Villainess Level 99: I May Be the Hidden Boss but I’m Not the Demon Lord - Volume 6 - Chapter 2

Chapter 2: The Hidden Boss (Right Side) Awakens in Her Room

When I woke up, the room was dim. I peeked between the curtains to look outside and saw that there was a little bit of light, which meant that I’d probably woken up earlier than usual. It was before sunrise—right around the time that the eastern sky began to gradually grow brighter.

It was rare for me to wake up this early. The early morning was chilly since it was winter, but waking up naturally felt refreshing. I was in my bed in my room, and I sat up and stretched out both my arms... Huh?

“Is it asleep?” I’d tried to stretch my arms up, but my left hand just dangled by my side. It had no sensation either. Maybe my arm’s asleep because I slept in a weird position?

I tried massaging my left hand with my right, but...there really wasn’t any sensation in it. I couldn’t even move a single finger on my own, and my left hand was just letting my right do whatever to it.

It isn’t just asleep—it’s in deep sleep.

“Wow... Hey! Someone come here and look. It’s amazing!” I wanted to tell someone about my hibernating hand. The first person that came to mind was my beloved Patrick.

It’s really early, but I want to shake him awake and show him what’s going on.

I jumped out of bed to run to his room, but I lost my balance and fell to the ground. That’s weird—no, impossible. It’s unusual for my balance to be so unstable that I trip just because I’m in a hurry.

“It’s my leg too,” I said after inspecting my leg while still on the floor.

My left leg was incredibly asleep as well. I used my working hand to massage it, but there was no sensation at all. No wonder I lost balance and fell to the left.

After investigating my body with my working right hand, I found out that I had no sensation whatsoever on my left side, from the top of my head to the tip of my toes. While still in disbelief, I checked my eyes and found that I couldn’t see out of my left eye either. Half of my mouth wasn’t working either, so it was a little difficult to speak.

“Is this caused by...my brain?” This wasn’t the time to be joking about my falling asleep. I could’ve had a medical issue, like a stroke, while I was sleeping.

I should call an ambulance and... Wait. There aren’t any phones, and there aren’t hospitals that can check the blood vessels in my brain. That’s okay—that’s what handy-dandy recovery magic is for.

As long as they weren’t caused by bacteria, viruses, or your own immune system, recovery magic was effective against most symptoms. I used my plethora of mana to cast recovery magic over my whole body.

Now I should be good as new. I stood up, then fell towards the left. My symptoms on the left side of my body were still there—magic hadn’t worked.

I finally realized that I was facing an emergency.

“Somebody, help me!”

Rita, my maid, heard my SOS and came to save me. She’d been with me since I started living in the Academy dorms, and she was composed to the point that it wasn’t easy to fluster her. Even while seeing her lord on the floor, she seemed completely unfazed.

“Good morning, Lady Yumiella.”

“Morning.”

“Did you wake up by falling out of bed again? If your sleep habits don’t improve, you’ll face difficulties once you start sharing a bed with Sir Patrick.”

Despite the fact that I was on the floor with half of my body numb, my incredibly loyal servant didn’t seem worried at all. Yeah, maybe it’s nothing out of the ordinary for me to be flipped upside down on the floor in the morning, but I wished she would’ve noticed something was off through some special lord-servant connection. At this rate, she was going to ignore my crisis. I decided to properly ask for help.

“Help meee.”

“Of course, I’ll prepare your morning tea right away.”

Yeah, maybe it’s nothing out of the ordinary for me to say nonsensical things that are a waste of time to think about, but I wished she’d help me when I ask for help.

“Listen, Rita—this is serious.”

“You can’t use a giant cream puff as a pillow.”

“I’m not talking about the silly things I say while half asleep! Well, no, that one was serious.”

“What’s going on today?”

I was in a classic “boy who cried wolf” situation. I wanted to tell her about my symptoms, but Rita was giving me as much attention as someone insisting on a giant cream puff pillow. On that note, something was wrong with me that day, even if I’d just woken up. No matter how big it is, a cream puff could never be a pillow because of the shape.

