-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Vine
Chapter: 18
Chapter Title: The One Man in a Hundred Thousand (1)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"Hey, you there, soldier!"
"Halt! Who goes there?"
Normally, she would have stopped Philia. But Serena's condition wasn't good right now.
She had definitely died. She had watched her surviving party members die afterward, and seen Hwajichen swallowed up by the labyrinth.
What the hell was all that? Did I hallucinate it?
It had been too vivid to dismiss as a mere hallucination.
Then what? Did I regress?
The memory of her eye being forcibly gouged out, and the pain, were crystal clear. Her empty left socket had been filled with a prosthetic and an artificial eye in place of the one she'd been born with.
Regression? For real?
The world was spinning. It would take time to get her head straight. At the very least, she wished the people around her would stop making such a racket.
"How dare you! This is Grand Duchess Parkling, the only granddaughter of His Majesty King Harold II and the eldest daughter of Crown Prince Kiban! Show some respect!"
"We've committed a grave offense!"
"A princess, fer real?"
"The Grand Duchess is in dire condition. Hurry and fetch a doctor!"
"We don't even know where we are, and ya want us to find a doctor outta nowhere?"
"It's people! Help us, please!"
The three of them were already chaotic enough when Lavenda came running up, adding one more to the mix.
Agh, so noisy.
The commotion made her dizziness worse. Serena gestured for them to shut up. Philia only made even more of a fuss.
"Lady Serena! Are you alright? Is your head hurting? Quick! Make a place for her to lie down!"
"Gasp, the Grand Duchess? Lady Countess? Is the Grand Duchess hurt?"
"Looks like it! Hurry and call a doctor or a priest!"
"Can we bring a cart?"
"Everyone, calm down! In an emergency evacuation like this, you follow my orders!"
The four of them chattering was as loud as the wails of spirits echoing through the labyrinth. Serena finally couldn't take it anymore and shouted.
"You're all so noisy! Quiet down!"
At the princess's command, everyone fell silent. All but one—only Countess Landry covered her mouth and whispered softly.
"The Crown Princess Consort was sensitive to noise too... Could it be...?"
"It's not that, so you be quiet too!"
"Yes!"
Whew, good. Finally quiet.
Serena shooed away the clingy Philia and perched on the edge of the fountain. Things were suddenly piling up like a burst dam—far bigger than a mere flood. She couldn't get her bearings.
I definitely died. Then I met that higher being. I said I wanted to help the poor souls trapped in the labyrinth, and it took my eye.
Serena touched the skin around her left eye. The eyepatch felt both unfamiliar and familiar.
Serena slowly removed the eyepatch. She squeezed both eyes shut, then opened them. Only her right eye beheld the world.
A mirror would be nice right about now.
Her empty left socket was filled with the prosthetic. She couldn't see, but the sensation of something being there was strangely familiar yet alien.
I heard that without an eye, the skull slowly deforms over time. That's why they put in prosthetics or glass eyes.
As Serena kept fiddling with the skin around her left eye, Philia crept closer.
"Lady Serena, please don't be too upset."
"Upset?"
To Philia, it must have looked like her mistress was grieving over having only one eye.
That's weird.
The Philia she knew would have thrown a fit, wailing and carrying on if her mistress suddenly lost an eye. Yet Philia was treating her normally.
Serena took the opportunity to ask since Philia was already close.
"Philia."
"Yes."
"Since when have I been one-eyed?"
"Lady Serena..."
Philia trailed off with pity, then answered.
"Ever since Crown Prince Kiban accidentally struck you in the face."
"In my memory, I had two good eyes."
Though I do remember getting hit by Father plenty of times.
A drug addict lashing out at family in a haze was commonplace. After a few beatings, Serena had learned to keep her distance.
"Sniff. Lady Serena, it must hurt so much. We need a doctor to look at you right away."
Philia wept piteously as she embraced Serena. Serena leaned her face against Philia's soft, warm bosom and tried to piece things together.
The people are the same. Philia, Lavenda, Ralph, Chrome.
The group gathered in the lobby matched her memory exactly.
Hold on.
As Serena recalled the memory of having two perfect eyes, she jolted in surprise. Something was surfacing.
She definitely had two good eyes. For someone like that to suddenly lose one, with the window to the world halved, her body should have struggled to adjust.
But Serena's body acted as if the window had always been half-open—like it was perfectly fine.
"Philia, don't you really remember? I've never been one-eyed. The one-eyed one is Richard."
"Archduke Oran? Yes, both of you cover your eyes, and everyone still praises you as handsome and beautiful."
"Exactly. So the one-eyed one isn't me, it's Richard..."
Thinking of her annoyingly handsome cousin made her head throb even more.
Argh, damn it. All I want is to play around.
Using her brain, which she'd planned to never tax her whole life, was truly exhausting.
If it's really regression, then that god... must be a god?
Some god-like entity, probably.
It must have altered everyone's memories for me. Or maybe I'm truly going mad.
Her mother's existence made it hard to immediately accept regression as fact.
Serena's mother had suffered from severe mania. Because of that, even with these surreal events, it was hard to take them at face value.
Doesn't schizophrenia hit right around my age?
The late Crown Princess Consort had been normal at Serena's age too. It started after marriage and pregnancy, gradually worsening from there, or so she'd heard.
