The Knight Who Broke Off Our Engagement and Told Me to Never Show My Face Again Still Clings to Me Today, Even Though I Was Possessed and Turned Into a Villainess for Ten Years - 32 - The Truth - Part 1
“…Weren’t you… comrades?”
“Oh my, comrades? What a lovely word,”
Tabatha, the woman who called herself that, gave a mocking smile as she brushed her damaged, stretched-out hair back.
Even though I knew it wasn’t her real body, just seeing her in it made me feel unsettled—probably because she’d lived in it for ten years.
“We weren’t comrades or friends. We were just strangers who happened to have the same goal.”
“Goal…?”
“We just wanted to live like normal people. That’s all.”
She added, “Well, we did live pretty luxuriously, I’ll admit,” and I, of course, felt a strong wave of anger.
“Don’t you think it’s unfair? That just because we were born in a different place, there’s such a huge difference in how we live?”
“……”
“Well, I doubt people like you could ever understand. The kind of person who feels like their whole life ended the moment they were born.”
…At the same time, deep inside, I felt a part of me start to pity them.
From the state of their bodies when we switched, I could imagine the kind of life they had lived. They must have been forced to live like that, just like in that facility, from the moment they were born.
I know what it’s like to be treated no different from a slave. I know the pain of each day and the hopeless feeling that there’s no end.
If I had to live like that forever, maybe I would’ve felt jealous too—of people who lived in luxury and comfort, knowing nothing of hardship. Maybe I’d even wish to live as someone else, even if it meant stealing their body. But still—
Wishing for it and actually doing it are two very different things. I could never forgive them, and I never will.
Besides, she didn’t just steal everything from me—she hurt my family, Rufus, and so many others too.
“Well, anyway. Don’t you have more questions? It’s dark and warm in here, and I’m starting to feel sleepy.”
Tabatha yawned, as if she had no care in the world, even in this situation. She really was selfish. Still, I had a strong feeling we were finally getting close to the truth because of her cooperation.
There were a lot of things I wanted to ask. A lot I was curious about. But I pushed down the anger rising inside me and decided to ask the one thing that bothered me the most.
“…How did you switch bodies?”
“Magic tool.”
She answered like it was the most obvious thing in the world. So the man who stole Norman’s body had been telling the truth.
“It belonged to the archbishop.”
“…The archbishop?”
The person who reacted most strongly was Rufus, who had been standing quietly behind me this whole time.
“What do you mean?”
“Who knows? While Ben and that old man were struggling, the guy accidentally switched with a cat.”
She added with a laugh, “Oh, Ben was the one who switched with Norman.”
Since I didn’t know anything about it, Rufus explained who the archbishop was.
The archbishop, second only to the pope in power, had suddenly gone missing one day. When he was finally found, he didn’t even recognize his own family and started acting very strange.
People thought maybe something had happened to him and it broke his mind. But if what she said was true—and he had switched bodies with a cat—then it would all make sense.
“…That day, we escaped from a forced labor camp near the royal capital and broke into the archbishop’s house. Mabel used to work there as a maid, so she knew he kept a lot of valuables hidden, and she knew the layout and secret paths. We planned to steal stuff and run away to another country.”
“But when we sneaked in, we saw the old man holding the magic tool, pushing down a good-looking young man. He was probably trying to steal his body. That’s what I think now.”
“While the old man and Ben were struggling, a pet cat suddenly jumped at them. And right after that, the old man started acting like a cat.”
Then the cat also started acting strangely, and they noticed the magic tool was stabbed into its paw. The archbishop then jumped out the window and disappeared.
After that, Tabatha and the others stole whatever valuables they could and left.
“It looked like a plain, thin golden stick. We thought it was made of gold and could be sold, but Mabel was different. She held that weird stick like it was treasure and said it might change her life. She laughed while saying that.”
“I hate her, but I have to admit—she’s got a good nose for these things,” Tabatha said, and continued:
“The ends of the stick are sharp like needles. If you get bl00d from both people on each tip at the same time, the switch happens.”
“That’s… all it takes?”
“Yeah, that’s all. But do you know how many people Mabel killed in her experiments just to figure that out?”
Tabatha shrugged, like she was fed up. The man the archbishop was attacking had probably been one of those test subjects.
The story was so horrifying, I couldn’t say a word.
“She would give us a small bottle with bl00d in it. We’d put a drop on one tip, then stab the other end into the person we wanted to switch with. All we had to do was sit and wait in that place.”
I remembered how someone bumped into me when I had my body stolen. That was probably when they stabbed me with the magic tool.
“That’s all it took… and I became you.”