🔊 TTS Settings
Chapter 30
“Close the door.”
Even as she said it, Rita already expected he wouldn’t listen. That was why she immediately raised her gun.
She fired at Gid. He reflexively shut the door and lowered his body. Just as expected, the bullet was stopped by the basement’s iron door.
At the same time, with her other hand she processed the Aurora of the Star. She converted all of it into something with properties similar to gunpowder. The strange magical power shifted according to her will. It was easier than she had prepared herself for.
An enormous amount of power thrashed inside her grasp. Her hand was already tearing open and bursting apart. Rita was satisfied.
With an explosion of this scale, every demonic beast on the surface would die. The squad members who were underground would live.
The star doesn’t have to reach the sun. Even if that fails, everyone can still survive this way.
She raised her blood-soaked hand toward the sky—toward the ashen sun that scattered dull light like drifting cinders. The faintly shimmering aurora swirled around her lifted hand, whipping like a flag.
The star was the bullet.
The aurora was the gunpowder.
Her od was the trigger.
Her body was the barrel.
The recoil of this shot would sweep away everything in the surrounding area.
Gid, who had shut the door to block the bullet, was already opening it again.
“Don’t do it, damn it—don’t you dare do something like that!”
She heard his scream as he realized the ‘optimal strategy.’
Before the door could fully open—before it was too late—she fired toward the sun.
“Rita! Please!”
With the despairing face of Gid Pascal as the last thing she saw, light exploded.
Flames filled her entire vision. Every demonic beast around her burned white. It felt as though her limbs were being torn apart. She saw the star surging upward from her fingertips, climbing toward the sky. The ascending light headed toward the ash-covered sun.
I succeeded.
She was sure of it. She thought she might have smiled, feeling fulfilled.
That was her final memory.
When she opened her eyes again afterward, she was drowning in a lake—in an unfamiliar body.
Thus she returned to this world, once more in Lilietta’s body.
Rita did not tell everything about the life she had lived.
She condensed it as much as possible and left out detailed events and personal emotions, yet because it spanned twelve years, it still became a very long story.
Everyone’s safe, right?
When she recalled the final moment, worry for her comrades surfaced. She was confident it had worked—but she hadn’t seen the result with her own eyes.
What if it failed and everyone is in danger…?
No. Even if the star didn’t reach the sun, the demonic beasts were definitely all killed. That explosion was powerful enough. Everyone must’ve survived and returned to the final defense line.
By now, Beacon might have become a literal beacon of hope, signaling the end of the war. Humanity might be united, searching for the fallen star and planning how to end the war once and for all.
Even if I can’t see that…
She had thought she would die, yet she had returned to this peaceful world—to her home. That alone made her fortunate.
Even if she never saw her comrades again.
I wish everyone could come here instead.
The thought slipped into her mind unconsciously.
They would all like this place.
Olli would cheer at the abundance of books everywhere.
Sera would marvel at the variety of clothes and accessories.
Is, who loved plants, would be completely absorbed in the flowers.
Luca, the big eater, would be distracted by the plentiful food.
Ethan… I’m not sure. He’s crazy in every sense.
Still, he would probably like the many stars in the sky. Whenever the stars weren’t visible, he used to climb onto the roof and stare at the nearly starless black night sky, searching for the one or two that could barely be seen.
And Gid…
“Look, Rita. It’s an old-world cookbook. Mostly desserts.”
“What’s the point of looking at that? It’ll just make you hungrier.”
“If we’re lucky, there might be something we can recreate. Which one looks tastiest to you?”
“…This one? I wonder what it tastes like.”
“Cream puff?”
“It looks like a biscuit, but it says it’s soft and sweet. Biscuits feel like they’ll break your teeth.”
“I see.”
“Why are you tearing that page out?”
“So I can make it someday if we ever find the ingredients.”
…He’d had a strange interest in desserts.
If Gid came to this abundant world, he might even learn pastry-making.
Wow, that really doesn’t suit him at all. Him making sweets.
Still, she wanted to see him.
Gid. Olli. Sera. Is. Ethan. The youngest.
Everyone she had fought beside, slept beside, breathed beside—even in blood and mud.
…But even if I can’t see them again, that’s fine. There’s no guarantee that dying there would bring everyone here like it did for me. And it’s much better if they’re safe there.
They would survive and write a new history.
Rita chose to believe that. Otherwise, she felt her mind would not endure.
She set the empty coffee cup at her feet, then looked around at her family seated in the living room.
The Duchess looked as though she might faint.
The Duke rested his chin in his hand, lips tightly pressed together.
Leonhardt had gone pale as a sheet, frozen.
Richart blinked several times as if trying to hide his shaking eyes before hesitantly speaking.
“So… Lili. You started training at ten years old in that world… enlisted at just twelve… went through all those horrible things… lived only in battlefields and ruins, fighting monsters called demonic beasts the whole time… then died at twenty-two by self-detonating? And then you woke up here?”
“Yeah. Good summary, Richi.”
“This is insane.”
Richart cursed under his breath and roughly ran a hand through his hair. Words like those lunatics, trying to get themselves killed, and other muttered profanity lingered on his lips.
Rita looked at her family again. Everyone was clearly shaken.
Of course they are. That kind of life is normal there—but here, it’s unimaginable.
Even frontline soldiers or roaming mercenaries in this world did not live like she had. Peace was so natural here that people didn’t even recognize its value—just like how people in her old world didn’t even know what peace was.
Even I, who lived through both worlds, feel disoriented and out of place. How must it be for people who only know this world?
The memory of Pascal’s tragic end—betrayed by his family—collided in her mind with the memories of growing up loved as Lili. She concealed the turmoil inside her and spoke calmly.
“Feels unfamiliar, doesn’t it?”
“What does?” Leonhardt asked, his face bloodless.
“Me.”
She gave a bitter smile.
“I’m not the Lili you knew.”
Leonhardt’s face twisted. Before he could respond, Rita spoke quickly.
“But this is who I am now. I was Lili of the Birch Castle, but I am also Rita Pascal of the Beacon Squad. I can’t deny the time I lived as Rita—and I don’t want to.”
She lowered her gaze, looking at the coffee-stained empty cup rather than their faces.
“It’s strange and unfamiliar, but it can’t be helped. Ten years passed. That means the ‘Lili’ from back then can’t just come back like nothing happened.”
She had told them how many people she’d killed, how abnormal the environments she’d lived in were—things that had been everyday life to Rita, but grotesque from Lili’s perspective. Naturally, they would sound just as horrifying to her family.
A world where death and disappearance are ordinary, and a world where death is a major incident.
A world where people eat people, and a world where people raise livestock for food.
How would the child of Pascal—once called a monster even there—be seen in this world?
It’s not strange if they feel uncomfortable. It’s only natural if they can’t treat me the same as before.
I’m no longer that Lili. How could I be loved the way I was back then?
Rita imagined how her family might treat her from now on.
They might distance themselves, confused. They might become awkward. At least they wouldn’t use her as a weapon or betray her—that would already be a blessing. And the family she loved weren’t people who would betray her.
…And even if they did, it would be fine. She had never expected to regain her family in the first place. She had learned too many times how foolish it was to trust others or rely on them.
She kept steadying her heart. So that she would not collapse.
“Lilietta.”
At last, the Duke called her name.
