Wait, What You Mean I Got Reincarnated As A Heroine In Another World?-Chapter 11 - Selene

All of a sudden, without caution, Professor Helena's smiling expression and repetitive finger movements then changed drastically into one that bore stiffness.

There was no longer a smile on her face, only a cold impression that carried its own aura.

"Ah... I got caught, huh? I thought it was quite convincing." A calm and flat expression, showing disinterest, was on her face. Her lips pouted slightly in dissatisfaction.

Yes, you really suck at acting. I've had figured this out from the very beginning.

I thought to myself, once again managing to escape in this situation. This wasn't the first time it had happened. In fact, I had anticipated it. This was for the third time.

I had been extremely irritated. Her acting was so awful.

Monotonous, effortless without intent, merely mimicking without any real emotion.

Like a true NPC.

I thought as I recognized our similarity for the first time.

After that, I mustered the courage to mock her a little.

"Hey, don't act like you're disappointed by this. Shake my head."

I snapped after seeing her reaction when I managed to deceive her.

So, what was really happening? My memory was connected to hers. Perhaps it hardly was a scientific explanation, but logically, this hypothesis stood still.

In my mind, she had 'disguised' herself as anyone she could attach herself to.

First, when she altered the impression of a mother with flirtations and seductions that I felt were inappropriate for a mother, not to mention when she cried on my shoulder, trying to convince me of her motherly presence meant to comfort me.

As if I had just woken from a nightmare. Absolutely sickening.

Second, it happened once more when she fabricated my memory of Azalea for a fraction of a second. Not only did she embrace and cry on my shoulder, but she also shamelessly harassed me.

And the third time—what had just happened and was still happening.

From there, the inconsistencies and contradictions were evident, from her movements that seemed to lack variation to the information she provided. The huge giveaway, which unveiled her mask, was when she used the Mytheia device. Professor Helena, Professor Helena couldn't have known the full extent of its abilities. She merely figured out how to use it properly from my simple obversation. In other words, similar to using a device according to its book manual.

Not to mention her speech that was inconsistent with the Professor Helena I had always known. No matter how cruel Professor Helena, she would've never tested me to this extent, let alone giving hints about the chamber's mystery WITHOUT EVEN MENTIONING 'WICKED WITCH' ONCE.

Selene. I had never expected her to be as cunning as I thought.

There was no doubt—this snare was hers. She was responsible for everything that had been happening, including this strange ability I currently have possessed.

"Well, coincidence can be freaky indeed. Nice to meet you, Kairi-san."

She gazed at me with her drowsy eyes while addressing my name's honorific.

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"To be fair, this was hardly beyond my expectation. Yet I never expected you to figure it out that earlier. But if I didn't do this, you might have done something crazier..."

"Such as killing yourself to make sure this wasn't real, for instance."

"What a suicidal maniac." She remarked, leaving an unsettling atmosphere.

"Oh my... Damn. Just what kind of a coward you are, you bitch."

I firmly countered, once again challenging her perception.

She knew I was going to do that.

It's my back-up plan just in case I had failed to pull out her strings.

"Oh, now you dare saying that. Just a moment ago, you were confused and had no idea on what to do. Also, weren't you about to apologize earlier?"

"Nope, I will take back everything I've said about it. You don't deserve any mercy. Now, enough of this mundane. What you're doing is beyond limits, don't you think?"

Beyond limits, you say... perhaps you mean on the verge of limits.

Such a low-budget joke slipped into my mind out of nowhere, landing awkwardly.

Maybe she thought such a wordplay was amusing. Pathetic.

"Why does it matter? Don't you also enjoy toying around? Seeing them as tools?"

Honestly... what she said was true. We were like two sides of the same coin.

Dehumanization appears to be one of many similarities we do possess.

We are similar, yet different. However, I refused to accept such a cruel fact.

"Nope, that was before."

"Oh, is that so? What about now?"

Her expression was rigid. Ice-cold like a robot. Almost terrifying. But I wasn't afraid.

"Now I've changed, Selene."

"Alright then, 'Now I've changed' Kairi. This has been quite uneventful, I suppose that's enough for now. It hasn't been any pleasure to talk with you."

"Okay, Wicked Witch."

"Of course, Leech Maniac."

I SWEAR I'M GOING TO PUNCH THIS GIRL. SHE'S INSANE.

She actually dared to peek into everything I did before arriving at school. Turns out, leeches in this world has high magical powers and even possesses invaluable herbal properties. I only just discovered this after 'reading' the grimoire library earlier. Driven by curiosity, I experimented with this ability—boiling, killing, and finally consuming it alive. Oh, didn't figure that one out? Of course, this was my way of deceiving her. By rewriting my own memory, contradictions could be masked, even if not entirely.

But I knew she wasn't foolish enough to believe that I simply wandered through the forest and watched those 'creatures' from afar. From the very beginning, she probably already suspected the 'memories' she received from me. No doubt, she must have had reasoned that something was truly wrong with the script she had been crafted for me, and I knew exactly how far I could have pushed this ability to its limit.

"Can you stop interfering with my business? If I like leeches, that's my choice."

"The same applies to me. Even if I'm called evil, never address that name."

She began walking away slowly, attempting to disappear from me.

"Wait." I asked her. She then stopped but didn't turn around.

"What is it?"

"Weren't you supposed to help me?"

