F-Rank Puppeteer!! But I'll be Queen, and I'm not a narcissist!!!!!-Chapter 183: Doubt and Maturity

"...Evelyn-sama, here... this... I’ve done your paperwork..." I say, handing several documents to Evelyn-sama while staring at her horns. I just can’t get used to them.

’Horns...’ I don’t have horns. I’m identical to Evelyn-sama, but now we’re not so similar anymore because she has horns and I don’t.

"Thanks for doing the work for me, Eve. I was... busy," she says, taking the papers and placing them on a table. I see how she’s much calmer and lighter now. I can still see the pain in her eyes, but now it’s as if she’s gained a purpose for her life.

"It’s nothing to worry about, Evelyn-sama... The soldiers are also doing great in their new wooden housing in that area, and their training has started again while patrols were formed to search the area in case of more angels..."

"...Great... Eve, I think we should prepare ourselves..."

"For what?" I ask, curious.

"The Demon King... will probably send me to another, more dangerous area. Why? Because now that I’ve achieved some success here, he’ll test my limits... So, at most, two weeks until I get some letter ordering me away from here. After all, I must serve in his army for at least five months, and barely two have passed." She speaks in a somewhat pessimistic tone.

"Then I’ll prepare everything in case it happens..." I keep watching Evelyn-sama as she fixes herself in front of a mirror. She seems interested in her horns.

"Eve, do you think my horns are good for anything? Or are they just a useless part of the body? Also, do you think I look pretty?" Her questions are curious, and I answer honestly.

"You look beautiful, Evelyn-sama. And from the books I’ve read, dragon horns serve all kinds of purposes—storing magic, attacking in head-on charges, and even in... intimate relations, where they can be caressed."

"I see, I see..." She combs her hair calmly, while I don’t really know what to feel about her now. Things have been getting stranger and stranger since we came to the war.

"Evelyn-sama, shouldn’t you get closer to Syl’Vyr and Faye?" Evelyn-sama isn’t as close to them as I’d like her to be. She talks to them and is even lively, but it’s not like before, like when we were adventurers.

Something fundamental has changed in our relationships. Evelyn-sama has started being less active in conversations, more focused on giving orders. I understand we were created to serve them, but it’s obvious Syl’Vyr is dissatisfied with the fact that she isn’t being taken seriously.

"I... I don’t think that’s a good idea..." she murmurs softly, turning the chair around to look at me. She glances briefly at the papers and then stares into my eyes.

"Eve, I like all of you... but... things have changed irreversibly... You... you’re just puppets..." She looks sad as she says this, and I understand what she means, and it hurts me.

"Evelyn-sama..."

"Don’t get me wrong, Eve. I truly see you as special to me... but... deep down I wonder... how much of this is real? You were created by me to serve me. Is your affection, interest, and loyalty real? Or is it just manufactured?"

"..."

"I’ve always been lonely... and torturing that angel alone made me realize... I’m still lonely... I don’t have friends... I don’t have close companions, and I don’t have anything resembling a real friend who isn’t a puppet I created."

"All I have is the power to create puppets, some accumulated gold, my marriage, and a pathetic hobby of creating relics where I’m not even sure I have a future."

"Don’t I look pathetic? I’m as lonely as I’ve always been. The only difference now is that I’m deluding myself, pretending to have friendships with beings who aren’t even 100% alive... Eve, you have my vitality."

"You have your functions defined by me. You were created to protect me, created when I was alone and afraid of dying, depending on someone to protect me all the time."

"Your personality is just what I judged best for that situation... but when I was torturing that angel, you weren’t there. Not because you couldn’t be—you tried to comfort me afterwards."

"But Eve, what’s your attempt to comfort me worth when I know I created you? I know... I know it’s cruel to say this... but Eve... I just deluded myself into thinking we’re friends. I fooled myself because it was easier to think of it that way..."

"Come on, right? How could I even think that all the friendship we had out of nowhere could be real? Real friendship isn’t made from one second to the next... You were born friendly because you’re puppets..." Evelyn-sama notices my look and stops talking.

"...Do you hate me now because I said that?" Her question makes me think for a moment.

"No..." When I answer, her gaze becomes even more empty, as if she’d received the answer she didn’t want.

