair as Charlotte. She looked down at me with a mechanical expression that held no emotion, then knelt and lowered her gaze until our eyes met directly. Her irises, shining with an eerie red light, stared straight into mine.
The moment our eyes locked, my body shook against my will. Of course it did. Even if I didn’t remember, Charlotte had just fought a desperate battle against this woman and suffered a crushing defeat. The head might not recall it, but the body did. The terror.
The woman quietly spoke my name.
“Charlotte.”
I ground my teeth. The disgusting act of my mother—who had killed everyone and now pretended to worry—made me grip the sword tighter as I shouted with open loathing.
“Don’t you dare call my name with that filthy mouth!”
Blood rushed to my eyes. At her daughter’s roar the woman flinched, shoulders trembling. Then, as if the moment of surprise had never happened, she returned to her usual blank face.
Watching her, I lowered my head, released the sword, and let out a drained laugh.
“Haha… it’s not even funny. If you’re going to kill me, just do it. Pity? Comfort? Or maybe some twisted love-hate? What meaning is there if I’m the only one left alive after you’ve killed them all?”
After I mocked the woman who had once been my mother to my heart’s content, the narration continued to speak.
Born into a world ruled by pureblood demons, I endured a life of subtle discrimination for being a half-blood who nevertheless possessed great power—only because I had family and a sibling to hold me up. And I resolved to protect them all with my own two hands. But what was the result? Nothing remained. Nothing at all. Truly, nothing was left. My heart, betrayed by the person I held most dear, had long since been ripped to shreds. After a life-or-death battle with my mother in that state, there was no way Charlotte still had any strength left to fight.
Clang.
The sword, drenched red with the woman’s blood, fell to the ground.
I laughed weakly and spoke.
“There’s no strength left in my body. So kill me now. Before I kill you with my own hands—kill me with yours.”
“…That is not for you to decide…”
“If you’re a mother. If you were ever the mother of this household, even if you’re rotten, can’t you at least grant one last request from your pitiful daughter who’s about to die by your hand?”
“…”
The woman moved her lips, then closed them. A refusal.
As if I had expected it, I smiled bitterly. It was an answer just like her. So consistently herself that it was almost impressive in the worst way. A hollow laugh escaped me.
I tilted my head slightly, stared straight into her eyes, and asked.
“Did you enjoy it? Watching this child who wasn’t even like a child struggle so hard to play the part of a daughter?”
“…”
“It must have been funny. You must have laughed at how pointless it all was.”
I spat out the words I had kept pressed down in my heart and looked up at the sky.
Looking at the sky one last time before death, I prayed to the goddess who would not grant my wish. Goddess of the demons, are you giving me this punishment because you dislike a half-demon like me? Is it because I was foolish that you inflict such a judgment? Does my figure—desperately clutching my little brother’s cold, stiff corpse in the freezing rain while letting out a scream of grief and sorrow—look so hideous to you? Do you find it pathetic that I have forgotten the pride of the demon race and am howling like a beast, and that is why you refuse me?
My voice trembled finely, as if begging for salvation.
“…Answer me.”
Of course, no answer came. Salvation did not exist, and gods were nothing but imaginary beings. They had never existed in the first place.
If you truly exist. If you are not merely imaginary. Goddess Lucifel, who possesses power greater than the Demon King and rules over the demon race, please listen to this foolish half-demon’s plea. If you wish, I will give you both my flesh and my soul. I will lick your feet or bow my head, whatever you command. So please. Please, save my little brother and my father. Unlike me—a murderer who has cut down many lives, including my own kin—they have done nothing wrong.
The goddess remained silent.
With hollow eyes I looked at the woman I had once called mother and faithfully obeyed.
She soon flinched and bit her lip.
“To think you would make an expression like that.”
So she still had at least a scrap of pity for her daughter. I hadn’t known any such feeling remained inside her. Or perhaps this was all a hallucination seen by a dying girl. That made me want to ask even more.
“What exactly was family to you? Huh? A toy you play with once and then throw away?”
“To me, family is…”
After pondering for a long time, the woman finally opened her mouth—only for a new figure to appear.
Who the hell is that?
I had been wearing a fed-up expression at the finale of this trashy family drama when my attention shifted to the newcomer.
She appeared to be a female demon, yet she was far too alien to be a pureblood. She definitely had a human shape, but the aura that triggered pure terror made my pupils quake. My body froze solid. My teeth chattered.
The arrival of a new monster. I had never heard of or seen a demon like this. Just how far back in the past was this character’s timeline that someone I didn’t know at all could appear? Maybe it was new foreshadowing, I thought as I observed the woman carefully.
“Hmm.”
She walked straight up to me, grabbed my chin with a rough hand, turned my face left and right, then openly showed disappointment. As if discarding a toy that had lost its charm, she threw me to the ground.
“Urk…!”
“So it failed after all. How terribly disappointing. Is that all it took for your mind to break?”
After muttering something incomprehensible, the woman—who had not been here long—turned away without mercy and spoke flatly.
“Roze. She is your daughter, so deal with her yourself. If you kill her, bring the corpse… Hm. If even a shred of sympathy remains, sealing her is acceptable.”
“!”
“Consider it a reward. But there will be no next time. Handle it properly.”
“…I will obey the god’s command.”
I knew full well that the woman who proudly called that a reward and the mother of this body who accepted it without hesitation were both equally insane.
At least tell me your name before you leave. I watched the woman’s back as she walked away without regret, disappearing from view. In the blink of an eye, a magic circle was engraved beneath my feet and began to glow.
The magic circle suddenly activated.
My eyes widened.
Sealing magic. It was definitely a sealing spell.
I, who had been staring blankly, realized what the circle beneath me was and shouted desperately.
“Don’t seal me in such a pathetic way—kill me! Kill me! If you leave me any opening, I will definitely kill you…!”
“Kill her.”
“…?”
“If I am to die by my daughter’s hand, that is enough to satisfy me. If you are ever released from this seal, come and kill me whenever you wish.”
Come judge me, the sinner. The woman added.
Unlike me, who was stunned by her unexpected behavior, she shed a single tear and offered an apology.
“…I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you. You, Karl, Shari… even my husband.”
“What do you mea—mmph!!”
Before she could finish, dozens of chains erupted from the magic circle and began binding my mouth and body. There was no time to resist the powerful mana chains; my body was steadily restrained. The chains dragged me toward Narak.
Clank. Clank.
No matter how I struggled, the chains only grew tighter. In the end, I experienced with my own body the moment Charlotte’s physical form was severed from the world, and I muttered.
You fucking operator.
It felt so hollow that the prologue of the character named Charlotte Cyclamen came to an end.
The prologue story 'The Lie Hidden Behind the Truth' has ended.
The next story will proceed in quest format. You must clear the quests to obtain hints for returning to your original world. Of course, if you wish, you do not have to return this time either.
Once again, my consciousness sank into darkness.