房客(糙汉)何璐程曜坤

Zoemi walked Yuusha home but didn't go back to his own place. Instead, he started wandering around – constantly using the law of Pisces.

He could get experience the feeling of getting submerged in the water pretty consistently but he was unable to recreate the dimension shift.

Back then, the feeling of breaking through the surface of the water must have been him passing through the astral planes.

"...this is so messed up..."

After trying and failing to activate the side effect of the law of Pisces Zoemi sent out his astral projection to scan the area.

He did that simply to not waste his spiritual energy as he no longer wished to find Miriette.

Why?

Because even if he found a girl like Miriette, it would be the exact same thing as with Yuusha, the Burushi-like girl.

It would not be the person that he cared about – a complete stranger that only resembles his most important person. An actual delusion.

Zoemi spent hours just walking, not bothering himself with his surroundings or the people he passed until it finally got dark and he found himself in the part of the city that he had never been before.

...although considering that he crossed dimensions it wasn't something surprising...

"...Pisces..."

Zoemi found himself in the back of a convenience store trying to force his consciousness to cross over back to the timeline that he belonged to.

The experience of being submerged in the water returned and...

…that was it... no falling into himself, no breaking through the surface of the water...

Greatly disappointed, the black-haired boy breathed out sending out his astral projection to scan the area while turning around to be on his way back.

Then...

[...eh...?]

"...?!"

His astral projection encountered something completely unexpected...! It was NOTICED by something and a confused gasp of that something was transferred back to the utterly shocked boy.

*THUMP* *WHOOOSH*

The next moment Zoemi was already running through the back alleys and fences to get straight to the location of that being...

BECAUSE HE RECOGNIZED IT!

Or rather, he recognized HER.

At one point he stopped carrying about being seen performing superhuman feats and dashed over houses kicking the thin air as if it was full of solid platforms.

The next thing he know he was clinging standing on a balcony of a high-security upper-echelon apartment complex glaring at the metal shutters blocking the window and door to the room.

*clang* *clang*

Zoemi slowly raised his trembling hand and knocked on the doorframe and waited while biting his lips, so tense that his body was shaken with spasms of nervousness.

Seconds turned into minutes but there was no reaction, but even so, the black-haired boy did not knock again nor did he try calling out loud for the being inside to hurry up and let him in.

With his senses enhanced by the law of Sagittarius, he could hear that the being that had no right of living in the dimension he crossed by accident was standing right in front of him with the glass door and the shutters in between them.

He heard her heartbeat and it was as fast as his.

That meant that she was as confused and distraught as he was.

A random car passed by the building and Zoemi's shadow rushed across the balcony, but the boy didn't even budge.

Then, finally...

*click*

The balcony door opened ajar and Zoemi met face-in-face with a girl only slightly shorter than him, wearing a bear onesie with a hood pulled over her face.

She was keeping her head low while clenching a black teddy bear and she was trembling.

"...Presence... what are you doing here...?"

"...!"

Zoemi asked causing the girl to tense up and turn her head away as if too ashamed to even look in his direction.

"Princess Miriette Aperaete Bellcephora. I am asking you, what are you doing in this world?"

"!!!"

The black-haired boy asked again and the girl wearing the bear onesie flinched hugging her teddy bear so hard as if it was her last lifeline.

Seconds passed and neither of the two said anything else nor moved even an inch.

"...no... why are YOU here...? You are not my Zoemi. How did you manage to even get to this world...?"

The patient approach worked out in the end and the girl spoke up first.

She wasn't scared but she was definitely shaken, as she looked p at the black-haired boy, her chin trembled as if she was on the verge of crying.

"By accident. I wanted to show off my control over water and used the high level law of Pisces throwing myself into this world. I actually thought that this was a new timeline, again."

Zoemi sighed lightly shrugging his shoulders.

"Lies...why are you even talking about timelines? You should not remember any timeline besides the one that I left. My protector died and even though you share his name, you don't share the connection with me... That means that you are lying about you finding me in this world by accident."