"...You understand. I don’t need to explain any further..." She turns back to the mirror, returning to what she was doing, and I, as her servant, understand her. So I leave the room.

I feel... sad... She’s matured, but she’s matured towards the worst side of life... precisely the side I tried to guide her towards in the beginning, when I made her forcibly dismantle that wolf’s body, it was to make her mature.

But now, at this very moment, she shows she’s matured too much, losing that initial sparkle she had. And I realize that... I didn’t want this. I didn’t think she would seem like such an unhappy person.

’...I... protected her the wrong way...’ She’s mature now. She understands it’s kill or be killed. She understands she must make difficult decisions, just as I tried to teach her before. But she went beyond.

She’s now been forced to face reality, because to truly mature, you can’t keep lying to yourself. I think... Evelyn-sama will never look at us, her creations, with the same friendly eyes as before.

"Eve?" Faye appears in front and looks at my face.

"W-Why are you crying?" she asks, coming closer. I look at the last living puppet created by Evelyn-sama, the youngest among us, the one who will never know that silly, friendly side of Evelyn-sama.

"I just... heard some bad things..." I pat Faye’s head as I start walking again, with her following me.

"Bad things? Did Lyn complain to you?" Hearing Faye say that hurts a little, because her first thought is that Evelyn-sama did something bad—a thought she never would have had if she’d known the Evelyn-sama of the past.

"No, it’s not Evelyn-sama’s fault... It’s just... reality is very cruel." I understand perfectly what Evelyn-sama meant. We are puppets created by her. We are alive, but everything we are was defined by her.

So why should she believe our feelings are real? Wouldn’t they just be a reflection of her desires? That’s exactly her line of thought. Deep down, she doesn’t believe we genuinely like her.

In the end, Evelyn-sama will never be able to trust us 100%, because to her, everything we do is in service of what we were created to be. And that’s sad, because there’s no way to change or erase that doubt.

Not even I know the answer. Do I like Evelyn-sama for who she is? Or just because I was created by her to be this way? And at some point, are these feelings true, or is it just my body acting as it was made to act?

This doubt also makes me think about how real I really am. Looking at Faye, I wonder: what she feels for everyone, is it real? Or just a product of the memories she gained and her purpose of creation?

"Faye... what do you think of Evelyn-sama?"

"Well, I like Lyn! She’s our master." Her answer in the past would have satisfied me, but now it just makes me question: how much of that is true, and how much is just an automatic response we’re supposed to give because we’re fake beings?

"What do you feel about the fact that Evelyn-sama brutally tortured an angel?" Faye saw the state of that angel directly. That girl was in a horrible state, and it was even a surprise she was alive. I know Evelyn-sama didn’t want to do that, but the way she did it was brutal.

"Ugh... s-scary... it was scary..." Her answer doesn’t help much, but I think of something—a way to find an answer for one of the doubts plaguing my heart.

"Faye, would you be friends with someone who brutally kills people for their duty? Even if that person doesn’t like it, they still do it. Even if they feel sad, they still kill as many as needed for their duty." When I ask this, she thinks for a while.

"I guess not? Someone like that seems kinda... mean..." Her answer makes me go quiet, because it’s the answer I didn’t want to hear.

’Isn’t that... exactly the Evelyn-sama of now?’ That’s exactly what Evelyn-sama does. But without mentioning her name or hinting that it’s her I’m referring to.

"Okay. And would you be friends with Evelyn-sama if she asked?"

"Of course I would!! I like Lyn, and I’m sure we’d be great friends." When she gives that answer, it only solidifies what Evelyn-sama said. With answers like that, can you really trust that we puppets truly feel something for her?

Faye just called Evelyn-sama mean when I didn’t mention her name and said she wouldn’t be friends with someone like that. But when I mentioned Evelyn-sama’s name—even though Faye saw the state of someone she tortured—Faye still accepted the friendship.

Everything seems so... hypocritical. Am I hypocritical like that too? Do I seem that fake to Evelyn-sama? Do my feelings really count for anything now that Evelyn-sama has accepted the fact that we aren’t as real as she is?

"Faye, I have to go. I’m busy. Please take a little sweet to Evelyn-sama on your way." I murmur, bothered, while quickening my pace.