WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Chen

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Damned Transmigration ◈

Chapter 83: Glutton 2

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As the elevator slowly descended, I stood beside Elena.

“We have gym first period today, right?”

Elena suddenly spoke up. She ran her fingertips over her reasonably long school skirt and grumbled.

“I really hate days when gym is first period. Mr. Bakerd doesn't go easy on us just because we're girls. Why does he always make us run laps around the field first?”

Mr. Bakerd, the gym teacher, was notorious among the students for seeing through fake illnesses with uncanny accuracy. But I, I... liked gym class, and I liked Mr. Bakerd too.

Had I always liked gym? I didn't know. I couldn't clearly remember whether I had.

But the me of “now” liked gym. That was probably because gym was the subject I was best at.

“Are you coming with us today as well?”

Haryeong, a senior with a neat bob, stood on the first floor. She was a year above us, yet she always spoke politely to everyone around her. I couldn't remember exactly why, but... Elena, Haryeong, and I were always together.

We went to and from school together, often met during breaks, ate lunch together, and went to the school store together...

“Yuri, what's with that expression?”

“See? I wasn't the only one who thought so. Yuri, you're acting strange today.”

Under their staring gazes, I forced a smile.

“I guess I'm tired.”

“Are you sick?”

“This is a perfect chance to stay home and rest. Are you really going to school?”

Despite their concern, I nodded. First of all, I wanted to see the school.

“Hi, Elena.”

When we got on the bus at the stop near the apartment, someone greeted Elena. It was Lacey, a senior from the same science research club.

“There’s an empty seat here. Want to sit?”

“No, I’m fine.”

After politely declining, Elena quickly took another empty seat. Then she rapidly beckoned me over.

“Are you telling me to stand the whole way?”

“There’s another seat.”

Her cheeks faintly red, Elena hugged her bag and hurriedly pulled out her phone. She clearly didn't want to hear any more of Haryeong's teasing.

I took out the phone from my uniform jacket as well. The notification I had set to vibrate had gone off several times already. As expected, it was Estor.

“Estor?”

“Uh... he says he’s already in the classroom.”

“He’s more diligent than he looks. Has he ever even been late?”

I couldn't answer.

The word “ever” Elena had used felt terribly wrong. My head throbbed again. My chest was still hot. Once more, I tried to ignore that heat.

I tapped back to my home screen. There was a photo of Elena, Haryeong, Estor, and me.

“You’re still using that as your wallpaper?”

“You shouldn't look at someone else's phone without permission.”

“I-I wasn't looking because I wanted to! I only saw it because it was there!”

Elena hurriedly made excuses after Haryeong's quick rebuke, but I couldn't properly hear their voices. I was too absorbed in the photo on my wallpaper.

When had we taken it?

Everyone in the picture except Haryeong was smiling happily. Judging from the background, it was a famous amusement park. We all wore strange headbands, and Haryeong, though expressionless, even held a large balloon. She wasn't smiling, but there was no doubt she was having fun too.

“Summer’s coming soon.”

Elena muttered.

“Next time, let’s go to the beach together.”

“Are you planning to wear a bikini?”

“W-What are you talking about?”

“If Elena wears a bikini, I’ll wear one too.”

“I’m not wearing one! No way! I’ll just wear a short-sleeved shirt as my top!”

Mindful that we were on the bus, Elena kept her voice as low as possible. Still, perhaps embarrassed by the surrounding gazes, she hurriedly looked around.

“It’s a shame I won’t get to see a bikini, but I’d like to go to the beach too.”

Haryeong spoke. I barely managed a nod. Looking at the photo hurt too much, so I returned to the lock screen. This time, a family photo appeared.

Bzzzt.

My phone vibrated. It wasn't a message from Estor. A game notification had appeared.

[See clearly how thin the hide of a beast that has filled its belly with the lives of others truly is.]

[The lightning that descends from the heavens tears the world apart.]

[★★★ Magic Dealer, Heavenly Thunder Orca Dersia. Descends upon Seronis.]

“Are you going to pull for her?”

Elena, still glancing at my phone, asked excitedly.

“They’ve been advertising her like crazy lately. From what I’ve heard, doesn’t she sound completely broken?”

“You play that game too, Elena?”

“Yuri was so into it that I tried it a little.”

