Akuyaku Reijou no Naka no Hito - CH 18.1

Extra Story : The Person Inside The Star Maiden

Translated by KaiesV

Edited by KaiesV

I don’t really like my father. He gets angry easily, beats me, and doesn’t help me at all if someone tries to touch my body and has spent a lot of money at the store.

About my mother… I don’t know. She died when I was very young, so I don’t remember much. My father said she was a「slave」that he bought for him to help him with his work. He often complained to me that she had been sick when she gave birth to me, and that every time she and my father went around with me peddling for work, she grew weaker and weaker until she just died. He had no choice but to tell me.

I was very young when my mother died, and I didn’t know which town she died in or where she was laid to rest. I can’t remember my mom’s face anymore, but I do remember one thing. A fairytale that my mother taught me… It was a story about a girl who was bullied and had a hard time in her life, but still she lives her life without losing her sane mind, and in the end she becomes happy with the blessings of many people who have helped her and befriended her.

I wish I could be as happy as the girl in that story someday… to make great friends, do the work you love… That’s right, I would like to become a florist. People who buy flowers either buy them to decorate their homes because they like flowers, or they buy them as a gift for someone else, so they all look happy.

About marriage… I don’t know about that, but I would like to have a friend. My father’s job is a peddler, and I’m always looking after the store. I never had time to make friends because all I did was help out at work, and even if there was a girl who would talk to me once in a while, I never got to know her because she would quickly move on to the next business.

Now that I think about it, that girl from the fairy tale was probably my mother’s own ideal and dream.

Every day she worked in fear of my father, who never knew when he would become angry. I was working as a store keeper in a town when I was approached by a woman with a surprised look on her face. I didn’t understand what she was talking about, but she said that her sister was a magical spiritist and that I had a lot of spirits with me.

When I told her that I had never been to school and had never been「baptized,」she became very angry with my father. My heart became tight, as if I was being angry with myself, and I don’t really remember what happened then. However, I found myself being separated from my father and going to a school for people who could use magic.

I have the power of the「Star Maiden,」and the spirits were worried that I was living without learning how to use my power, so they were around me, and that’s how the magician’s sister found me. The truth is that they always do something called「baptism」at a much younger age, and children who have the ability to learn how to use it are said to start school early. The uncle who was to take me to the school told me that I hadn’t been able to do so because of my father, and that I had to hurry up and get back into school.

This uncle told me that there is a girl the same age as me. He told me that she is also in the school that I am going to attend. I wonder if we can be friends… I’m very looking forward to it.

The uncle said it was his job to pick me up, but this was in addition to that, so he bought me a pen, a notebook, and a picture book. He said I’m going to learn a lot with it. I was taught a few letters before I went to the royal capital, and I couldn’t wait to be able to read other books at the「library」at school.

The last place I was taken to was a「castle,」and I felt very sad to be parted from the uncle who had brought me here. I was relieved when I had to leave my father, though… I wanted a father like that uncle.

The「Star Maiden」is a woman who defeated the evil gods together with the hero who created this country, and it’s said that people who have the same power are called so. That’s what it said in the picture book that uncle bought me. But… That’s why I really needes to be cared for, said by the man with expensive clothes, but it didn’t make sense to me, they called me「Pina-sama」and I was washed by maids, had my hair messed with, and was served treats that I had never eaten before… I just didn’t feel comfortable being told to sleep alone in a soft bed I had never touched before.

Still, I thought I could go to school and maybe make a lot of friends there because there are a lot of kids there who are about the same age as me… That was the only thing I was looking forward to. My body was taken by surprise by the unfamiliar life and I developed a fever the next day, but all the maids were kind to me. When I was with my father, even if I was sick, he would leave me alone in the back of the truck, and I had never been taken care of like this.