Can I meet that entity again? It seems connected to that statue somehow.
Serena glared at the ugly statue with its crimson eyes. Her glaring eye stung.
She was overworking her only eye, so she closed it and, for a massage, opened her left eye instead—and saw something.
What the...?
Startled, Serena opened her right eye. The thing she'd seen vanished. She closed her right eye again and opened the left.
"What the hell."
The princess swore out loud in shock.
Opening her left eye, which should see nothing, she beheld something utterly unbelievable.
"Gacha?"
No fancy decorations or character illustrations. It was plainer than your average indie game, flickering in midair.
"Is this for real?"
As Serena thought about touching the gacha window, a finger-shaped cursor appeared over it.
"Hah."
And that wasn't all.
Such a notification popped up like an announcement. When Serena thought about dismissing it, the notice vanished. The finger cursor settled over the pull button.
The pull button was a different color from before, emphasizing the free first pull. It gleamed gold.
"No way, seriously."
Serena closed both eyes in disbelief. The gacha window disappeared.
"Why's she actin' like that?"
"Looks like she hit her head."
"Insolent! Fetch a doctor at once!"
"Sorry, we don't know where we are either."
Suddenly snapping, muttering to herself, staring into space and laughing—it was easy to imagine how she looked to them.
She was always extra careful with her demeanor because of her mother, but this time, she couldn't help it.
Serena took a deep breath and opened only her left eye again. The gacha window returned.
First pull free, gleaming golden button. Still there.
It's free, so... might as well press it.
No explanation of what she'd pull, but it was free. Surely not an enemy or misfortune.
As Serena thought to pull, the finger cursor pressed the button. Since it was the free first pull, the golden button returned to plain gray.
No flashy effects, no music, no explanation of what she'd gotten. None of the standard gacha fanfare.
What? Just a hallucination? Am I really losing it like Mom?
What if she was actually one-eyed from birth, had never met that god-like being, and this was all a dream or delusion—with her lying in a hospital bed?
As if to assuage her fears, something happened.
"Grand Duchess! Lady Countess Landry! Are you safe?"
A knight in plate armor and surcoat came rushing into the lobby, panting. He wasn't wearing a helmet because constant visits to the palace meant faces were checked routinely.
A knight. He was in Serena's memory, yet not.
He had guarded the princess right up until they fell into the labyrinth, but after the earthquake, a face she'd never seen.
Sir Lucas Biron bowed before Serena.
"Are you alright?"
Instead of answering, Serena tensed her lower abdomen and shouted.
"Status window! Status! System! Options! Stats! Skills! Map! Map! Save! Load!"
"Wahhh."
"What else... Ah, right! Save! Return! Favorability! Character Dictionary! Wordbook! Settings! Notebook!"
"Wahhh."
Suddenly an earthquake hit, and she woke up in this unfamiliar place. At least she was with her beloved mistress, but her lady's state was off.
She kept shouting strange things and winking at thin air. Opening her invisible eye made it even creepier.
Philia wept piteously. Everyone fussed over Hwajichen's top beauty, steeped in worry.
"She's just shocked and in a temporary delirium."
"She'll be fine after sleepin' it off."
"She'll pull through!"
As Philia drew strength from their comfort,
"Shop! Store! Huh? Yeah! That's it! Knew there was more! Has to be!"
Serena closed her eyes and pointed at the air. Philia shed tears like pearls.
"Lady Countess Landry, please calm down a bit. Do you know what happened?"
"Sniff, no idea. We were in the carriage when the earthquake hit, and Lady Serena and I fell together..."
When Philia couldn't calm down at all, Sir Lucas stepped in.
"Then, Lady Countess, please stay by the Grand Duchess's side for now."
Sir Lucas courteously escorted Philia to the fountain. She sidled close to her mistress, but the lady, lost in whatever invisible thing held her attention, pushed her away irritably.
"Sniff."
Philia dabbed her tears with a handkerchief and waited for Serena to calm. The Crown Princess Consort hadn't always been bad; it came and went.
Wait it out, and eventually conversation would be possible. Just stay put until then.
Philia blinked her teary blue eyes, watching Sir Lucas and the others.
Sir Lucas lined everyone up in a row.
"Soldier. State your name and affiliation."
"Loyalty! H-Hanson Hanson, sir! From Hwajichen Guard Sector 7!"
"Next. Old woman!"
"Chrome here. I sell carvings an' toys."
"Next!"
"Lavenda Puri. From Vieta."
"Vieta? A foreigner?"
"Yes."
"Can you prove your identity?"
"I have my passport!"
Lavenda hastily pulled out her passport. Sir Lucas examined it and handed it back.
"Next question. Does anyone know where we are?"
"Nope."
"Answer in the order you gave your names. Guard first."
"Yessir! No clue!"
"No idea."
"No idea!"
Everyone said they'd felt the earthquake and woken up here, clueless. Yet Sir Lucas kept asking the same thing.
With the repetitive questions, the people standing in line stiffened their backs and necks, growing tenser by the moment.
Philia blinked her watery blue eyes, thinking.
A bit overbearing.
Serena would have gasped that that's just a bit, but Philia didn't know.
Hwajichen's top beauty lowered her long lashes, waiting only for her mistress to come back to her senses.
