"When did this happen?" the headmistress asked me, referring to my curse mark.
I had asked Jerman a long time ago to recite to me where I'd been the past six months before I had taken over Bell's body so I knew the perfect date for where even if she investigated it, it wouldn't be easy to notice that my story was off.
"Around three months and a week ago," I responded.
"Did you slay this demon?" she asked. It was a stupid question because it was the only way for someone to acquire the curse mark but I guess she must've been in disbelief that a student was able to actually kill a demon.
"Yes," I responded.
"On your own or with help?"
"I did it by myself," I answered. Because it was the truth, not a single part of my body or face showed that I was lying.
Why was I revealing my strength to her?
Because I was hoping to be transferred to First Class, the class where the main character and most of the other protagonists and villains were assigned to.
"How?" she asked me. "How did you kill a demon on your own?"
"I'm sorry headmistress but I don't think I can answer that question," I told her.
"That's understandable. You must have some family secret that you don't want to reveal to me. I won't inquire about that again."
"Thank you."
"So let me ask you this instead. What is the curse?" she asked.
This question was considered taboo to ask someone who held the curse mark because the mark was essentially a weakness of theirs and in battle, if it was to be exploited, the chances of the wielder dying increased.
However, the headmistress asked this question without hesitation because I had implied that the curse mark led me to attack Diana.
She asked me the question not because she wanted to acquire my weakness but to protect other students from me.
"My curse is that every full moon, I lose myself to my desires and they're amplified by a thousandfold," I answered.
"Care to elaborate?"
"Let's say if I was angry that day and wanted to beat someone up, on a full moon, I'd probably try to kill them and their entire family. Or say I'm sad that day, I'd most likely kill myself."
The headmistress' eyes grew big as this curse sounded terrible, one of the worst she's probably ever heard of.
Well, the truth is that Diamesca's curse makes my body feel a lot heavier as if I'm walking around while carrying dumbbells on my body.
Trained as an Agnus since he was young, Bell's body was able to basically ignore the effect.
"I... when I had bumped shoulders with Diana that day, I... I fell in love with her," I told the headmistress.
"You what?"
"I fell in love with her. As the full moon rose, my feelings were amplified and I wasn't able to control myself as I lunged onto her like a beast."
That was the story that I had forged.
It was a lie that tried to justify the actions of Bell and the shitty god's writing but my path to making this character into a hero wasn't going to be a truthful one.
After all, I'd already stolen all of the main character's codes and artifacts which saved his life on multiple occasions.
Why would I just stop there? I might as well lie and steal as much as I need to until I fulfill the shitty god's request and be returned to Earth.
I felt guilty about lying, especially towards Diana who I wanted to console for her pain even to this very moment, but my desire to correct Bell's character outweighed my guilt.
"So you attacked the girl that you love?" asked the headmistress.
"Yes."
"Have you spoken to her yet?" she asked me.
"I have."
"What did you say?"
"I apologized to her."
The headmistress, perhaps beginning to feel sympathy for my situation, asked me with a saddened voice, "What did she say?"
"She told me to never talk to her or look at her ever again," I answered, struggling to keep a clear voice as if just repeating her words was hurting me.
'Was that good?' I asked Liona.
'That was fantastic!' my bracelet responded.
'Are you sure? I felt like my acting was a little off.'
'It was,' said Kimi, my left earring whose voice sounded very Eastern. If this was Earth, it'd sound the closest to the Japanese.
'It was?'
'But don't worry master,' Kimi said. 'It wasn't that noticeable.'
The headmistress walked over to me and laid her hand down on my shoulder. "You understand that even if you were influenced by the curse mark, it was still your fault? It was still you who caused Diana great pain."
"I do."
"You understand that she'll never accept your apology and just seeing you will make her feel deeply negative emotions?" she asked me.
Her words sounded harsh but I guess in her way, she was being kind to me by revealing the truth without holding back.
"I understand that."
"And how do you feel about that?" she asked me, perhaps worried about me and about what I would do to Diana in response.
"It feels bad. Really bad. It makes my heart feel like it's being gnawed at by a thousand ants, but I understand. I understand that to her, I'm the monster underneath her bed. I'm the nightmare that haunts her dreams. I'm the person that she hates the most so... I'll abide by her wishes," I answered with a voice so sad and heartbroken that I felt like I deserved an acting award.
'How was that?' I asked Kimi.
'That... that was excellent master,' she responded.
I imagined in my head that as she was speaking, she was wearing a kimono and was bowing her head like a maid.
Liona, who I imagined was suited like a knight, also said, 'Yes! That was a wonderful performance master! Perfect! Ten out of ten! Even I almost got fooled and I know the truth!'
It was strange that all of my artifacts had female names and voices but once you consider that they were intended for the main character who had a harem of almost twenty girls, then you begin to understand.
The headmistress with a sigh as if she understood my pain, nodded her head and told me, "Keep your head up Bell."
"I will."
"That'll be all for today. You may head to your class now," she told me, signing a late slip for me.
"Thank you," I said, bowing my head slightly before leaving her office.
The hallways were empty but I knew that there was someone else here with me but I didn't expose them or give a single hint that I was aware of their presence.
There's a reason why I walked into the headmistress class while every student was looking in my direction rather than waiting for the hallways to empty first.
I knew a certain eavesdropper would try to listen in on the conversation.
She had a unique magic that allowed her to make her presence completely disappear so that not even the strongest person in the world would be able to find her.
She was one of the main character's love interests, one of the female protagonists, a person who became a thief so stealthy that she was able to assassinate most of her enemies before they even recognized her presence.
But for the moment, she wasn't that thief yet. She was just the club president of a creepy secret club that released newspapers every day of things that is happening in the academy, most of them being secrets that weren't meant to be overheard by a third party.
For instance, they revealed that one of the teachers was about to have a kid before the teacher even knew about it themself.
If it wasn't for their protagonist tag, the club president, Maya, could potentially be the scariest ghost in a horror flick.
I began walking to class, ignoring that she was following me, most likely a few feet away from me.
Because I knew she was there, because I knew of her eavesdropping nature, I understood that I had to continue to play my role until I reached my classroom.
Walking with this sad expression on my face, I occasionally shook my head or sighed, as if thinking about Diana.
The truth is, I was just talking to my artifacts, the ones who were awake.
Once I reached the classroom, I wondered if Maya was still following me but I was able to toss away the mask I had on because it made sense for me to pretend that nothing was wrong now that I was in the presence of other students.
As soon as I opened the door, the faces of all the students in the classroom turned towards my direction.
Some of them looked like they had stepped in shit. Others looked like they were afraid that I was going to abuse my family name to attack them as well.
I wasn't going to do that so they had nothing to worry about but it'd be impossible for me to clarify that so I just kept my mouth shut and handed the late slip to the teacher.
"Welcome back Bell," said the teacher with a smile. I could tell that beneath that smile, the teacher was disgusted by me just as much as the other students.
He was just holding himself back because I was his student and he needed to keep his composure in order to uphold his teacher status.
Sitting down, the eyes followed me like my own shadow.
If their facial expressions revealed a tenth of their feelings towards me, their eyes revealed the rest.
As I sat in the back of the class, even with their heads turned towards the teacher who was in the middle of the lecture, the eyes on the back of their heads never looked away from me.
If I was the real Bell, I wondered just how I would be able to survive this amount of pressure.
It was too much but luckily, I'm not the real Bell.
So these eyes were nothing more than just another paragraph in the novel that the shitty god never wrote.