The constant scenery transpired—the ambiguous reality cracked and shattered, blurring everything before shifting into another point in time of the bygone era.
However, my mind was occupied to even care, as what seemed to grapple my heart was everything I had just committed.
I was aware, completely aware... that it was Krishnaya, the Imperial Princess Yuridika's personal maid, who heeded the order to burn down the orphanage caring for the war orphans.
But sharing the senses in the same body, I couldn't help but feel that I, too, was the one who committed such atrocities against the innocents, as hypocritical as it might sound considering my past of grays.
Being a naval intelligence officer in my past life, and an unusual one at that, I quickly fathomed the White Princess' intent behind the order.
Nonetheless, the problem was—
"Y-Your Highness, I-I'm truly sorry! Please kill me and my younger brother!"
...that there were several casualties.
The order was straight and clear—discreetly burn down the orphanage housing the war orphans and make sure no one dies.
Krishnaya thought she had already checked everything—from the time when the nuns in charge of the children were occupied in their separate monastery for their daily prayer, and from the time the children were on the vast playground outside of the orphanage's main infrastructure...
She thought it was settled until the news spread that numerous victims were burned to death—people Krishnaya had not accounted for such as the resting janitors, the sleeping chefs, and any other responsible for the welfare of the children.
Many lost their lives.
My mind and heart trembled.
Not due to the loss of lives, something I had witnessed an indefinite number of times when I was active in service.
Rather, it's the same scenario of an orphanage being burned down without being able to do anything.
If I could physically manifest right now, there was no way to tell what I might do against the White Princess, who desired the children for the sake of avoiding the marriage with the successor of the Church of Harvest and Prosperity's current pope.
Even then, I felt disgustingly conflicted.
After all, as I faced the prostrating maid as I unexpectedly possessed the White Princess' body at this very moment, the thorn of guilt she was feeling as if her heart was being pierced into a thousand pieces echoed in my soul.
'I hate this... Fuck!'
If there was one thing I have yet to fully understand, it's the potential, unknown reason why the Imperial Princess of the Britanoia Empire was against marrying the next Pope of Harvest and Prosperity.
But the question still remained—what exactly was the 'choice' the White Princess had committed that the Apostle of the Unseen could not understand?
I didn't know when this would end, or what had already happened outside and to everyone with me... However, it seemed the scenario would end 'during' that moment of decision.
The White Princess clutched her chest, her amethyst eyes gazing downward at the maid, whose body was trembling, unable to think rationally.
After some time, the White Princess opened her mouth to speak, as I, too, sensed her breath under the unspoken guilt, "Stand up."
Krishnaya, however, could not move a muscle—she was frozen as fear tightly gripped her body.
"Krishnaya, I said stand up!"
It was then that the maid mustered the strength to raise her body, though her head remained lowered while tears streamed down her face as she sobbed uncontrollably.
"Hic, hic. Sob. Y-Your Highness... Wah! Wh-what should I do...?! What should I do, Your Highness...?! Sob. Hic."
The amount of guilt lingering in the atmosphere was staggering to even gauge, and I couldn't help but also sense the emotions tearing the maid apart.
Since every part of me was resonating with Princess Yuridika, I felt her containing heart to be swept and erupt with emotions—after all, it was ultimately due to her irrefutable order that it happened.
"Go back to your room and rest. If anyone asks why your eyes are like that, tell them that you were feeling sick. Just... leave me alone for now."
Princess Yuridika did not stutter. It was the kind of resolve and demeanor an Imperial Princess must possess... unlike a certain girl in the present era.
Being alone in her spacious and grand abode, with no one to hear her in this chilling dawn as she sat on her elegantly prepared royal bed, her hands gripped onto the cushion and blanket.
She gritted her teeth, and her amethyst eyes began to blur as something crystalline formed and gradually hindered her vision.
"Sob. Wh-what I have done...? I-I don't deserve to live... Why! Just why!"
Seeing everything through her lens, and knowing everything her heart was feeling, the guilt and agony eventually transformed into rage.
Princess Yuridika stood up from her bed and began to throw anything she saw, pulled her hair, whilst screaming with a trembling voice.
"Father. Why! Just why would you marry off your only daughter to those lunatics?! Did you really believe the empire would be prosperous in the next twenty years if we unified with them?!"
Crash!
The White Princess continued to throw and ruin everything her sight could see—exquisite vases, personal journals, drinking glasses, expensive cosmetics, and at one point, she punched the full-body mirror, sullying her fist with crimson blood.
"But that's not it, right, father? You believe that by marrying me off to the next Pope of that damn church, you will prosper and live longer? Did they promise you eternal life?!
"If humans are capable of bestowing it, what are the heavens' existing for then?!"
Sitting on the chilling floor, as the Princess' back on wall beside the shattered mirror, fatigued and restless, I tried to regain my composure and separate my will to her to contemplate everything I had just heard.
Even with all those screaming and crashing, no one bothered to knock.
Was it because her room in this annex castle was too far from the others to hear?
Or were they just aware of the Princess' temperament?
Either way, I sorted out my thoughts, feeling the ragged breathing of the White Princess.
A promise of prosperity?
A promise of eternal life?
All in exchange for marrying Princess Yuridika?
No matter what era or world, it was straight-up the sound of a cult.
In the present era, outside of this vivid illusion, the Church of Abundance, those who worshipped the God of Harvest and Prosperity, was now a religious institution that mainly believed in 'hard work.'
"If you work hard and never give up, you will be prosperous."
But in this era possibly not recorded?
'That sounds ominous.'
My thoughts echoed.
However, what happened next caused every fiber of my body to run cold.
"What's ominous?"
Princess Yuridika, as though she had a split personality or psychosis, responded to my thoughts.