F-Rank Puppeteer!! But I'll be Queen, and I'm not a narcissist!!!!!

Chapter 307: Expulsion

"...Evelyn-sama..." I look up, watching Evelyn-sama’s dragon as it lands on the beach. The boats have already docked on the angelic continent, and we’re turning the ships into storage and shelters now that they’re useless since they don’t work on land.

"Eve!!" Evelyn-sama waves at me as she leaps off her massive dragon. She runs toward me with a smile, but I feel like something doesn’t quite fit.

’Strange... Why do I feel two connections...’ It’s as if Evelyn-sama is back in the kingdom, but also here at the same time, which honestly leaves me baffled.

"Evelyn-sama, are you... really here?"

"Of course I am, Eve! But I see you noticed! It’s a new trick I figured out... hehehe, it’s still a little weird, but I have two bodies now! I’ll lead from a distance... while my other body stays there with Esther."

"...Evelyn-sama, everything is going smoothly so far. We managed to arrive with damage more or less within what was predicted. We also got all the ships stopped on the beach and dragged them to form storage depots, warehouses, and secure dwellings," I tell her, pointing in a direction.

"One kilometer from here is the other side of the bridge. Soldiers have already taken the area and also noticed angel movement. They seem to be waiting—maybe because they can’t do much, so they’re being cautious and defensive." I tell her everything that matters right now.

"Perfect!! I’ll take command of everything. Where are Marie and Grace?" She glances around, but there are so many soldiers scattered everywhere that it’s impossible to see exactly where they are.

"I’m not sure, Evelyn-sama, but they were nearby about an hour ago."

"Hmmm... I already knew we had arrived, so I ordered Laplace to activate the [Bridge] and bring the soldiers across it. The rest of the army will be here soon. In the meantime... I’ll build our base." Evelyn-sama uses her ability to summon thousands of marionettes through a magic circle that materializes.

Immediately, Evelyn-sama gives an order, and the marionettes sprint into the forest ahead of us and start tearing out the trees. The soldiers stare, bewildered, at these weird, mannequin-like things.

But to my surprise, thousands of "Hands" appear—just hands—wandering and hopping across the sand toward the forest, while basic materials like axes, wood refinery items, and other things materialize.

"Evelyn-sama, since when can you do this?" I ask in shock. She couldn’t do this when we started this journey.

"It’s something I learned... it’s no big deal... hehehe... anyway, I’m just preparing proper housing and a suitable place to protect the [Bridge], since we’ll be using it heavily for supply exchanges."

"Now, Eve, let’s walk together for now and check on the supply situation." She takes my hand, pulling me along with a small smile on her face.

...

...

...

"Evelyn... look, I tried to help." Arial speaks to me as I stare at her coldly. She betrayed me. I still had some trust in her.

"Our deal is over, Arial. I don’t want you here anymore. I’ll give you your body, and I want you to disappear from my life." When I say that, she looks shocked and makes a hurt face.

"But Evelyn, I’m helping you!! And your feelings? If I don’t eat part of them, you’ll just get sadder and sadder."

"I don’t care. I no longer need help from someone who betrayed me. It doesn’t matter if you meant to help or not—I remember you showing up there, alongside Nerina." I say, rising from the water in the sea of consciousness.

"E-Evelyn, think calmly! Hey, are you going to throw away everything we have?"

"What do we have, Arial? What do we have, tell me? Do we have something? You invaded this place, took up residence inside me without my permission, deceived me, we made a trade deal, and now you’ve deceived me again. That’s all of it."

"B-But Evelyn..." She looks confused. The truth is, we have nothing good between us, and our only helpful interactions were in exchange for something—never friendship or genuine help out of kindness.

"I’m going to remove you from here. I’ve already figured out how. Nerina taught me—she was quite the teacher. Thanks to her, I understand much more about what it means to be a nymph." She realizes that I’m truly going to expel her and has a look of terror on her face.

"H-Hey!!! You can’t get rid of me!! I-I... I love you?... That’s it!! I love you!" She says it with a loving smile.

"And?" When I say that, her face turns confused.

"W-Well... I thought..."

"You thought what, Arial? That saying you love me would change my mind? It just makes you sound pathetic. You don’t love me. You just ate pieces of my love—nothing more than that."

"You don’t get it? I do NOT need you." I exit the spiritual plane. I’m in my room, and Esther fortunately isn’t here, because she left the kingdom to go tell Laplace that she should go with the soldiers across the [Bridge] to the angelic continent. But Esther will be back soon.

Inside my room, having already prepared the materials, I quickly form a body. The body is that of a beautiful girl with slightly pale, subtly bluish skin, long blue hair, dark blue eyes, large breasts, and she’s tall—180 centimeters in height.

