“Good heavens...”
“T-Two young ladies!”
“No way!”
People fell into confusion as they stared at the two identical figures.
“What in the world...?”
The Duke of Sorpel and Ravi were no different.
“Where have you been coming from?”
“Haah.”
Only Arsian and Petro let out long breaths of relief. The violent pressure they were exuding dropped at once.
“S-She... she’s the fake!”
But it didn’t take long for their killing intent to flare up again. The fake Camilla had started screaming at the top of her lungs.
“She’s the imposter trying to steal my place!”
Tears streamed down the woman’s cheeks—thick, pitiful drops falling one after another. She struck first before the truth could come out.
“Everyone... everyone, please don’t be deceived!”
She really did pull every trick.
Seeing several people waver toward the fake’s sorrowful tears, Camilla clicked her tongue and strode toward her in big steps.
There was nothing to gain by dragging this out.
“Are you stupid?”
“What?”
“How did you think you were going to imitate me with that empty head?”
Camilla clicked her tongue again and again.
“You don’t even remember what you said?”
“What are you talking about...!”
“You said I’m under the Guardian’s blessing, didn’t you? That it would be difficult to take my body. You said that yourself...”
Camilla paused briefly, then pulled something out from inside her robe.
Still growing, unable to hide its form, small enough to fit neatly in her arms—
[ROAR!]
“How could you forget about this child’s existence.”
It was the White Tiger Guardian King.
The moment she had returned home, she’d gone looking for King first. Call it insurance in case something went wrong. It was also very good for stabilizing her mind.
“Kyaaaah!”
THUD!
At King’s roar, the woman’s legs seemed to give out entirely. She trembled and collapsed on the spot.
The sound of a Guardian’s cry felt like it would stop her heart outright.
Her whole body shook uncontrollably. Her head throbbed as if splitting open, and she couldn’t muster an ounce of strength.
‘T-This is a Guardian’s power?’
They really did say its power drove out malicious energy.
The organization had chosen the Ducal House of Sorpel among the three Guardian Houses precisely because it was the only house without a Guardian.
Recently, the Guardian had returned—but wasn’t it still young?
They’d rushed to have her accepted as the daughter before the young Guardian could fully awaken.
But even with the Guardian still unawakened, its roar alone felt like it would rip her spirit straight out of her body.
[GRRRR...]
As if roaring wasn’t enough, King looked ready to leap at the woman any moment—until Camilla gently stroked his head.
The Guardian calmed down as if the rage had never existed.
“It... it’s a lie! A-All of it is fabricated! I’m Camilla! I—I am!”
Even trembling uncontrollably, she still clung to the act to the bitter end.
But by now, no one there was listening to her words.
“That Guardian is fake too... y-yes, fake! You must believe me!”
As she made her final desperate outburst, Camilla stepped closer.
And in a whisper, she spoke a name.
“Aria Hillern.”
“...!”
The woman’s eyes bulged as if ready to burst at the sound of her true name. Camilla stared straight at her and repeated it.
“Aria Hillern.”
“N-No!”
“Aria. Hillern.”
FLOP.
The moment she enunciated the last syllables, the woman collapsed.
‘Let me give you one more thing.’
This was the gift Habel had given her last.
The true name of the spirit inhabiting Rania’s body.
‘What’s the point of knowing the name? Doesn’t a reaper have to be the one who calls it for a spirit to react?’
‘You can do it too.’
‘Me?’
‘Spirits react to your call because you can see them and speak with them.’
[Ah... AAAAH! No!]
Just as Habel had said. The spirit reacted to her call.
Just as the old man’s spirit had burst out of the boy’s body earlier, now another unfamiliar spirit appeared—a woman in her early thirties.
She screamed endlessly as she recognized she had been forced out of Rania’s flesh.
But that time did not last long.
[KYAAAAAAAH!]
The end of the guilty was always the same.
Countless hands reached out from the darkness and wrapped around her without fail.
“R-Rania... young lady?”
With the spirit gone, the woman’s body reverted to Rania’s appearance.
Fsssh.
But in the next instant, Rania’s body began fast-forwarding through time.
Like film whipping forward, her flesh decayed in an instant, crumbling into powder.
“......”
Camilla wasn’t particularly shocked. She had already seen Dennis’s body collapse in that exact manner.
It only left her heavy-hearted. After all, that body had belonged to the real Rania.
“Hiiik!”
“G-Gods!”
“W-What is that!”
“My word...”
But the others could not contain their horror.