The atmosphere fell into silence. Her breathing was almost inaudible.

"Meh, not really."

I clenched my fists. This audacity... I really wanted to gut her.

"Why?"

She let out a little, cold, robotic laugh.

"Hahahaha... hah.... I just want you to suffer."

"That's all."

"What did I do to deserve this?"

"A lot. Want me to list them one by one?"

"No, thanks. I think I already figured that out."

"Of course you did—I already told you in your mind."

We were bitching around like cat and dog.

As if we knew each other a bit too well, yet still clashed fiercely.

"Alright, explain everything."

"Oh, of course. Please listen carefully, Miss Veylith."

She said, still acting as if she were Professor Helena in front of me.

All of a sudden, another anomaly occurred. A strange sensation crawled through the room, subtle at first—just a shift in the air, a calm before storm.

And no, this wasn't just an illusion.

A cold wind blew, but there was no source. The light in the room dimmed, colors seemed to be sucked into the void. The furniture around us disappeared, revealing something beyond the scene.

It resembled a vacuum... no, outer space?

I thought as I analyzed this strange phenomenon, trying to make sense of it.

"No need to overthink it, Kairi."

"This is a time-space dimension continuum that can't be accessed by anyone."

She answered as if... no, she clearly knew exactly what I was thinking.

So, was this Professor Helena speaking? No. Not anymore.

The atmosphere shifted as the room was absorbed, leaving behind 'Professor Helena,' who gradually transformed into her true self—Selene Eryndell Veylith.

She stood there composed, as if nothing had changed, in a pitch-black dress. Her face resembled mine but bore a gloomier, more serious expression.

"That outfit suits you." I muttered, half-spiteful at the sheer absurdity of it all.

She gave me a brief, indifferent glance. "Oh... it's nothing. Thanks."

How ironic. After all the manipulation and deception she had carried out, she could still pretend this was just 'your average small talk?' Did she have no shame at all?

"Alright, let's get back to the main topic. Don't you want to hear my explanation?"

Without hesitation, I nodded hastily.

"Okay then. If that's so, please listen carefully, my dear Kairi."

EW, WHY THE HELL WAS SHE CALLING ME 'DEAR'?

Disgusting. I wanted to kill her and then kill myself after hearing her say that so casually. But, hate it or not, I suppressed my irritation and listened carefully to her explanation.

"Perhaps, consider your vessel as an automated growth technology. And the soul exists as a fuel that illuminates such a growth. How far it goes depends on your unique traits, the shape of you. Whereas this growth then ends up customizing the 'vessel', it will then eventually become attached to your own features thus end up with yet another version of 'you', yet caricaturized in such an existential vessel."

What the f*ck is this? Isn't this just a pseudoscientific nonsense?

"What do you mean?"

"Are you familiar with the term 'black box'? Just think of this 'memory chest' as that black box, used as a medium to translate between my language and yours. And this language has no limits; it is not constrained by the perception of time or context. Everything is connected."

Black box? Ah, of course, she's using some new term she has just learned.

This was the most blatant example of the Dunning-Kruger effect at its finest.

"Okay, then, how exactly are we connected? And why did you do that to my eyes?"

I tried to analyze what she was saying. She must have understood what I meant just now.

"How do we connect? Like this."

She walked toward me casually, without hesitation, pressing her lips against mine. Moments later, before I could react, our tongues intertwined. Her saliva invaded my mouth as if this were a perfectly normal occurrence. I remained motionless, frozen in place.

DISGUSTING. SO, A KISS? YIKES!

Before I could even finish processing my repulsion, she continued her explanation.

"Logically speaking, this is the only way to remind someone of something. A strong yet seemingly erotic sensation like this is what links us together. However, when I first made contact like that, there was no reaction from you at all. What were you so engrossed in?"

"None of your business."

When I was playing gacha, my mind completely detached from the world, focused solely on the screen, completely unaware that she was doing such a thing to me.

"Oh right, I forgot to explain about your eyes. That happened because they are the source of perception itself, allowing you to control what you can and must see. So, I had to attack your eyes to complete the body-switching ritual. Actually, it's not true that the eyes capture light. It's the other way around—light captures your eyes. The light adjusts to what you see, and then it's processed by the quantum processor you have right here." She pointed at my head—more precisely, my brain.

This has to be the most quantum mechanics delulu bullshit I've ever heard in my life.

Wait a second... didn't she just say body-switching? Did I mishear it?

"What do you mean by body-switching, and why do you want that to happen?"

"It's exactly as I said. Your body is mine now, and our memories are scattered."

"You still haven't answered my previous question."

"Oh, that... as you already know, of course, it's to understand your world."

Just as I suspected from the start, this isn't merely transmigration or reincarnation—it's something much deeper.

"And isn't it true that you're already fed up and bored with your own world?"

"That doesn't mean I wanted to be transferred like this, with these weird abilities."

"Well, like it or not, you're already a part of this world now, Kairi."

"Oh, I see. So, you're still dodging your real intention, huh, Selene."

"Well, not really. In this world, if I were to reference the manga I've just read recently, you are now the heroine of this story."

A strange realization dawned on me, as if this were something utterly impossible.

There was no mistaking it—this was impossible.

WAIT... WHAT YOU MEAN I GOT REINCARNATED AS A HEROINE IN ANOTHER WORLD?!