Clarissa Beheads The Villainess

[9] Pink Sunrise

Clarissa slept through the next day without disturbance, except for quick runs to the toilet. Both her body and mind was tired.

Even she wondered why the princess came back to life, but rage made it impossible to spare her for even a moment. If not for Vixen's kindness and 'request' she'd do the same thing again the next time around. If there will be a next.

Unable to go back to sleep, Clarissa leaves her room and wanders around the castle before sunrise. The sky had a pinkish glow, the air was dense and cold.

For sure a rosey sunlight would greet her soon, she goes to the garden that was kept clean by others that stayed in the castle. Red and white weigela bushes were cleanly trimmed, those flowers made up the most of the garden and surrounded the egg-white bench she sat on.

She could hear someone coming after a while. From the footsteps alone she could tell it's Astaroth.

"It's quite early to be up and about." He sits down beside her.

"I used to have no definite sleep schedule."

"Used to?"

"About nineteen years ago."

Clarissa died in her past life at twenty years old. In this one, she is nineteen. Would that put her at the mental age of thirty-nine? She would wonder as well, but age never meant an adult was mature.

"You said you come from another world, what is that world like?" Astaroth asks.

She doesn't reply, long enough till the sunrise began and rays of light warm their skin. Watching his hair turn from a light blue to a shade of lavender.

"That world is a utopia for very few, hell for most. The majority of those on top living the best lives are the ones putting others through hell. Psychological hell, physical hell, economic hell, and so on."

"That world sounds awful."

"This world stems from ours, I guess. But it's not half as bad. Take out ninety-percent of every unfortunate lived experience and give the ten percent to a good few and that's this."

Astaroth couldn't formulate words to reply. Whatever she said was far beyond his understanding.

But he could understand the complexity of having lived two different worlds that aren't alike.

"And I will tell you, something is wrong with this world. For me to be here, for the princess to come back to life..." Clarissa continues, and her own word sparks a thought in her mind.

There might be a possibility...

"Someone else from my world may have reincarnated into the princess' body... But that wouldn't make sense, when I came into this world I was a newborn baby. But maybe the logic of this world isn't stable?" She began to question herself. Astaroth was holding back the urge to mention she was talking way more than usual.

"Astaroth."

He looks back at her piercingly cold gaze with his own that nearly rivals her.

"Do not tell anyone else about all of this."

"As if I'd say anything to the two pea brains, a rat, and a man with just his fists."

"Yet you're so fond of them."

He looks away in annoyance. "You can have friends and love the parts of them that are typically irritating."

"Really."

"They consider you a friend too, you should speak to them more."

The topic shifting to friendship makes Clarissa gaze away awkwardly, her fingers unconsciously chipping off the bench's paint. A friend was something she never had since early childhood in her first life.

Not that she didn't want to make friends, but she never had the chance to. Now that she does, she doesn't have the energy to.

If a conversation couldn't come naturally or had no purpose, she would rather not engage.

In her latter years of her first life, at most she spoke with her boss, higher ups, and colleagues only regarding work.

"I'm going to go see Peter, he should be up by now." Astaroth notices he put her in an uncomfortable place and decides to give her some time. The chef was just an excuse, instead he was going to head back to his quarters and go back to sleep.

After he leaves, Clarissa begins to doze off on the bench until she is found by a hopeful Katherine an hour and a half later.

"Clarissa?" She taps on the lady's shoulder ever so gently it feels like a bug. "C-clarissa?" She continues.

"You'll never wake her up like that." Orias sighs. He heard her gentle voice as he was passing by. Another day, another typical heroine moment where her oh-so-soothing voice enchants the male lead, and usually the second male lead.

And occasionally everyone else.

But no, this did not affect Clarissa. Not at all.

"Wake up! Wakeee up! Wake up!" Orias screeched the third time. It was effective, but Astaroth was in his room muffling his ears with his pillow silently begging the duke to shut up.

"Sorry." She emotionlessly comments upon lifting her head up and opening her eyes.

"It's ok! The garden is a beautiful place. I occasionally fall asleep here too." Katherine carefully extends her hand and brushes aside a piece of hair that stuck to Clarissa's face with drool. "It's uh, breakfast time. Let's head to the dining area together."

Clarissa gets up and follows them, excited to see Peter.

In the dining room he was pacing around anxiously knowing he might get manhandled by the lady again. There just things you can never get used to.

"Peter." She states his name the moment the three enter, scanning the room for him. "There you are." Walking over like an animatronic she lifts him up, pets his head and places him down.

It looked cute to everyone else, but in Peter's eyes some beast was asserting dominance through non-harming physical contact.

For now, thinks are back to the usual within Duke Orias Viertel's castle.