I'm the Only One With a Different Genre - Chapter 176
Chapter 176
The Day Love Was Realized
***
The Outsider, who had been standing with her mouth agape in a space where the end couldn’t be seen, belatedly looked down at her body and shouted.
“What the…?! How do I have a body?!”
For some reason, her massive soul was now inside a perfectly intact body. And not just any body—it was one she had never seen before. As she struggled to hide her confusion, something happened.
Tap, tap.
Someone tapped her on the shoulder. The moment she turned her head with a face that clearly said, ‘An enemy?!’, what she saw was beyond her imagination.
“I’m not usually the type of dinosaur to say this, but… ha, seriously…”
“Hey, say it properly.”
“Alright, alright, ahem. Would you… like to join me by the lake for a drink?”
A dinosaur, over two meters tall, stroked its short arms under its chin, trying to look as handsome as possible as it gazed at her deeply. Next to him, another dinosaur, presumably a friend, was snickering and teasing him.
“What… is this?”
In her utter confusion, a stupid remark slipped out. At the same time, a loud thudding sound came from far away.
Boom! Boom!
Whatever massive being was approaching, even the dinosaur that had asked her out was being lifted into the air and dropped repeatedly. Worried that she might lose her balance, she flailed her arms, but strangely, she landed firmly on the ground.
“Sorry, am I late?”
A gigantic dinosaur, so large that she had to crane her neck all the way back just to see its head, spoke in an awkward voice. It looked to be about as tall as a five-story building.
“So, what business do you have with my girlfriend?”
“Huh… I-I’m sorry!”
“Hey, let’s get out of here!”
As the two dinosaurs hurriedly ran away, the enormous dinosaur lowered its head, winked at her, and said,
“Are you okay? You looked troubled, so I tried to help, but it seems I just made things more awkward.”
She could only stare blankly at the giant dinosaur, unable to form any coherent words. It felt as if her brain had stopped working. It didn’t take her long to realize that this bizarre situation was, in fact, something she could understand.
A tsunami of gags had washed over her.
While the Outsider was lost in the world of ‘gags,’ Iris was sitting far away, dazed and collapsed.
Bloop ~ Bloop ~
Kya-ha-ha ~ Grrr!
The cheerful, almost maddeningly cute music and the laughter of the dinosaurs echoed around, but Iris, who had taken a severe mental blow, remained motionless like a doll with its strings cut.
In her arms was a doll the size of a small child, resembling Lian. The corpse of Lian, which she had been holding in her memories, had been transformed into a doll through the gag filter created by the Outsider.
Though the doll felt soft and squishy, to Iris, it still felt like a cold, lifeless corpse. Her eyes, as she stared down at the doll, still reflected the image of a bloodstained body.
Step.
Someone quietly approached her from behind. Iris, whose mind was so broken that she wouldn’t have noticed even if she were stabbed in the back, simply stroked her brother’s doll, unaware of the presence behind her.
Swoosh.
A warm presence came up behind her and embraced her from behind. Familiar white hair and warmth spilled over her shoulder.
“Iris.”
“…!”
Thud.
Her grip loosened, and the doll she had been holding so preciously, as if it were her lifeline, tumbled to the ground. Her trembling hands reached out, searching for the warmth that had wrapped around her shoulders.
“O-Oppa?”
Her voice trembled so much that it sounded like she might start gasping for breath. Iris felt both joy and fear in the warm embrace. The thought that this warmth might once again turn cold and become a handful of blood haunted her mind.
As soon as she had that thought, the arm that had been holding her shoulders began to slip away. Feeling the pressure loosen, Iris hurriedly grabbed his arm.
“Don’t go, sob… don’t leave me…”
The sob that had risen to her throat threatened to spill out at any moment, but she held it back. She feared that if she started crying like a fool, he would disappear. A gentle, soothing voice reached the terrified, trembling Iris.
“It’s okay.”
The calmness, like sinking into a peaceful swamp, swallowed Iris’s anxiety in an instant.
“I’m okay, Iris.”
“Ah…”
At the sound of his voice, as warm as spring sunlight, the strength in her hand, which had been gripping his arm so tightly that her fingertips had turned white, gradually loosened.
Even though the hug had only lasted a brief moment, once the warmth left her, her body trembled. Just as her anxiety was about to swell again—
“Have you been well?”
Lian sat down next to Iris, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, his face as kind as always.
“Ah…”
Without realizing it, Iris reached out with trembling hands and cupped Lian’s face. Lian smiled with his eyes and pressed her hand firmly against his cheek. The smooth, soft sensation and warmth seeped into her palm without hesitation. Her shoulders jerked slightly.
