I Possessed The Worst Character In The Hellish Game

(Author: I was working on the lore and decided to make changes in "Chapter 44: The Arrival of the Saintess [2]." Sorry about that! You can re-read it.)

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Mikael slowly woke up, his consciousness surfacing from a deep slumber.

His body felt unusually heavy from all the exhaustion.

For a long moment, he simply lay on the soft mattress of his bed, staring at the beautiful, ornate ceiling above him as his mind tried to remember where he was.

The ceiling looked unfamiliar-- painted with delicate murals of clouds, birds, and golden light rendered in soft, fading colors.

A crystal chandelier hung overhead, its enchanted flames dimming in a soft glow.

The bed beneath him was impossibly comfortable as the mattress cradled his aching body in a way that made him reluctant to move.

’Right.’

He was in the royal palace.

After Jeanne and Queen Lavania arrived at the infirmary, everything became a blur of formal gratitude and concerned questions.

The Queen had thanked him with tears in her eyes as her composure cracked enough to reveal the terror she’d felt upon hearing that her youngest daughter had been in danger.

She had insisted--gently but firmly--that he stay the night, that there was no reason for him to travel back to an inn when the palace had more than enough room to accommodate him.

To which he agreed.

Jeanne, however, had been.... less gentle.

She wanted answers that he could see behind her emerald eyes.

Why had he gone out alone? What had he been doing in the garden? How had he ended up fighting an aberration alongside the princess?

He had told her the simplest version of the truth he could manage--that he’d wanted fresh air.... that he’d coincidentally encountered Alice getting attacked by the aberration and things had escalated from there.

He could sense that she wanted to ask more questions, but she decided to hold them back, probably because the Queen and both princesses were still in the room, or because she noticed how exhausted he looked.

The look she had given him before leaving was that this conversation was far from over.

He would have to deal with her later.

Mikael let out a slow breath and stared at the ceiling, letting his mind drift back over the events of the past two days.

Technically, he hadn’t slept since the transmigration.... at least not properly.

It felt impossible that only forty-eight hours had passed since he’d woken up in this world.

The carriage ride to Mournwood, Thomas’s transformation, the desperate fight in the forest, killing a man for the first time, the trial inside Liren’s memories--three years compressed into what had apparently been a single moment.

The red-eyed entity that had tried to erase him from existence, Mr. Dyre’s death at his doorstep, The Order of Veil’s investigation, the banquet, and the aberration in the garden.

The explosion that had nearly killed him.

All this just in two days.

It was too much for any sane person to process.

He closed his eyes and let out a shaky breath.

But there was still a question that had been nagging at the back of his mind.

What was the purpose of the attack? What were they trying to achieve? What was the endgame?

There were too many questions.

{Mikael.... There’s someone else in the room}

Liren’s voice surfaced in his mind, filled with urgency.

Mikael’s eyes snapped open, and he was no longer groggy as his heart hammered against his chest.

The lingering drowsiness he had vanished in an instant, replaced by the cold, familiar rush of adrenaline.

He forced himself to stay still and slowly turned his head to the left.

There.....

In a chair positioned in the corner of the room before the window, sat an old man with long grey hair and a thick grey beard that reached nearly to his chest, wearing a simple mage’s robe of deep blue, unadorned except for silver embroidery along the cuffs.

His legs were crossed at the knee, and one hand was raised to his chin, slowly stroking his beard as he watched Mikael with his blood red eyes.

He was Headmaster Nicholas Hughes.

The Tier 9 Monarch and one of the oldest active human awakeners in all of Aetheris.

"Oh." Nicholas raised his bushy eyebrow in surprise. "Wasn’t expecting you to notice me this quickly. You’re quite perceptive."

Mikael felt a chill run down his spine.

’Oh hell nah. That’s.... that’s seriously creepy, old man. What were you trying to do, sitting there staring at a sleeping guy like some kind of pervert? On Earth, you’d get arrested for pulling this shit.’

"Hey." the old man said. "It’s seriously rude to call an old man creepy. And for the record, I just arrived. here."

Mikael’s eyes widened by a fraction.

’I-is he a psychic?’

He didn’t remember him having this kind of ability.

"No, I can’t read minds." Nicholas said, as if Mikael had spoken the words aloud. "

"You just made a very strange, disgusted face just now. It wasn’t hard to guess what you were thinking."

"Oh."

Mikael blinked.

That did make more sense.

Perhaps because he was still sleepy, he wasn’t able to maintain his usual poker face.

"Sorry."

"No need to apologize." Nicholas waved a hand dismissively. "I’ve been called worse by better men. And better by worse men too, now that I think about it."

The old man’s lips twitched in what might have been amusement, but his red eyes never left Mikael’s face.

There was something unsettling about his gaze, almost as if he could see straight through him and examine whatever lay beneath the surface.

Mikael pushed himself up into a sitting position, wincing as his wounds protested from the movement.

The blanket pooled around his waist, revealing the bandages wrapped around his torso.

"What are you doing here, Headmaster?"

Mikael asked in a neutral voice.

"Oh, so you know who I am?"

Nicholas tilted his head as his expression flickered with something that looked like genuine curiosity.

"I would have to be an idiot not to know who Nicholas Hughes is."

"Haha. Right, right." The old man stroked his beard with obvious satisfaction as his eyes crinkled at the corners. "It’s good to know that my reputation still precedes me. Sometimes I worry that the young people these days have forgotten who I am."

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