I Possessed a Character in an Academy Without a Protagonist – Chapter 79

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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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“Tch…”

On a path where sunlight filtered gently through the leaves, Erica, walking alongside Iris, kicked a stone in front of her.

“What was that all about? We’ve only succeeded in needlessly provoking Schlus.”

“…”

This wasn’t how they had planned to approach Schlus Hainkel.

Initially, they had intended to ask about Julia slowly, bit by bit.

But Iris had ruined it all.

By suddenly angering Schlus…

“This is enough.”

“What?”

“Have you ever seen Schlus get angry like this before?”

“No, never…”

“Neither have I. If I had said he would kill someone other than Julia, Schlus would have probably just nodded quietly or scoffed, saying it was nonsense. But this time, we were able to elicit a strong reaction we’ve never seen before. Isn’t that answer enough?”

“So… you’re saying there’s something between Schlus and Julia?”

Iris smiled gently.

This made Erica’s head hurt even more.

No matter how she thought about it, the two had no connection other than having met a few times, so what on earth…

“Did they fall in love at first sight or something?”

“I don’t think it’s such a simple story. People don’t usually kill those they love.”

“What? Was that serious?”

In the future, Schlus kills Julia, gets arrested, and is executed.

She had thought it was a lie made up on the spot to shake Schlus, but it was true?

Erica’s eyes widened in confusion.

“Well, it could be true, or it could be false.”

“What…! Tell me right now!”

“I’m sorry. It’s difficult for me to say.”

“What’s that supposed to mean! You can’t even tell me?”

“That’s right.”

“Ugh…!”

Erica felt like she was going to go crazy for a moment.

If it was going to be like this, why had she been called along in the first place?

“You know something, don’t you?”

“Maybe.”

“Tell me too. Hm? It involves my sister too.”

“That’s precisely why I can’t tell you.”

“Hey!”

Chasing after Iris, who kept making cryptic remarks, Erica felt powerless.

It frustrated her immensely that she knew less about matters involving her own sister than Iris did.

Still, since it was Iris’s doing, it must surely be with good intentions…

That fact alone provided some small comfort.

‘By the way, that bastard… He didn’t deny meeting our mother…’

Biting her nails, Erica recalled something she had almost forgotten.

When she had confronted Schlus about his secret meeting with her mother as he was leaving in agitation, he had answered.

– Don’t worry. I’ll use her just a little and let her go soon.

Use her a little and let her go…?

What exactly did he mean by “use”?

Erica’s face turned bright red as her imagination ran wild.

“This is insane…!”

What a depraved philanderer.

Playing around with someone else’s mother?

This crazy bastard.

What kind of weakness could he have over her mother for her to…

“He’s really gone mad!”

“…”

Iris silently watched Erica, who was clutching her head and shouting, with a pitying gaze.

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I had calmed down considerably.

My heartbeat had stabilized.

I was now in a state of composure where I couldn’t understand why I had gotten so excited earlier.

“The Ring of Miracles… It must be because of that.”

No matter how many times I thought about it, only the Ring of Miracles could have caused this situation.

It was the only thing I could think of that could make a character from the novel call my name.

I suspected it might be some kind of bug.

Perhaps while trying to bring in Han-areum’s personality, it had incompletely settled into a body that happened to look exactly like her…

If that was the case, it would explain Julia’s nightmares and her calling my real name.

“But how exactly…?”

Even to imitate Han-areum’s personality, one would need to know her at least, so how did the reader who created this world figure it out?

This thought made my head complex, but I soon gave up thinking about it.

If they could create such an impossible world, they must be practically omniscient.

If so, there was no need to worry about it – it explained everything.

Although it wasn’t a satisfactory answer.

I should have stopped thinking there.

However, my thought process went a step further, and my heart started pounding again.

“Then Julia is now…”

Did it mean that Han-areum’s soul, or personality, or something resembling Han-areum had entered Julia?

Did she remember me?

If even a part, just a tiny part of Julia could be called Han-areum…

Wouldn’t Julia, who looked exactly like her, essentially be Han-areum?

“Damn it…”

My composure was shattered.

Now I thought I could understand.

What Iris had said.

That future where I kill Julia.

Perhaps if Julia, with the same face and voice as her, started speaking in her manner and tone.

If I were to face such a Julia, I might go mad.

It wasn’t entirely impossible that I might lose my mind out of a desire to deny the existence before me and end up killing her…

That thought suddenly occurred to me.