Presence, the closest being to god that the world of magic had, said glaring at Zoemi with her big platinum eyes.

Presence, she... looked like a doll. Too beautiful to be a real human – probably because she was no longer a human even though she was currently attempting to once again live like one.

She looked similar to the Miriette that Zoemi knew and loved but had a lot of subtle features that set the two of them apart.

"No, I am honest, I am here because..."

"Don't tell me that you want revenge? I left my original world behind and erased every trace of my interference..."

Zoemi wanted to correct the mistaken assumption that Presence was making but the girl started trembling even more and lowered her gaze before speaking up in a hurry.

"Your Miriette managed to exist for a few months and then she disappeared, so you set made it your life goal to find me and either punish me or force me to get her back! That's why you're here!"

Presence declared suddenly raising her head up so fast that the hood fell off her head revealing shoulder-long platinum hair.

"...wh-what...?"

Zoemi was so baffled by her words that he took a step back and asked feeling even more shocked and confused than the time he woke up in another dimension.

"I finally managed to get rid of that.... that beast that... that hurt me... and you still decided to pursue me as...! I want to just move on...! Why can't you do the same!?"

Presence trembled and called out as her voice broke down from all the emotions she must have been holding back.

She didn't intend to cry, but the tears started flowing down her face regardless.

"...what... what are you talking about...?"

"You know full well! Your Miriette whom I created as the daughter of the Espine family stopped existing because of me phasing out my presence from that world!"

Zoemi gasped feeling utterly and completely lost while Presence stepped forward and cried furiously at him.

"No! What the hell are you even talking about?! Miriette didn't disappear at all! In the initial timeline, she was definitely still alive two years after I fought with that filth Cherro, and she was not only alive but even regained her memories from that very timeline in the next timeline after Cherro possessed Bellcephora and she reset everything!"

The black-haired boy shook his head and declared, leaning forward and looking into Presence's eyes.

"...eh...? N-no... No! That is impossible! I DESTROYED that beast...! I ERASED HIM right in front of Guide! I did! Right before I reincarnated myself into this world! HE IS DEAD!"

*thump*

Presence gasped shaking her head in panic as all blood seemed to drain away from her face... she screamed and backed off so fast that she fell on her butt and started crawling away from Zoemi unable to control herself.

While Zoemi was focused on Miriette, Presence's attention was instantly swept toward the accursed Cherro.

"...?!"

"NOOOO! HE IS DEAD! HE CAN'T REACH ME HERE! HE CAN'T! HE CAAAAAAAAAN'T!"

Zoemi froze up witnessing as the platinum-haired girl crawled back into the room until she hit her back against the wall while having one of the scariest panic attacks that Zoemi ever heard of.

But that wasn't all – while curled into a fetal position clinging to her teddy bear or her dear life, Presence's physical body... shrunk...

In the span of a few seconds, the platinum girl that looked to be Zoemi's age became a child in a far too big a bear onesie.

"I MOVED PASSED IT! HE CAN'T HURT ME ANYMORE BECAUSE HE DOESN'T EXIST! HE CAN'T!"

Presence cried hysterically with tears streaming down her face, biting her lips so hard she drew blood and clenching her teddy bear so hard she was tearing it to shreds.

"HE...!"

"!!!"

The girl howled but then she suddenly stopped and broke into a seizure Zoemi wanted to rush to help her but stopped mid-step.

Even though Presence was the only being beside Zoemi in the room only a second before, now it wasn't the case anymore...

Deep within her in a place where all magicians had their mana heart a filthy aura condensed out of nowhere and began growing.

Moments later the darkness crept its way outside in form of a silky-black shadow.

"My Miriette...! My sweet little Miriette...! Did you think that you can get away from me? My sweet Miriette~! You are mine~! You belong to me~! No one will ever believe you, no one will ever save you~ You are mine and mine alone~!"

"...!"

A disgusting whisper full of lust and the filthiest desires resounded from the shadow that towered over the helpless child too scared to call for help and too miserable to cry.