Prologue
The chimes of the bells calling everyone for supper steadily hummed in the midsummer day.
Children playing outside the orphanage rushed in after cleaning themselves with a wet towel procured by one of the caretakers. They thoroughly wiped themselves and removed any sweat, dirt, and grime stuck to their bodies.
The children walked briskly into the entrance of the orphanage while chatting among their friends.
Followed them were the caretakers who hung the laundry to dry under the smoldering sun, though it was faster for them to use magic to heat it artificially.
They use this time to eat as a respite for rest. Sweat stuck to the caregivers, but they resisted the urge to immediately bathe and rinse off the smell and dirt.
Particularly, one of the caretakers, a woman with navy-black hair that was tied in a ponytail, hung her head while her shoulders slumped.
Entering the cramped hallway that was filled with the chatting of children, the caretakers entered, entirely made up of women wearing dresses that reached their knees over an old apron while wearing a vintage white bonnet on their sweaty foreheads.
The orphanage was funded by the government through child welfare programs, but the majority of the support comes from the rich noble who governs this region.
The caretakers and children were living quite comfortably despite the preconception of people of orphanages in the backwater of the Angspire Kingdom.
The women were responsible for tutoring, feeding, and raising the children who had no place to call home, and some of the caretakers were also orphans themselves.
The owner of this orphanage originally took in the children who were left orphaned during the war-torn conflict in the southern tip of the Kingdom of Angspire and established this institute to remove them from an active combat zone.
Using the meager money that the King gives to any knight who is maimed during their service, Carri Exxlo Benedict built a modest orphanage with a maximum capacity of 500 people.
In the past, Carri was a knight who patrolled the southern borders of the territory when her patrol squad was ambushed. They fought back successfully against the attackers, though a few sustained minor injuries, and one knight incurred a serious injury.
That knight was Carri. Being seriously maimed, she was honorably discharged after losing one of her arms.
Carri strived to be a role model that the orphaned children could look up to. She also taught every woman in the orphanage about basic Magic Theory and simple Magic Enhancement she learned while being in the military.
Even if some were complaining, she would only respond with "put up with it"; even the teary-eyed woman who gave a pleading look at the head of the caregivers wasn't an exception to this.
"Atthetia… we talked about this, water is extremely pricey. What if one of the kids gets sick and needs a check-up with a priestess? We need to save for emergencies."
The head of the caregiver gave a half assed explanation as her stomach rumbled. Though her explanation didn't have any falsities, Atthetia begrudgingly looked away. Then, as if she thought of something.
"Then how about magic! It doesn't cost me anything to create a tub full of water, right? So I'm allowed to take a bath, Carri?"
Her explanation was quickly shot down by the icy glare of Carri. She almost yelped by the ice-cold look she gave her, feeling a scolding would come. Atthetia could only curse herself for having a big mouth. The group of women walked in a deliberate, slow pace as if to torment her even more.
The children laughed and pointed at Atthetia as she got reprimanded by Carri, like a drill sergeant yelling at recruits.
A woman was crying as another woman was rebuking her in the hallway as they walked, and the children giggled at her misfortune. This daily occurrence wasn't the first and wouldn't be the last time this would happen in this orphanage.
"What if one of the children gets influenced by you using water magic and chooses the magic element prematurely? What if they need the fire element in the future?"
Atthetia couldn't answer, so the only thing she said was "I'm sorry" repeatedly and lowered her head like a broken record. While the women were walking, one of them spotted a peculiar sight.
The admonishment that Atthetia was enduring finally stopped; she wanted to thank the person who stopped her long and painful berate that was coming from the head of the caregivers, being drawn in with the gazes of the others, she looked in the direction where all of the women were looking, her jaw dropped.
The sight of a small and frail girl hugging the wooden wall of the orphanage was seen in small glimpses between the bodies of children walking to and fro to the dining hall.
Her white hair rested on her small shoulders, her legs were shaking, yet she took another step and another. The rugged breath of the frail girl was faintly heard in the cacophony of children talking and the sound of their footsteps.
The children didn't even notice her as she leaned on the wall to catch her breath. Atthetia couldn't help but to help the struggling girl.
"…Carri, it's that Leia? What is she doing outside? I thought she was eating her supper in her room."
Atthetia turned to Carri in hopes of answering her confusion, but when she turned, she also gave her the same look. She shrugged even though one of her arms was missing.
"Yeah, I did, but she said she was full. I just placed it at her table and closed the door. I thought she didn't feel like eating, so I left her alone, but I couldn't even think that she wanted to go to the dining hall herself. Without her crutches."
