Succubus World - Start with Incubus System
Chapter 46: It should have been meThe moment the car stopped in front of the hotel, Saraya had already thrown the door open and stepped out.
She didn’t wait for a handmaiden to lead the way. Her high heels struck hard against the stone floor, her golden hair tangled behind her back. The people standing in the main lobby recognized her and hurried to clear out of her path. No one dared ask why an S rank Succubus had appeared with a bloodless face and bloodshot eyes.
Saraya went straight up to the top floor, shoved open the door to the room Vylana had prepared, and slammed it shut behind her.
Bang!
The door shuddered in its frame. She leaned back against it, her chest heaving, both hands still ice-cold.
The room was spacious and luxurious. On the table sat wine, fresh flowers, and dinner being kept warm. The handmaidens had changed the bedding, drawn the curtains, and even drawn a bath. Everything was perfect, but in Saraya’s eyes, all of it only made the room feel more foreign.
This place didn’t smell like Erik’s cooking.
There was no worn jacket he always hung by the door.
And there was no one who would hear her come home and step out to ask if she was tired.
Saraya gripped her phone tightly. The screen was still frozen on the image of Erik down on one knee before Elowen.
She shut the screen off immediately.
Two seconds later, her trembling finger opened the video again.
Erik’s voice carried through the silent room.
[The person I want by my side is Elowen.]
[Just you.]
"Shut up..."
Saraya gritted her teeth and hurled the phone at the wall.
Crack!
The screen split into a web of fractures and dropped onto the carpet. The video kept playing. Erik raised the ring, and Elowen covered her mouth as she wept.
[Be my wife.]
"Shut up!"
Saraya snatched the vase off the table and threw it straight toward the sound.
Crash!
Glass exploded. Water and white petals scattered across the carpet. The phone was knocked further away, but the reporter’s voice still rang out in broken fragments.
[Lord Erik has just taken the initiative to propose to his Succubus Partner...]
The mana inside Saraya’s body erupted.
She flipped the table in front of her, sending it slamming into the wall where it broke in half. Red wine spilled across the floor. Plates shattered, sauce splattering onto her dress and her pale legs, but she didn’t care.
"Erik is mine!"
Her scream made the window glass tremble.
Saraya panted, grabbing anything within reach and flinging it away. A table lamp, a chair, decorative statuettes, all crashing into the wall one after another. The sound of breaking objects rang out again and again through the room.
"He lived with me for three months! He cooked for me, earned money for me, took care of me!"
A chair went flying into the wine cabinet. The entire glass front burst apart.
"He loves me!"
Saraya stood amid the wreckage, tears streaming down while her face remained twisted with rage.
"How could he hold another woman? How could he kneel in front of her?"
The image of the ring on Elowen’s finger kept surfacing in her mind. Then came the look in Erik’s eyes as he gazed at her. Gentle, patient, and overflowing with love.
That look had once been directed at Saraya.
Or at least, that was what she had always believed.
"It should have been me!" Saraya clutched at her hair, screaming until her voice went hoarse. "The one standing there should have been me! Not that D rank bitch!"
But the instant those words left her mouth, another memory surfaced.
Three months ago, Erik stood before her holding a trial Contract. He asked whether she wanted to give the two of them a chance.
Saraya hadn’t even read it through.
She had thrown the paper onto the table and coldly told him he wasn’t qualified.
Another scene followed right after.
Erik sitting outside her bedroom door all night long when her hunger drove her past control. The next morning, he still got up early to prepare her meal, and all she did was complain that the soup was too bland.
Then came the day Erik informed her the Rebate process had been completed.
He asked her one last time:
"Are you sure?"
Saraya remembered exactly how she had answered.
"I never wanted you."
Her legs went weak. Saraya braced a hand against the bed frame, shaking her head over and over.
"That’s not how it is."
She didn’t want to remember any of it. She couldn’t be the one in the wrong.
Elowen had appeared at far too convenient a moment. That woman had taken advantage of Erik while he was hurting to steal him away.
"He’s just angry with me." Saraya told herself, as though trying to force the words into truth. "Erik only proposed to her to get back at me. He wants me to regret it."
A twisted smile appeared on her lips.
"Yes. That has to be it."
Saraya crawled across the broken glass and picked up the phone. The screen was shattered but still working. She found Erik’s number and hit call.
No connection.
She called again.
Same result.
By the fifth attempt, a notification appeared informing her that the recipient wasn’t accepting calls from this number.
Saraya stood motionless.
He had blocked her.
Erik, the man who once waited outside her room all night just because he heard her cough, no longer wanted to hear her voice.
