F-Rank Puppeteer!! But I'll be Queen, and I'm not a narcissist!!!!!-Chapter 204: A Painful Truth

"..." I stare at the game screen after clicking the reset button, my leg bouncing on the floor with anxious restlessness as I watch the spinning circle. Once it resets, maybe I can create a new save to start the game.

"I wonder what I should do... I-I’m not going to be stuck here forever, right?" I tried to open the system menu, but I can’t. I don’t feel a connection to any puppets either, and I can’t use magic. I can’t even use Hikishin, and I can’t sense him at all.

"..."

[Reset Complete]

"Finally..." It took almost three hours for the reset to complete, which makes sense, because the game analyzes all the data before resetting, and I had 100% completion. The full game takes over 48 hours of cutscenes and story to finish.

Not to mention the main story content itself, which is several days worth of continuous gameplay. So it really is a lengthy process.

"The screen..." The start screen is still macabre. I grip my mouse and move the cursor over the New Game button, clicking it to see if the game will now allow me to start a New Save.

[Loading]

"I-It worked... maybe the game will give me answers?" I anxiously wait for the game to start, but unlike what I expected, the opening screen begins with... Evelyn?! She’s the playable character instead of Grace, and she has no horns or tail, unlike me.

"B-But the game was about Grace... why am I following Evelyn’s point of view?" I look at the in-game date, but it’s completely blurred with strange symbols. The Status bar also has some weird static error. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

"..." I try to move the character, but she doesn’t obey my commands at all.

"I-Is it moving on its own?" The game starts running without me clicking anything. Evelyn begins to move and leaves the room. When she exits, I cover my mouth to stifle any sound.

"..." Everyone is dead. Dozens of employee corpses litter the floor as Evelyn steps over them and continues calmly wandering the castle, the floor and walls stained with blood.

"T-That one..." I see Verena, the head maid who broke the original Evelyn’s arm in childhood. All the joints in her body are bent in a horrible way, daggers are stuck in various parts of her body, and a spear is driven through her head from one side to the other, while she hangs upside down from the ceiling.

It’s the most gruesome death so far. Besides that, the game has no ambient sound besides the wet sound of Evelyn’s footsteps in the blood. No music, no NPC sounds, and no environmental sounds.

"..." Evelyn keeps walking calmly. I’ve already lost count of how many character corpses I’ve seen on the floor, until Evelyn reaches the throne room—the only clean place, but it’s utterly empty.

Evelyn walks to the throne and sits down, crossing her legs and staring into the void ahead. From this perspective, it almost looks like she’s staring right at me, which gives me chills.

[Hello, Evelyn. How’s your life? You seem... to be getting along well with Esther]

"...Y-You..." She seems to be talking directly to me.

[Surprised? Don’t be so shocked. By the way, you look beautiful with horns and a tail. I’m glad you took good care of my appearance. I’d be angry if you’d stopped taking care of my body.]

"You’re the original Evelyn?!" I say, shocked, to the monitor.

[The original Evelyn? Is that how you see me? Then what are you, Evelyn?]

"W-Well..."

[You are the original Evelyn.]

"..."

[Confused? Then let me be brief. You reincarnated into this world from the very beginning. You just didn’t remember. You were born as a baby, you grew up, you were bullied, you hated everyone, you were a failure...]

[But on the day you saw the Demon King starting the competition for the throne, you remembered the truth of your past life. You remembered parts of your past life that you had forgotten upon being reborn. This made you stupidly think you had swapped bodies.]

[However, that is wrong. You didn’t swap bodies. You have always been Evelyn. You are the one who was despised, and the memory flashes you had were just you remembering what happened to you.]

"T-That doesn’t make sense!!" I deny this being true.

[...] She snaps her fingers, and suddenly I feel a horrific headache as memories flood my mind. The entire life of "Evelyn," all the bullying "Evelyn" suffered, how much she hated everyone and the feelings she kept buried.

Until I realize those actions were my own. I stare at Evelyn on the monitor with a strange look.

[Seems you remembered everything as expected. What do you think? Your life was really quite miserable, wasn’t it? Hehehe. How can someone be dumb enough to forget 18 years of suffering?]

[The minds of living beings are truly fascinating...]

"YOU!! IT WAS YOU WHO MADE ME REINCARNATE!!!" I scream at her, filled with pure hatred. She’s the one to blame for this. Now that I remember perfectly how much I suffered, how much I was hurt, the pure hatred my brain had hidden to protect me comes flooding back.