“I don’t like those pay-to-win games. If you don’t have money, you’ll end up weaker than everyone else.”

“That’s true, but I heard this game also needs... control? Strategy? Things like that.”

“How important could strategy possibly be in a mobile gacha game?”

Throb.

My head hurt. My chest was hot. And something else had appeared.

My throat felt tight, as if something invisible were strangling it.

[The next stop is Rutlan. Rutlan.]

“Let’s get off.”

There was no need to press the bell ourselves. Plenty of people got off at the Rutlan stop. Looking around again, more than half the people on the bus wore the same uniform as us.

After getting off and walking a little, we could see the school gate.

“Then I’ll see you later.”

“Okay.”

“Yuri, you’re especially quiet today. Wouldn’t it be better to go home now?”

“I’m... fine.”

My throat was tight, but I could barely force out an answer. Haryeong tilted her head at my low voice, but she didn't say anything else and headed up the stairs toward the second-year classrooms.

“Are you really okay?”

“Yeah.”

I wasn’t okay.

But that was how I answered. I didn't want to go back after coming this far. I had come because I wanted to see the school, so at least... I wanted to see the classroom.

“You’re coming together again today?”

“Hey, if you’re going to be like that, just date already.”

Students in the hallway snickered as they teased Elena and me. Not everyone was teasing us. A few people smiled and waved at me.

“Don’t they ever get tired of it? I keep telling them we’re not like that, so why do they tease us about the same thing every day?”

Elena's cheeks were faintly red as she complained in disgust. She touched her hairpin for no reason, then hurried forward and opened the classroom door.

I...

I didn't know which classroom was mine, so I simply followed Elena.

Creak.

Elena opened the classroom door.

“You’re here?”

Estor sat in the back, wearing a short-sleeved shirt with his uniform pants as he looked at his phone. He turned toward us with a broad grin.

“Why are you standing there? Come in.”

He held up his phone screen as he urged us inside. Even from a distance, I could tell. Seronis was open on Estor's phone.

“What? Are you going to ask Yuri for help again?”

“I’ve been trying since dawn, but I can’t clear this region. Do you know how many times I’ve refilled my stamina?”

Elena shook her head at his grumbling answer.

“What’s wrong?”

Elena had been walking into the classroom, but she turned around to look at me. Estor also blinked and rose from his seat.

“Yuri, you look strange. What happened? Did something happen on the way here?”

I didn't know how miserable I looked, but Elena and Estor weren't the only ones worrying about me. The other students in the classroom looked at me with concerned expressions too.

“Shouldn’t we call the teacher?”

“Let’s take him to the infirmary first.”

As I listened to them...

“Ha ha.”

I laughed without meaning to.

I'd known it for a while now, but this was a dream.

My parents had died in an accident long ago. I had no family.

There were no parents who sat in the living room watching TV in the morning, greeted me first by asking whether I'd slept well, put freshly made stew on the table, ate with me while sharing warm conversation, and did the dishes for me.

A dog? A little Pomeranian? I'd never raised one. The only home I knew was a tiny one-room apartment where I lived alone. A soft bed? Mine was a hard, cheap mattress, and my computer was low-end enough to sell secondhand for next to nothing.

A childhood friend?

“Ha ha.”

That was ridiculous. I'd never had a childhood friend. Someone who waited in front of my house every morning.

A pretty childhood friend who looked at me sideways, blushed at every little reaction of mine, treasured the hairpin I'd given her long ago, wore it in her hair every day, and had been with me since kindergarten... I'd never had one.

Everyone in this world was fake. I had no friendly older girl who was close to me. I had never had a close friend asking when I would arrive. I had never gone to an amusement park with friends. I had never promised that we'd go to the beach together someday.

I'd never been good at gym. I'd never liked my gym teacher. I had no friends who greeted me first in the hallway. No one had ever worried about me first when I looked unwell or sick.

So this world was fake. It was a sweet dream.

It was the happy life I'd never had. The things I wanted. The things I'd dreamed of.

In this dream, I wasn't myself.

My name wasn't Lee Yuri.

I was...

“Yuri?”

“What’s wrong?”

I didn't answer. I didn't know what expression I wore, but the faces looking at me were still full of worry. Looking back at them, I clutched my burning chest as if I had swallowed fire.

“Yuri.”

Elena spoke.

“Come in. I told you earlier, didn’t I? Next time, let’s go to the beach together.”

