Alira turned to the bathroom, which was more of a bathhouse.

  A dark green marble-tilted rectangular bath the size of a small swimming pool lay out in the center. She stepped toward the pool to find a thin blanket of pink bubbles and petals on its surface. A lavender-like scent flooded the entire space.

  A full-length mirror with a gold-painted frame stood in a corner, facing the pool. She couldn’t resist her curiosity.

  “Time for those scenes at the start of an isekai where the main character checks themselves out in a mirror,” she said with a light snicker.

  The mirror reflected a young girl who looked only about eight parts herself—recognizable, it was still her, but unfamiliar enough for people who knew her to question what had happened. She looked younger, though it might be the bony limbs and smaller frame.

  “Still cute old me.”

  Alira still looked cute even as an almost skeleton. She gave most of the credit to the cat ears and flicking tail she’d gained. She pulled her frock up and slipped out of it. Without clothes in the way, she looked even less like herself.

  For the first time in her life, she looked at ‘herself’ and thought it wasn’t the most pleasant sight.

  Her prized juicy thighs, proof of her privileged life of eating and sleeping well, were replaced by a pair of legs that were just skin wrapped around bones. Her smooth, round belly had become a canvas of purple bruises and dark, long strips that outlined her ribs.

  “Life has been rough, huh?” she said to ‘herself’. “You and me both, but you seem to have it worse.”

  The animal characteristics weren’t limited to her ears and tail—irregular patches of black and white fur coated her body, layering above her grimy skin. The thickest areas were on the back of her hands, along her forearm, on her chest, and back. It made her recall how exactly hybrids were made—the word hybrid leaving a weird taste on her tongue.

  Just great. Now, being a cat-girl wasn’t so fun anymore.

  She’d questioned whether Lady Goddess had weird taste, but maybe, if the Goddess was slightly less cruel than she seemed, this character setup could be intentional to grant her alchemic talent without going beyond reason.

  The protagonist was one of the few people who was allowed to have immense talent in alchemy without having to be a hybrid. Alira, however, didn’t look like an important character at all.

  Alira had learnt that in a world of magic, words alone weren’t good enough to get what she wanted. There might not be another simple-minded person like the guard, whom even she could manipulate, and he was already dead. She needed to utilize everything the Goddess gave her for her own good.

  Alira recited again, [This Acting Soul of Staywes asks for Judgement.]

  ※

  Character Name [Alira Vane]

  Role

  Unreliable Narrator [Myth] (Unique)

  You are the final wall of Staywes, the Filter of all its tales. Your lies are their Truth.

  Role Aspects

  [???] y????o?u???-?s??h???o???u???l??d?-?n?o?t?-?b?e?-?s?e?e?i??n?g?-?t?h?i?s

  [Narrator’s Influence] You have great influence on them.

  [Narrate] You may Narrate a character in the same Scene as you are twice in a Scene.

  [Curtains down] You may skip the Narrative for one Staywes day. <2/10>

  [Mirror] You may give the Narrator Role to someone in the same Scene and Camp as you are. <2/10>

  ※

  Same as every other Role, Unreliable Narrator also had five aspects. None of the descriptions helped so much. Especially the first one. She couldn’t help but cringe at the edgy, distorted line.

  “How mysterious,” she said, scoffing. “Remind me of that one Elsa’s line—”

  Alira stopped herself. She heard something. The sound of a book flipping, paper turning. She looked around and confirmed that there was no paper in sight. Was she hearing things or...

  She blinked once.

  “Is this place haunted or something?” Alira said, reaching her hands to grab a towel hanging nearby. She quickly wrapped herself up in it.

  “This damned place…”

  Alira walked towards the pool. She spotted a long wooden shower brush on her way and picked it up.

  “This,” she said, taking a deep breath. “This is a sword!”

  She held it like a sword, raising it up in the air. A long minute passed. The brush was still a brush because, of course, it was.