“A jumbo éclair is more suited for a pillow, but the chocolate might turn my hair completely black,” I said.

“Yes, it might...”

“Oh, I guess my hair’s already black.”

“Well, I need to prepare tea, so—”

“Wait, wait! The left half of my body won’t move! I can’t use my arm or my leg, and I’m having trouble standing up!”

◆◆◆

After that, Rita reacted quickly. With the help of another maid, I was laid back in my bed. By then, Patrick had been informed of the situation and rushed over.

Soon after, a doctor visited as well. The result of his exam was that the cause of my symptoms was unknown. Damage to the brain and nerves were treatable with top-tier potions, so the fact that recovery magic didn’t work meant that something else was the issue.

In that case, it seemed like it could be a muscle issue, but the doctor had never heard of a case where only one side of someone’s body suddenly stopped working. My mind was working fine, and my right side was in picture-perfect health. As long as I hopped around on one leg, I could even get around on my own.

I could probably get back to my life, but I was told to keep resting for a bit. Under Patrick’s supervision, I was currently lying in bed.

“Things got blown out of proportion,” I said.

“It’s a big deal for your body to stop moving,” Patrick responded.

“It’s only half my body. Oh, I guess right now my right half is stronger.”

That’s right. I was thinking about something like that yesterday. Though my right and left sides had seemed equally strong, the results of their battle were now clear. Right Yumiella was victorious, and Left Yumiella was dead on arrival.

“Now’s not the time for that,” Patrick said. “We should go to the Royal Capital and see the well-known doctors there. I’m sure you’ll be able to move like before.”

“Exactly. My body will eventually move again. There’s no way that half a human’s body could die. My left side is just sleeping.”

Though we were both saying positive things, I could tell that we were both worried that I might stay like this forever. With just Patrick and me in the room, it was uncomfortably silent. The timing where our conversation had ended was awkward.

Just then, a cheery voice spoke up in the gloomy room. The owner of the voice appeared from where Patrick was standing, or more accurately, his shadow.

“Wooo! How are you doing, mister?! I’m doing great, since miss died!” Lemn, whom I hadn’t seen in a while, was ecstatic in a way I’d never seen before. His words were also disturbing.

“Miss died?” Which miss passed? Lemn never referred to people by their names, so it was difficult to tell whom he was talking about. I give my condolences to whoever it is.

With his spirits still high, Lemn turned to Patrick, who was stunned silent. “Now we can protect the order of the world! I mean, I’m grateful she took down the god of evil, but miss is much more dangerous than she is helpful. I thought it was all over when she sprouted wings that one time.” Lemn cackled, and Patrick still seemed confused.

I used just my right hand to sit myself up and tapped Lemn on the shoulder from behind. “What are you doing here all of a sudden? You usually don’t show yourself.”

“Hmm?” Lemn said, turning to me. “Oh, it’s you, miss. Like I said, I’m just glad that miss died... You’re alive?!” A tense expression washed over the god of darkness’s face as he stared at me.

It seemed that the “miss” he was talking about was me. I mean, yeah, I’m alive? Why did he think I’d died? Lemn began trying to poke me as if to confirm I wasn’t a ghost, which I blocked with my right hand.

“You’re really alive. Why?!”

“I want to know why you thought I’d died.”

“I was sure you were in the Kingdom of Twilight...” As he spoke, he trembled and continued to poke my right hand. After poking my hand several times, he tilted his head, confused. “Hmm. You’re definitely alive.”

“Why did you think I was dead? I haven’t been to this Kingdom of Twilight place either.”

“Maybe I made a mistake. Sorry for getting so excited over a misunderstanding.”

I’d rather you apologized for getting excited that I was dead, not making a mistake. I know that the foreign element of “Yumiella” is nothing but a nuisance to Lemn since he prioritizes world order over all, but he should hide his true feelings.

I was just exasperated, but Patrick seemed upset. Sensing the tension in the air, Lemn overtly tried to change the subject.

“What’s this? Why are you in bed, miss? Are you feeling unwell? That’s right, I came to check in on you.”

