F-Rank Puppeteer!! But I'll be Queen, and I'm not a narcissist!!!!!-Chapter 195: Notable Changes by Others

Twelve hours have passed since the battle against the angels for the [Bridge] began, and we’ve finally had a break, both demons and angels having retreated to their control points to rest.

After all, a war can’t function without small pauses happening. Strangely, Lucien and Laplace disappeared, though I didn’t even have time to think about them; I spent all my energy tending to the wounded with Faye.

While Eve and Syl’Vyr handled nearby enemies, the wolf I created also reached its limit and self-destructed at some point, which is a shame since it helped a lot.

"T-Thank you, General E-Evelyn." A severely wounded soldier thanks me as I finish bandaging him. Dealing with so many wounded and so much blood has desensitized me slightly, because I focused so hard on the reward I’ll get that everything else seemed irrelevant.

"It was nothing. You’ll need to change the bandages every three hours if you don’t want an infection. Your wounds are still quite deep," I say mechanically as I move to another wounded soldier. Even though the war has paused, the number of injured is still enormous.

"E-Evelyn-sama?" Eve catches me as I stumble and almost fall. I look at her, and she seems worried.

"You need to stop and rest, Evelyn-sama! You were never very resilient. You’ve been working for over ten hours non-stop, running back and forth."

"I know very well what you’re thinking. We all do. You’ve been letting it leak into our connection. But doing this for a reward isn’t really good if you exhaust yourself too much..." She hits the nail on the head.

"B-But I need to..."

"Evelyn-sama, don’t you think you’re too focused on being rewarded? Have you even thought about how it’s a good thing that you’ve saved so many lives?" When she asks and I don’t answer, her gaze at me turns strange.

"Evelyn-sama... have you thought about the lives you saved?"

"..." I avert my eyes. I hadn’t thought about how good it is that I’m saving hundreds of lives. All I could think was that if I help enough, I’ll be rewarded, and Esther will be proud of me.

"...I-I know..." I know it’s wrong to think like this, but I can’t help it. The guilt is consuming me—the guilt of having killed, of having tortured, of not having trusted Esther and her change, which caused our relationship to fracture.

"J-Just let me... I’ll rest..." I murmur, patting my dress. Only now do I realize how much blood is on my clothes.

"..." Eve suddenly pulls me. She leads me past the wounded soldiers to one of the empty huts and quickly puts me in a chair.

"Evelyn-sama, do you love Esther?" she asks with a critical look.

"...Y-Yes... I never thought much about it before... but it was only after I broke our relationship that I realized I love her..." At some point during that time when she trained me, confessed to me, and we lived together, I began to love her without noticing.

"But Evelyn-sama, do you think a love that demands so much from you is really a good love to pursue?" When she says that, I become agitated.

"What are you trying to say!? Do you think my love for her is worthless?" I almost snarl at her, getting irritated.

"No... I didn’t say that. I’m just saying that maybe this isn’t the right love. A-after all, you’re hurting yourself just for this feeling and—"

"And you, Eve. Do you like me? You like me, and yet you hurt yourself for me, don’t you? If I were about to be hit by a sword, you’d jump in front of it to save me."

"In that situation, you get hurt. You knew you’d get hurt, and yet you got hurt knowing the risks, just because you like me. So why, when I do the same for the girl I love, am I the one in the wrong?" I stand up, truly angry.

"...The difference, Evelyn-sama, is that I was born to protect you. I am your servant, and saving you is both my duty and my desire..."

"So if you weren’t my servant, you wouldn’t save my life?" When she hears my cold question, she looks confused.

"I didn’t mean it that way! Evelyn-sama, you’re twisting my words..."

"No, I’m not. You’re the one being hypocritical. You would hurt yourself for me because you like me, but when I do the same for another person, you say I’m wrong. What’s the difference in that?"

"I-I just don’t want to see you getting hurt for someone who isn’t worth the risk..."

"You don’t get to choose if she’s worth my sacrifice or not."

"..."

"You’re right... I’m sorry for overstepping, Evelyn-sama... but I hope you understand that you are a dragon, and you know the problems of being a dragon all too well. So, choose something you won’t regret."