All of the women wanted to help, their hearts went out to the girl who valiantly tried to overcome her weakness. After seeing how much she was struggling, none of the caretakers wouldn't hesitate to assist her. Even if their hearts were telling them to move their minds knew that they couldn't interfere even if they wanted to. None found the courage to say it out loud.
As if asking on behalf of the caretakers, Atthetia posed her question to Carri.
"Carri, can we help her out? She can barely walk ten paces before collapsing in exhaustion. And she's practically raised by all of us when she was still an infant."
The women nodded their heads in approval, but it turned out Carri didn't feel the same, as she shook her head.
"That may be true, but do you consider how she feels? Being constantly coddled and protected from everything, and even from the other children to make her less likely to get sick. How does she feel being the only one who needed to be inside? While the other children played and made friends, she was the only one left alone, reading books and having no one to talk to."
The other caretakers didn't even have anything to rebuke, they only stood in silence.
"The only thing we could do was to pick her up when she couldn't raise her head. That's the only thing we can do for her."
They could only look at the white hair girl fail as she tried to pick herself up after tripping, yet she didn't cry for help and only picked herself up and placed herself on the walls of the hallway.
But something interrupted their solemn observation of Leia. The girl herself was even surprised as she jumped at the booming voice from behind her.
"YO! Weakling, I thought I saw someone familiar. I didn't know a shut-in like you could even go outside. I thought you were allergic to sunlight or something, but I'm wrong, I guess you weren't a vampire after all!"
His condescending voice echoed through the small and narrow hallway, and the children around him looked at him in bewilderment.
"That damn fool Rhoea! What in the witch's inferno is he thinking?"
Carri cursed under her breath. Atthetia ignored Carri, casually violating one of her own house rules she created. 'No Cursing', but she couldn't care less about it as her full attention was enraptured by the unfolding conflict between the worst possible people colliding with each other.
"…"
The white haired girl didn't give him a second glance as she picked herself up and continued her tireless march to the dining hall. The way she acted and behaved in the situation was praiseworthy, especially from a young child, even Carrie would give her praise.
Although that decision was the worst thing that someone could do against Rhoea.
"Oh? You think you can walk away from me that easily?"
"…"
"Wait, are you trying to make fun of me or…"
Leai indeed tried to run, although there was almost no significant difference between her last pace from what she's doing right now. Even Rhoea couldn't tell even if she was kidding or not.
"Oh, wait, don't you have those crutches that you always use? Where is it? Don't tell you broke them or something, well, I didn't expect much from a weakling like you to even be careful with objects."
The boy tried to snicker but was interrupted by her horse voice. Even in the limited times he interacted with her, he never heard her voice. So he was dumbfounded when a domineering and soothing voice came from a girl whom he had always called 'weakling'. Leia wasn't an intimidating person, yet her voice seemed to command them to listen.
"I have a weak body. So I used those crutches to move, and no matter how much I tried, I couldn't enhance my body with magic."
She spoke slowly as if confessing. Her small, frail frame wavered like a small fire that was about to be extinguished.
"It isn't like you people will understand the struggle of a weakling. So I used everything I have to chase your shadow."
The rest of the children who stopped to watch got bored, and they all moved to the dining hall, but the caretakers and the two stood in silence.
"I-I didn't know. You know I'm pretty dumb, so people's struggles usually go under my nose, stuff like that. So I'm sorry…"
For once, Rheoa said something reasonable. Even Carri and Atthetia were surprised. But all of the good impression was immediately taken back by what he did next.
"So I'm wondering, why couldn't you just ask for someone's help? You know I'm beyond dumb, even a dog can outwit me, so I really can't empathize with weaklings like you."
"…Hey, what are you doing! Hey, I said What are you doing?!?"
Leia yelled out loud, it was the first time even for Carri and Atthetia to hear her raising her voice. Rhoea, on the other hand, didn't even care as he brazenly took her in his arms like a princess. The usual composed and emotionless face of Leia was dyed red as a beetroot as she was carried like a bride on her wedding day.
"Now let's start to go, I guess."
Rheoa didn't even wait for a response as he dashed off through the crowd of children in front of them, pushing and pulling orphaned kids out of their way.
The caretakers stood in silence as they witnessed the whole ordeal. Carri and Atthetia looked dumbfounded, even the children who wanted to eat supper looked at the shrinking back of Rheoa, who still carried Leai in his arms.