Lemn’s all too convenient excuse irritated me a bit, but I remembered my current situation. Perhaps he knew something about why only my left half wouldn’t move.

I choked down my anger and decided to tell him about the abnormality in my left side. I grabbed my limp left arm and let it dangle. “As you can see, when I woke up this morning, the left side of my body stopped moving.”

“Can I touch your left hand...?” Before I gave him permission, Lemn started poking my left hand. Unlike when he was touching my right hand earlier, I couldn’t feel his finger at all. His hands-on exam ended quickly, and the god just mumbled, “You’re dead.”

“Excuse me?”

“I see... Half of you must’ve gone to the Kingdom of Twilight...”

“What’s this Kingdom of Twilight you keep talking about...?”

Lemn fell silent for a bit, lost in thought, and he nodded to himself as if he were satisfied. I could tell that his misunderstanding that I was dead and my symptoms, though seemingly unrelated, had something to do with each other. But I didn’t know what this “Kingdom of Twilight” that kept popping up was. I wanted him to share what was going on if he’d figured it out, but Lemn’s serious look just turned into a smile.

“I don’t know either. Sorry I couldn’t be of more help. Bye!” he said all in one breath before turning towards Patrick’s shadow. Oh, he’s trying to run.

The powerless Lemn’s escape obviously wasn’t successful—Patrick had grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, keeping him from diving into the shadow. Not giving up, Lemn thrashed his limbs around to flee Patrick’s grasp, but he immediately ran out of breath and calmed down. He let out a sigh as he finally gave in.

Patrick began interrogating him, the god still hanging in the air by his scruff.

“Tell us what you know, Lemn.”

“Sure, where should I start?”

“Why did Yumiella’s body stop working?”

“Half of her body died. It was just half of her that’s in the Kingdom of Twilight.”

“The Kingdom of Twilight?” Patrick repeated. “Is that like the afterlife?”

“Nope. You need to die to go there, but it’s not the afterlife.”

What does that mean? If it’s somewhere dead people go, isn’t it the afterlife? Patrick shot me a look asking if I understood, but I had no clue so I shook my head.

“Are you saying nonsensical things to try and confuse us?” I asked.

“No, no. It doesn’t actually exist, but it definitely exists between this world and the afterlife...”

You could go after you died, but it wasn’t the afterlife, and it didn’t exist, but it did. Patrick and I just looked at each other after this clearly conflicting explanation.

Lemn continued his explanation, which just sounded like difficult philosophy. “It’s neither day nor night. The sun has set, but it’s bright. That’s why it’s the Kingdom of Twilight.”

“That I can understand...but what you said before makes no sense,” I said.

“If I had some paper, I could explain it better...”

“Are you just saying that so you can escape?” I asked.

“I won’t run. Now that I think about it, you can pull me out of the shadows, miss. I won’t waste my time.” After being freed from Patrick’s grasp, Lemn said, “I’m just grabbing something,” before he pulled out a sheet of paper from the shadow.

Weird that he already has a paper ready to explain this, I thought as I looked at it. I thought there would be some words or a drawing on it, but the piece of paper was quite simple. It was split down the middle, half of it white and half of it black.

What is he going to explain using this black-and-white paper? I listened intently as he began to speak.

“This white side is the world of the living. You can call it this world or the mortal world if you’d like. The black side is the afterlife.”

“Is that black part the Kingdom of Twilight?” I asked.

“Nope. That’s the afterlife. Even I don’t know what’s there. Relative to this paper, the Kingdom of Twilight is neither the white nor the black side.”

It’s neither the white nor black part of the two-toned sheet of paper? There was no gray gradation, and there were only two options on the paper: bright white or dark black—in other words, there was only life or death.

Patrick and I looked at each other again, still not understanding.

“You guys are so thickheaded,” Lemn said with a snicker. “Maybe this will make it easier.” He then traced the border where the white met the black and a red line appeared. The black-and-white paper now had a red line running through the middle, separating the black and white sides. A red sunset that was neither day nor night had appeared.