Overall, it’s an undeniably seductive body, perfectly balanced, and above all, it has an empty core in the chest. With that, using what I’ve learned about my powers, I expel Arial from my body and send her into this one.

"H-Hnng?" The body wakes up quickly, gasping as if it just "birthed" itself after a complicated ordeal. Arial looks at her own hands and then looks at me.

"E-Evelyn..." She realizes she no longer has access to my spiritual plane.

"I fulfilled our deal. There’s the body you wanted so badly. Now we have nothing to do with each other anymore, so I’m asking you to leave. I never want to see you again, you traitor."

"Wait, we can talk, can’t we? Hey! Now that I have a physical body, we can—" She dodges my sword strike. The katana cuts through the table like a hot knife through butter.

"Arial, I don’t like you. I have nothing with you, and we are not friends. I will kill you if you don’t leave." I hold the katana with some difficulty—the same weapon that killed Nerina, perfect for killing Arial too.

"Be grateful I didn’t stab you with this weapon the moment you woke up and were still disoriented." She looks around my room before her expression creases into something irritated.

"You think you’re stronger than me? I’m far stronger than you. Think you have any chance of beating me in a fight?" She speaks with arrogance.

"I can’t beat you in a fight, but you’re not capable of killing me. And one strike from me is the end of your life. Want to take that risk?" With everything I’ve learned, I can easily fight against her, because she can’t kill me in any way, and any opening that lets me land a hit will bring her end.

"If you don’t hit me—"

"You don’t have enough power. It’s hard to adapt to a new body, isn’t it?" She looks at her own hands and then at her chest, where the empty core sits in place of a heart.

"It’s a free body, not a marionette, so you won’t be controlled by me. I made sure the contract was crafted so you can’t pull clauses out of nowhere. Disappear from here while you still have time."

"If you take too long, I will rush at you and kill you..." I say in a threatening tone.

"You ungrateful bitch!! Evelyn, you’re an ungrateful whore!! I’m the one who convinced Nerina not to hurt you!! I did—"

"Did I ask for that?"

"..."

"I didn’t ask for your help, and I don’t care about your help. Even without you, I would have done everything on my own." Because of the [Nymph’s Grace] ability, Nerina would have slowly become addicted to me even without Arial having said anything.

Since Nerina wanted to deceive me into seeing her favorably, at some point all my fluids would have become like an addictive drug to her. I never needed Arial.

"H-Hahaha, aren’t you afraid of what I can say? I can reveal that you’re a nymph!! A-And there’s also that other world... and I know your secrets!! Tons of them!! Your powers too!!"

"Go ahead and talk. You think I’d care? Esther could find out anything about me—she’s already far too obsessed with me to care about anything. I could even be a monster; Esther wouldn’t care."

"And you think I care if they find out about my powers? Hahaha, what a joke. Now you’re insulting me, Arial. Nothing you know matters to me if others find out, because the only one who matters to me is Esther, and Esther will never abandon me even if I wanted her to."

"And you, you pathetic traitorous whore, are weaker than Esther." Ever since I recovered my memories, I noticed it immediately—Esther’s power increased absurdly. Spending three months constantly using her blessing while managing the kingdom made her power surge immensely. Arial couldn’t beat Esther in a fight.

"...So that’s it, then, Evelyn? You’ll discard me so coldly?"

"You should go soon. Esther will arrive in a few minutes, and she’s very jealous. If she sees another woman in my room, she’ll undoubtedly flay you alive." It’s not a lie. Even though Esther has been gentler with me...

She’s redirecting all the damage onto other people, to the point that I’ve seen her kill maids who came to my room to collect my clothes for washing just because she didn’t want others interacting with my things. And the damage is mainly directed at women, though not even men are safe.

As a result, the servants’ routine changed so they only appear when Esther is not in my room.

"...I still—"

"GET OUT ALREADY!" I shout at her as she tries to speak some more bullshit. It makes her look at me with a sad face, as if she’s about to cry, before she leaps out my bedroom window.

"Haaa..." I throw myself onto the bed, feeling a headache. Even though I said all that, she was still helping regulate my emotions, and now it’s 100% on me, which immediately makes my head throb horribly.

"Saluvia, I know you’re there. I have a headache. Please prepare me some medicine." Saluvia opens the bedroom door and enters in silence with a few things in hand.

"...Don’t say anything to anyone."

"I don’t know what you’re talking about. I can only say that your biology doesn’t change the medicine." She simply acts as if she heard nothing, and her comment about medicine makes me smile. It’s wonderful that even having overheard that I’m a nymph, she decides not to speak a word of it.