The women couldn't help but laugh. Even the stern and strict Carri laughed with Atthetia. Little did they know- the fragile girl who trembles at every step she takes, the weak hands that couldn't even hold a knife- the girl so pathetic that everyone wanted to protect her- would become something that changed the world around them. Their fate had already been written when Carri found her in the middle of the woods. As if writing their grizzly fate in stone.
◊◊◊◊◊
The girl wandered alone through the endless passage, its narrow walls pressing in like the ribs of some long-dead beast. The air hung thick with the cloying stench of blood—a metallic weight that clung to her throat with every breath.
At last, she reached a window, its glass fractured like a spider's web. A hellish glow spilled through, painting her in shades of crimson. Beyond the ashen clouds, twin moons loomed, swollen and red, their sickly light staining the sky. The same light dyed her ivory hair—long, spilling past her waist—into something unnatural, a phantom cascade of blood..
"A dream, must be another bad dream."
She spoke solemnly, as if to wake herself, she pressed pale hands to her cheeks, then struck herself. The slap echoed sharply, leaving a livid mark on her porcelain skin.
"Oh my, how dreadfully realistic."
The empty halls were filled with her dry laughter, but quickly went silent. Finding no humor in her situation, cold sweat trickled down her back. Feeling uneasy, her legs felt weak. Looking for a place to rest, the pit of her stomach seemed to grow deeper as she walked further in the long and dimly lit corridor. The girl walked through the hallway as if she had already done it countless times, translucent red lights peeked through the windows that lined the hallway.
The sight that filled the golden-eyed woman was nothing but foreign to her, yet she felt nostalgic each time she made a turn. Memories flashed in her mind of events that she didn't remember happening. The overpowering feeling of childhood nostalgia was present in the air, as if going back to a time that had long passed.
Stale air filled the hallway, and not a single particle of dust or lint drifted.
She moved through the house like a ghost, bathed in the cold embrace of the moonlight—its glow both a comfort and a curse. The air was thick with the stench of iron and decay, but she breathed it in anyway, her chest rising and falling in quiet, practiced rhythm. This place knew her. And she—she knew it too well.
The floorboards creaked beneath her bare feet, sticky with half-dried blood. Around her, the remains of the fallen lay in grotesque heaps, their faces frozen in silent screams. Somewhere in the back of her mind, a voice whispered that she should recognize them—that their hollow eyes and slack mouths meant something. But the thought slipped away like smoke, leaving only a dull ache behind her ribs.
She stepped over a severed hand, its fingers curled as if still begging for mercy.
Rooms blurred past, each one a slaughterhouse tableau—entrails spilling from gutted bodies, walls painted in broad, careless strokes of red. Once, there might have been horror. Once, she might have screamed. Now, there was only the quiet, the emptiness, the certainty that she had walked this path before.
A conspicuous wooden door appeared alone. She was confused and lost; to her, this was the first time she was ever here, but the feeling of nostalgia was undeniable. The door that she was supposed to see for the first time was eerily familiar to her, as if it were her room when she was growing up. It only fueled her with curiosity, as if begging her to go inside.
"Oh yes, a mysterious door at the end of an endless hallway, a cliché thing indeed."
The moment her palm met the wood, something shifted—a whisper of movement from the other side. She pushed.
The body fell gracelessly against her, its weight sudden and warm. A woman. Mouth slack, eyes glassy. A gaping wound split her sternum, glistening and raw. Blood pulsed lazily from the ruin of her chest, spreading in thick rivulets across the floorboards, lapping at the girl's bare feet like a tide coming in.
She stared down at the body. At the face.
(She knew that face.)
With a sigh, she stepped over the corpse, her soles leaving faint red prints on the hardwood. The air smelled of copper and—strangely—old paper. Like a book left too long in the sun.
The small room was dim, illuminated only by the flickering glow of an oil lamp perched neatly at the edge of a wooden table. Its flame cast large, wavering shadows against the walls, making the cramped space feel alive with movement. Opposite the table sat a bed, its sheets rumpled and carelessly strewn about. The air carried a strange sense of emptiness, yet at the same time, an unsettling familiarity.
A mirror hung on the wall beside the bed, its frame slightly ornate, positioned just high enough that she could see her reflection clearly, even in the poor light. And what she saw stole her breath away.
Staring back at her was a girl no older than sixteen, with snow-white hair and delicate features, dressed in a simple cotton tunic. The face in the mirror was undeniably hers—yet impossibly foreign.
Her mind reeled. The last thing she remembered was falling asleep in her dorm room after reading a light novel, something she rarely did so early in the evening. She had gone to bed as Satsuki Naako—a twenty-year-old college student with short black hair, average height, and an unremarkable life. A young man who drifted through existence without ambition, following the path laid out before him simply because it was expected.
