Chapter 271: A Help Entwined with Personal Confusion

"Arial, why am I here?" Evelyn asks while lying on the "water" that feels solid to her. She looks exhausted from the training she’d been doing—apparently, she awakened a new ability. She even told Eve about it, which is how I know now.

Spatial Marionette (Description = Space is one with your stage; a master who knows how to fully utilize the scenery is an excellent host. Now, any place, any time can become your stage, and your puppets will be ready to follow you. By using this ability, you can teleport any puppet to your position in exchange for a small amount of magic.)

’An interesting ability, indeed...’ Evelyn gets up from the ground. She still looks tired, but now that some time has passed since Esther’s betrayal—since she killed their child—Evelyn seems a little better.

"I called you here because I’m curious, little fruit! You’re heading to the ocean soon, aren’t you? Just a few days left! You’ve done such meticulous work—gathering materials, making puppets, strengthening Eve, handling kingdom management."

"Despite everything, you’ve stayed strong and kept going! But... shouldn’t you rest?" When I say this, her eyes widen as she stares at me.

"Are you serious?"

"Of course. I called you here so you could rest."

"..." She looks around, as if searching for something.

"Where’s the joke? The manipulation? What trick are you trying to pull?"

"Trick? Oh, little fruit, there’s no trick. I really just want to see you rest. You’re exhausted."

"..." 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

"Your suspicion wounds me. I understand you now, remember? I know how mentally tired and pained you are! So I called you here to give you a break before you board those ships for a war that’s going to be emotionally draining... besides..." I step closer to her, placing my hands on her cheeks.

"You cried last night."

"..."

"I know. You don’t have to talk. Just rest." Last night, Evelyn felt her "baby"—or rather, the forming magic—dissipating, showing that the "baby" really had died.

After the magic condensed to begin formation, it immediately started fading, making it clear that Esther had accomplished what she wanted.

"S-She... she doesn’t regret it..." Evelyn hugs me, burying her face in my chest, while I lower myself, bringing her down with me and sitting on the floor with her in my lap.

"...No... she doesn’t regret it..." Esther is kind of disgusting. That’s not really my feeling—it came from absorbing some of Evelyn’s feelings about Esther. This morning, Esther gave Evelyn a puppet.

Apparently, she had it custom-made, and it was a truly awful thing for her to do. She gave a puppet to replace what she took from Evelyn—such terrible hypocrisy.

Evelyn gave that thing to her dragon to eat, making it clear how offensive she found it that Esther gave her something useless that could never fix things. I still don’t really understand emotions.

So I don’t understand anything about Esther’s actions. All I understand is Evelyn, because the feelings I absorbed were hers.

"Go ahead... you can cry. No one will see you cry here." I stroke Evelyn’s head, and she can’t hold back her tears anymore. She’s held them in for too long—honestly, I’m surprised she managed to suppress the urge to cry for so long.

I feel like Evelyn is "traumatized"—not by the possibility of losing Esther’s love or necessarily losing another child, but by the possibility that even worse violations could happen and Esther would just keep using the excuse that she did what she thought was best.

"You’re scared, aren’t you? Poor thing." It’s an amalgamation of many fears: fear of becoming so broken that she’ll accept everything Esther does in silence, fear of failing, fear of not being enough, fear of not being respected.

And most of all, fear that she’ll lose the family she’s building. From what I see in her emotions, Esther is Evelyn’s family, her closest person, and an inspiration to become better.

And in that sense, I understand her. It’s truly disappointing when you admire something that seems superior, and then that something turns out to be worse than you hoped and crushes your inspiration.

I understand because I’ve seen this happen among monsters. Certain intelligent monsters get "inspired" by other monsters to develop their hunting techniques, but when those monsters encounter one that pretends to be what it isn’t—

The disappointment of using them as inspiration and discovering the truth is genuinely frustrating. It’s like a fable I once saw, about a fox who was inspired by the shadow of a great predator living in a cave.

The fox listened to the stories of that shadow and was inspired by its incredible abilities—until the fox nearly died trying to do what the shadow had said and advised.

So the fox, indignant and frustrated, returned to the cave, wounded and angry. But instead of staying outside like usual, she went in to face her idol and ask where she’d gone wrong. Then she saw that her idol was a rat using a campfire to project a shadow that wasn’t its reality.

It showed that the fox had followed an image that had never truly existed, almost dying for it.

Unfortunately, Evelyn follows the same pattern. From the start, she’s been inspired by Esther, using her as motivation to grow. But Esther isn’t good motivation—she’s clearly someone who doesn’t want to see Evelyn become independent.

’If Evelyn had based herself on me, she’d be so much stronger, freer, and happier today.’ I hold Evelyn’s head as she sniffles against my chest. I feel her tears streaming down my body as I stay quiet.

’Urgh...’ I’m having strange thoughts. Why would I even want Evelyn to base herself on me? The more days pass with me absorbing Evelyn’s excess emotions, the stranger my thoughts become.

"Evelyn, why do you idolize such an unrealistic image of Esther?" I ask her, not understanding why, from the very beginning, Evelyn has this almost divine image of Esther.

