C111: The Monarch…really exists?

Izzy opened her eyes, or rather, the awareness that served as her sight.

The first thing she perceived was how utterly disorganized the attic room had become. The familiar rows of trunks and furniture seemed to lean at impossible angles, their outlines blurred and shimmering in the fading light.

“What is this?”

The entire attic appeared distorted, twisted like a vortex. The straight lines of the rafters were now curved. The wooden beams bent strangely. The furniture seemed to stretch and contract as if breathing.

Her vision swayed. A wave of nausea creeped into her consciousness.

‘Ugh… even a painting can suffer from nausea…?’ Izzy grimaced, her metaphorical stomach churning with every pulse of the distorted room.

As she focused her will, she realized this disorganized vision was merely a symptom of her own psychic vertigo.

This strange distortion was simply her own disorientation. Her consciousness had not fully stabilized yet, and the world looked warped because of it.

“Isa?” Izzy immediately withdrew into her mindscape to check on her younger mind.

The crimson theatre dissolved around her awareness as she redirected herself toward the inner park where Isa usually lingered.

“Hmmm.”

She found her quickly.

“Uhhh…” Isa was there, hunched over and clutching her head in the middle of the cloud-white ground. Her small body was curled slightly on the grass beside the swings.

‘Still safe,’ Izzy noted with a surge of relief.

The girl was still kicking; it seemed Isa had simply lost consciousness right there in the park.

‘What happened to us?’ Izzy frowned.

Her thoughts felt sluggish.

Izzy’s mind still wasn't functioning with its usual precision. Her memories were scattered like autumn leaves in a gale. Nothing aligned properly. Images overlapped and slipped away whenever she tried to focus.

A sharp headache pulsed through her skull.

‘Ugh.’

Leaving Isa to recover, Izzy returned to the Theatre of Memory.

She needed answers, and the stage was the only place to find them. She sat upon the velvet chair and commanded the curtains to open.

She began searching through her own memories.

“Right… I remember now. We were infiltrating the church.”

She replayed the sequence.

Mary baited Victor away.

Arnold entered the church.

The hidden stairway opened behind the statue.

Descending into the underground study.

‘How much time has passed?’ Izzy wondered.

Izzy extended her Field Vision outward into the real world.

The sky through the attic window was an orange light, the last remnants of golden light.

‘Still dusk.’ She tilted her head slightly.

If it was still dusk, then they had only been out for a matter of minutes.

Confusion spread across her mind.

‘How did we lose consciousness?’

She commanded the Theatre to replay the events, leaning forward in her seat as the heavy curtains parted.

The stage flickered, as the scenes slowly appeared.

“...?” However, the play remained empty.

“It is empty?”

The entire sequence after Arnold ran into that second secret chamber, the one hidden behind the curtains in the study room simply did not exist.

“What…?” Izzy leaned forward.

Why was it missing?

Why was her own memory refusing to manifest?

Izzy closed her eyes and reached into the book of Memory, the one that was located deep inside the Theatre, serving as a script for the whole theatre.

Since she did not have much use of this black book, she did not use it so often, besides only to recall the secrets that the Theatre refused to play.

“The missing part of my memories.”

Izzy commanded the book, trying to force the recollection to surface.

–!!--

Suddenly, a jolt of pain slammed into her mind.

“!”

The entire Theatre exploded with red light!

The walls, the stage, the air turned the color of fresh blood. A wave of intense nausea and an overwhelming sense of primal repulsion crept up into her chest, threatening to drown her.

‘Uuggff!’

Izzy jolted upright in her chair.

‘W-what?!’

*RUMBLE—*

*RUMBLE—*

An intense rumble began to shake the mindscape.

The entire theatre began shaking violently. The velvet curtains trembled. The tremors intensified, the very foundations of the Theatre groaning under some unseen pressure.

Bricks loosened from the walls and dust began to rain down from the vaulted ceiling, coating the velvet seats in a layer of grime.

Cracks spread across the stage floor as if the building itself were being torn apart from within.

‘I-Izzy!’ Isa’s frightened voice wailed from the distance.

‘W-wait!’

Izzy grabbed the armrests of her velvet chair, trying to stabilize herself as the entire structure shuddered around her.