But now… this.
The reflection was wrong. The body was wrong. The very world around her felt alien.
A cold knot of dread tightened in her chest. This couldn't be real. It had to be a dream—some bizarre, hyper-vivid dream.
Because Satsuki Naako was a man.
And the girl in the mirror was not him.
He has to be a dream.
The thought echoed in her mind, desperate and unconvincing. She forced a dry laugh, her voice brittle. "Right… any second now, I'll wake up. That's how this works. You realize it's a dream, and poof—back to reality."
But the room didn't dissolve. The shadows didn't waver. The oil lamp's flame flickered mockingly, indifferent to her denial.
Her weak smile faltered.
"Okay, okay, I get it—it's one of those dreams. The stupid 'dream within a dream' cliché." She scoffed, running a hand through her—no, not hers—snow-white hair. "Guess I should've cut back on the novels. Maybe focused on something real for once. Like, I don't know… finding a girlfriend or whatever."
The words tasted hollow.
She squeezed her eyes shut, half-expecting to open them to the familiar ceiling of her dorm, the hum of late-night Tokyo just outside her window. The lumpy mattress, the half-finished energy drink on the desk—anything.
But when she looked again, the same foreign room greeted her. The same unfamiliar body. The same crushing silence.
No sudden jolt into wakefulness. No merciful escape.
Just the suffocating weight of a truth she couldn't outrun:
This wasn't a dream.
And Satsuki Naako was gone.
"Come on… please just be a dream…"
Her voice cracked, barely a whisper. She clutched the fabric of her unfamiliar tunic, fingers trembling. "If there's any god out there—Buddha, a goddess, anyone—this has to be a mistake. I never asked for this. I never did anything wrong. I just… lived the way I was supposed to. So please… send me back."
Silence.
The room remained still, the oil lamp's flame unwavering, as if the universe itself was ignoring her. A bitter laugh escaped her lips. Of course. She had never believed in gods before—why would they listen now?
A surge of fury burned in her chest. "This isn't fair!" she wanted to scream. She had been content with her dull, predictable life—no friends, no grand ambitions, just the quiet rhythm of existence. And now, some bastard from another world had ripped her away on a whim? If she ever found whoever did this, she'd—
Her thoughts twisted into something dark, violent.
With a strangled cry, she threw herself onto the thin mattress, burying her face into the feather-stuffed pillow. A muffled scream tore from her throat—raw, furious, helpless. The pillow swallowed the sound, leaving her even more alone.
When she finally sat up, the bed creaked beneath her, a pathetic echo of her frustration.
"...Fine."
Naako exhaled sharply, forcing her hands to stop shaking. She had read enough light novels, watched enough anime to recognize the trope: ordinary person gets whisked away to another world. The first decision always mattered most.
If this was real—if she was truly trapped here—then her goal was simple:
Find a way home.
And if some smug god or summoner thought they could play with her life?
She'd make them regret it.
"No god greeted me. No divine explanation. Just... this."
Her fingers traced the edge of the mirror, cold against her skin. The absence of a summoning ritual or reincarnation guide meant one of two things: either she'd been dumped here without ceremony, or—
"I might be dead."
The thought slithered into her mind, unwelcome. She grimaced. Given her old habits—surviving on instant ramen, mainlining energy drinks, pulling all-nighters, binge-watching trash isekai—it wouldn't be shocking if her heart had simply given out. A pathetic end to a passive life. No friends to mourn her. No legacy beyond a browser history full of pirated light novels.
A dry laugh escaped her. "Talk about cliché."
But if this wasn't death, and it wasn't a dream...
Then it was transmigration.
And the clues were staring back at her in the mirror.
She stepped closer. The floorboards groaned beneath her bare feet. Golden eyes—sharp, calculating—locked onto their reflection. Milky hair cascaded like spilled ink down to her thighs, framing a face too perfect to belong to someone like Satsuki Naako. The contrast with her frayed, sack-like dress was almost comical.
"Identical," she murmured.
The realization hit like a punch to the gut.
New Star Horizon: A New Departure.
A sprawling, 48-volume epic she'd devoured in both web novel and print. A world she knew intimately—its lore, its power systems, its characters.
Including the silver-haired, gold-eyed girl in the mirror.
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me."
Her reflection's lips twisted into a smirk she didn't feel.
She was inside her favorite novel.
And if the tropes held true?
This was only the beginning of the nightmare.
Her reflection stared back—Vainglorbia the Detested. One of the Seven Witches, a monster who bathed nations in blood before the heroes finally tore her apart.
