A Villainess Should Be Strong - Chapter 167

There had to be a reason for the soul to have found out a place to escape from. And the vassal for it wasn’t Ophelia. It was someone else, according to the Goddess Estraea’s torn up memories. Aleksei. The human boy. The reason for her heartbreak was not just because they had to be separated, that she had to die. There was something else, something she wasn’t clear about.

Chaos. The boy’s arrival into her life and how it impacted her until the end. Chasing her until the Surface, appearing in front of her as yet another positive variable. But who knew what was hidden behind all of these? Surely, if anybody had the opportunity to find out, it would be the one most closely related to all of these matters. The Absolute Being.

‘How was Chaos and Aleksei related to each other?’ This was a question that she wanted to ask the most out of all the other ones she had compiled. The most agonizing, painful question for her, who had resonated with the original Goddess Estraea’s soul even more during these recent times.

The Absolute’s expression didn’t change. He remained stoic, and patiently gestured for the agitated Estelle to come around and sit beside him in the deteriorating realm. His aura seemed to have changed. Whether it was for the better or otherwise, she didn’t exactly know which it was.

Estelle just approached the being as she was told with cautious steps, afraid of what more secrets that she didn’t know. Shocking secrets that ruined the plot she knew, everything she was aware of. As if everything was a lie, and she would never be able to find out the truth unless it was directly told to her or experienced.

Biting her lips, she showed a wronged expression as she waited for the man to answer. The being had to have an answer. Or else, he wouldn’t be this calm, as if he had been waiting for Estelle to ask this question from long ago and was just trying to bid the time.

Suddenly, the Absolute broke into a series of laughter, which made Estelle jolt as she didn’t expect the being to suddenly do that.

“How much of your memories were revealed? Ahh, really, this wasn’t supposed to happen this early. You still had quite a lot of agenda left before you got to this stage.” The Absolute stated ambiguously.

“..Agenda?” Estelle asked cautiously. “What is that? My tasks? Is this a story to you? Am I just a character with a plot attached to me, with a role, character setting and everything set up for it to go how you want it? Was that why I was created in the first place? To go through these three worlds, only to realize that… I’ve been tricked right from the start?” Estelle became emotional. There was a suspicion she had about the Absolute being, too.

One that hurt her even more considering the memories she had received. The hypothesis she made about the things that had been going around behind her back.

The Absolute did not respond once more, making the atmosphere escalate and became tenser.

“I only know that Aleksei is hiding something. And that he is connected to the Chaos in one way or another, and the vassal for the Chaos wasn’t Ophelia. I only know that the past me loved that man so much, but I ended up.. I don’t know where to begin to describe my feelings. It’s as if he tore a hole in my heart. Ripped it apart,” Estelle said, tears starting to well up in the corner of her eyes as she began to recall the emotions she felt.

“Aleksei isn’t just a simple human being, right? There is something about him. There is something.. terrifying behind him, but I can’t help but feel attracted. What the hell is this sensation?” Estelle clenched fists. She clearly hadn’t merged with Goddess Estraea’s persona completely, but upon her first direct meeting  with Aleksei, she was already feeling something strange budding within her very soul, not just her heart.

The Absolute not wanting to confront and answer her question when she was already displaying her doubts on an open scale, wasn’t this just confirming her doubts? She never knew that it would be this painful. She never knew that this kind of emotional pain was even possible in the slightest.

Who was Aleksei? Who was the Absolute, Astarte, and all of the people she thought she ‘knew’? What were they hiding from her?

The Absolute stood up, stretching his body as he went over to the tree and rested his head against it. With tired eyes, he looked at Estelle and smiled. He raised his hand and snapped his fingers.

Immediately, the environment changed. Within seconds, the tree, which had been brimming with vitality withered down and was reduced to a miniature size. Beside it were countless glowing seeds that cluttered up the floor.

Estelle was taken aback by this display and shook her head. Her previous memory of this place was so dazzling. She remembered creating and decorating objects to hone this higher realm, their home, even further.  But now, all that was left was this dying tree that was once omnipotent. Equals with the Absolute.

The Absolute observed her expression and laughed out loud, but Estelle was still too deep in her trance to even bother about the Absolute any longer.

“Do you see? My sweet Estraea, do you see all this? This is the real state of the higher realms right now. Because you all have gone away, the Underworld is corrupted, the divine balance is disrupted, and most importantly, the Origin tree itself is dying. How am I supposed to live, I wonder? Do you think that if things really went with along with the memories you recovered, things would be this bad? No. It wouldn’t, right?”  The Absolute asked. His hands grabbed onto Estelle and he started shaking the girl’s figure in an erratic manner, madness showing up on his usually calm composure.

“There is no way that Ophelia was the reason for everything. She was just a placeholder we instated in order to keep you sane. In order to keep you alive. Because.. the truth was so ridiculous for you to accept that there would be no way you could proceed,”

“Then, what do you think was the true cause?” The Absolute launched questions back at the woman, who was stuttering as the hellish scene took the words out of her mind and left her speechless.

Estelle pursed her lips, her eyes shaking as she started to speak. “If Aleksei is Chaos, and that that nature brings trouble, then my soul.. The Creation’s soul. There must be something up about it as well, right? Something evil. Something that brought trouble just like Chaos,”

“Correct. How brilliant is it? Two sides of the same coin. Divided from the Origin, came up Chaos and Creation. These two souls, one was put into a vassal and the other wasn’t. Why do you think is this?”

“Because.. because Creation is much more dangerous than Chaos,” Estelle spoke without even thinking. Her mind replied on its own, as if the answer had been laying deep within her mind all along, just waiting for the perfect trigger to swoop the mess up.

“That boy… Aleksei is far from human, far from an existence. Chaos. He is something that shouldn’t exist. The culmination of everything wrong with the world. An absurd anomaly that was declared to be destroyed, but somehow escaped to the Surface anyway. That is Chaos. Since that first happened, we already knew that the world wouldn’t last forever. That one day, the catastrophe was going to fall no matter how hard we try to prevent it. Then, what did you do? We warned you that day. Before you went inside the realm. We warned you, Rae.”

“Did you see Astarte’s restrained expression before you went into the mortal realm today? Why do you think he had such an expression? Why did that happen?” The Absolute asked. “It’s because you and Aleksei are the most disgusting pair I have ever encountered. You two are practically balls of calamity. If you two met each other, then the world could only start to shatter,”

“It was all my mistake. Creating you, and creating Chaos. I separated the Origin into two parts because it would bring balance to the world, but I forgot one thing.. Those two elements, even after they were separated, they would have an insane amount of attraction to each other. An instinctual leveled reaction. You two would act like magnets, and upon meeting, calamity would descend. Tell me, if things were already fated to be this way, how should I try to fight it? When you two keep making and rousing trouble, and would create dissonance no matter where you went to?”

“Even if you two were separated into different dimensions, your fates would somehow find a way to reunite you two and bring calamity. How am I supposed to retain the clusters of life?”

“Chaos is obsessed with you, but you are much more.. worse. You are not only obsessed with Chaos, you are truly something else.”