"...I won’t." I leave the room after saying that. I don’t feel sad, regretful, or even like giving up. This is the first time I’m fighting so fiercely for something I want.

Why can’t Eve accept this? My whole life I’ve been a failure, and in my past life I was a coward who hid from everything. So why now, when I’ve finally found something I’m fighting tooth and nail for, does the one person I wanted to support me say I’m making a mistake?

"...This is so unfair..." I kick a small stone on the ground as I look at all the wounded around me—some begging and praying not to die, others as if they’ve already given up on life, and some fighting with everything they have to survive.

"How unpleasant... how disgusting... how infuriating..." I murmur as I pass by everyone. Faye looks at me and seems about to say something, but I ignore her and walk on, moving away from this place that smells of blood and death.

I move away a bit, but not too far to avoid being at risk, and then sit on a fallen tree trunk, looking up at the night sky.

"Why did life have to be so difficult?" I complain about how unfair this life is to me. When you think about entering a game, you’d expect an amazing life, but entering this damned game, all my life has been up to now is just a walking disaster.

Like a snowball rolling down a mountain until it forms an unstoppable avalanche. There’s none of the glory, fun, and power you’d expect. All I have are minimal things.

"Maybe Esther was never the problem." This world is the problem, not her. In a shitty world like this, how could she not think about just destroying it completely?

"..." I look toward the forest upon hearing a sound and see Lucien and Laplace. I stand up, thinking of going to them, until I see Laplace specifically. She’s practically without clothes, her rags are so torn.

On top of that, something is dripping from her thighs, and her body is also soiled with it. For a moment, my mind freezes, until Laplace also sees me. She has tears in her eyes and starts running as if fleeing.

"..." I quickly understand what happened, and feel sick. Not that I don’t get it—Laplace is a horrible person, and him suffering would be karma—but if what seems to have happened really did happen, it seems so wrong and disgusting.

"Oh, Evelyn. Good, you’re there. I really needed to talk to you about the war situation," Lucien says as if nothing happened. I could ask him why he did that, or why he can’t let his petty vengeance go.

But honestly, I’m so exhausted by everything in this rotten world, and Laplace is such trash, that I don’t feel like trying to understand or defend her. I just want to finish all this quickly.

"Sure, we can talk..." I smell him as he approaches, and it only confirms the obvious. He stares at me for a while as if expecting something.

"Nothing to ask?" he questions, tilting his head.

"No. Just complaints. You disappearing for hours with Laplace meant we had more wounded soldiers than necessary. But other than that, I have nothing to say. You do what you want with your life."

"As long as it doesn’t affect me, I don’t really care..." I truly don’t have the energy to spend on this right now.

"You’ve changed." Him saying that catches me by surprise.

"Changed?" 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

"Yes. You’ve become more... cold, perceptive. I’d say you’ve improved. You’re starting to truly resemble a demon... no, actually, you’re starting to resemble Esther. Someone who simply ignores what doesn’t affect them and only does what needs to be done."

"..." I don’t know if that would be a compliment or an insult, but if even someone like him noticed, maybe I’ve changed more than I realized.

"Yeah... maybe... Esther is a great example to follow, so I guess I’ll take that as a compliment."

"Do as you wish, Evelyn. Anyway, thank you for handling the troops while I was away. Even though I’d already given the orders, they still needed the support you provided."

"...Just don’t do it again. About the battle..."

"Two weeks," he says, interrupting me.

"It will take two weeks for us to take the [Bridge]. Because of that wretch Laplace, we lost too many troops. Even though the angels lost their strongest, they are still naturally powerful, and I have to hold back for emergencies."

"Plus, I’m tired from using my domain against another domain. So it will take at least two more weeks of war until we gain the advantage. On top of that, the tunnels collapsed due to that royal guard angel’s attacks." He walks past me.

"So, get ready. You’ll still have many wounded to tend to." He leaves, as if more work is nothing. I just sigh and return to watching the sky.

’I wonder... are Mom and Dad okay? Or do they no longer care about the fact that I died...’ This thought helps distract me from the war. Thinking of my family from the other world calms me a little. I hope they are well.