F-Rank Puppeteer!! But I'll be Queen, and I'm not a narcissist!!!!!-Chapter 228: Two Opposites

"...Ughhaaa!" I groan in pain as Faye tends to my arm with a bandage. She used her magic to handle the worst of it, but there’s no restoring my lost arm, and it hurts like hell.

"There, I’m done, Syl’Vyr. Feeling any better?" Faye asks with a bitter expression. Since she never spent much time with Evelyn, and Eve was always off training, Faye and I grew really close.

"Yeah... I am..." I say, looking over the damage. My right arm is completely gone, and there’s no fixing that now—it’s a permanent injury.

"Haa... haa... How many days was I out?" The damage was so severe I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s been days. There’s no one around to restore my body.

"About fifteen days, plus the four days I spent running while carrying you, because I didn’t know if Eve would come to kill you..." She smiles at me, relieved I’m okay. It makes me bite my lip. I dragged her into this. I made her come with me.

"So... what do we do now, Syl’Vyr?" Faye asks cautiously as I think. Evelyn won’t ever want us around again, and even if she did, I have no doubt Eve would kill us the first chance she got.

"Maybe... all that’s left for the two of us is to become mercenaries... We can’t be adventurers, and we can’t go back to the kingdom... Besides, Esther is disturbing, and she’d definitely try to get rid of us sooner or later... We should run... maybe head to another continent." I glance around the place we’re in.

A crumbling old shack that Faye must have found while fleeing with me in tow. Given Faye’s angelic appearance, it’s not safe for her to stay on this continent without Evelyn.

"I’ll go wherever you go. We’re friends, after all!" Faye tries to sound positive, but seeing her trust in me, even if it’s broken, leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. It’s a trust I don’t deserve.

"Thanks... I... think maybe heading to the beastmen continent is our best bet... since the angels and demons are at war, and the humans decided to side with the demons, so the only faction staying out of the fighting is our safest choice..."

"Syl’Vyr, you don’t look well..."

"That seems pretty obvious, Faye..."

"I don’t mean physically..."

"..."

"Syl’Vyr, why did you betray Lyn?"

"..."

"There’s a good reason, right? I came with you because we were friends, and because that day in the training area I heard and realized she doesn’t value us properly. But I barely really know her, not like you do."

"..."

"Silence isn’t a good answer, Syl’Vyr. If you betrayed Lyn without a good reason... it’s hard for me to trust that you won’t betray me too... To Lyn, I was nothing more than a replaceable puppet with healing powers, so I bet she doesn’t care much. But you... she seemed to care a lot about you."

"I bet you felt her pain through our connection too, before it broke when she sent that message banishing us. Now we’re completely free..."

"Faye, stop... I don’t want to hear about that... please stop talking..." I put my remaining hand to my forehead. I’m breaking out in a cold sweat from the pain that still lingers.

"Fine... but Syl’Vyr, I lost my left wing for you... so think carefully about what I said... because I don’t... I don’t want to stay with you only to be thrown away when you decide I’m not worth it anymore."

"..." I look at Faye, realizing that despite our friendship, she’ll never trust me 100% again. And I understand. How can you trust someone who betrayed their master like that?

"I’ll see if there’s any food around here... rest a bit." She leaves the old shack, stepping outside and leaving me here alone as I realize all the things I’ve lost because of my decision.

"Damn it..." I lost Evelyn. I lost Eve. My home. My friends. Faye’s trust. My arm. My confidence. The dignity I had. My honor. In the end, I lost everything that held any importance.

And I dragged Faye down this same path with me. It makes me cry, even if it’s hypocritical to cry over the consequences of my choice to betray Evelyn.

I still remember her scream, full of pain and despair, saying she hoped I’d die. It’s painful. Really, truly painful. I really did deserve to lose this arm.

"They say the right side is the side of trust... isn’t it ironic that Faye and I both lost important parts of our right sides shortly after betraying someone who trusted us?" I whisper to no one in particular, just staring at the ceiling, thinking of the arm I lost and the wing Faye lost.

I don’t fully understand. My decision was my own choice, so why didn’t Evelyn stop me? Why didn’t the loyalty of being a puppet keep me from choosing this?

And why did Evelyn let me leave alive? Letting me walk away when she could have deactivated me or killed me permanently only adds to the painful emotional burden.