"Didn't she die like, a horrible death?"
New Star Horizon: A New Departure—or New Departure, as fans called it—was supposed to be a lighthearted fantasy. Five summoned heroes, five warring nations, and a grand quest to slay the Goddess of Darkness, Leceath.
But between the jokes and camaraderie lurked moments of real horror.
Like the Seven Witches.
She recalled the core lore of the series, the web of characters and factions that had once captivated her. Chief among Leceath's loyal supporters were the Seven Witches, powerful sorceresses who acted as her vanguard and sought to plunge the world into eternal night.
As she remembered their introduction in the novel, a nostalgic smile crept onto her face. The witches' ambition was etched into her memory—their ultimate goal: to resurrect Leceath and spread her darkness to every corner of the world, creating a twisted utopia where only witches could thrive.
It had thrilled her when she first read it. And now, somehow, those memories felt a little too real.
"In the novels, all five heroes united to kill Vainglorbia. Volume 46."
Her fingers twitched at the memory—the witch's final moments described in visceral detail: bones snapping under holy magic, her screams fading as the light consumed her.
"But this body... It's young."
Too young to have committed her worst atrocities. Unless—
A darker thought slithered into her mind.
"What if I arrived right as her villainy began?"
The evidence was undeniable. The twin crimson moons bleeding through the window—an iconic hallmark of New Departure's world. The suffocating silence of the orphanage, its halls too empty, its floors too—
(She refused to look at the stains.)
The novel had never shown Vainglorbia's early years, only hints: a childhood steeped in blood, the orphanage massacre that cemented her place among the Seven Witches. A decade before the heroes' summoning.
.
"I was in the past, before the main story happened, it seemed that the seven witches were still incomplete? I think there were only four witches who were active right now.
Though it might be too soon to say for certain, I still need to verify the details myself.
Naako clenched her fists, her mind racing. First, I should gather information about the outside world. I need to confirm whether things match the light novel I read, or if there are any discrepancies.
Even with a rough plan forming, one glaring issue refused to be ignored. Her gaze flicked back to the mirror, where sweat beaded along her sharp jawline.
"I have to do something about this body! Ugh, her chest is so heavy it's going to ruin my posture—just like before!"
She hoisted her breasts experimentally, relieving some of the weight. The sensation of touching a woman's body—especially one so voluptuous—sent a brief thrill through her, but it quickly faded into frustration.
"Huh. I thought this would feel… different." She squeezed again, curiosity warring with disappointment. "Maybe if I…?"
Before she could stop herself, her fingers pinched her nipples—only for her to yelp as pain shot through her.
"Ow! That just hurts! Ugh, I expected more, but it's not even pleasurable. Just like my old body. How disappointing."
Letting go with a sigh, she stepped back and reassessed her reflection, shaking off the absurdity of the entire situation.
Although she had already suspected it, confirming the truth still felt surreal.
"My manhood... It's really gone," Naako muttered, staring blankly at the mirror, one hand pressed against her lower abdomen as if it might somehow return. "That weird emptiness in my crotch wasn't just my imagination."
It was a bizarre realization, but oddly not as devastating as she thought it might be.
"Then again... It's not like I was using it that much anyway," she added with a dry laugh.
Still, a far more urgent dilemma loomed—at least from her perspective.
"How the hell am I supposed to pee with this body?!"
In this world of magic and witches, even if technology had been enhanced by sorcery, it hadn't reached the modern comforts she was used to. Plumbing? Sanitation? Soap and clean water? All luxuries.
"If I were still a guy, maybe I could manage," she complained, pacing. "But I'm a woman now—for crying out loud! How am I supposed to pee in peace in a body that's not even mine, in a world where washing your hands is considered a privilege?"
The sheer absurdity of the situation hit her like a wave.
Naako wanted to cry.
She was crying—tears slipping silently down her cheeks as frustration, fear, and helplessness all came crashing in. She wanted to curse the mysterious force that had thrown her into this world. She wanted to scream and demand an explanation. Why her? Why this body? Why now?
But deep down, she knew none of that would change anything.
Complaining wouldn't bring her back to her dorm room. It wouldn't reverse whatever bizarre cosmic accident had placed her here. That bitter truth struck harder than she expected.
Sniffling and wiping her face with the back of her hand, she took a deep breath and steadied herself.
"Okay," she whispered. "Enough feeling sorry for myself."
Right now, there was only one thing she could do: keep moving forward, one awkward, uncertain step at a time.