Elena's expression slowly changed.

It was a face I knew well. A face I didn't want to know so well. A face I could never forget.

“If you don't come in here, we can't go to the beach next time. Do you... want that?”

Elena asked with a face that looked ready to burst into tears.

“This is...”

It was a fucking dream. It openly prodded at my feelings, holding the happiness I wanted hostage as it tempted me.

“It’s a dream.”

I knew why my chest was burning.

“A dream that bastard made.”

I remembered the man in the mask with the wide slit of a mouth. This dream had to be his doing.

It was a shitty dream.

“Why?”

A voice spoke.

It was a voice I knew better than anyone else's.

The classroom had frozen at some point.

Elena, set up as my real childhood friend, Estor, set up as my closest friend despite being the sort of person everyone would want to befriend and having a background even more perfect than that of the archetypal mother's-friend's son, and the other classmates, who had no names but welcomed me and worried about me.

In that classroom, where everyone stood frozen with worried faces turned toward me...

Not in the very back, not in the front, not by the window, but in an impossibly vague seat that couldn't be clearly described.

The guy lying face-down at that desk slowly raised his head.

“Why won’t you come in?”

The distant relatives who had let me live in their home back then were closer to roommates than family.

It was a common story. They were a couple who wanted children but couldn't have any. After negotiations among relatives I didn't know, I was allowed to live in their house.

I lost my parents at eleven and lived there. The condition from the beginning was that I would become independent after graduating high school.

After losing my parents in an accident, I had kept myself shut away. My guardians weren't saints who would embrace an eleven-year-old forced upon them, help him open his heart, and raise him like their own child.

Their looks that said, “Grow up fast and get out,” had always been obvious. So I took care of the housework. Laundry, cleaning, dishes. No one ever praised me for being a good kid, but I also wasn't subjected to the domestic violence that often happened to children in my situation, and the insurance money assigned to me wasn't stolen.

Looking back now, I was grateful to them, but they weren't family.

To them, I was only a child they had to look after for around nine years. After they finally succeeded in getting pregnant through great difficulty, their gazes toward me could only grow colder.

I couldn't ask for anything.

I'd never asked them to send me to a cram school. I'd never said I wanted a certain side dish... or that I wanted to go on a “family trip” with them.

My old, baggy school uniform had been bought secondhand in a large size from the start.

I was at an age when I was still growing. I could grow taller, gain weight, or change physically in some way over three years. If they bought a uniform that fit too perfectly, they might have to buy another one later, and I hated having to bring that up to my guardians.

I was afraid.

“It’s a happy world.”

A faded white school uniform, frayed hems, buttons with loose threads sticking out because I'd sewn them myself.

The newest thing on that uniform, the only thing with clear color, was the name tag.

[Lee Su-hyeok]

Lee Su-hyeok, with shaggy hair and barely any salon visits to speak of, glared at me.

“Here, you even have a real family instead of roommates.”

I knew. In this world, they were my real parents. It was a family photo taken when I was about ten, one I could never throw away and had always kept in my room, even though my memories of them were hazy by the time I was twenty-seven.

The parents I'd seen that morning in this world looked almost unchanged from the people in that photo.

“Elena, who found out about your lies and left you while resenting you, is your real childhood friend. Haryeong, who was kind to you while bringing up a purpose too heavy for you to bear and an unsettling reason that, even while she said it wasn't revenge, she wanted to kill her father, is nice to you here without any of those heavy reasons.”

Lee Su-hyeok spoke in the frozen classroom.

“You confessed that you were a transmigrator because you didn't want to repeat the mistake you made with Elena, but that wasn't entirely your own choice. If Haryeong hadn't pushed you, you would've hidden the truth about being a transmigrator from Estor until the end, worrying yourself sick.”

Lee Su-hyeok's lips twitched into a twisted smile.

“You ended up telling him, but you're still afraid of what Estor really thinks. He told you it was fine, that he didn't care, that he was grateful, but you can't fully believe him. What if that answer was just a pleasant lie? What if he hates you, a transmigrator, deep down? Your talent isn't yours. You got it because you're a transmigrator. You're afraid that might be a reason for him to hate you.”

Every word was right.

Yesterday, after hearing Estor's answer, I hadn't continued the conversation because of the fear and anxiety inside me.

