My Students Regret It After I Retired - Chapter 98



97 – Secrets Unraveling

Not long ago, Belin was summoned by the Emperor, but he wasn’t granted an audience. Instead, Bartier simply delivered the order for him to join the 1st Division of the Imperial Knights.

However, not long after joining the 1st Division, the Emperor summoned Belin once more. The words he spoke then were a tremendous shock to Belin.

“Belin, the reason I had you join the Imperial Knights was to deceive the eyes around us. As of today, you are to leave the Imperial Knights and move to the place I tell you.”

“Where must I go?”

Belin asked, trembling with fear, and Emperor Vermon smiled wryly, pointing towards the sky.

Realizing that there was room for misunderstanding, Vermon immediately gave Belin further explanation.

“The One from the Celestial Council calls for you.”

“The Celestial Council…?”

Belin questioned, but Vermon waved his hand as if he didn’t need to explain further.

“Leave.”

“How do I find them?”

Vermon roared, his temper flaring.

“I said get out. The Celestial Council will find you themselves.”

*

A few hours after his audience with Vermon, a woman walked into Belin’s room. The woman entered the room, her footsteps clicking, and stood before Belin.

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“Who are you…?”

Belin asked, but the woman didn’t reply, only wordlessly looking at Belin who was hunched on the floor.

“Pathetic.”

The woman’s words stung, and for a moment, Bellin felt a surge of emotion, but she quickly asked,

“Are you… perhaps the Heavenly Assembly member the Emperor spoke of?”

“Yes, I am the head of the Heavenly Assembly.”

The head of the Heavenly Assembly leaned her head towards Bellin, who was squatting, and asked,

“Bellin, I know your circumstances very well. You needed an elixir to cure your younger sister’s illness, and you worked for the Shadow Order to get it. Why? Because no one but the Emperor has an elixir valuable enough to heal your sister.”

“…How do you know that…?”

“How do I know? How could I not know what the Shadow Order and the Emperor know? I was the one who ordered it all in the first place.”

Bellin rose to her feet and, with heavy steps, walked to the head of the Heavenly Assembly, grabbing her by the collar.

“You ordered it? What are you…”

With a flick of her hand, the head of the Heavenly Assembly sent Bellin flying. Bellin slammed into the wall, coughing up blood as she fell to the ground.

Looking at Bellin, who was twitching, the head of the Heavenly Assembly spoke,

“Get your filthy hands off me. You have no right to question me. All you can do is listen. Listen quietly to what I want to tell you.”

The head of the Heavenly Assembly brushed off her clothes as if they were dirty, then spoke to Bellin again.

“Oh, and by the way, I have your sister.”

Bellin crawled on the ground, grabbing the head of the Heavenly Assembly’s ankle, and said,

“If you touch my sister…you’re dead…”

“What makes you think you could kill me?”

The head of the Heavenly Assembly whispered, looking at Bellin clinging to her foot.

“Your sister is perfectly fine. She’s fully recovered from her illness now. But she can’t see anyone. We have her locked up.”

“Why… Why are you doing this… What value does my sister have that you’d take her and torment her… What use is she to you!”

“Useless? Your sibling is supposed to play a crucial role. You wouldn’t be saying such useless things if you knew all fate is tangled through that child.”

The Celestial Lord muttered, gazing at the sky.

“Your destiny too, it could change depending on that child’s path.”

Belin, feeling her unsettling aura with her body and spirit, finally gave up resisting and started begging.

“Please, save my sibling. You can kill me, but please just save my sibling. Do you know what I did to save that child? I betrayed everyone who trusted me, killed anyone I was told to, did everything I was ordered to, lived like that without any freedom. All for the sake of saving that child. So please… please… please save her.”

“That’s not for me to decide, fate decides. That child is the key. To completing all this fate.”

The Celestial Lord cackled, as if enjoying something immensely, then turned serious and asked Belin.

“Do you want to see your sibling?”

“I…I want to see her…”

“Then, I shall grant your wish.”

With a flick of her hand, the Celestial Lord sent Belin into a spherical barrier, and she began to float in the air.

“Don’t try anything foolish while moving. I won’t kill you because I need you, but it doesn’t matter to me if I chop off a limb or two.”

*

“Lusein!”

Belin cried out her younger sister’s name the moment she saw her, trapped inside the sphere, like a barrier, created by the Celestial Lord. But of course, she couldn’t be heard.

