F-Rank Puppeteer!! But I'll be Queen, and I'm not a narcissist!!!!!-Chapter 168: Mental Collapse and… “Her” Return

"..." I see the angels. All of us can see them walking and talking. They don’t seem the least bit worried about whether they might be attacked. Their arrogance is kind of irritating.

But that’s not what matters. What matters is something totally different that happens when I look at them.

"Are you alright, Evelyn-sama?" Eve asks, seeing me grinding my teeth. Strangely, when I look at the angels, what I feel is rage and disgust. It’s not normal. Why would I feel that? I don’t usually have these feelings.

But there’s something repulsive about the angels, and my body doesn’t like them. I shake my head, trying to stop thinking about this hateful discomfort.

"I-I’m fine... Let’s start when they cross the first line," I murmur quietly, watching the angels heading straight for the trap. There are so many that the trap will only catch about twenty of them.

"..." I watch intently until they finally cross the first line. I raise my hand with three fingers up and begin to lower them slowly until I clench my fist. The demons who saw this repeated the signal, and everyone attacks at once, emerging from their hiding places as the trap’s trigger activates, throwing an extremely resilient metal net against the angels.

"Eve, Syl’Vyr... fight with everything you’ve got..." I order them to go. The two of them quickly leave here and advance as the angels realize it’s an attack. The fight begins swiftly, with my soldiers gaining the upper hand and surrounding the clumped-together angels.

Some try to fly, but when they do, they’re hit by metal arrows dipped in poison, and others are struck by Syl’Vyr’s wind magic as everyone moves in for close combat.

"..." I watch as the deaths begin. Angels falling to the ground with repulsive, bloody wounds that make me want to vomit. I take a deep breath, keeping calm as I observe, lying to myself that everything is okay. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

"..." I see an angel who was somewhat late arriving, and he’s going to kill one of my soldiers from behind! I go on alert and, on impulse, use my magic, generating a thread and stopping his sword strike.

The demon notices and turns around, impaling the angel’s heart. When I see that, my hands start to tremble. Guilt begins to surface. I interfered directly in the fight.

Not just with orders. My action just took a life. My heart races as I hide the urge to cry because if they see me collapsing, my army will lose morale.

"...Haa... Haaa..." I breathe heavily, seeing that some of my soldiers are getting hurt and there have been two deaths on my side, but twenty angels have already been killed quickly. The ambush worked perfectly.

Eve and Syl’Vyr are the ones doing the best. Eve easily handles several angels, attacking areas like legs and arms, incapacitating them, while Syl’Vyr provides strong magical support, helping my soldiers get injured less.

I force myself to help too, using threads I manipulate with my magic. I only use the threads to stop the enemies’ strikes from killing my soldiers. However, my threads are growing increasingly fragile and shaky because of my instability.

"Found you, you sneaky little monster." I hear a voice behind me and turn quickly. I see an angel. He has some kind of concealment artifact around his neck. I try to call Eve, but before I can, he strikes with his sword, impaling my heart.

The sound is similar to glass breaking. He hit my core directly and pierced it. He looks at me, confused by the sound, as I writhe in pain on the ground.

It feels like my chest is burning, but the reduction in pain helps me not lose total control. Before he pulls out the sword, I use a thread tied around his neck.

But I hesitate. If I make the thread vibrate, his head will be torn off. However, my hesitation gives him an opening to move the sword downward. I groan in pain, almost screaming, feeling the blade cutting my flesh and opening my chest in a deep gash.

At that moment, my instincts speak louder than my weak morals. I fill the threads with magic and make them vibrate, generating the same effect Gallian felt. The angel lets out a pained sound before his head is separated from his body by the thread closing into a circle around his neck.

Even though I’m not a fighter, my threads still carry S-rank magic. I watch the head fall into my lap as I’m drenched in blood spraying from his severed neck, the blade still lodged in my chest.

I look down in horror at my open chest. I can see inside, and it causes me immense anguish. A few tears escape involuntarily as I realize.

I killed a person. I took a life directly. Not indirectly anymore. No, my hands just ended a life. In my very first battle, I already had to kill someone.

It makes me freeze in place, fallen on the ground, staring at the tree foliage. The metallic smell of blood reinforces reality. I can feel my blood flowing from my body to the ground.

And the blood of my enemy dripping from his head. Its weight on top of me, along with the sound of dripping drops. I’ve entered a state of paralysis, as if my brain is trying to deny reality while all I want is to run away from here.

...

...

...

"...Hey, girl who looks like our commander. You did really well," I say, wiping sweat and blood from my forehead.

"...I say the same to you, Gallian. You ask Evelyn-sama too many questions, but you handled this well," she says to me with a smile as well, cleaning the blade of her sword.

It took us an hour of fighting to win. We killed almost all the angels and left only those captured in the metal net to take with us. While some soldiers secure them, I look at the two who helped so much.

"That girl over there is an impressive mage. She managed to help us so much without destroying our formation," I say, looking at the wolf girl.

"Yes... Syl’Vyr is... skilled. Truly, she’s a very versatile person..." Eve says, looking at her calmly.