"Well, it doesn't matter, at least I have a normal body, unlike other protagonists in other light novels being reincarnated as monsters, at least I have a normal-ish body, though, this body felt weaker than my actual body."
Naako finally somewhat regained her previous cool. Her mind was now clouded with another urgent concern than a personal one.
"That was all my earlier concerns addressed, and now the main meat of the topic that I wanted to confirm more than anything else."
In Naako's mind, this was the most crucial thing she needed to confirm besides her original objective. This will determine what her future actions are going forward. Naako resolved herself as she looked forward.
This will be fine, I think, even if the worst happens, I can somehow deal with it.
She stood in front of the mirror, and as if praying, her voice meekly sounded barely audible, but it had a conviction and a strong will that backed the soft voice.
"I use my right as the most beautiful being in this world; Rights of the weak: Glass Ego."
Her voice boomed, a commanding declaration that filled the room as she thrust her hand forward, as if summoning an unseen force. With her drop-dead gorgeous features, the kind that would make supermodels weep in envy, she looked like a figure ripped straight from a masterpiece painting.
Silence.
Seconds ticked by. Nothing.
Fifteen seconds. Still nothing.
A bead of sweat trailed down her temple as she clenched her eyes shut, her earlier confidence wavering. Praying. Hoping.
Five agonizing minutes passed since she first uttered those words like a sacred incantation. Just as despair threatened to take root, something answered.
A quiet sigh of relief escaped her lips.
Yet, to an outside observer, nothing had changed. The room remained undisturbed, the air unmoved. But Naako knew better. The shift was so infinitesimal, so meticulously concealed, that even the keenest eye would dismiss it as a trick of the light.
To prove it, she raised her frail arm—a sluggish, trembling motion—and let it fall in a pathetic vertical chop.
Pathetic. Pitiful. Painfully weak.
Her limbs were twig-thin, her strength so laughable that even swatting a fly would be an impossible feat. If she tried, the insect might just snap her wrist in retaliation. Every movement was a battle—swimming through air thick as syrup, each breath a labor against the crushing weight of her fragility.
A normal person wouldn't even feel the resistance of the air. But for her? It was like wading through molten lead.
Yet she persisted.
And then—
The impossible happened.
As her arm completed its feeble arc, the world shuddered.
The air rippled, space itself warping like disturbed water. A fracture spiderwebbed along the path of her swing, reality splintering in her wake. The distortion spread, a crack in the fabric of existence, mocking the laws that bound the universe.
Physics broke. Common sense was shattered.
And Naako—weak, frail, powerless Naako—had just torn a hole in reality.
"Yup, that checks out. I'm glad my ability still worked."
As if expecting this, Naako said to herself with a smile on her face. Being satisfied with the result, she nodded her head contentedly.
"Well, that answers one of my last concerns," Naako muttered with a sigh. "Now I can finally start figuring out whether this is the world of New Departure... or not."
She turned to leave—but then stopped, as if remembering something important.
"Oh, right. Almost forgot."
Her gaze shifted to the shimmering distortion still floating in the air behind her. It rippled like heat rising off pavement, warping the light around it. The walls behind it appeared stretched and twisted, as if space itself had been folded like fabric. Even the mirror, once intact, now coiled inward on itself in a bizarre spiral.
With a smirk, Naako raised her hand and spoke aloud, just for dramatic effect.
"Release."
She didn't have to say the word—commanding it mentally was enough—but she liked the flair of voicing it. And the space responded. As though bound by her will, the distortion pulsed once... then surged.
Time seemed to snap forward. In an instant, the space slashed downward, severing reality itself like a blade made of wind and force. The mirror shattered as a sharp, thunderous crack echoed through the room. The wall behind it split cleanly down the center, and the rift didn't stop there.
The blade of wind tore through the orphanage like a guillotine made of air. A deafening whoosh filled the building as the force sliced through wood, stone, and silence alike.
Then stillness.
The entire institution fell into stunned silence. Not out of fear alone, but out of awe—a chilling recognition of a power far beyond their understanding.
Naako stared at the aftermath without a word, her expression unreadable.
The distorted space vanished without a trace, leaving behind only the damage it had wrought—and the quiet that followed.
"With the same ability, I killed. No, Vainglorbia killed all of those orphaned kids and the adults who took care of them. Now that personal safety is secured, with this overpowered ability, I'll at least protect myself."
A fragment of a stranger's memory flashed in her mind as if it were her own. The screams of the people she killed still echoed in her brain, yet she looked at them with a despondent look as if it wasn't her problem. But her heart seemed to ache as if regretting her actions, even though she didn't personally know them, or at least Naako didn't.