“Lusein! It’s your sister! Lusein!”

Belin’s younger sister, Lusein, should have been receiving treatment at the hospital. The elixir hadn’t completely cured her illness. But the Lusein that Belin was seeing now looked perfectly healthy. She was moving normally, acting normally.

As if she hadn’t been sick at all from the start.

As Belin pounded on the barrier, shouting wildly, the Celestial Lord asked with amusement.

“Do you want to go meet her?”

“Please…please let me see her.”

Instead of a reply, the Celestial Master posed a question.

“Even if that child’s soul isn’t your younger sister?”

“…?”

Bellin stared blankly at the Celestial Master. With a smile, the Celestial Master began to explain.

“Our Celestial Society has been observing a bizarre phenomenon for quite some time now. The phenomenon of one person’s soul being replaced by another. Wondering what on earth was happening, we brought in those whose souls had been swapped and began to torture them one by one, and we came to a single conclusion. Souls from Earth, specifically from a place called South Korea, were crossing into our world one by one. We don’t know how they’re crossing, but they were clearly from another dimension. In their world’s language, this phenomenon is called possession. And those who steal bodies like that, they call them possessors.”

“I don’t… I don’t understand… What… What are you talking about…? Lusein is my sister…”

“Put simply, another soul has plundered your sister Lusein’s body and is living in it.”

“D-Don’t lie. There’s no way that’s possible.”

“No way that’s possible? I thought you, who has seen strange beings up close more than anyone else, would understand immediately? Leos. He’s also a possessor.”

The Celestial Master added, staring at Bellin, who stood there stunned and shocked.

“All these spaces we’re in right now, they say are worlds from a novel written by these possessors. Virtual worlds made up of combinations of text that don’t actually exist.”

She looked at the wall with a bitter expression and forcefully dragged her hand along it. Blood poured from her hand that had been scraped along the wall.

“We move, we think, we feel pain, blood flows from our bodies, we even age and grow old, yet we’re nothing more than characters in a story someone has written.”

The Celestial Master murmured bitterly.

“I had thought I ruled over all the worlds. I believed I was manipulating everyone like puppets. Ruling and moving them as I pleased was the reason and goal of my life. But the truth… is so cruel. We are, in the end, just characters in a story created by a human. My actions, my words, everything is just an element composed by someone else.”

The Celestial Master slammed her head against the wall and screamed.

The bizarre scream continued for a long while, and covered in blood, she whispered.

“What a futile life this is. I thought it would be better to end my own life than to be controlled by someone else. There is no meaning in living on with this pointless existence, anyway.”

The Celestial Lord reached out a hand, pointing to Belin’s younger sister, Lisein.

“How could my death be made more perfect? If I’m going to die, I wanted to craft a more perfect story. If my life is going to be recorded in writing, I wanted it to be more meaningful, to be remembered by someone forever. And I found that one method exists: to die at the hands of the protagonist.”

The Celestial Lord healed the blood flowing from their head with magic and continued to speak.

“Every story has a protagonist. I’ve searched for the protagonist countless times. And I finally found them.”

The Celestial Lord murmured with a euphoric expression.

“Leos. A possessor who knows all the truths of this world, a person who leads the story with ridiculous abilities and power. Someone whose actions always deviate from my predictions, causing me bewilderment. The moment I saw him, I knew. That he is the protagonist. And that, for my end to be recorded honorably, being killed by him in the last chapter is the best choice.”

“My… my sister… then where did my sister’s soul go…? My sister? What about my sister!”

Belin began to convulse, and the Celestial Lord laughed for a long time, as if pleased.

“Your sister? What are you talking about? The possessor you’ve been living with for over five years? Or the former soul that spent time with you even before that? I should be the one asking you. Who do you consider your real sister? That girl, a possessor, who has spent over five years with you, or the soul of your real sister who has been robbed of her body by that girl since birth?”

Belin began to clutch their head with a confused expression. And began to deny reality.

“That can’t be… Lisein was possessed more than five years ago…? That can’t be… the Lisein I talked to, spent time with, how could she be someone else…”

As if the time had come, the Celestial Lord released the barrier and whispered to Belin.

“If you don’t believe it, go confirm it with your sister… no, the possessor who stole Lisein’s body. Her memories should be somewhat restored.”