"Eve, I noticed you didn’t kill anyone. You just incapacitated them for us to finish the job. That helped a lot, but is there a reason you didn’t finish them off?" I ask as she rolls her eyes.

"Gallian, you ask too many questions. That’s annoying, you know?" she says now in an irritated tone.

"...Where is our commander?" I ask, not seeing Evelyn around. She’s our general, and the fight ended in our victory, but we lost 10 soldiers and have many wounded.

"True... Evelyn-sama?" Eve calls out as we hear a rustling of leaves from the bushes. Soon, all the soldiers look at it, and some make absurd, shocked faces. Even I look in shock at what I’m seeing.

"Hey, everyone. Sorry for the delay. I was... busy," Evelyn says with a strange smile—too fake—and an abnormal posture. She’s holding in her hands the head of an angel, dripping blood, while what really shocks us is the sword stuck inside her.

"!! E-Evelyn-sama!" Eve runs to her, seeing the wound, while we soldiers glance at each other.

’I can see her lungs... that’s not a small wound...’ I can see her internal organs. Her chest has been opened from the heart downward, allowing a view of organs and bones inside, but she doesn’t even express any pain.

"Eve, calm down. I’m... great," Evelyn says strangely, dropping the head on the ground where it rolls with a wet thud. Her tone is somewhat drawn out, and her eyes are shining blue. Soon, Evelyn looks at me, and her smile becomes somewhat disturbing for one second before disappearing.

"Well, soldiers! I see we had a good victory! Now, gather the corpses and take the prisoners to my mansion. After all, I’ll need the bodies," she says, clapping her hands for all of us to hurry up.

"Eve, could you help me remove this blade?" she asks, pulling Eve somewhere. Everyone watches this interaction with strangeness. Our commander, who seemed one way before, just acted in another.

’She got impaled and is alive and well... I guess she’s not a fraud like I thought...’ She held the decapitated head with such naturalness.

"You heard our commander! Let’s get to work! No resting!!" I say, getting back to duty.

...

...

...

"Hmm, hmmm, hhmm, la, la lala." I see Evelyn-sama walking all bouncily through the forest while humming, and we move away from the soldiers. When we’re far enough away, I grab this thing.

"Who are you, and what did you do with Evelyn-sama?" I say to this thing pretending to be Evelyn-sama but clearly isn’t Evelyn-sama.

"...Hmmm, who could I be?" she asks, putting a finger on her cheek cutely. I pull the sword from this impostor’s chest. This is undoubtedly Evelyn-sama’s body. The connection between the two of us is obvious.

"What did you do with her?" I ask, pointing the sword at this thing as I see the wound on her chest beginning to rebuild and reconnect.

"My sweet, unripe little fruit is currently busy, you know? She entered a state of... how can I put it... reality escape. Yes. She tried to escape reality after killing someone, and that made her sink into her own mind for a while."

"How sweet, don’t you think? So cute and naive. She was so shocked when it actually came to the point of murdering someone... doesn’t that count as your failure, Eve?" She makes a face that looks like fear, with tears falling.

"Why didn’t you protect me, Eve!! Why did you let this happen to me?! You let me kill someone!" she says in Evelyn-sama’s exact voice—a tone that sounds like hurt, desperation, and fear. But it’s an act, and I know it. Even knowing it’s fake, my heart tightens.

"..." I don’t react, and soon her face closes into something neutral.

"You’re so tedious. I thought you’d hit me," she says slyly.

"This is Evelyn-sama’s body. I don’t know what you are, but you’d better get out of there..."

"I can’t," she interrupts me.

"Evelyn is the reason I’m here, and she’s the one who will get me out of here when she wants to come back with enough conviction... meanwhile, I’m going to have a little fun..." She suddenly hugs me.

"Hey, hey, Eve, I’ve always loved you. Please stay with me. I hate my marriage. I only wanted to marry you," she looks at my face with tears and flushed cheeks, again trying to get reactions out of me. But I give nothing to this impostor.

"Hmmm, you’re good... Well, it doesn’t matter. I didn’t want to be here either. So, Miss failed copy of Evelyn, could you take me to her mansion? I think it’s not good to leave me unsupervised, right?" she says while grabbing my breasts and starts squeezing.

It makes me grit my teeth. I hate being compared to a copy of Evelyn-sama. But I do nothing because this body is Evelyn-sama’s. She plays with my breasts until I grab her hands and push her away.

"...Yes... I’ll take you to the mansion... It’s better to keep you away from the soldiers before you cause trouble." I hold her hand and start pulling her. It’s obvious it’s not good to leave this thing unsupervised. I don’t know what it is, but if it’s in Evelyn’s body, I need to look after it so she doesn’t mess anything up.

’Evelyn-sama owes me an explanation.’ I look at this thing. She’s identical to Evelyn-sama. The only difference is the blue glow in her eyes and her complete lack of sense.

’Evelyn-sama, wherever you are, come back soon...’ I can feel Evelyn-sama in there. And now it’s my duty to take care of her body while she’s not here.