The World Is Mine For The Taking

After hearing my answer, Estelle took a deep breath and slowly reached down to retrieve the clothes she had set aside earlier.

"I see..." she said.

She began putting her clothes back on, and her expression had become considerably calmer than before.

"Well, that is pretty much the sort of answer I would expect from you, I guess."

I stared at her in confusion as she continued getting dressed.

"What?" she asked. "You want to do it?"

"No," I said almost immediately.

Estelle gave me a small smile.

"Fufufu... you really are cute, Tsubasa-kun."

The moment she said that name, my entire thought process came to a screeching halt.

My expression changed instantly.

Tsubasa-kun.

That was not the name I used in this world.

That was my name from my previous world.

Before I could even properly process what I had just heard, I pulled Samui and Ayuru into my hands and dashed toward her. In the next moment, I had both cursed swords raised against her neck, their blades positioned close enough that one wrong movement could have turned the situation into something considerably more serious.

"Why do you know that name?" I asked in the coldest voice I could manage.

Estelle did not flinch.

She simply looked at me with an amused expression, almost as though she had been waiting for this exact reaction.

"You do not know?" she asked. "I think you know, Tsubasa-kun."

"I do not know," I replied, keeping my voice cold. "You should start explaining yourself right now, or I will cut your head off."

She smiled.

That smile somehow irritated me more than anything else she had said.

She was not scared.

She was not even particularly nervous.

Instead, she looked like she was enjoying watching me struggle to understand what was happening.

"If you really do not know and you genuinely want to find out, then I suggest that you put those cursed swords away," she said calmly. "If they remain in contact with me for too long, I will drain the life force from them and immediately kill them."

That was exactly why I had been careful not to let either sword touch her directly.

Estelle possessed one of Lilith's abilities, allowing her to drain the life force of something through contact. Considering that Samui and Ayuru were both cursed swords with their own unique existences, allowing her to touch them would have been an incredibly stupid risk.

I was not about to hand her two of my strongest weapons just because I was angry.

"You do not want to use a broken toy, do you?" she added, her amused smile becoming slightly wider.

I slowly pulled both swords away from her neck.

"Why do you know my name from my previous world?" I asked.

Estelle looked at me for several seconds before answering.

"You really do not remember, huh?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Well, I suppose it has been..." She paused, apparently trying to calculate the amount of time herself. "What, twenty-two years in this world, and then twelve years in that world? I cannot exactly remember the numbers anymore."

Her expression became strangely thoughtful.

"That is quite a long time, after all, especially for someone who has lived through two different worlds."

I stared at her.

"Just like you," she added.

My eyes narrowed.

"Do not tell me..." I said slowly. "You are a reincarnation as well?"

Estelle immediately crossed her arms.

"Wrong!" she said, sounding almost pleased with herself.

The confidence in her answer only made me more suspicious.

"But you will know soon enough," she continued. "There is a secret that I have been keeping from you, and eventually, you will find out exactly what it is."

"What secret?"

She simply smiled.

I hated that smile.

She had spent the entire conversation giving me just enough information to make me ask questions while refusing to provide the answers I actually wanted. It was like watching someone deliberately hand you pieces of a puzzle while keeping the picture on the box hidden.

Estelle then turned around and began walking away. She didn't answer my question.

I could have stopped her.

I could have demanded that she explain herself.

I could have forced the answers out of her if I really wanted to.

Yet something told me that doing so would not get me anywhere.

"Until we meet again," Estelle said as she continued walking. "Well, the next time we see each other, it will probably be in the past."

I frowned.

I had absolutely no idea what she meant by that.

The sentence sounded ridiculous on the surface, but considering everything else she had just revealed, I could not simply dismiss it as another strange comment from Estelle.

She knew my name.

Not the name I had been using in this world, but the name I had carried before I reincarnated.

That alone was enough to make my thoughts spiral.

There were very few people who could possibly know something like that, and Estelle had somehow managed to be one of them. More importantly, she had spoken about my previous life as though she knew details that I had never shared with anyone.

She knew there had been another world.

And somehow, she seemed completely unsurprised by the fact that I had been reincarnated.

The more I thought about it, the more uncomfortable the entire situation became.

I had originally believed that Estelle's connection to Lilith was the main reason she was interested in me.

Now, I was starting to wonder if that explanation had been completely wrong.

Perhaps Lilith was only part of the reason.

Perhaps Estelle had known about me long before she ever met me in this world.

I tightened my grip around Samui and Ayuru while watching her disappear into the distance.

The biggest question remained unanswered.

How did she know my name?

I had never told her.

I had never even hinted at it.

That meant she had learned it from somewhere else, and if she really did know about my previous life, then there was a possibility that she also knew something far more important.

Something connected to the reason I had been able to reincarnate in the first place.