Descending Into A Novel

Chapter 191: 191:Ellen’s Craze

The two of them took a seat in a private cafe booth, fully covering them from all sides. Complete with soundproofing and other features for true privacy.

Ellen sat opposite him, her gaze as still as it had been for the past few hours. Forcing him to avert his eyes to analyze every single tile on the floor instead.

With their classes starting soon, the two had briefly delayed this conversation until now. Which lead to a bit of an awkward situation in class, with Raymond’s head spinning as he thought of ways to try and escape or bluff his way out.

"Raymond. If you lie, or fabricate any falsehoods. I will know."

"How did you even know what I was thinking?"

"Trade secret."

Said trade secret was naturally a combination of her ’Raymond sense’, her emotion Arts from Killian, basic deductive skills and knowledge of Raymond as a person.

"Can I at least get a plea deal?"

"I’ll think about it depending on the severity of your crimes."

He sighed, but not before ordering a salted caramel frappe from the menu and putting it on Ellen’s tab. If he was going to die, Ellen should at least be the one to pay for it.

After taking a sip of it, he let out another sigh of resignation this time.

"In my novel...with Zachary as the protagonist. I made it into a romance novel. Since romance is basically a requirement for a novel to be popular on Earth."

"...who was Zachary’s love interest then?"

"Noelle."

"I see."

Ellen let out a breath of relief, smiling. All the tension in the room abruptly disappearing. Returning a sense of calm to Raymond.

Only for it to immediately disappear once again.

Her eyes glinted with a dangerous light, "Raymond. Lying by omission is a serious offense you know?"

"..."

All of a sudden, her smile seemed a lot more scarier then before. Her multicolored eyes staring right into his soul. Speaking slowly so that he could hear every single word clearly.

"Well. Aren’t you going to say it?"

"...it’s a harem romance."

"Go on."

"...with Noelle, Lin Qingyi, Audrina, Lucy, Amanda and...y-you."

BANG!

Ellen slammed her fist into the table, causing Raymond to let out a quiet scream as he jumped back. His salted caramel frappe falling over and spilling onto the floor.

<anno data-annotation-id="246c181f-a6a0-48ce-9be9-a6648282c7f9" data-title=""W-wait! I can explain it please! It was my first novel! And I wanted it to be popular so I had to make it into a harem! True romance novels are dead in this day and age! They don’t even exist anymore! Only harem academy slop with cool protagonists make money, and I was desperate!"">"W-wait! I can explain it please! It was my first novel! And I wanted it to be popular so I had to make it into a harem! True romance novels are dead in this day and age! They don’t even exist anymore! Only harem academy slop with cool protagonists make money, and I was desperate!"¹</anno>

"Don’t worry...I’m not mad."

As she said that, she casually picked up one of the metal utensils prepared for them and prooceded to crush it into something the size of a marble in one hand. All the while maintaining perfect eye contact with him.

No, you definitely seem mad!

"Who was first?"

"...Noelle."

She crushed another metal fork in her hand, for a moment. Raymond almost saw steam come out from her mouth like some sort of cartoon demon. It would have actually been really funny if he wasn’t about to be on the receiving end of her wrath.

She asked,"What else?"

"T-there’s nothing else."

"What else?"

"There’s really nothing else!"

Actually, there was still plenty more! Loads more! Enough to fill books!

But Raymond deeply valued his own comfort, and he knew for a fact that saying things like ’For my novel, I made your personality into a tsundere’ was a big mistake and was guaranteed to bring at least minor chaos for the next month. (Not that she would actually know what the word tsundere means, but still!)

She shook her head, releasing her hand. A small shower of metal rained down onto the table.

"Erin is waiting for us at home. I’ll pay."

"...eh?"

He tilted his head at her nonchalance, following her to the counter as she apologized for the damage and mess caused. All the way as they walked back to their dorms, she didn’t utter a single word to him. As if nothing had happened and everything was normal again.

Upon seeing Erin, she smiled. Picking her up and playing with her as usual.

Erin looked past her shoulder at Raymond, "Why does dad look so scared?"

"He might have done something wrong. But I’m not sure, why don’t you ask him?"

She turned and smiled at him, sending a shiver down his spine.

"...who knows?"

"Haha, who knows indeed?"

’Someone please save me!’