Letting out a small sigh, Camilla slowly turned her head.
There stood the Duke of Sorpel, staring at the spot where Rania had vanished—frozen, hollow, pinned in place.
‘Good grief.’
Another long sigh rose automatically. How was she supposed to explain this?
Her head already throbbed.
Chapter. Final Goodbye
“So you’re saying Rania died three years ago?”
“Yes.”
Camilla nodded at Ravi’s question.
“When she—no, when that woman kidnapped me, she said so. The real Rania died three years ago. She said she transformed into her form and entered this house.”
Again, Camilla blended truth and falsehood appropriately to explain the situation.
She glanced to the side—at the ghost Rania quietly standing next to her.
Freed from her bindings, she had regained her awareness. And she had told Camilla everything she remembered.
[Mother originally met Father under someone else’s orders.]
Her story was utterly shocking.
[They said they planned to insert an important member of the organization into the bloodline of the Ducal House of Sorpel.]
Camilla hadn’t been able to learn what organization it was. Rania’s mother had never spoken of it, insisting it was safer not to know.
[If Mother had borne a child, they planned to implant the organization member’s spirit into that child. Just like what they did to me...]
But they could never do that to Ludville, the eldest son.
The firstborn heir always carried the Guardian’s blessing. Taking such a body was impossible.
So from the beginning, the organization had targeted the second child.
[But when Mother realized she was pregnant with me, she left the house immediately.]
Having come to truly love the Duke of Sorpel and her child, she betrayed the organization and went into hiding. She fled from their eyes.
She could not allow her child to fall into their hands.
[We never stayed in one place for more than two months.]
They had spent their lives wandering, hiding from the organization scattered everywhere.
[And then, three years ago, they finally caught her.]
Only then did Rania learn the truth—why she and her mother had lived their entire lives running.
[Mother was killed... and I...]
She could remember nothing afterward. Once her body was taken, she had no memory at all.
“She was killed?”
“...Yes.”
“Who dared!”
“That part... I don’t know either...”
Seeing the Duke of Sorpel swallowed by grief and rage, Camilla could not bring herself to speak the deeper truth.
That the former duchess had approached him from the start under false pretenses would only injure him further.
“Haah...”
Pressing his forehead, he let out sigh after sigh. Then his gaze shifted back to Camilla, filled with guilt.
“You’re not hurt anywhere, are you? I was too distracted to check on you.”
“I’m fine. Really. Don’t worry.”
She claimed she’d slipped away when the guards grew lax. She could hardly tell him she’d been saved by Reaper Habel.
“I see...”
He had immediately sent soldiers to the place she’d been held trapped, but the house had already burned to ash.
The house where Rania supposedly lived was the same—burned down, nothing left.
‘Someone paid a visit before we got there.’
There was no way two houses would coincidentally catch fire at the same time.
‘Fast on their feet, aren’t they.’
She was curious herself. ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) What kind of organization would orchestrate something like this?
The fact that even the former Duchess had entered this house under their orders meant they’d been planning this for a very long time.
‘That is... genuinely unsettling.’
Taking over living bodies was bad enough—but to plot in silence over such a long span made her skin crawl even more.
“Get some rest, all of you.”
The Duke of Sorpel rose slowly and left the parlor, his expression rigid—his thoughts clearly tangled.
There was no strength in his steps at all.
‘Of course.’
It would be impossible for him to accept, all at once, that the Rania he’d lived with was fake—and that both his former wife and real daughter were already dead.
“Are you truly unhurt?”
“Yeah.”
“That is a relief.”
Arsian and Petro had stayed by her side until everything was settled. Camilla regarded the two of them with a hint of curiosity.
‘How did they know?’
That she was the fake.
From what she heard, both men had been certain from the beginning—that the one wearing her face was an imposter, without a shred of doubt.
Meanwhile...
“What? What is that look for?”
“How did even outsiders recognize it when my own brother couldn’t?”
Human, are you even my brother?!
“H-Hey! I also thought something was off!”
“As if.”
“It’s true!”
“What was off?”
“She was...”
“...?”
“She had manners.”
“Manners?”
“Her tone, her behavior—she was polite. It was suspicious as hell.”
“...That’s it?”
“Isn’t that enough? Since when do you treat me politely?”
No comment. Inwardly cursing him to pieces, Camilla snapped her head away.
[...]
And then she saw Rania—staring fixedly in the direction the Duke of Sorpel had gone, as if she wanted to chase after him immediately.
Seeing that expression, Camilla sank into brief, deep thought.