Even if her mind was able to separate the memories of Vainglorbia and Naako's apart, her heart, the feelings that weren't supposed to be there, bloomed. As if she were feeling the emotions of another person, she could only squirm uncomfortably, looking away from the faces of the dead bodies that filled the floor.
Swelling with guilt and sorrow, as if the people that she killed were her friends, family, and lover. The faces of strangers flashed in her mind, as if reminding her that the corpses on the ground were once people, precious people who had a place in her life.
Walking out of the wrecked room, although she was determined to find a way out of this, although she felt lost in her feelings. Trying to keep her mind clear while searching for the exit. Trying her best not to look at the passing bodies that were scattered like dirty laundry. Seeing the bodies of men, women, and even children that lay coldly on the floor, it was straight out of a gory and cheap horror movie.
Naako stepped through the carnage without hesitation—entrails squelching underfoot, chunks of brain matter sticking to her shoes like wet pulp. The metallic stench of blood and the sour tang of ruptured organs filled the air, thick enough to taste. Unpleasant, yes, but not enough to make her flinch. Not enough to make her stop.
That realization should have disturbed her.
A whirlwind of emotions churned somewhere in the back of her mind—horror, guilt, revulsion—but they felt like someone else's. She recognized them, the way one might recognize a language without speaking it. But they didn't reach her.
So she kept walking.
Past the mangled limbs. The glassy, lifeless eyes. The tiny, bloodied hands of children who would never grow up.
No trembling. No hesitation. Just steady, detached steps—as if this were nothing more than an evening stroll.
It made no sense.
She was Naako—an ordinary, peace-loving otaku from modern-day Japan. A boy who got queasy at the sight of raw chicken in the supermarket. A socially anxious shut-in whose greatest moral dilemma was whether to pirate an anime or wait for the Blu-ray.
She had never seen a corpse in real life.
So why wasn't she screaming? Why wasn't she vomiting? Why did the splattered remains of what used to be people barely register as more than an inconvenience?
"Huh," she mused, glancing down at a severed hand as if it were a stray pebble. "I guess being desensitized to death comes standard with the villainess package."
Her voice was light, almost amused.
That should have terrified her.
But it didn't.
And that—more than the blood, more than the bodies—was what finally sent a chill down her spine.
A door appeared in front of her after passing all of the decimated bodies, with the ability 'Glass Ego'. Vainglarbia's body that was supposed to be weak was able to return to a normal degree of physical ability that was expected of her age.
The blood-red moon hung heavy in the sky, casting its eerie glow across the landscape. Its unnatural radiance painted the world in shades of crimson, bright enough to see clearly even in the dead of night. Shadows stretched long and twisted, as if the very darkness recoiled from that baleful light.
Naako stepped outside, the crunch of gravel beneath her feet the only sound in the oppressive silence. The orphanage stood before her—smaller than she'd imagined, its weathered walls telling stories of neglect. One side of the building had collapsed entirely, sliced clean through from her earlier attack, leaving jagged edges of splintered wood and crumbling stone.
Surrounded by a dense, whispering forest, the orphanage sat in a small clearing like a forgotten relic. A line of laundry still fluttered gently in the night breeze, the clothes swaying like ghostly sentinels. The mundane sight of drying linens contrasted grotesquely with the destruction she'd wrought.
The air smelled of pine and damp earth—and beneath it, the faint metallic tang of blood.
Everything was exactly as she'd expected.
And yet...
A dirt path that leads out of the orphanage and goes through a conspicuous forest. The tree line was dense and seemed unending. The black-barked trees marked the edge of the forest, the trail that came out of the orphanage led into the maw of the arched roots and branches of the obsidian black tree, with its thickness being several times larger than the circumference of the waist of several men. The branches twist like the legs of a spider along the path, threatening to snatch any children who stray from the path.
"This might take a moment if I were to walk. So maybe I should just cut through it."
"There should be a village beyond the forest," Naako muttered, sifting through Vainglorbia's fractured memories like pages of a half-remembered book.
She had never been there herself—but someone else had.
A boy. An orphan. His face flickered in her mind—familiar, yet not hers. He had chattered excitedly about the village market, about the stalls brimming with spices and fabrics. He'd even gone there once, tagging along with one of the caretakers, struggling under the weight of supplies but grinning all the same.
What was his name?
The memory dissolved before she could grasp it.
Then another image surfaced—the same boy, cleaved neatly in two, his smile still frozen on his lifeless lips.
A pang shot through her chest.
He used to pull out her chair at dinner.