Saraya thought back on the three months they lived together. In all that time, Erik had never once let a call from her go unanswered. Even in the middle of work, he would pick up and ask what she needed. There was one time Saraya called in the dead of night simply because she couldn’t find her emergency blood vials. Erik had run halfway across the city to get back to her, drenched in sweat, and the first thing out of his mouth was still asking whether she was uncomfortable.
Back then, Saraya only scolded him for being too slow.
She had never thanked him.
Now all Elowen had to do was shed a single tear and Erik was reaching out to wipe it away. He had even knelt before her, offering the ring and the promise of his own accord, things Saraya had never imagined she could lose.
The regret had barely surfaced before her anger crushed it back down. Saraya couldn’t admit that she had traded all of it away with her own hands for an empty room.
"This can’t be..."
Her fingers clenched around the phone until they went white. Her S rank mana spilled out of control, pressing the air in the room down heavy. Small cracks spread across the wall in front of her.
Saraya screamed and hurled the phone to the floor, then stomped on it again and again.
"I won’t allow it!"
Crack!
The screen crumbled beneath her heel.
"You belong to me!"
Crack!
"I never gave you permission to marry another woman!"
Outside the room, the handmaidens pressed themselves flat against the wall. No one dared step near the door. Every time Saraya smashed something, the mana leaking through the gaps in the doorframe drained a little more color from their faces.
One handmaiden asked in a shaking voice:
"Should we notify Lady Laviana?"
"No need."
A calm voice rang out from the end of the hallway.
Vylana came walking slowly toward them. Her red hair hung loose over her shoulders, and she still wore the black dress that hugged her figure. She looked at the shuddering door, then raised a hand signaling everyone to step back.
"I’ll handle it."
The handmaidens quickly bowed and left. Only two guards remained at the head of the hallway.
Vylana leaned back against the wall, folded her arms across her chest, and quietly listened.
Inside, Saraya was still cursing Elowen. She said Erik had been seduced, said he didn’t understand what he was doing, said a D rank Succubus wasn’t worthy of standing beside him.
There had once been a trace of guilt in Vylana’s heart.
She was the one who had belittled Erik in front of Saraya so many times. She wanted Saraya to delay signing the Contract so she’d have an opening to step in. Back then, Erik in her eyes had also been nothing more than a good opportunity no one else had noticed yet.
But after watching him kneel to propose to Elowen, that way of thinking had changed.
Vylana no longer wanted just Erik’s care.
She wanted him to look at her that way someday too. She wanted to be chosen by him, not to snatch him away while someone else was careless.
Saraya, on the other hand, still didn’t understand.
Even now, she felt no remorse for having hurt Erik. She was only furious that what she’d thrown away was being cherished by someone else.
To Saraya, Erik was still property.
Not a person who could feel pain, feel exhaustion, and have the right to choose who he loved.
Vylana listened a while longer, and the last trace of guilt in her eyes finally vanished.
She tilted her head toward the door.
"Idiot."
Everything inside suddenly went quiet.
Vylana didn’t wait for Saraya to respond. She pushed off the wall, turned, and walked away.
As she passed the two guards, she stopped.
"Keep watch on that room. Don’t let her hurt any of the servants."
One guard bowed his head.
"And if Miss Saraya wants to leave?"
Vylana’s gaze turned cold.
"If she intends to go to Erik or Elowen, notify me and my mother immediately."
"Yes, ma’am."
The sound of Vylana’s heels faded down the hallway.
The phone in her hand buzzed. Laviana had sent only a short question.
[How is it?]
Vylana glanced back at the door, then replied:
[She still believes Erik belongs to her.]
Laviana’s message came back very quickly.
[An S rank Succubus backed into a corner is extremely dangerous. Don’t underestimate her.]
Vylana understood the warning. Saraya might be an idiot, but that didn’t make her strength disappear. If her regret turned into hatred toward Elowen, she was entirely capable of causing something that couldn’t be undone.
[I’ve already posted guards at the door.]
Vylana paused, then added:
[I won’t let her get anywhere near Erik.]
This time it wasn’t only about her plan to approach him. Vylana didn’t want the sincerity Erik gave to others ruined by someone who only knew how to possess.
Inside the room, Saraya stood among the wreckage. That one word she’d just heard kept echoing in her head.
Idiot.
Even Vylana was laughing at her now.
Saraya looked down at the phone she’d crushed underfoot. Most of the screen had gone dark, with only a small corner still lit. Through the sprawling cracks, Erik’s face appeared beside Elowen’s.
A shard of glass had lodged itself in the sole of Saraya’s foot. Blood seeped into the carpet, but she felt no pain.
She knelt down, picked up the phone, and clutched it tight against her chest.
Tears fell without stopping. Yet the corners of Saraya’s lips slowly curled upward.
"You’re just angry with me, Erik."
Her voice was thick and hoarse in the ruined room.
"I’ll bring you back."
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