Beast Gacha System: All Mine-Chapter 275: Hypotheses

"Miss Araceli."

Before she reached her dorm room, Nikolas Delanivis stopped her on her way.

Cecilia’s steps slowed. The curfew bell would ring soon. Students hurried past in small clusters, their voices echoing off the stone walls, their footsteps quickening as the hour approached.

Nikolas stood in the corridor, his uniform immaculate, his posture formal. But there was something in his face that hadn’t been there before. Something softened. Something uncertain.

"May we speak for a moment?" He asked.

Cecilia studied him. She had wondered why it was him who had come looking for her. Not Ruby. Not Arzhen. After all, Arzhen had returned to school on this first day. She had even seen him, briefly, in the corridor, pale and withdrawn, his eyes avoiding hers.

"It depends." Cecilia said calmly. "What are we going to talk about?"

Nikolas’s hands, clasped behind his back, tightened. "Please let me apologize, Miss Araceli." He swallowed. "I want to make things clear. Things from the conference..."

Cecilia’s expression didn’t change. But something behind her eyes flickered.

"Apology accepted." Her smile was brief and polite. "Thank you for apologizing, Mr. Delanivis." She glanced toward the dormitory gate. "The curfew is about to start. I don’t want to get into trouble."

She moved past him, her steps light and her posture relaxed. She reached the gate and paused at the threshold, saying, "Maybe you should return too—"

"Miss Sees."

Cecilia froze.

"You... you don’t understand." Nikolas’s voice was different now. More guilty, raw, sincere. "I’ve had this crush on Miss Vaiva for a long time. But I don’t think my feelings are reciprocated. After all, as you know, Miss Vaiva loves Arzhen Vasiliev."

He took a breath, watching her, waiting.

"You, at least, used, to love Arzhen Vasiliev too. I don’t know about now, but you must understand my feelings, right?" His voice cracked slightly. "This... unrequited feelings..."

Cecilia slowly turned to face him.

"Because of these strong feelings, Miss Sees, I’ve grown a bias against you. I wanted to please Miss Vaiva, so I ignored how competent you are. I kept trying to find flaws in you." His voice dropped. "I was wrong."

Cecilia looked straight into his eyes. Searching. Gauging.

"Miss Sees." He met her gaze steadily and sincerely. Actually sincere. "I really... really regret everything. Will you... forgive me?"

This tender, sincere apology...

Cecilia would have reacted differently in any other normal scenario. But this man—

"What did you call me, Mr. Delanivis?"

AU!Nikolas. The boy who should not have a glimpse of memory from the real world, had called her ’Miss Sees’.

A name she only ever used in the real world.

"Miss... Sees?" Nikolas’s brow furrowed, confusion creeping into his features.

"Where did you hear that name?" Cecilia asked.

Nikolas blinked. His mouth opened, then closed. Something flickered across his face. Recognition, perhaps, or the absence of it. It dawned on him, slowly, that he was also unsure. When had he heard that name? Where had he learned it?

It was a name that should not exist here. A name that no one in this fabricated reality should know.

No. In the first place, the real world Nikolas also didn’t know that Sees was Cecilia. No one knew that Sees was Cecilia.

So how? Where did he connect it from?

"I..." He shook his head. "I apologize, Miss Araceli. It wasn’t my intention to use... your nickname. I couldn’t recall where I got it from, but I remember somewhere that Mr. Dawnoro’s fiancée’s name was... no..." His voice quickened, uncertain. "I mean, I heard Mr. Dawnoro call you Lady Sees once and... sorry... ah..."

He was rambling now, his composure cracking.

"Sorry, Miss Araceli. This might be a misunderstanding on my part..."

In the real world, Lady Sees was a carefully constructed mask. A woman in black and silver, a face hidden behind a veil. And yet, here the name had fallen from his lips like something remembered.

This man looked sincere, earnest, genuine. He hadn’t known what he was saying. Hadn’t known where the words came from. She had watched them emerge from his mouth with the same confusion as watching someone else speak through him.

Cecilia’s eyes faltered. This—this could mean so many things.

So the people in this world had memory of the real world? Buried beneath their conscious minds, perhaps, but there? Were they capable of connecting dots unconsciously, surfacing names and truths that should not exist here?

But wasn’t this supposed to be a fake world? A simulation? A stage built for a scenario and then discarded?

Even though this world’s people were based on the real world, with similar relationships, similar dynamics, similar souls, wasn’t this too—

Was this truly just a fabricated world, then?

If it was created for a specific purpose, and would be destroyed right after, why would its people carry this much unconscious memory from the real world? For what purpose? Or... why?

And even if this world would be destroyed after, who was to say the real world’s people, the ones entangled in this world, wouldn’t remember something about it? Wouldn’t carry something back with them?