“In this world, there's nothing for you to fear or worry about.”

Lee Su-hyeok's voice began to shake.

Pathetic, empty Lee Su-hyeok pleaded with me.

“I've never gone to an amusement park with friends. I've never gone to school with friends, and I've never promised to go to the beach with them. Classes were always boring, and breaks were even worse. Lunch was when I put on earphones, listened to music, or browsed the internet.”

I'd never been bullied. During my school years, I was simply nonexistent in the classroom. I had never tried to get close to anyone, and no one had ever approached me. An ambiguous seat that couldn't be clearly described. No one knew when I came to school, and no one could immediately remember my name, but...

Oh, that kid who always sleeps with his head down?

That was me.

“I told myself I didn't need friends when I was a student, that it didn't matter. Then I went to Jeju Island alone. I stared blankly at the sea by myself, watched waves that weren't even fun to watch, took off my shoes and stepped on the sand because it felt like I should, and even took selfies I would never post anywhere.”

Everyone else went on the school trip, but I didn't. I thought I was fine back then, but after I turned twenty, I went to Jeju Island alone. I wanted to put something, anything, into that empty space called memories.

“Here, everyone loves me. Everything I ever wanted is here. So why won't you come in?”

“This place...”

Barely.

I opened my lips with great difficulty.

My chest burned as if I'd swallowed fire. My head hurt as if it would split apart. My throat was under a crushing pressure that felt like it would kill me.

I knew all of it was discomfort that existed only because I recognized it.

I knew I could ignore it all if I wanted.

If I became satisfied with this dream, if I didn't want this dream to end.

If I chose this world I had so desperately wished for, where there would be no problems or discord, then I could live here without any discomfort at all.

“It’s fake.”

Even knowing that, I had no choice but to say it.

This world was, in the end, nothing more than a happy fantasy I had desired.

“Fake?”

Lee Su-hyeok's eyes twisted.

“How great could my real life possibly be? Do I even have anything I can call real?”

Lee Su-hyeok staggered toward me.

“Reality? Was reality ever really precious to you? Lee Su-hyeok, the real me is a nobody. I'm just a fucking loser. A loser who was weak before the strong and strong before the weak. I couldn't do anything in real life, but when I got on a keyboard, I'd spam insults about people's mothers and stir shit up. I was too scared of getting doxxed on Korean sites, so I only pulled that crap on foreign sites. I was the asshole who picked fights with people online just because I played games seriously. That's my reality.”

“...”

“What? Do you want to say things are different now? What's different about being transmigrated into this damned game? You're fake now too!”

Lee Su-hyeok came right up to me and grabbed my shoulders. My reflection in the eyes before me trembled.

“You entered someone else's body, and now people call you talented and a genius. Does that make you something special? Is that what you call real?”

This dream was a jumbled mixture of everything that had made me happy. In this dream, I was the son of a loving family, I had a pretty childhood friend who looked at me, an older girl whose identity I didn't know, a best friend who contacted me every day, and everyone at school greeted me first and worried about me.

“It might be fake.”

I smiled as I said it.

“But this is fucking pathetic.”

This was a life I'd never had. Lee Su-hyeok's life had been lonely, without a single happy memory.

“I don't want to wake up from this dream.”

Lee Su-hyeok muttered.

“I don't want to go back to reality. Even that reality is no different from a fake to me. I'm not Yuri. No matter how much I say my name is Yuri, I'm still a fucking transmigrator in the end.”

Lee Su-hyeok released my shoulders and staggered back.

“Fine, then... then let's do this. I don't want to fight. I don't want to die. So let's just not do it.”

The day I first became Yuri.

I killed someone. I had no choice. It was a situation where I would die if I didn't kill them. Since living as Yuri, the thing I had most desperately wanted was not to die.

“I’m good enough to be treated well anywhere, right? Do I really have to do dangerous things? Do I need to fight cultists and kill the Evil God? If I go to some quiet city, I could live comfortably and happily without working hard.”

The current me could go anywhere. I could go to the Namgung Family, to the Orsia Family. There were plenty of other places that wanted me too.

“Or how about this? I become a cultist too. Let's join the Sect of Chaos. Let's tell the masked guy who made this dream who I am. They say I'm the Evil God's apostle, don't they? It's true that they revere me, so if I say I'll join them, they'll all welcome me.”