"I wonder... if this freedom was really worth it... or if it cost too much..." I hope this freedom I gained was truly worth sacrificing everything I had.

...

...

...

"URGHH, I’M SO PISSED!" I swing the sword, releasing a massive wave of lightning that sweeps across the battlefield. Thousands of enemies—and even allies—are charred by lightning rivaling high-level magic. Evelyn’s sword, though strong, wasn’t anything special, but combined with my magic, it produced a monstrous effect.

The battlefield is so hot the earth has turned black, and most of the corpses have been reduced to ashes. I’ve used this sword so much it’s cracked in several places, unable to withstand my magic.

"E-Esther-sama, you’re causing too many casualties on our side! You should hold back a little!" Elizabeth appears behind me and barely dodges a slash that carves a crater into the ground.

"...Quiet..." I’m filled with rage, and the worst part is I don’t know why. My blessing won’t stop alerting me to something, and the hunger has become unbearable. My blessing never does anything negative to me, but irritating me to the brink of rage and frustrating me when I try to eat, leaving me hungry, seems pointless.

Whenever I try to drink blood or eat meat to calm the hunger, my blessing knocks my food to the ground or pushes it away in ridiculous ways. So I’ve gone over 27 days without consuming any blood or meat.

"..." And of course, I’m taking out my rage and frustration on everything in front of me. Normally, I’m always composed, organized, hiding most of my power and holding back so as not to reveal anything.

But just like my mother said, I can’t overcome hunger. That day, I told her I wouldn’t be like an irrational beast. I said I could control it perfectly. I... was wrong. I can’t control this maddening hunger that’s arisen.

It’s as if I haven’t eaten for millennia, as if the desire to eat is consuming my mind and rationality, making me wilder with each passing second in search of something to satisfy the hunger.

I never knew how hellish a Ghoul’s hunger could be. I always thought what I learned about Ghouls was exaggerated, but it seems it’s even worse than described.

’What’s wrong?’ I don’t know. The hungrier I get, the harder it is to think of an answer, though I have a few hypotheses about why my blessing won’t stop interfering.

"ELIZABETH, TAKE CARE OF THE DAMN BATTLEFIELD! I’M LEAVING!" I scream at her furiously. Normally, I never scream. In fact, the times I’ve truly screamed are so rare I can count them on one hand.

’I need to get out of here...’ I start walking, dragging the blade along the ground, lightning gently discharging from the magic-charged sword. My blessing still maintains the first alert, but now there’s a second one, as if telling me to go in a certain direction to find something.

’Maybe someone is coming to see me, someone who will give me the answer...’ I start walking. I won’t run, so I don’t miss whatever my blessing wants to show me. It doesn’t feel far.

’So hungry... So hungry... So hungry... So hungry... So hungry... So hungry... So hungry... So hungry... So hungry... So hungry... So hungry... So hungry... So hungry... So hungry... So hungry... So hungry... So hungry... So hungry... So hungry... So hungry... So hungry... So hungry... So hungry... So hungry... So hungry...’ I can’t stop thinking about my hunger.

I’d give anything for a piece of Evelyn. The hunger is so intense my vision has entered some strange red frenzy. Everything looks as if red paint is smeared everywhere.

It’s so red it’s hard to see things clearly in the distance, because farther away everything is just too dark a red. And the hungrier I get, the more I think of Evelyn.

And of all people, I suspect she might be the problem. Everything points to Evelyn being the issue, since the hunger forces me to think only of her. But I still don’t know if she’s really the problem.

That’s why I hadn’t done anything, trying to figure out more since I had other hypotheses. Fortunately, my blessing is now guiding me directly toward whatever is coming to this place.

"I-I’ll handle everything, Esther-sama... y-you can go." Elizabeth speaks nervously, and I can feel her fear. It floods my brain with adrenaline. My Ghoul instincts are amplifying every sense related to hunting.

The smell of everything is more intense. My vision, though completely blurry at a distance, is absurdly precise with things up close—to the point that, combining sight and smell, I can "see" wounds, blood, and organ positions just through deduction and mental mapping.

I still have some self-control, so I use it to walk, taking this sword with me. Holding the sword is pleasant. It was made from Evelyn’s scales, so it carries her sweet scent, which is comforting.

And in case of emergency, I’ll eat the sword’s hilt. Even though the scales are refined and have lost most of their "appeal" as food, it’ll still help calm me down. So I stay focused on what matters right now.