He used to—
Naako gritted her teeth and shook her head violently, as if she could physically dislodge the grief clinging to her ribs. These weren't her memories. These weren't her losses.
But the hollow ache in her chest didn't care.
"Memories still foggy and vague, but my memories of my ability seemed clear to me."
Vainglorbia stood motionless, the world holding its breath around her. The only sound was the whisper of wind through the trees—until even that faded. Her eyelids slid shut.
A deep inhale.
Power gathered.
A luminous mist coiled around her legs, swirling like liquid starlight, thickening with every second. It pulsed in time with her heartbeat—thump... thump...—condensing into a visible aura of raw force. The ground beneath her boots began to crack, fine fractures spiderwebbing outward.
Then—
"Rights of the Weak: Broken Mirror."
Her whisper cut through the night.
The world shattered.
Her legs uncoiled—a release of pent-up energy so violent it detonated the earth beneath her. Stone and soil erupted upward in a deafening boom, the shockwave flattening grass in a perfect ring around the newly formed crater.
And Vainglorbia—
—was gone.
Air screamed as she tore through it, her body a blur too fast for the eye to follow. Trees bent backward in her wake, leaves ripped from branches by the sheer force of her passage. The wind howled like a dying beast, clawing at her clothes, yet not on her skin—
Too fast. Too fast.
Her vision blurred. The world smeared into streaks of color—green of the forest, black of the sky, the sickly red of the moon. Her stomach lurched into her throat. The orphanage vanished behind her in an instant, the ground now a distant memory.
She wasn't flying.
She was falling sideways at the speed of a cannonball.
"W-WAIT—!" Her voice was ripped away by the wind.
Her heart hammered against her ribs. Every instinct screamed to stop, to slow down—but momentum owned her now. The horizon tilted. The trees below were tiny matchsticks, the clouds getting closer—
How do I—?
How do I—?!
Panic spiked. No control. No way to steer. Just speed, relentless and terrifying—
And then she saw it.
The village.
Rushing toward her at murderous velocity.
"Glass Ego"—one of Vainglorbia's many formidable abilities—renders her utterly impervious to all external forces, making her body truly indestructible. Yet, invincibility alone does not grant flight. That is where "Broken Mirror" comes into play.
With this power, she shatters the laws governing the world, bending reality to her will as if the universe itself bows before the fractured reflection in her mind. By defying Newton's first law of motion, she accelerates instantaneously, without buildup or resistance, transforming into a living projectile. The result? A human missile hurtling at velocities that leave bullet trains in the dust—unstoppable, unyielding, and faster than thought itself.
"Broken Mirror" allowed her to freely defy the laws of physics—not just within her own body, but in the world around her. Unlike "Glass Ego," which was bound solely to her indestructible form, this ability extended its influence outward, warping reality at her whim.
With a mere thought, she could hurl an object and command it to accelerate endlessly, never slowing, never yielding to friction or gravity. She could strip away vectors entirely, suspending things in weightless defiance of momentum, leaving them hovering as if time itself had paused. Yet these were only the simplest applications of "Broken Mirror." Its true potential was as boundless as her will—and as fractured as the reflections she wielded.
"— This ability is… "
"— certainly tricky to use…"
The wind whistled past her ears as the village emerged on the horizon, its outlines barely visible under the twin moons' pale glow. Squinting, she made out a cluster of simple huts—ordinary, unassuming.
"That's where I should start... but it's the middle of the night. Who would even be awake?"
Yet as she drew closer, her stomach twisted. The road ahead pulsed with movement—shadows shifting, figures trudging in eerie unison. A hundred? More? Their silhouettes stretched unnaturally long in the moonlight, their footsteps silent, their purpose unknown.
"This isn't right..."
A smaller group broke off, heading straight for the village. Instinct screamed at her to hide. Without hesitation, she triggered "Broken Mirror," freezing her momentum mid-flight. The world lurched as gravity reclaimed her, dragging her down in a soundless drop toward the earth. She landed softly, muscles coiled, eyes locked on the procession—whatever they were, they hadn't seen her.
Not yet.
"It's too risky to show myself, maybe I should be on the cautious side while I trail them at the back."
She crouched down in a nearby rock beside the dirt path. Peeking her head curiously as she observed the group of men armed with weapons and wearing armor heading to the village.
Vainglorbia, unaware that this night would be its last living memory of them. By some unseen design—or perhaps the hunger of forgotten gods—gods-the armed men, the villagers, and every soul from the surrounding villages slipped into the shadow of history. No graves, no final cries, only silence.
The earth kept no record of their going, and in time, even their names faded like breath on a cold wind.