She looked around frantically, the world of her mind literalizing her internal chaos. The red light was blinding, screaming of danger.

“Dismiss! Dismiss!”

She waved her hand toward the stage with desperation.

The command echoed through the mindscape.

Slowly, the violent earthquake calmed down. The cracks in the walls receded, the red light faded back into the comforting dimness of the Theatre, and the debris dissolved before it could strike the floor.

The Theatre returned to its original state.

“...”

Izzy sat still for several seconds.

Then she slowly leaned back into the velvet seat.

“Ahhhh…”

She let out a long, shaky sigh.

‘What in the world did I encounter…?’ Her brows furrowed.

The Theatre had always replayed her memories faithfully. This was the first time she had ever experienced such a reaction.

Something that even the Theatre refused to play.

Izzy went over the details that had transpired today, sorting them into something coherent.

“The secret of the Rite, the connection to the Monarch, Mary’s mother, the Golden Trader, and… Vampire Path.”

She exhaled and began arranging the information piece by piece.

“To summarize it properly…”

It went a little like this:

“The Rite of the Moon Maiden is meant to offer the Moon Elf to Her Majesty.

Through this offering, Her Majesty will bless the village with a bountiful harvest, prosperity and peaceful dreams. At the same time, she would empower the Moon Maiden, giving her enough strength to hold back the so-called vile beast that lurks in the forest.”

Izzy mentally noted each point down.

“But Victor…”

Her eyes narrowed slightly.

“The priest of the White Monarch, he’s trying to exploit the rite.”

He wants to forcefully maintain and strengthen the connection between the Moon Maiden and Her Majesty, the Moon Monarch.”

‘So Her Majesty is the Moon Monarch. It makes sense.’ Izzy thought.

Victor needed the connection to be strong, unbreakable, and made it impossible for the Moon Monarch to sever the link.

Izzy recalled the contents in Victor’s diary.

["...it is but a matter of time before we secure the connection with the Moon Monarch. For our Lord take her place!”]

She had a wild guess as to their ultimate goal.

By keeping the connection open, they could potentially use it as a conduit to attack Her Majesty directly.

“So the Monarch position… can be replaced?”

A cold sweat seeped down her spine.

That thought alone overturned everything she had assumed about this world.

Did that mean the gods in this world, the Monarchs, were real, tangible entities? They actually existed as sentient beings rather than mere symbolic scapegoats for worship or political manipulation?

She had heard the term 'Monarch' so many times in this new life. But she had imagined it was just a figment of human imagination, a convenient religious belief designed to brainwash the masses and force them to follow the will of a leading figure or institution.

After all, in her past life, true gods did not exist.

‘Even the Dragon King refused to associate himself with the term “god”.’

The strongest entity in her former world, the Dragon King, was a being of immense power. An entity powerful enough to shake entire continents.

Yet even an entity of his caliber did not want to be worshipped and remained strictly unrelated to the divine.

“The gods in this world… are real.” Izzy’s expression stiffened.

That single conclusion shifted her entire perspective.

And of course, the most important thing was…

‘I need to be extra careful in the future.’

The Monarchs, how strong were they truly? Could they see into every corner of the world, including the hidden attic of an abandoned mansion?

If they were real and active, who knew who might be watching her right now?

Her hands tightened into fists.

‘And…’

A dangerous curiosity rose within her.

‘Could I… become one?’

“…”

Izzy shook her head, clearing the ridiculous idea from her mind.

The thought was absurd. She needed to focus on survival, not delusions of godhood.

She returned to the immediate topic.

“Then the question remains: “Who is trying to attack Her Majesty? Who does Victor worship?”

Was it the White Monarch? He had mentioned 'Our Lord' in those secret notes, but she doubted the White Monarch would do such an extreme thing.

She only knew of the White Monarch, Crimson Monarch, and the Demon of Dispute, the Dispute Monarch, she assumed.

As for organization, she knew the Inspector of the White Church, the Crimson Church, the Demon of Dispute Order, the Sweet Blood Order, the Hysteria, and the Silver Land.

‘Who exactly is he?’ Izzy frowned slightly, but then exhaled.

‘Hmmm, it is not my problem at this moment.’ She concluded, turning her attention back to the matter at hand.

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