What were the odds that a Named Beast feasting on flesh inside wouldn't notice the prey lingering just past the threshold?
None.
And what were the chances two defenseless civilians—one of whom could barely muster any real combat power—could slip away unnoticed and summon help?
Also none.
Then what were the chances that she, an artillerist reliant on magic rifles, could trigger a forced Od awakening without ever testing her aptitude, ignore the fatal backlash, and tear a Named Beast apart with her bare hands?
That depended on the classification of the beast. But it wasn't zero.
Rita made her decision within three seconds. She would fight, even if it meant forcing an awakening in a vessel that wasn't hers.
‘If this body rejects it, I'll go into convulsions and die right here. Or maybe awakening isn't even possible in this world to begin with…’
Even so, she had to gamble on it. No other choice gave her a chance at tomorrow.
A clammy sweat drenched her skin.
Damn it all. Leonhart swore there were no demonic beasts in this realm!
Spitting curses at his name in the silence of her mind, she gathered her will to ignite her dormant Od, when—
“Is something the matter, Milady? Did you catch sight of a mouse?”
The sudden question broke out behind her. Hannah had poked her head right past the entrance of the dressing room.
“—!”
Had she been in her own battle-honed body, Rita never would have let an untrained girl slip past her like that. But this frail shell of Lilietta’s was far weaker than even an ordinary parlor maid. Before Rita could throw out an arm to hold her back, Hannah had already stepped right inside.
“…There doesn't seem to be anything here, though?”
“Stop, get back!” Rita barked, raw panic fraying her voice. “The reek! Can't you smell it? Back away! Get out of there right now!”
“The smell?”
Hannah didn't look frightened in the least. She simply turned back toward Rita, dangling a delicate cloth sachet from her fingers.
“Are you referring to… this?”
A sharp, suffocatingly earthy stench rolled off the pouch. It was the exact odor a Named Beast secreted while dissolving human flesh in its gut.
What is that?
For an instant, Rita’s mind went entirely blank. While she stood frozen in place, Hannah loosened the drawstring and tilted the pouch open, revealing the dried leaves stuffed inside.
“It’s patchouli. It’s quite good for keeping insects away, so we always hang a few inside the wardrobes.”
“…Patchouli?” Rita’s eyelids fluttered in disbelief. “That's all this is? Not… a demonic beast?”
“A demonic beast? Whatever is that?”
“….”
Wary of every step, Rita closed the distance. She took the sachet from Hannah's grasp and turned it over, checking every seam. It was just as the maid said: an embroidered scrap of cloth packed with brittle herb leaves.
She pinched a single crumble of leaf and held it to her nostrils. Her spine locked rigid. Every instinct in her body howled to draw a firearm that didn't exist. It took a supreme effort of sheer, grinding discipline not to surrender to the blind terror clawing at her throat.
So this is patchouli.
Back home, that exact smell had gone by the name of patchouli, too. The herb grew there as well, though nobody in their right mind ever used it. It smelled indistinguishable from the stench a Named Beast gave off as it digested human remains. The scent carried too many horrific memories.
So this truly was another world… One where people packed that abhorrent reek into pretty little bags and hung them around their living quarters.
Rita used only the bare tips of her nails to drop the leaf back into the pouch, recoiling from the texture. Even that brief brush sickened her. Her hand felt as though she had plunged it wrist-deep into the rotted belly of an aberration, while flashes of spilled gore and dying screams strobed behind her eyes.
She had to grind down on her molars to force her voice into something flat and even.
“…Take it away. Far away, please. Somewhere where not a trace of it will reach me.”
Hannah took back the sachet, looking startled.
“Does the fragrance displease you, Milady?”
“I loathe it. I don't ever want to smell it again.”
“Oh dear, what a shame. It’s all the rage lately, and terribly dear, too. People keep them in their wardrobes so the scent lingers on their robes. It keeps the moths out, you see. Wait just a moment, I believe there are a few more inside.”
“There are more?”
“Well, this is the Laskail ducal estate, after all. We have them scattered everywhere. Patchouli has to be brought in from faraway lands across the sea, so it’s quite the luxury.”
Hannah gave a regretful sigh and disappeared back into the dressing room to clear out the rest. When she emerged, an entire armful of sachets was bundled against her chest. The stench of patchouli was so dense in the air that even an ordinary nose would have wrinkled in disgust.
“…!”
For Rita, it was nothing short of torture.
‘It’s too thick… That stench… What if she's a beast wearing human skin? No. Stop it. This is another world. There are no beasts here. Right? There aren't, are there?’
Driven by pure reflex, Rita tried to expand her Od to sweep the space.
Nothing.
Her Od remained inert. Not so much as a spark stirred.
She hadn't awakened it.
She had no way to verify whether the figure standing in front of her was truly human or a monster in disguise. It was like having her antennae sheared off, like a hunting hound stripped of its scent, like standing blind in a cage with an apex predator. The inability to confirm what was before her eyes clawed at her sanity.