“It looks like you haven’t been sleeping well.”
His gentle hand, which had approached without any sense of distance, brushed the corners of Iris’s eyes. Her heart, which had been trembling with anxiety, now started pounding for a different reason. In his eyes, which held an endless warmth, she felt a distant sense of comfort.
“Oppa… I…”
All the words that had risen to her throat were too heavy to spill out, and instead, they shimmered like tears in her eyes. Lian, as if he already knew everything Iris wanted to say, nodded slowly and spoke.
“Have I kept you waiting too long? I’m sorry.”
Hearing his apology, it felt like a thorn had lodged in her throat. She felt frustrated and angry. He hadn’t done anything wrong, yet hearing those words made her want to blame all her pain on him. She hated herself for feeling that way.
His gentle hand, as if brushing away the tears from a child’s eyes, soon moved to stroke her soft, white hair. The tension in her stiff shoulders gradually eased, and her whole body relaxed, as if she had sunk into a warm bath. It was like magic.
“I tried to come back as soon as I could, but something unexpected happened…”
Lian smiled awkwardly, as if he had been caught up in a trivial accident. Each word he spoke was precious to Iris, and she kept her lips tightly sealed, listening intently to his voice.
Like enjoying a gentle breeze on a warm spring day, she just let his soothing voice wash over her. But then, a shocking statement snapped her back to reality, as if cold water had been poured over her.
“So, right now… Oppa is…”
“Yeah, I’m in the Demon King’s castle.”
Thanks to a fortune teller, Lian had been able to temporarily visit Iris’s mind and convey his situation. He felt deeply satisfied that he could at least share his news.
‘I wonder if they’ll believe me. Well, even in a dark fantasy, it’s still a fantasy, so maybe they will?’
With that thought, he tapped the ground lightly. A field of white flowers bloomed around them. The fragrant scent brushed against Iris’s pale cheeks, softening her expression. Seeing her relax, Lian felt a sense of relief.
“For now, I’m stuck in prison… so I probably won’t be able to leave anytime soon, but it’s not too dangerous. Will you wait for me?”
He chose to say he was imprisoned instead of explaining that his body had been taken and his soul was trapped. He feared that her face, which had just softened, would turn pale again if he told her the truth.
‘It’s not exactly a lie.’
As he nodded to himself, thinking that, a sound began to creep into the pastel-toned world.
Crack.
The sound of the pastel world gradually breaking apart reached his ears. Lian quickly realized that Iris’s consciousness was waking up.
“Ah, it looks like you’re about to wake up.”
“…!”
The sudden arrival of their parting moment made Iris reach out desperately and pull Lian into a tight embrace. She clung to him as if she could never let him go.
With the warmth of his body pressed against hers, she could feel his heart beating clearly.
“Ha-ha, I’ll miss you too, Iris.”
His gentle laughter, which tickled her ears, and the arms that wrapped around her waist, made Iris’s mind, once filled with confusion and fear, fall silent. The pounding of her heart echoed loudly in her ears. Her fingertips tingled, and for some reason, her ears felt hot.
“I’ll wait for you.”
The warmth in her arms dissipated like a mirage, and her mind grew hazy.
***
“This can’t be… This can’t be happening…”
The Outsider, who had been caught up in the ‘gag,’ bit her lip in despair, her bloodshot eyes muttering as she began to confess her actions.
“I’ve waited so long for this day…”
The Outsider’s memories stretched back to a time even before Iris was a baby, all the way to the point when the Hero—who was now dead—had existed.
The Hero had been a swordsman more skilled than the Duke. The fact that such a man had died at the hands of the weakest of the Four Heavenly Kings was something no one who knew him could accept.
The mysterious power behind that incident was none other than the Outsider, now screaming in despair.
She had devoured the body of one of the Four Heavenly Kings and killed the Hero, intending to take over his body. But she had been struck by an overwhelming divine power and was nearly annihilated. To survive, she had burrowed into the body of Iris, who shared the Hero’s bloodline.
Iris, still growing in the Duchess’s womb, was too weak to resist the Outsider’s invasion. From then on, the Outsider had made relentless efforts to take over Iris’s body.
It was the Outsider who had orchestrated Iris’s abduction to the Demon King’s land as a baby and handed her over to the black magician who delighted in horrific experiments.
After countless years of effort, the Outsider’s plans were now falling apart before her very eyes. There was no way she could contain her rage. Her mind clouded, and she lost sight of everything.
“Stop this nonsense and come out right now!”
As her voice, filled with anger, echoed through the pastel world—
Step, step.
An unfamiliar presence began to approach her.
End of Chapter