Was the Lee Su-hyeok speaking now a trick of the Evil God, meant to shake my mind?

Or was he all the things buried in my subconscious that I had kept turning away from?

This dream itself was the Evil God's doing, so it must have been the Evil God who summoned Lee Su-hyeok too. But I knew Lee Su-hyeok.

That was inside me.

My anxiety, my fear, my pathetic side.

I was pathetic, a loser, and a coward.

“You’re right.”

Lee Su-hyeok was that kind of person. No matter how much I turned away, the past wouldn't change. If I hadn't transmigrated into Yuri's body, Lee Su-hyeok would have lived that way his whole life.

After struggling because he didn't want to die, once he gained enough power to think that was enough, he might have lived a safe, ordinary life, just as Lee Su-hyeok had said. Maybe, just maybe, he would have become a cultist.

But I wasn't that person now.

“If I never had it before, I can have it from now on. If I've been a cowardly, pathetic loser until now, I can change from now on.”

A bastard rotten to the core from the start had been transmigrated against his will.

Even if the talent wasn't originally mine, I had found something I was good at. I had found people I could call friends. I had found people who expected things from me. I had found things I wanted to do.

There were things I had to take responsibility for.

I'd made my decision long ago.

When I felt that living as Yuri was happier than the world where the empty, lonely Lee Su-hyeok had lived. When I was first exposed as a transmigrator. When a bond I wanted to preserve no matter what ended in ruin.

I decided to kill the Evil God.

There was a flame inside me.

Because I didn't want to run away or turn away, I had to throw that cowardly, pathetic loser into the flame born from those wishes. That tiresome bastard wouldn't burn away cleanly, but I would have to keep burning those remnants from now on too.

So I was fire.

I had to become fire.

“I hate myself.”

Lee Su-hyeok said, his voice shaking with tears.

“Me too.”

I agreed with him.

Whoosh.

Bright red flames flowed out from within me, growing larger and larger.

“Do we really have to do this?”

Lee Su-hyeok asked from within the spreading flames.

“I... I don't have confidence that I can do it. Responsibility? Resolve? I just want to do easy, comfortable things instead. I don't want to go back to reality. I don't want to go back to that empty one-room apartment. I hate fighting, and I'm scared of dying.”

“Of course you do. But I don't want to die after dreaming pathetic dreams either.”

I answered.

“So stop being such a pathetic loser and fuck off.”

Lee Su-hyeok disappeared into the flames.

Flames spread through the world I had longed for. I stood blankly in the middle of the blazing hallway, watching the world turn to ash and vanish. Of the words left behind by the already-burned Lee Su-hyeok, one remained and weighed heavily on my chest.

‘I don't want to return to reality.’

“Me too.”

For Yuri, Lee Su-hyeok, reality was the one-room apartment on Earth.

Because he didn't want to go back there, Yuri pulled the phone from his pocket.

Photos he would never see again came into view. He passed the lock screen bearing a family photo he had never taken and looked at the group photo from an amusement park he had never visited.

“Sloppy.”

He had thought it was a well-made happy dream. Yet there weren't many photos in the gallery. Was the Evil God's imagination really this poor? Yuri chuckled, then tapped the camera app.

The image reflected on his screen was Lee Su-hyeok wearing Yuri's skin.

When he had looked in the mirror earlier, that appearance had felt strange, as if it wasn't him.

Now, it didn't feel as strange as before.

* * *

“...”

When Yuri opened his eyes, he couldn't move his body properly. He lay still for a moment, then muttered blankly.

“I understand everything else, but why did Namgung Jin show up as a Pomeranian?”

If that dream had been a complete nightmare, wouldn't Namgung Jin have appeared as a human-faced dog instead of a Pomeranian?

“What is this?”

Woody vines bound his body. Crack. Crack. He forced his body to move by raising his inner power, and fortunately, he could break the vines.

‘My neck...’

As he pushed himself up from where he'd been sprawled out, Yuri felt something strange around his neck and quickly touched it.

The Veil of Deception, which had been lodged in his neck since Oldor. Until now, it had stayed quiet without causing the slightest discomfort. But now, it bulged enough for him to feel with his hand.

‘So that’s why my throat felt tight in the dream.’

The Veil of Deception had been strangling his neck. Had it automatically resisted that disgusting mental attack?