I can’t wait to get better… I want to get better, go to school and learn a lot of things…

I fell asleep one night thinking that… When I woke up, I was unable to move my body by myself. I can still see with my eyes and hear with my ears. But I couldn’t move my body, nor could I speak in my own language. When I was surprised and confused, my body started to move and speak on its own. I walked up to a large mirror in the room, dizzy with fever, and stared at my image there for a while, then looked around the room,「I’m reincarnated in another world—————!!!!!」I shouted loudly.

I was even more surprised and confused.

Surprised by the loud voice, the maids rushed to the scene, I was… they talked to my body and worries that I was sick. My body was asking them,「Do you have magic?」「Who am I? Am I a noble within this room? Or was I a princess?」What a strange thing to start asking and annoyed the maids.

Stop this, stop this, don’t say strange things to those people who have been so kind to me. I screamed desperately, but it seemed that my voice was not heard by the person who was moving my body, and I could not get myself to cover my mouth or to stop talking at all.

The maids, who had been so kind to me, looked at me with mixed feelings of annoyance and surprise, and I was filled with apology.

Finally… my body was,「Hey, I had a fever and was a little confused. Don’t talk about this with anyone, okay? …You know what will happen if you talk about the funny things they asked you or the bad things you said about the Star Maidens, don’t you?」She was threatening them. I was apologizing as loudly as I could inside my body, even though the maids couldn’t hear me.

Stop… Stop this…

「This is the world of OtoKishi, right? Now before entering the academy? Great!!! I’m the heroine!! Wait for me, Angel-sama, and I will marry you!」

「I’m glad it started here before I entered school, I’m pretty sure it said the heroine’s parents were assholes and had a poor life, so I’m sure that part is stable to skip. I knew I was the chosen one. God didn’t explain it to me, but this is the least I could do, well, I’m willing to forgive you.」

After that, my body did not move at all by my will, and I could only watch from inside. When I met these “princes” I was so embarrassed because my body was trying to force them to touch me. I didn’t have any friends, but I watched a lot of people as a store keeper, and even I know that it’s wrong for a woman to touch a man like that or be flirty with him. My body said,「This was normal for commoners…」Even commoners don’t usually do that.

By this time I somehow knew that it was someone else who was now running my body… I feel that it is very painful to be forced to pour out what the person is thinking and feeling.

My body is now being moved by a woman named「Lina.」It seems that Lina died once in another world, and when she came to herself, she became me. I feel very bad observing to this Lina person, whose mind is full of bad words and complaints about people.

She went to school in a different world than here, and in elementary, middle school and high school she always lied and bullied people she didn’t like, making them look bad and saying「they did this to me.」When she was in college, she tried to do the same thing, but she was recorded and filmed with a tool called a「smartphone」and they knew she was lying, she was so angry at being humiliated and scolded by her parents that she became a「hikikomori.」Her memory of her death doesn’t seem to be so clear… It was like the「air conditioner」was broken in the middle of summer, but she didn’t want to talk to her parents either because they would tell her to get out of the room, so she just stomped on the floor to interrupt their family life in frustration. Eventually, no matter how many sweet drinks she had in her room, she just couldn’t quench her thirst… She was sweaty and lightheaded, her eyes were flickering, and it was like she just died thinking that.

Until the moment she lost consciousness, this Lina person had been holding a grudge against someone.「How come you didn’t notice that the air conditioner in my room is broken?」「The outdoor unit isn’t working, so you know it’s broken, right? This is abuse, you know?」「I’m so angry that my family is living a normal life while I’m in so much pain.」「In the first place, she’s the one who made all that fuss, and that’s why I have to live like this.」It is hard and painful to have those filthy emotions poured out to me.

Even after entering my body, Lina always resented someone who seemed to be happy, blamed someone else, and called everything「unfair.」On the contrary, I very much disliked being happy when someone was sad or hurt.

Even after she started going to the academy… I could do nothing but watch, and even though I cried, the tears didn’t flow, but I was in pain all the time.

