"So? What’s wrong? Why are you frozen there?"

"Are you deaf? Cat got your tongue?"

The venomous witch spat insults like a snake flicking its tongue, trying to provoke me with such aggression that—

Unbelievable... how reckless can you be?!

Just when I was worrying about her safety, Kairi — in all her "audacity"... or perhaps "idiocy" was more accurate — simply walked right up to Valeria.

Yes, the old wicked hag I was referring to.

She walked with that calm, casual pace of hers — face utterly emotionless.

"Oh, so that’s how it is..."

Wait.

What do you mean "so that’s how it is"!?

She said that as if she was ready to lay down her life like it’s a charity!

Very good, Kairi. If she actually dies... in her grave, I’ll make sure her epitaph reads:

"Died because she was too confident to face a monster on her own."

I had just been thinking about how I might save her—yet there she stood, surrendering herself like your average theatrical drama protagonist, fully prepared to die for the sake of the plot.

But in the next instant, I realized something crucial: No, this was no longer just a battle of wits nor narrations. This had become a matter of life and death.

And I hate admitting it, but for a brief moment... I almost believed she might actually win.

I wanted to shout, to pull her away—but no sound came out.

Because in Kairi’s eyes, this wasn’t stupidity. This was a choice.

To her, every action wasn’t driven purely by logic. It was also shaped by the surrounding pressure that left her with almost no space to truly choose.

As explained previously, change within a person doesn’t usually happen in an instant; it follows patterns formed by external forces that push someone to adapt in order to survive.

So if she sounded like someone ready to die for her words, it wasn’t mere melodrama.

It was the product of layered experiences, awareness, and pressure closing in from all directions.

In the end, every human moves toward an ideal version of themselves shaped by the reality they inhabit—whether they actually realize it or not.

I braced myself, wondering what the old hag would even attempt as a response.

"My my, what a surprise."

"It turns out someone has been lurking! How fascinating!"

I immediately dismissed her feigned shock.

That was a calculated lie.

Her reaction betrayed her: a sudden, deliberate smile that didn’t reach her eyes, replaced by a greedy, almost unrestrained gleam. Her composure, however, was flawless—so well-maintained that I was barely able to tell if she was genuinely surprised or just enjoying her performance. Either way, it sent a deep chill through me.

No, through both of them.

Turns out, they are horrifyingly similar.

"Kairi..."

"Elysia."

"Veylith."

Silence. Kairi didn’t respond to the naming.

But the small, cruel upturn of her mouth—that usual indifferent, cold, and harsh sister of mine—showed a certain dark amusement, as if she hadn’t just walked into a trap, but had been waiting patiently for the doors to lock.

Then Valeria, her gaze contemplative, her smile completely faded, finally spoke:

"I know who you are."

The air fractured. Valeria had expected Kairi to reel, to deny, or perhaps to beg.

"Me too," Kairi murmured back.

That hit her.

Valeria didn’t receive that response properly.

A tremor of genuine shock crossed her face, immediately followed by an expression etched by the weight of the history Kairi had just forced her to confront.

The hag was stunned. And I was floored.

How did she figure all of this out? How could Kairi know all these secrets, all by herself?

Valeria fought instantly to reclaim control, masking her shock with dismissive arrogance. She took a deep, steadying breath, trying to look down at Kairi.

"Well well well... what does this little fourteen-year-old girl know about me at all?" Valeria asked, her voice calm, though I saw the almost imperceptible tremor in the hand gripping her staff.

Kairi’s eyes, cold and assessing, didn’t waver.

She responded with a cryptic, almost musical cadence:

"One little n*gg*r left all alone; He went and hanged himself and then there were none."

I blinked, thoroughly lost.

N*gg*r? What in the Abyss was that supposed to mean? Did she just quote a madman?

I didn’t know that was how you answered a death threat—you didn’t just quote some esoteric poem!

But Kairi’s strange, witty reply hardly confused Valeria.

Instead, the opposite as it sent a tidal wave of genuine horror across the woman’s face. The mask she had been struggling to maintain finally shattered completely.

"You are kidding, aren’t ya?" Valeria whispered, the cold fury gone, replaced by raw, disbelieving panic disguised as a stone-hearted response.

Her staff clattered slightly against the stone floor.

Kidding? No, Kairi would never.

I had never seen Valeria this disturbed, this utterly undone. Whatever Kairi had just said, it was a secret far heavier than their shared history—it was a devastating truth.

I was completely and utterly bewildered. I scanned the area, trying to decipher the meaning of the absurd statement, a cold knot forming deep in my stomach.

Kairi, as always, remained infuriatingly calm, her entire demeanor suggesting that this bizarre declaration was simply the logical next step in her plan. It was infuriating, the way she treated reality like a poorly written script she could just edit at will.

She acts as if she can see the future, or perhaps she simply possesses a terrifying level of knowledge about the past and present that is intentionally hidden from me,

I reasoned, feeling a familiar wave of resentment and a strange, grudging respect wash over me.

The silence stretched between the two figures, thick and suffocating, and I could feel the tension building, coil after coil, ready to snap.

Valeria took a jerky half-step back, her eyes flicking rapidly between Kairi’s face and the surrounding shadows, as if suddenly realizing that the very air itself might be closing in on her.

"How..." she demanded, her voice a low, strangled rasp,

"How could you...?"