“So it’s this red part,” I said.

“Yup. This is the Kingdom of Twilight. It’s on the border between this world and the afterlife.” Huh. I didn’t know there was a place that was like being in the water of the River Styx.

So this red line is the Kingdom of Twilight, I mused as I reached out and traced the border between this world and the afterlife. As I did that, just the parts of the red line that my finger traced disappeared. It didn’t seem like I’d wiped away the ink with my finger.

“It’s nice, isn’t it?” Lemn proudly said as I stared at my clean fingertip. “I made this paper. Try tracing the parts that disappeared again.”

I did as he said and traced the lineless part of the border once more, and the red line appeared. Cool, this is fun. I touched the mysterious paper over and over again, playing with it.

“Is there a point to this gimmick?” Patrick asked. “Couldn’t you just leave the red line on it?”

That’s true. I was too busy playing with the paper to figure out why Lemn had made the paper this way, but he explained it right away.

“The concept is easier to understand with the red line, but the red line doesn’t actually exist. I’ll say it again—the part that is neither black nor white is the Kingdom of Twilight. You understand now, right?”

I recalled Lemn’s words from earlier.

“It doesn’t actually exist, but it definitely exists between this world and the afterlife...”

There weren’t any parts of the paper that weren’t black or white, but we could clearly see the line dividing the two sides. A line that was neither black nor white—a colorless line—with a width of zero did indeed exist.

“It looks like you got it,” Lemn said. “It’s on the border of this world and the afterlife, and its existence itself is unstable—that’s the Kingdom of Twilight.”

I wonder what kind of place it is. Though the equator was depicted as a red line on most maps, it wasn’t actually red—in the same vein, the Kingdom of Twilight probably wasn’t actually red. Since the name of the kingdom was probably referencing the border of life and death, it probably wasn’t always sunset like it suggested.

As I imagined what this place I’d never been to looked like, Patrick spoke up. “Am I correct to think that people go to the Kingdom of Twilight after dying?”

“Not everyone goes,” Lemn explained. “Only the people with strong regrets hang on and stay there. The world itself is unstable, so the residents’ human qualities also change shape.”

I can understand why people with strong regrets can’t fully die, but what does he mean that their qualities change? I decided to ask.

“Specifically what happens when the residents change shape?”

“This is just an example, but imagine there’s someone who lived a life of constant hard work and died from overworking themselves. If they regret not spending their last moments relaxing like a cat, those feelings could be reflected on them in the Kingdom of Twilight.”

“So they could relax like a cat? That sounds like heaven.”

“Nope. This guy’s a serious person at his core, so he’d become a middle-aged man sprouting cat ears who has no time to rest because he’s busy taking care of everyone around him.”

That sounds like hell, not heaven. I guess the main part is that he wanted to relax, but only the cat part of his wish was granted. Though his example was horrid, I understood. It seemed that their regrets in this world would change their bodies.

I don’t think that was an example you give while grinning like that... It was an example, right? There’s no sad middle-aged catboy who wouldn’t make anyone happy, right? I considered checking with him, but if it was true, I would only be sadder, so I kept my question to myself.

“What happens to the changed residents there?”

Lemn tapped on the black side of the paper. “Once they’re satisfied, they go here.”

“Aren’t there some people who can’t resolve their regrets?”

“They will disappear on their own after some time. I think it usually takes a hundred years. I only know of one person who’s stayed for longer than that.”

There were surely plenty of regrets that wouldn’t go away, even if you could transform in the Kingdom of Twilight. The way Lemn described such regrets as disappearing on their own displayed his lack of interest in individual humans.

Though it was a vague explanation, we now understood what the Kingdom of Twilight was. Still, this was only a preamble to the main topic. There was this world that was neither heaven nor hell, and the fact that the left side of my body wasn’t working. At first glance, these two things seemed completely unrelated, but the fact that one had something to do with the other brought only one answer to mind.

When Lemn touched my left side, he’d clearly said that I was dead.

“So half of me is...”

“That’s right. Just your left half died and went to the Kingdom of Twilight.”