Okay, let me explain things from the beginning. My name is Yumiella Dolkness. Ever since I was reincarnated into the world of an otome game, I have been the one and only villainess! You know the rest from there, right?
I threw myself into level grinding. I defeated the Demon Lord along with a few other guys and even fell in love. I’m even getting married soon... No, let’s not go into that. I became level 99, and then I uncapped my level. Level grinding really is the best!
Then I died... I don’t know how. I met this young man who claims to be a hero, and I’m listening to an explanation about the afterlife—no, the Kingdom of Twilight...
The hero had used a mysterious piece of paper that was divided into a white side and a black side by a red line to explain where we were, and he’d just finished up.
“That’s it. Any questions?”
“How did you make that paper?” I asked. After listening to the king’s lecture on the Kingdom of Twilight, I was most interested in the mysterious sheet of paper. It was half white and half black, and tracing the border between the colors made a red line appear and disappear.
The king let out a nervous chuckle over how that was what I wanted to know about, and my question was answered by the cat-eared man holding the cat.
“A god made it and gave it to us, meow!”
“Huh, so you have gods here too?”
“That’s right, meow! We only see him once in a while, but he’s a nice god that tells us anything we want to know, meow!”
Wow. He made you guys this mysterious paper just to use as a visual aid and stuff, so he really seems like a good guy. He’s nothing like a certain Lemn I know.
It was thanks to the black-and-white paper that I was able to grasp the concept of the existent-yet-nonexistent Kingdom of Twilight, though it was only a vague understanding.
I looked out at the still unusual sight of the red-toned world. Now that I knew its true identity, this lonely, barren terrain felt even sadder.
I now knew where I was and had learned that it wasn’t really the afterlife, but that didn’t change the fact that I was dead. I died while holding regrets and was clinging to life in the Kingdom of Twilight. It doesn’t really feel like I died... I don’t even know how I died, so it doesn’t really sit right with me. As I silently ruminated over the fact that I’d died, the king spoke up.
“Everyone says that the Kingdom of Twilight experiences a perpetual sunset. Life has ended, and you must accept death—the sun setting. But you looked out at the horizon and declared it was the sunrise.”
“I didn’t really give it much thought,” I clarified.
“There hasn’t been anyone in several hundred years who has looked at that sight and thought it was dawn. I’ve known it ever since we first met—the sun will rise, and I’ll be alive once more.” As he declared his resurrection, the hero’s eyes glimmered in a way that was the opposite of what one would expect from a dead man.
From his explanation earlier, I’d thought that this world was on a one-way path from life to death, but seeing how confident he was, it was starting to feel possible.
“Is there a way to be alive again?” I asked.
“I have some leads. I think that you’ll also be a key to resurrection.”
Me? I haven’t used any magic since coming here, nor have I shown off my strength. Is there anything I can do aside from using brute force...?
“You’ve just arrived in the Kingdom of Twilight. In other words, you haven’t been affected by this world yet.”
He probably meant that my appearance hadn’t been changed by the world, like the painter’s had been. Because she wished to draw art that reflected reality, her body had changed to look like her art.
The middle-aged man’s ears also grew because of his regrets from when he was alive. I could understand his wish to have lived like a cat, so I could almost accept his twitching bouncy cat ears... Never mind. I can’t.
The regal-looking king, with his crown and cape, could actually have a different original appearance. Perhaps he was a civilian who just really wanted to become king. I wasn’t going to ask him about it, since such a regret from one’s life was probably incredibly personal, but I couldn’t stop from imagining what his regrets were.
What about the calico kitty that the cat-eared man is holding? Does he not count because he’s a cat?
Perhaps my body was going to change at some point as well. I couldn’t imagine how it was going to change. I inspected my body, but neither my left arm nor my left leg showed any signs of transformations. I’m sure all newly dead people look like this... What about me makes the king think I’m special?
The king waffled a bit and seemed like he had difficulty getting something out, but he finally opened his mouth. “Your body has already changed...”
“Huh? What? Is something weird? Is it my face?” I touched my left cheek with my left hand, but it felt the same as usual.
Is he mistaken? Is something actually different? I glanced over at the cat-eared man, confused, and he awkwardly averted his gaze.
“Has something about me changed?” I asked. “I’d like to see a mirror.”
“We do have a mirror, but...” The king pulled out a small hand mirror, but he seemed to be unsure of whether he should give it to me. He finally, though hesitantly, handed it to me, and I snatched it from him with my left hand before peering into it.
“Huh...? What is this?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“You’ve been like that since we first met. It wasn’t gradual—you were just like that from the start. It’s not a change, but a disappearance... You’re full of unprecedented phenomena.”
Only half of my face showed up in the mirror. The right side of my face was gone, as if I’d been vertically split down the middle. The cross section was filled in with a dark black.
It wasn’t just my head. Half of my body was gone, split down the middle as well. My right arm and right leg were nowhere in sight.
Nothing had felt painful or abnormal since I’d woken up. I was able to walk normally, and it was a bit inconvenient that I couldn’t use my right hand, but it hadn’t bothered me.
I never thought that I’d be split down the middle from head to toe. Perhaps the reason for my death, which I had no recollection of, was related to this. Maybe my right side was destroyed? But Black Hole wouldn’t leave a clean cross section like this, so nothing comes to mind.
Curious about the cross section, I touched the flat, black surface with my left hand, as if to touch my cheek. It didn’t feel like my face was being touched, and there was a cool metallic sensation.
So I was sliced down the middle by a katana. My right half was incinerated, and my left half was coated in metal...and one of those things killed me. Nope, that definitely can’t be it.
Apparently, regardless of whether you were crushed or had lost a limb when you died, once you arrived in the Kingdom of Twilight, you would appear as your healthy self from when you were alive. That meant there had to be a special reason as to why I only had my left half.
Even if it was an effect of the Kingdom of Twilight, I couldn’t think of any wishes of mine that would’ve made my right side disappear. I didn’t have any insecurities about my right side, and I never wanted to cut my weight in half or anything...
“I wonder why my right half is gone,” I mused aloud.
“If you don’t know, I wouldn’t know either,” the king said, shaking his head before he continued. “I don’t know why, but if we try to figure out why that happened to you, it might give us a lead as to how we can become alive again.”
“You mentioned that before, but is there an actual way to get back to the mortal world?”
“I’ve been looking for it for a long time. I’ve found some things that could be hints as to how to do it. That’s why I’d like you to help me. You want to go back to living too, right? I’m sure you have unfinished business.” The glimmer of hope in the king’s eyes shone even brighter, and it felt like daybreak had arrived in this dim world.
I had plenty of unfinished business. I wanted to spend more time with Patrick, and I wanted to have more fun with Eleanora and Ryuu. I wanted to raise my level further, and as for my wedding...I kind of wanted to do it.
“I’ll help you. I want to be alive again as well!”
My mind was focused on all the things that I wanted to be alive for—that was why I hadn’t thought enough about what it would mean to come back to life.