  Just as she was about to forget what had just happened and pretend she was losing her shit, wriggly pieces of floating strings that looked like tapeworms crawled into her vision.

  “Ew, what the heck?” Alira jumped back. She rubbed her eyes. It seemed her body was still tired even when she didn’t feel like it.

  It must be some eye floaters. Alira continued rubbing her eyes, but the strings in her view didn’t disappear. Rather, they morphed to form into something almost recognizable.

  If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  It must be a really bad case of eye floaters. Normally, they would disappear after some time. Then again, Staywes had not been so gentle with her since she’d come here.

  “Now I’m seeing things...”

  The strings twitched before her, tangling among themselves. Alira looked away, but they remained persistent in her view. Just then, something shifted. A book slammed closed.

  Alira stilled. She couldn’t hear the turning of pages anymore. They were gone. She puffed out a breath of relief.

  The strings had turned into distinct shapes, forming runes she’d never seen before. Yet perfectly understood the same way she could comprehend Common Tongue.

  [ Guest1236: What was that just now with the brush? And now what? Eye floaters? Man, things aren’t looking so good for the native camp so far. ]

  “Oh.” Alira blinked fast. “Finally, they’re gone. I must be really tired.”

  She tried not to show it on her face, making sure her internal screams wouldn’t spill out. The Goddess mentioned something about page turning and them. She instantly recalled something about them being able to read her mind during the page turning and acted first, reining her thoughts in. That sure wasn’t easy for someone whose head had never once been quiet.

  “Whatever.... Let’s just shower,” Alira said, reaching the edge of the pool. She dipped her feet in. The water was unexpectedly warm. The runes followed her as she sank into the baths until her nose hovered above the surface. She pretended to zone out, making sure her eyes didn’t move too obviously as she read.

  [ Guest1898: Well, they did bring in an outsider to be the world’s narrator. So u tell me how things are looking lol. Transmigrator MC is my thing. I’m here to see her f up the og story. ]

  Bringing in an outsider to be the narrator… From the way they said, it seemed Alira wasn’t the first or only victim in history.

  [ Guest1236: Regardless, she does look determined to leave. If she succeeds, there won’t be a narrator. Then, what? ]

  [ Guest1898: Ah, newbie. If uve read enough stories like this senior, u will see the narrators going mia all the time, mostly cuz they’re dead. It just means we can’t interfere or help. Boring af. So we just agree to drive it to its end and move on to the next. ]

  Push the story to the end? Alira bit her lips down at that. She sat up, sighed dramatically, and tried to keep her voice steady and natural.

  “I wonder why I was even brought here... Can’t the Goddess or whatever save the world themselves?”

  [ Guest1898: lmao they wish. ]

  Shit. Don’t just ‘lmao’. Tell me more...

  What did they mean by that? Would they just speedrun the story to its bad ending so they could leave? Alira had a hundred questions she wished she could directly ask them.

  [ Guest1236: I won’t lie. This is my first world. Either way, she better wraps this up soon. Aren’t two entire scenes of whining enough already? How are we supposed to care about this world when the narrator doesn’t? ]

  Screw you and your whining, too.

  Alira bit back her words. She felt like everything here was trying to guilt-trip her, and the worst part was it was starting to work. Alira knew enough to guess what they were now.

  Narrator. Novel. Transmigrator. They were most likely readers. She had become a part of Dual Point of View and was actively being read.

  That messed up her head a bit.

  From what it sounded, they seemed to be more than just readers. They seemed to have the ability to affect the story’s ending. As the narrator, the story they read was told through her—she was the filter, the lens through which they saw the world. Lady Goddess wanted her to lie to them in a way that would lead the story to a good ending.

  That’s one heck of a task.