"Thank you, Mr. Delanivis." Cecilia’s voice was distant, her mind already elsewhere, spinning through implications. "For your sincerity. I truly do forgive you. We were strangers. I couldn’t blame you for having a bias against me."

Nikolas’s expression brightened.

"Ah—but... but, may I..." He stepped forward, his hands unclasping from behind his back, reaching toward her. "Miss Araceli, I heard you have this relationship with three other men. With all due respect, whatever it is, I beg you to consider allegiance with me too—"

"Why?" Cecilia cut him off.

"Huh?" Nikolas flinched.

"Why would I want anything like that?" Her voice was flat, matter-of-fact, her mind still turning over larger questions, bigger mysteries. "I don’t need allegiance with you." She paused. "Don’t you still love Ruby?"

Nikolas stuttered. "No, I—"

"You don’t?" Cecilia’s eyebrows rose. "You don’t love her anymore?"

She wondered if the real world Nikolas also no longer loved Ruby as much. Perhaps after her failed prophecy. After their conflict with the Vasilievs?

"If I said I don’t love her anymore..." Nikolas’s voice was careful yet hopeful. "Will I be accepted as one of your..."

"No." Cecilia’s answer was immediate, absolute. "You’re not my type."

Eh? 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

Not her ty—

He was still one of the most handsome and influential students in this Athenaeum! What was with her standa—

"You’re not even as handsome as any of my boyfriends." Cecilia’s voice was blank, her mind truly elsewhere, calculating something else entirely, which made her more blunt than usual. "What gave you the confidence to ask me out when you look like that?"

Nikolas froze.

He froze like he had never frozen before. His mouth hung open. His hands, still reaching, suspended in the air. His face didn’t even get to cycle through several expressions to represent his shock and disbelief, but his eyes settled on what might have been the death of his soul.

...wha...

CLICK, SLAM.

The gate to the female dorm closed behind Cecilia. The lock turned. The matron’s footsteps retreated into the building.

Nikolas stood alone in the corridor, the curfew bell started to toll somewhere in the distance.

Not as handsome as any of her boyfriends.

When you look like that.

He raised a hand to his face. Touched his cheek. His jaw. His perfect, carefully maintained features that had never, in his entire life, been found wanting.

What gave you the confidence to ask me out when you look like that?

His hand dropped.

Somewhere in the dormitory, a window closed. Somewhere in the Athenaeum, the last lights were being extinguished. Somewhere in the world, Nikolas Delanivis stood in a dark corridor and reconsidered every life choice he had ever made.

Anyway, that was how Cecilia had been able to draw these hypotheses.

And that was why she had tried to confirm it by asking the System directly about the nature of this world. She had been fishing for the truth behind the System’s usual casual answers, probing the gaps and testing the edges, seeing what would slip through.

She had never thought literal gods would visit her.

To warn her.

"The King in Yellow." Cecilia tried to stay steady, though her hands were clasped tightly beside her. "An entity whose whole purpose is to infect humanity with forbidden knowledge?"

Back in her dorm room, long after her encounter with Nikolas, after the curfew bell had faded, Deity Momo chuckled. The sound was sweet, melodic, and unbothered. A bit impossibly too beautiful.

"Yes." She shifted on the bed, her form resolving into something almost human. "Quite a cute bedtime story, right?"

Cute...

...bedtime story.

She was calling one of the origin stories of cosmic horror... a cute bedtime story.

"Is..." Cecilia swallowed. "Is he... real?"

"Of course not." Momo waved a hand dismissively. "My hubby over here would have cut him down if he was real."

Beside her, Burn’s form flickered. It was a ripple of something that might have been agreement, might have been amusement, might have been the edge of a blade that could split worlds.

"Oh." Cecilia’s mind raced. "Then... you’re saying that I can’t dig for more truth because there’s a similar... forbidden knowledge thing...?"

Momo’s head tilted. Her form shifted, folded, focused once more.

"Daughter of Tashr." Her voice was soft. "The problem is not the knowledge."

Cecilia paused.

The problem was not the knowledge.

Not the content of what she was learning. Not the truths she was uncovering, or the connections she was making, or the patterns she was tracing through the fabric of worlds.

Then what—

"The problem is..." Cecilia concluded herself. "I’m just not strong enough yet."

Somehow, Cecilia could feel that the entity in front of her was smiling. A satisfied smile.

"Yes."

"You don’t want your head to spontaneously combust, right?" Her voice was light, almost playful. "So, thicken your skull first, so to speak. Or at least, learn better regeneration techniques so even if it does combust, you’ll be A-OK."

She chuckled, sweetly, melodically.

...

...

...

So.

Yes.

Basically.

Forbidden knowledge that would literally kill you.

Noted.

Oh wow. Thanks, Deity Momo.

Why didn’t you just say so, goddamnit?