Surviving The Beast World With My 'Sassy' System-Chapter 81: Reality Vs Illusion

Lavayla froze.

A cool breeze brushed against her face, carrying the faint scent of perfume and polished wood.

The forest was gone.

In its place stood the wide floor-to-ceiling glass windows of the executive floor. Sunlight streamed through the towering panels, spilling across the polished marble floor in soft reflections. Outside, the familiar skyline stretched across the horizon in orderly rows of steel and glass towers that glittered beneath the morning sun.

For several seconds, she stood there.

Her mind refused to process what her eyes were seeing.

This place...

She knew it.

The comfortable office chairs were arranged neatly beside the long glass desk. The minimalist wall sculptures that the company’s CEO always insisted were "visionary." Even the faint hum of the ventilation system sounded the same.

This was her office on the thirty-second floor of Kingsley Atelier.

Her breathing gradually slowed.

"No..." she whispered under her breath.

Footsteps approached from the hallway, followed by a light knock.

"Lavayla? You’re here early."

She turned toward the entrance.

A young assistant stood by the doorway holding a tablet, his expression mildly surprised.

It was Arin.

He looked exactly as she remembered him. His messy brown hair fell slightly over his glasses, and his posture carried the slight hunch of someone who had spent years leaning over a desk.

"You didn’t reply to the messages this morning," he continued. "We thought you might still be resting."

Lavayla stared at him as if she had seen a ghost.

"Arin...?"

He blinked in confusion.

"Yes?"

Her heart suddenly began to beat faster.

"What day is it?" she asked.

He frowned slightly, clearly puzzled by the question.

"It’s Tuesday, the twelfth."

A strange chill crawled slowly down Lavayla’s spine.

Tuesday.

The twelfth.

That was the day after the night she had died.

The night she had fallen asleep in her apartment and never woken up.

Yet here she was.

Standing in the office, alive.

Arin tilted his head slightly as he studied her face.

"Are you feeling okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost."

Lavayla quickly straightened her posture.

"I’m fine," she replied automatically.

The words came out with the smooth composure she had cultivated through years of professional discipline.

"I just didn’t sleep well."

Arin nodded sympathetically.

"That makes sense. The Paris proposal review is today after all."

Paris proposal.

Her thoughts searched through her memory.

Yes. That was correct.

A major presentation for an upcoming fashion collaboration.

Everything was exactly where it should be.

The same as it had been before she went to sleep that night.

Lavayla remained where she stood for a moment longer before slowly releasing a quiet breath.

Maybe everything she experienced had been nothing more than an unusually vivid dream.

A hallucination brought on by exhaustion.

Perhaps it had been stress or burnout.

It would not have been the first time someone in the fashion industry collapsed under that kind of pressure.

Still, something in her chest felt deeply unsettled.

The memories were too vivid, too detailed.

She could still recall the scent of damp earth beneath the trees.

The rough weight of the stick in her hand as she walked through tall grass.

Mirek’s steady footsteps ahead of her.

And Vai.

Lavayla shook her head faintly.

Ridiculous.

Dreams could not last that long.

"Director Kingsley?"

Arin’s voice pulled her back to the present.

"The team is waiting in conference room three."

She nodded without thinking.

"Right."

And just like that, life resumed.

The following days passed quickly.

Lavayla threw herself completely into her work.

Meetings filled her mornings and afternoons. Design reviews consumed the rest of the day. Fabric sourcing and endless revisions stretched well into the evening hours.

Her team moved around her with the same familiar rhythm they always had.

No one behaved strangely.

No one treated her as though anything unusual had happened.

Even the security system recognized her identification card without hesitation.

Her apartment was exactly as she remembered.

Her wardrobe, her files, and her phone.

Everything was untouched.

Lavayla tested the world constantly.

Every morning she checked the date.

She searched through news articles.

She even visited the hospital where she vaguely remembered collapsing during that dream.

There was nothing.

No record of it and no trace that it had ever happened.

And of course, there was no forest, no Mirek, and no Vai.

At first, she attempted to return.

One afternoon she took time off from work and drove far beyond the city limits to the nearest forest preserve. She walked along the trails until the sun began to sink behind the trees.

There was nothing unusual.

Only ordinary trees.

Only ordinary soil beneath her feet.

By the end of the first week, doubt quietly crept into her thoughts.