All those memories—it wasn’t the Evelyn from the game suffering. It was me. I was that child who had her arm broken. I was the lonely child who played with dolls because she had no friends. I was the failure everyone in this world knows. I just didn’t remember I was a person with a past life.

[Oh, how perceptive. You’re right. I’m the one who gave you my place. Curious how I did it? It’s quite simple. When I became the Demon Queen, I realized I hated this life.] She gives a wicked smile.

[I managed to kill Esther. I managed to defeat her and used her corpse to create my most powerful puppet, the absolute puppet!! THE BEST OF THEM ALL! HAHAHAHA!]

[That puppet could control the very core mechanics of causality, shaping fate and its outcomes. She was such an incredible puppet... but not even she could change how bored I was.]

[I became the Demon Queen to survive. I killed Esther to survive. I killed everyone in my path for survival. And what was left for me? A bunch of puppets that look like living beings but are my creations...]

[It wasn’t what I wanted. I focused so much on surviving that after surviving, living seemed boring... so I decided I didn’t want it anymore...]

[But I couldn’t just stop it either. So I did the best thing I ever thought of. I made all the puppets become a single puppet. I sacrificed all my power and gave it to the Esther puppet.]

[And then I made it start everything over again. I made it turn back time to before I was born, and I made it replace me. I decided I didn’t want to exist anymore. I didn’t want to be born anymore. And I didn’t want to be part of a world that only made me suffer while trying to survive.]

[However, an Evelyn still needed to exist. So I gave my body, my position, my power—everything that represented me—to someone else. You. A failure like me. Trash who had nothing good and who enjoyed playing the "game" we call life.]

[You are so useless, incompetent, and complete garbage, that you were perfect to take my place...] She gives a gentle smile.

[I thank you, ’Evelyn.’ I am very grateful to you. You are now the owner of all the suffering I would have had to carry someday. Everything you are seeing now is a temporary projection.]

[The Evelyn, Queen of Demons, has been dead for years. I am a [Holographic Alert Puppet]—essentially a puppet that delivers a message.]

[You can no longer see the Evelyn, Queen of Demons, because she was never born. You are now Evelyn, and I am a remnant of the power of an Evelyn that never existed.] She rises from the throne and gives a slight bow.

[I’m sorry to give you this horrible life. I understand you have nothing to do with this. Let’s just say... you were unlucky enough to be chosen. Don’t think I hate you. I don’t hate you. I only feel gratitude for you, Evelyn, who played that game and loved so much this world that I hate so deeply.]

[You prevented me from being born, and I am grateful for that. Because no one understands how much I suffered. No one but you, who is now suffering in my place. Fate is truly ironic, isn’t it? An Evelyn needs to exist. It’s a matter of fate’s balance. So I couldn’t just vanish. An Evelyn had to be born.]

"GO FUCK YOURSELF!! WHO SAID YOU COULD CHOOSE ME?!" I scream, gripping the monitor. I shake this damn screen. This bitch ruined my life in this world. I wasn’t supposed to be here suffering all this.

[I have a little gift for you, Evelyn. A cruel, painful gift that is truly something only a bitch would give... but that I will give you, because I feel the more you suffer, the better... I’m truly sorry.] She speaks without any remorse in her voice.

[I hope you enjoy the gift. I’ll let you see your real parents one last time.]

[Evelyn, I just hope you understand that I didn’t do this because I hate you. I did it because I grew tired of existing, and you were disposable enough to take my place.]

"YOU DEMON!! YOU DESTROYED MY LIFE!!" I shatter the screen with a punch. Frantically moving my hands, I knock the entire setup to the floor with tears of pure hatred. She is the reason I have so many problems.

She knew. She knew exactly how much suffering all this hurt, and yet she threw all the weight and pain onto me. That selfish, disgusting, repugnant bitch knew she was destroying some random girl’s life, and she did it without any remorse.

"I... I hate you... I hate you... I hate you more than anything..." I hate this Evelyn. This vile whore, who did all this to me just because she decided my suffering didn’t matter at all as long as she was no longer affected by anything.

"I can’t believe I ever felt sorry for you... you demon..." All the pity I felt for Evelyn’s past vanishes completely, replaced by the purest hatred I’ve accumulated over the years.

I have always been Evelyn, and knowing that only now hurts so much. All these confused feelings of hatred and pain I feel, on top of knowing that Evelyn killed Esther, when I currently love Esther.

And I can’t even get revenge. She’s gone. She isn’t even dead. She "never" existed. There’s no person to direct this hatred toward. Evelyn is me. There is no target I can hate to make myself feel better.