“There’s a time limit…”

It would disappear soon.

Since it had settled into an imperfect body, it would last longer than just a soul descending, but it would still inevitably perish before long.

So should I meet her before then?

What if I end up killing her as Iris said?

But if I don’t meet her, won’t I regret it for the rest of my life?

“Sigh…”

It was the dilemma of a lifetime.

Whether to bear the risk of regret.

Or to regret.

It wasn’t a decision to be made lightly.

But it also wasn’t a problem that could be dragged out.

“Ah… I don’t know.”

I decided to postpone the decision for now.

It was a foregone conclusion that my fragile mentality would crumble the moment I went to see Julia.

With midterms right around the corner, I couldn’t afford to do something like that.

“Tsk. I’m hungry.”

Just as I was about to start studying and looked at my books, my stomach growled.

Whether as a student back then or now, it was always the same – getting hungry and tired whenever I tried to study.

I couldn’t concentrate anyway.

I got up without hesitation and opened the door of the training room.

“Are you coming out, Mr. Hainkel?”

Emilia greeted me from the top of the stairs.

Had she been waiting all this time?

No, that couldn’t be.

She must have just happened to be passing by when the door opened.

“You’re late. Lunch time has long passed.”

“What? What time is it?”

“It’s just past 2 o’clock.”

This is crazy.

I thought I had just come out after thinking for a bit, but four hours had already flown by.

I hadn’t done anything yet, but it was already afternoon.

I sighed as I climbed the stairs.

“Saintess Iris left something for you…”

Emilia said in an increasingly timid voice, opening her palm.

It turned out to be a small cross.

The kind of cross you might wear as a necklace, hung on a thread.

Wait, what?

Looking closely, it seemed to be the cross Iris had been wearing.

Had she taken it off and given it to me, or was it a similar object…?

I’d find out when I ran into Iris later.

“Was there no message with it?”

“No. Just this… If you don’t want to accept it, should I throw it into the furnace and melt it…?”

Emilia was watching my reaction carefully, apparently taking our recent argument seriously.

It really wasn’t anything major.

Iris had just provoked me as usual, and I had fallen for the provocation unlike usual.

Our relationship wouldn’t sour over something like this.

As Iris said, we were meant to know each other for a long time.

Whether we liked it or not, we would have to stay together until the ending of this novel.

By then, we might be standing on opposite sides.

“Just give it to me.”

“Yes.”

The moment I took the cross, it happened.

The scenery around me suddenly changed completely.

More precisely, everything was dyed black.

With my vision completely blocked, the only sensation left to me was the feel of the small metal piece at my fingertips.

I realized immediately.

This was the effect of “The Original Self’s Memory” activating.

The sensation at my fingertips was definitely the cross.

As soon as I realized this, everything suddenly brightened, and I was able to return to reality.

“Mr. Hainkel. Mr. Hainkel?”

“Ah, yes.”

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine. Could you prepare lunch?”

“Yes, certainly.”

After sending away Emilia, who was looking at me worriedly, or perhaps suspiciously, I put the cross in my pocket.

I couldn’t understand Iris’s intention in giving me this.

But perhaps she had seen some future and realized that by handing this over, that future could be avoided or manipulated.

If not that, it could just be a meaningless gift given to complicate my thoughts.

Although the probability of that meaningless gift happening to be in Schlus’s memories was extremely low.

‘This one was quite intense.’

Considering that “The Original Self’s Memory” usually appeared in the form of a faint hologram image, this one was intense enough to completely override my senses.

As far as I could remember, it had only activated strongly enough to overlay reality three times.

When I faced the Fenrir holding a sword in Whist Forest.

When I saw Iris through the closing door gap, though I couldn’t remember exactly when.

And just now.

Was it really a coincidence that two of these involved Iris?

Was it just that similar situations often overlapped in Schlus’s memories?

‘That can’t be.’

The ability activating this strongly was a phenomenon that only occurred when the situations were almost identical.

On the first day of the semester, when I encountered the training golem, the image of the Fenrir that appeared was opaque and blurry.

However, the last time in Whist Forest when I faced the Fenrir, the exact same memory appeared, but it was so vivid that it was hard to distinguish from reality.

Even for the same memory, its vividness varied depending on how closely the situations matched.

The fact that Iris was present in two of these vivid memories…

‘Schlus has met Iris before.’

I could only come to this conclusion.

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