‘What if this civilian isn't a person at all… but a Named Beast wearing her shape?’
The memories rushed in like an open floodgate.
Blood. Shrieks. Piercing alarms. The thick, suffocating smell of patchouli. People fleeing in terror. Children screaming until their throats tore.
Her comrade had stepped behind a ruined partition to scout the flank. When he walked back out, that smell had hit Rita first.
That exact scent.
It was a face she knew. A comrade she trusted. Yet the scent was entirely wrong. It wasn't him. He took another step forward. The patchouli grew heavier.
Rita remembered what followed.
Her squadmate beside her had stepped up to greet him, asking, “What is that godawful stench? What did you roll in?”
The scout smiled. Then his jaw unhinged, splitting his face from ear to ear. In a single lunge, he swallowed the soldier whole. The stolen skin tore away in wet shreds, and the demonic beast tore free from beneath.
Classification: Mimic.
The aberration twisted toward Rita, her comrade's severed head still caught between its dripping teeth like some gruesome piece of hard candy. The patchouli reek thickened until it choked the air right out of her lungs.
No.
“Aaaah! P-please! Spare me! Don't kill me!”
“Lilietta! Stop!”
A woman shrieked, followed by a man's desperate shout.
Rita snapped back to reality. The phantom copper of blood vanished. The ruins of the front dissolved. Warm sunlight was streaming peacefully through the grand corridor windows of the manor.
A firm grip locked around her wrist, hauling her backward.
A sickening chill washed through Rita’s gut as she realized she had nearly crushed Hannah’s windpipe. If she had possessed her original body instead of Lilietta’s fragile frame, the maid would already be lying on the floor with a broken neck.
‘Get a grip on yourself, Rita Pascal. Snap out of it!’
The stench of the beast was gone. No, not quite. It still hung in the air. The beast opened its jaws again, and her comrade’s severed head rolled from between its fangs—
“…Get it out.”
“What?”
“Throw it away, damn it! Get it out of here!”
Her voice tore out in a ragged scream as she buried her face in her hands.
“What? Throw what away? Rita, what's happened?”
Leonhart’s voice cut in, strained with shock and alarm. Beside him, Hannah’s words tumbled out in a weeping stammer.
“I-it must be the patchouli! It's the patchouli, Your Grace!”
Chaos erupted around her. Rapid footfalls, the clatter of objects being swept aside and thrown, hushed urgent commands, and Hannah’s muffled sobs all blurred together.
At last, the suffocating scent drifted away.
Rita’s back slid down the paneling until she was slumped in the corner of the hallway. She sat huddled there, chest heaving as though she had sprinted across an entire province, her trembling fingers digging into her arms just to keep from falling apart.
“Rita. Shh, it's over now. The demonic beasts are dead. Everyone’s safe. You put it down. You won. You don't have to be afraid anymore.”
The voice of a fellow cadet drifted back from the depths of her memory.
“Breathe in. Now let it out, nice and slow… That's it. Good. You're going to be fine.”
Falling into the cadence of that remembered voice, Rita dragged in a deep, shivering breath, then exhaled it slowly. The fog in her head began to recede. But as reason returned, a scorching fury rose in its wake.
Rita slammed the heel of her hand into her forehead, her teeth grinding together so hard they creaked.
‘What the hell are you doing, Rita Pascal? Look at what you've become.’
Once her head cooled, cold logic took the wheel again. The root of the problem was her Od. If she had been able to read the room through her senses as she always had, the smell might have unsettled her, but she never would have lost her grip on reality like this.
Every Pascal child raised on the front lines bore scars on their mind in one shape or another. Among themselves, they understood; nobody batted an eye at strange tics or sudden breakdowns. But drop them into any normal company, and they unraveled in an instant. That was precisely why the Beacon Squad had been composed entirely of Pascal graduates.
Rita dragged the back of her sleeve across her forehead, wiping away the cold sweat.
‘To hell with learning the layout of this estate. Awakening my Od comes first. That’s top priority.’
“Lilietta.”
She lifted her chin by fractions. Leonhart had returned, standing over her with a grim, tight-lipped expression.
“Are you… all right?”
He seemed on the verge of asking something else, but swallowed the words the moment his eyes took in her state. The harshness vanished from his features, replaced by raw concern as he sank onto one knee to meet her gaze.
“What happened? Are you in pain? You're as pale as a corpse. Please, talk to me.”
He reached out and gently smoothed away the strands of hair pasted to her damp cheek. His tone was urgent, bordering on a plea.
Instinct told her to slap his hand away, but she simply lacked the strength. Instead, she fixed him with an empty stare, her voice rasping out in a dry mutter.
“Do I still have to keep playing ‘Lilietta’ at a time like this? Drop the act, Leonhart. Just ask me what the hell is wrong with me.”