‘That wasn’t a feature in the game.’

After he rubbed it a few times, the protruding Veil of Deception slowly sank back inside.

‘For now...’

He looked around.

The scenery was different. He had clearly lost consciousness inside the exhibition hall, but where Yuri was now...

Several things had been mixed together.

All kinds of debris floated through the air, and walls were grotesquely fused together.

Perhaps this was what the aftermath of failed spatial magic looked like.

The floor, as though forcibly stretched out, was covered in blackish vines like a spiderweb. Awkward empty spaces lay between the walls that had fallen apart. The stretched, fused, fallen, and shattered scenery intertwined like a maze.

At the end of one vine, a person was caught.

Yuri flinched and quickly approached. It was Haryeong. Her face was pale, but her eyes were tightly shut, and a faint smile rested on her face.

Just as Yuri had, she was probably dreaming of a happiness she'd never had. Yuri hesitated for a moment, then grasped Haryeong's shoulder.

“Haryeong.”

He intended to wake her by shaking her, because he couldn't leave her like this. Yet even after shaking her several more times, Haryeong showed no sign of opening her eyes.

‘Fire...’

Yuri sent the inner power of the Heavenly Art of Annihilating Evil into the vines binding Haryeong's body.

Whoosh!

Red force aura rose like flames and turned the vines to ash.

“Mmm...”

Haryeong's eyelids trembled, then opened.

“Ah...”

Her unfocused eyes trembled, then slowly grew moist.

“Ugh.”

Haryeong came to her senses and flinched as she looked at Yuri. Tears were already about to fall from her slightly bloodshot eyes. Before they could roll down her cheeks, though, Haryeong quickly rose and turned her head away.

“W-What is it?”

Yuri hadn't expected that reaction. Rather than say anything, he held out his hand to Haryeong. Haryeong, who had only raised her upper body and was fiercely rubbing at her eyes, quietly cleared her throat and took his hand.

“I had a strange dream.”

“Me too.”

Yuri wondered what dream she could have had to make her cry, but he wasn't tactless enough to ask.

“This is... um...”

Her confusion hadn't settled yet. Haryeong hesitated for a moment before barely continuing.

“A mental... attack.”

“Yes.”

“Yuri... when did you wake up?”

“I woke up just now too.”

“Did someone wake you?”

“I woke up on my own.”

At that answer, Haryeong looked at Yuri with surprise.

“How?”

“I know, right?”

It was difficult for Yuri to explain why in detail. He kicked aside the debris of vines at his feet and looked up.

“I think we should find a way out of here first.”

Even when he looked up, there was only floating debris. There was no sign of the cultist who had caused this mess. Yuri picked up a fragment nearby and threw it at the ceiling, but it didn't fly very high before striking something and falling back down.

“It doesn't look like we can go up...”

Nothing came into range even when he expanded his senses.

‘Wait.’

Yuri flinched and focused his mind again.

Mana had solidified.

He could see a power entirely different from mana clinging to it.

‘What is this?’

He had never seen anything like it. Yuri tried to cast a spell himself, but the hardened mana couldn't be properly controlled with his Soul Power.

What that meant was simple.

Most mages wouldn't be able to cast magic properly in this environment.

‘Was this what they were aiming for?’

As far as Yuri knew, he had never heard of magic like this. Unique magic? No, it was probably a miracle performed with divine power. Yuri bit down on his lip and started walking. Haryeong, who had been blinking blankly, followed behind him.

“Yuri.”

Not long after they began moving along the warped, fused walls, Haryeong spoke.

“Look at that.”

Yuri had already been looking in that direction without Haryeong needing to point.

“Huh.”

Below the wall, Lacey was half-buried in vines. Fabian, who had been with her, was nowhere to be seen.

“What will you do?”

Haryeong asked.

“We can’t just leave her.”

Most mages wouldn't be able to use magic properly in this environment, but the Lacey Yuri had assessed wasn't just any mage. She seemed to have learned martial arts as well, and they weren't complete strangers, so he couldn't bring himself to leave her behind.

“As expected of you, Yuri. Are you planning to make Lacey Yuzha owe you her life and control her?”

“I hadn't thought that far.”

“Then be grateful. I have given you very valuable advice.”

Just moments ago, she had been flustered with tears in her eyes, but it seemed she had already returned to her usual self.

Footnotes:

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