Raymond desperately pleaded for someone, anyone to come save him. But it was futile.

By the time, the three of them crawled into bed and got ready to sleep. Raymond didn’t even dare to open his phone and scroll through it like usual, staying awake until past midnight. Not knowing how the demon he shared a bed with might react.

So he just desperately closed his eyes and tried to fall asleep as well, with Erin as a barrier in between them. He should be able to wake up on time before she could do anything.

.

.

.

Mmph!

Just as he was about to drift off into sleep, Raymond felt a hand over his mouth. Muffling any sound he made.

His eyes snapped open, the first thing that he saw being Ellen’s eyes as she looked back at him.

Trying to move his arms, he found them pinned against the bed by her hand. Despite struggling and trying to worm his way out of her grasp. Her hold didn’t even waver in the slightest bit.

"...don’t worry. I won’t do anything to you...today."

Mmph—!

Her golden hair fell down freely, partially obscuring her face. Despite his struggling, her expression was eerily calm. As if he was nothing more then a worm.

"So. I will wait."

"When I finally decide it’s time. You will learn why storms are named after women. I won’t even need to touch your body. Simply raising my hand will be enough to make you flinch."

"For the first week, you are going to check every corner, look under every piece of furniture, scan every face in the crowd. You are going to experience paranoia so intense, you can never sleep peacefully. The anticipation will seep into your very bones."

Because she knew. There was no need to rush at all.

Her previous life had given her plenty of experience dealing with emotions. So she thought of herself as quite the capable psychologist with all the practical experience she had.

There was a certain...elegance in letting the silence do the talking. Letting Raymond’s mind conjure up images to frighten himself. Stumbling over every possibility, filling in the gaps far better then anything she could actually do.

"After a few months, you are going to forget all about this. Your mind will completely erase this memory from your head. Only when I bring it up will you remember. Only then will your fears resurface."

Raymond might glance over his shoulder every so often, trying his hardest to listen to something that wasn’t there.

"You will never mention a single word of this to anyone ever, do you understand?"

Her eyes glimmered, activating her innate power.

When she had first met Raymond, his weaknesses had been small. Almost imperceptible and nearly impossible to actually target practically. Even in her peak as the World Crossing Arrow, she doubted that she could actually achieve more then a minor injury against him. A wound he could easily shrug off like nothing.

But now, over the past years. The single dot of blue had quietly expanded day after day. It was hard to observe, but after several months. The differences were huge. There were even multiple spots of blue now. Indicating he had multiple weaknesses.

She leaned into his neck, putting her mouth on one of these blue spots and quietly nibbling it.

"Good night, Raymond."

***

"...I think I’m going crazy."

Arthur turned his head to look at Raymond, who was staring at the sky with a dazed look on his face. Quietly rubbing a certain spot on his neck over and over again.

Every once in a while, when his fingers parted. Arthur could spot a suspiciously red mark at the rubbed area.

Thomas, worried for him, quietly warned him. "If you keep looking at the sky, you might damage your eyes."

"...maybe it’s better for me to just go blind."

"What in the world could this possibly be about?!"

Arthur considered himself and Raymond to be the most normal ones within their group, which was why seeing him act like this was extremely distressing!

If Raymond went crazy like the rest, Arthur really wouldn’t be able to handle it anymore.

What if he started saying scary stuff like ’let’s spar?’ or even the dreaded ’Let’s not skip class today’

Then Arthur would truly be alone again!

He snapped his fingers in front of his face, "Raymond, snap out of it man!"

"How in the world am I supposed to snap out of it?!"

"First of all, tell us what happened first!"

"...sorry but no."

Raymond put his head into his knees and deeply exhaled, almost as if bracing for something. The sight of which deeply concerned the other three of them.

"Do you want to spar to help distract your mind?"

While Zachary’s offer would have usually been declined out of laziness, and he had mainly just done it to show his concern. The most alarming part was that he actually accepted!

"Sure...Thomas, do you also want to join? It’s a bit unfair since I’m a rank above you after all."

He nodded, "I’ll join, I’ve been meaning to practice defending against magic."

In the end, Arthur was the only one left behind. His expression frozen into that of shock.

Raymond...willingly accepting a spar?

Something was seriously wrong!

<annotations style="display: none;">true story? </annotations>

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