By the end of the second week, exhaustion had replaced it.

Two short business trips filled her schedule. Dozens of meetings demanded her attention, and three major design revisions kept her working late into the night.

She also endured unpleasant confrontations with her rival.

Life continued forward without pause.

Relentlessly normal.

Three weeks later, Lavayla sat in the executive lounge with a glass of iced tea resting beside her on the table.

The drink had been delivered from a nearby restaurant, part of a small habit she had developed during long workdays.

Her fingers pressed lightly against her temples as she closed her eyes.

The quiet hum of the building’s ventilation system filled the room.

Lately, her thoughts had become increasingly tangled.

The boundaries between dream, memory, and reality were beginning to blur together.

Sometimes she could almost hear the rustling of leaves in a forest.

Sometimes she was certain she could smell moss and damp soil.

Lavayla exhaled slowly before lifting the glass and taking a small sip.

The cold drink slid down her throat, refreshing and sharp.

She rubbed her temples again.

Then suddenly, a memory surfaced.

Small hands waving clumsily in the air.

Bright, curious eyes filled with innocent wonder.

"Ba... ba..."

Vai’s soft babbling echoed faintly through her mind.

Lavayla’s lips curved into an unconscious smile.

For a brief moment, the fatigue weighing on her mind faded.

The memory felt warm.

Comforting.

Real.

She could almost feel the small weight of the child resting in her arms.

At that moment, the lounge door slid open.

The sound of high heels clicked sharply against the marble floor.

Lavayla did not even need to look up to know who it was.

Sorana.

The woman paused as soon as she noticed her.

Lavayla could almost feel the irritation radiating from across the room.

Sorana’s gaze lingered on her face.

On the faint smile.

Her expression immediately darkened.

She walked forward slowly, her arms folding across her chest.

"Hah."

The sharp sound cut through the quiet lounge.

"Well, if it isn’t the flawless Director Kingsley."

Lavayla slowly opened her eyes.

Sorana stood beside the table with her arms folded, the faint scent of expensive perfume clinging to her. Her perfectly styled hair framed a face twisted in a thin smile filled with obvious disdain.

"What’s got you smiling like a senseless creep?" she continued, her tone sharp with mockery.

Her gaze swept over Lavayla from head to toe in open mockery.

"Thinking about one of the men you seduced?"

Lavayla did not respond immediately.

Instead, she calmly placed the glass of iced tea back onto the table and leaned slightly into the chair, studying the woman standing before her.

Sorana had always been like this.

Sharp-tongued. Ambitious. Petty in ways that felt almost childish when viewed from the outside.

Before everything happened, Lavayla had learned long ago that reacting emotionally only gave Sorana exactly what she wanted.

So she simply looked at her.

Calm and unbothered.

The silence stretched for several seconds.

Sorana’s lips twitched.

"Or are you planning another way to charm your way past the board?" she added, voice dripping with sarcasm. "You do seem to have a talent for it."

Lavayla finally spoke, her gaze calm as she looked at Sorana. "You came here just to ask that?"

Her voice remained steady and level, without the slightest hint of irritation.

Sorana scoffed softly and looked at Lavayla as though she were staring at something unpleasant. "Well, I’m just curious."

Her eyes briefly flicked toward the skyline beyond the glass windows before returning to Lavayla again. "You’ve been acting rather strange lately."

Lavayla’s expression remained unchanged. "Strange?"

"Yes." Sorana tilted her head slightly, studying her with narrowed eyes. "Quiet. Distracted. Smiling to yourself like you’re remembering something amusing."

She leaned a little closer across the table and added, "That’s not your style."

Lavayla met her gaze without flinching. "You observe me quite closely."

Sorana snorted at the remark. "Hard not to when you’re the company’s golden director."

Lavayla lifted her glass again and took another slow sip. The cold liquid slid down her throat, refreshing and familiar. Yet the faint warmth from the earlier memory still lingered somewhere deep in her chest.

Sorana’s voice broke through her thoughts once more.

"You know," she said casually, "the board meeting next month might be interesting."

Lavayla set the glass back on the table and looked at her. "Oh?"

Sorana smiled faintly, clearly enjoying the moment. "There are rumors."

"What kind of rumors?"

"That the company is considering restructuring the leadership for the upcoming international expansion."

Lavayla rested her chin lightly against her hand as she listened. "Is that supposed to worry me?"