She is impressive, and she’s probably one of the most interesting beings I’ve ever seen in terms of general capabilities. But that’s all. Esther is strong, smart, and undeniably a genius.

But she doesn’t come close to the image of blind idolatry Evelyn has of her. Actually, Esther is far more flawed, chaotic, and predictable than the image of invincible, insurmountable, and unstoppable that Evelyn creates around her.

"..."

"Answer me, Evelyn. Why? It’s not that hard to say."

"..." She stays silent, avoiding the answer she knows—and I think even I know it, if I think properly about how Evelyn talks about Esther.

"You think she’s invincible because you’ve never seen her lose?"

"..."

"That’s it, isn’t it? You idealize various futures, but you don’t envision a practical future where you win. You treat Esther as absolute simply because you’re too weak to imagine a future where you come out on top."

"But here’s the irony: you became queen and prevented Esther from becoming queen. That happened precisely when you stopped seeing Esther as invincible."

"And guess what? Esther knows that too. Esther knows you can defeat her—that’s why, as soon as you became queen, she put you on a political leash, controlling trade routes."

"To inflate her own image and diminish your freedom and self-esteem. Why would she do that if she didn’t, deep down, fear you?"

"..."

"Evelyn, Esther is only invincible as long as you let her be invincible in your mind. You’ve already defeated her once, and she reacted aggressively, trying to contain you when it happened."

"If she’s so insecure about beating you that she needs to diminish you, then is the Esther in your head really as monumental as you imagine? Or are you creating a giant shadow from something smaller than it appears?"

"W-Why... are you... helping me?" She asks in a tearful voice, looking at me—her cute little face nestled between my breasts, her eyes glistening with tears.

"I ask myself that too. So are you going to answer?"

"...E-Esther... seems invincible..." She admits what we both knew from the start: she can’t see Esther for who she really is because, being a coward, she creates a giant image of a problem that is small.

"Why is Esther invincible, Evelyn? Does she have infinite Hikishin? Is she immortal? Is she a deity?"

"No..."

"No? Curious. So does she have some ability that makes her body indestructible? An infinite stockpile of different powers?"

"...No..."

"Exactly. She has none of that. So it’s curious—how is she invincible?"

"...She... she isn’t... b-but it’s so hard... h-how could I possibly defeat her and stop her goals?" I stare at Evelyn, who sounds so pathetic.

"Oh, I have no idea. But you know what I hate? Yeah, I hate people who think they’re too big. That Esther in your imagination—I despise her. Isn’t it arrogant for someone to think they’re invincible? No nymph—one of the strongest monster categories—would ever have the audacity to claim invincibility."

"So, Evelyn, let me show you one of Esther’s flaws. Esther is so weak she couldn’t even stop me from stealing her wife." I hold Evelyn’s face, lowering myself and kissing her.

She looks confused for a moment as I slip my tongue into her mouth. I know I could never steal Evelyn’s heart—that’s impossible. Evelyn has already locked her heart away for Esther alone. But her body?

And this body that Esther mistreats and breaks so much? Isn’t Esther failing quite badly at keeping her flawless image intact?

"M-Mmm..." Evelyn tries to resist, but despite her attempts, she closes her eyes, almost savoring the kiss. Because no matter if Evelyn doesn’t like me—her body is already so broken that it doesn’t care.

"Haa... haaa..." I break the kiss, and she’s panting, trying to push me back.

"L-Let me go..." She orders weakly, turning her face away. I release her, letting her stay on the floor as I step back.

"An invincible Esther could have stopped that, Evelyn. It seems your wife isn’t invincible. And it seems your body doesn’t love Esther as much as your mind does."

"Sh-Shut up... y-you... you don’t know anything. Y-You’re taking advantage of my vulnerabilities—"

"Vulnerabilities that Esther created, Evelyn. I’m not the one breaking you like a doll. I’m also not happy about having to settle for someone’s broken leftovers, but I must say—this is exciting." Evelyn looks at me with disgust, spitting on the floor as if trying to clean her mouth.

"Besides, your body didn’t seem to reject me. Isn’t that curious? Your heart and body aren’t in sync. Even if your heart belongs to Esther, your broken body no longer cares whether the affection comes from her or not."

"You’ve always been a girl starved for emotional and physical attention. So Evelyn, stay sharp—or I might end up stealing your body for myself." She curls up on the floor as if trying to hide her body from me.

"Rest well. I won’t do anything more. I brought you here to help you, like I said." I give her a fake smile, staring at her body like prey.

"You freak. You’re just trying to justify something wrong by saying my body wants it."

"Oh? I never said your body wanted it. I said it seemed like it." When I say this, Evelyn bites her lips hard.

"Stay away from me." She gets up and starts running, but I don’t chase her. It doesn’t matter—this spiritual plane is "infinite." She’ll just run until she tires out and wakes up.

"Tsk... since when did I start settling for broken toys..." I sit down on the floor. Now that she’s gone, I feel confused. In the past, I never would’ve stayed with someone broken—it would’ve been uninteresting.

But Evelyn is different in some ways. Maybe it’s because I’ve been absorbing her feelings every day, but it feels so good and addictive that I can’t stop, even though it’s leaving me confused.

"In the end... I really just wanted to help..." I sink into the water, lost in thought about it all.