  [ LoveFurries: dude, it’s two fking scenes. ]

  [ Guest1221: Now, now. Two scenes are barely anything, considering what’s to come. Give it some time. ]

  [ LoveFurries: Also, I used the D because why not, and it’s totally worth it. Yes, yes. The long wooden shower brush is totally a sword. Black cat narrator who acts in the part. 10/10. Sign me up. ?? ]

  [ Guest1221: ? < LoveFurries> That was honestly a bit... You should have discussed with us first. ]

  [ LoveFurries: so what? I already used it. what chu wanna do about that? ]

  [ Guest1221: ? < LoveFurries> I just think we could have saved it for later. ]

  Alira tried to keep up with them despite her creeping headache from the effort.

  She now had the gist of how the lying ability worked but needed more experimentation. Also, what D. Not mentioning the first thing that came to her mind, it could be ‘dive’, ‘discover’, or ‘descent’. This D was likely what caused the ‘page turning’ just now.

  Since Guest1221 was trying to reserve it, it seemed they had a limited amount of this D ability that allowed them to read her thoughts.

  [ Guest1221: Moving on, what do you guys think about the ??? for her role. It’s obviously ‘Transmigrator’, no? ]

  [ Guest1898: @Guest1221 not all outsiders have a Transmigrator role. It’s quite newbie of u to assume that. Could be that hers hasn’t been established yet. ]

  [ LoveFurries: Nah. Looks more like censorship. The damn law is poking its nose in again. I bet it’s because— ]

  The words flickered out at once as if a switch was turned off somewhere.

  This was really messing with her brain. None of this was mentioned in the novel. They certainly weren’t Outers who were forbidden by Staywes’s Laws from stepping into the world without being summoned by no other than the natives themselves.

  She recalled Lady Goddess saying something along the lines of ‘this round’ being different. Were there previous rounds? Was the novel with Raine as the narrator a round before this?

  Each thought and question meant to rationalize the situation confused her even further.

  “Ugh!” Alira slammed her hand down, splashing water around. Things just kept coming her way.

  “Miss?”

  A muffled voice came beyond the door.

  “It’s me, Maria. Mom, I mean, head maid Manon left to inform his Grace about your request. I’ll be right here if you need me.”

  Alira felt like groaning again. She really should have died in that dungeon without meeting any of these people or knowing anything she now did. But now that she had, she found out the hard way that she was less heartless and unfeeling than she thought she was.

  “Miss?”

  “Got it,” Alira yelled, replying only to get the girl to stop calling for her. She took a few steps away to put more distance between them.

  She gritted her teeth until her jaw tensed up. “I would never, ever, willingly live my life for others.”

  That was a promise she made.

  “Four months from now onwards,” Alira spat, counting up to the date she’d never forgotten. “Dad’s death anniversary is four months from now.”

  She had decided, just before all this, that she was finally ready to visit his grave this year. She would be eighteen after midnight, a child no more.

  Four months. That was the line. Her line.

  She gave Staywes a deadline.

  “I will play your game if you manage to keep me here until and beyond that day.”

  If this damned world dared to keep her past that date—if it stole that from her too—then she would be the hero it wanted. No promise to be a good one, but she would, very reluctantly, try with everything on the line. She would stop trying to die and start trying to break the story itself and piece together a happy ending out of the bits.

  It was a compromise. Not for the people of this world. Not for Lady Goddess. It was for herself. So that she wouldn’t be haunted by the strangers she was forsaking. This way, she wouldn’t have to feel too guilty.

  It was fair, maybe not too fair, but fair enough.

  “So, do your best to keep me here until then,” Alira said to Staywes itself, her voice low and cold. “Because until that deadline, I will do my best to leave.”

  A plan, however twisted, was a form of control. The tension in her shoulders loosened just a fraction. She just had a world to reject and a girl to kill. Shouldn’t be too hard.

  She washed herself up, rubbing off the dirt until the water around her turned muddy. A simple yet expensive-looking dress was prepared for her. She dried herself roughly and proceeded to shove herself into the dress.

  Alira tried not to think of the people—were they even people?—constantly watching her like a shitshow.

  Only one question that mattered remained on her mind: what counts as death by Staywes’s hand?