Chapter 87
Cynthia focused on the message with wide, astonished eyes. The shocking truth didn’t end there.
[Because of that, my parents, seeing me as the family disgrace and a burden, tried to marry me off as quickly as possible. So they had me attend the duke’s banquet, hoping I’d somehow catch the eye of a nobleman.] [Back then, everyone said it was for my own good, but looking back now… It was all for their own honor, wasn’t it.]
It was a backstory she’d seen somewhere before. Cynthia immediately remembered whose story it was and shuddered in shock. Wasn’t this one of the selectable settings when creating the protagonist at the very start of the game?
In other words, the teddy bear was the former protagonist of this game.
The player who, before Cynthia’s arrival, confronted Segleninde in the game.
[During the banquet, news broke that the Duke of Wincastle had died, and I was trapped in the mansion with everyone else. Segleninde relentlessly hunted us down, killing us one by one…] [He treated me like a close friend, as if we were companions.] [Just like he did with you.]
“……”
[He acted like he’d help me, and when I realized I’d been tricked, it was already the end—he killed me] [That’s why I couldn’t escape this place. He used all the despair and betrayal I felt at the very end as nourishment for himself. After that, he reset the flow of time around this mansion.] [But just before my complete death, using magic I’d learned at the Magic Tower, I succeeded in sealing a fragment of my consciousness in this teddy bear. So that if someone else ended up trapped and deceived by Segleninde like me, I could help them.] [So, please, I hope you escape from this place. Please, don’t be deceived anymore.]
The devastating truth clawed at Cynthia’s heart.
Even in this moment, she found herself pitiful and foolish for desperately searching for differences in how Segleninde treated the former protagonist and herself in the teddy bear’s story.
At least for the mage, Segleninde had approached not as a lover but as a friendly companion.
The mage, too, had been a lonely figure even at the Magic Tower, and apparently wasn’t close with her companions. She had grown up without a single friend.
So, when Segleninde, who had approached Cynthia so kindly—differently from the mage—showed a special affection, she had given her heart more easily, and her despair had been that much deeper.
Perhaps Segleninde was the kind to find people’s emptiness and exploit that gap. Like now, pretending to be a lover with ‘Cynthia Obel’, who grew up as someone who didn’t know love.
She couldn’t know the whole truth, but Cynthia was already sure of one thing. Even sleeping together had just been another trick to deceive her and extract more nourishment.
If she hadn’t learned the teddy bear’s true nature, she might not have fully believed its story. She would have suspected the bear had its own agenda, weighing it against Segleninde and trying to judge amid suspicion.
But the fact that the teddy bear was the former protagonist trapped in the mansion before her… this was something only Cynthia could know. So she couldn’t help but know that the teddy bear was not lying.
That Segleninde had deceived her.
“Ha… that bastard.”
Cynthia, feeling depressed, rubbed her face and buried it in her palms. The teddy bear silently patted her shoulder with its soft paw.
A little later, the Ghost Rats returned.
Cynthia followed the rats, who guided her, and arrived in front of the atelier.
Just like with the master bedroom, she had to enter a specific password to open the atelier’s door. This time, instead of numbers, the answer was to the hint engraved on the wooden panel above.
The hint was as follows. It was very easy for her.
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