The daughter of that kind uncle… Marie-chan has gone to a lot of trouble to be my friend,「Ahh— I knew there was a support character. Hey, where is Will-sama at this time? Do you know what he likes?」She said a lot of things she didn’t understand, like「Useless」and other terrible things to Marie, who was troubled, and unilaterally broke off the relationship with her. I could do nothing but watch, and I felt so bad that I wanted to die because I couldn’t even get an apology.

I have tried to get my body back many times before. I said,「I need to get back on track and apologize to everyone.」But here was the first time I thought,「I want to quit, I don’t want this body…」I found that my perspective had shifted from the way I had always seen it from inside my body.

What can I say… I feel myself becoming transparent and looking down on what used to be my body from a little behind and diagonally above. I wanted to be further away, not wanting to see the terrible things my body would do, but for some reason I couldn’t get far from there, just a little off, and it was like we were connected by an invisible cord.

After that, I was still thinking about the person who uses my body, Lina, saying bad things about people, lying and hurting people… I can only watch as I don’t want to be followed around by men. I hated to see it every time she would hit something in her dorm room because it didn’t go well, but it was much better than seeing her loathe herself or hurt someone else, even if it was only physically. I hope she’ll be alone and out of control all the time.

「That woman is ugly, but she’s using an expensive hair ornament that she got from her boyfriend. I think I’ll steal him and throw him away. I’m going to tell his girlfriend,『I didn’t like him, so I dumped him.』Kyaha! That’s a good idea.」

「I tried to befriend him, and he turned me down, what a jerk… Does he know what would happen if I, The Star Maiden, cried to the great man of the castle about the terrible things he said to me? I think I’ll tear my clothes off myself when the two of us were alone… Ufufu.」

Stop it, stop it, stop it.

Every time I dislike myself, my point of view becomes a little more distant. Right now I imagine that I’m walking with them about 5 steps away from myself, but I can’t go out of the room because I can’t get any further away from them, and I can feel that this Lina person takes pleasure in humiliating someone else. But it was much better than looking at it from the inside like she was doing.

At first, the people around me didn’t believe that much in what this Lina person was saying, and the guys looked annoyed. Everyone’s attitude has visibly changed since she started buying and wearing sweet-smelling perfume from a questionable store.

What Lina says is strange, and if I think about it, it’s easy to see that it’s a lie, but eventually, everyone starts to believe it. To the Prince’s group who usually she goes around sticking with, even if they don’t like her, it got worse when she started feeding them tea and cookies mixed with some kind of medicine that she bought at that weird store. I can only watch, I know they can’t hear me, but I can only apologize.

As soon as the Prince’s group started behaving strangely, they started harassing someone, concentrating on a very beautiful girl who was the Prince’s fiancée. She didn’t do it herself so that I can tell they’re harassing her but,「they make it look like she’s harassing them.」

Remilia is a good match for the prince, she is beautiful like a goddess… What a terrible thing this Lina person does to her when at first she had kind words for her.

「The ones who play nice like that are the most annoying and the ones I hate the most, they’re the one who actually have bad personalities.」

When she was alone in her room, this person named Lina was always talking filth about someone else. Now all she does is make accusations against Remilia. I think that Lina is the one who has the worst character than anyone else.

Remilia is always at the top of her tests and is so beautiful that I can admire her even when she walks… When I saw her for the first time, I was very impressed and thought,「She is a real princess!」She seemed to be an amazing person as a magician and was called「the ideal lady」who could do anything but help the poor and do hard but inconspicuous work in secret.

If I had remained as I was, that time when I was kindly approached… I wonder if I and Remilia became friends.

Now I can only watch as my body gleefully lies all over the place to falsely accuse Remilia-san, pays her to lie, and fabricates crimes by calling things stolen from her belongings,「as an evidence.」

My perspective has recently become much more detached from my body, and the only thing that has helped me is being able to walk through the walls and out into the hallway to avoid seeing this person Lina using my body to do very, very disgusting things with men.