Dearest Anonymous, Let Me Be

Chapter 39: ARC 2 - The Woman in the Painting

Victory in the face of defeat; these words might be the perfect portrayal of Umi's emotions at the moment.

Worn out and exhausted, she was, at this point, past the shocked and annoyed stage. After having been experienced energy-sucking events one after the other, and the memories from the past world still etched on her mind, Umi ultimately decided to simply be at peace with herself.

Worrying takes too much energy. One needs to acknowledge the truth that there are things in life that you simply cannot avoid.

Umi is definitely not like those people who always see the good in everything. A silver lining in the dark isn't always found easily.

When life gives you lemons, one doesn't have to make a lemonade. You can allow them to knock you out, then you can stare at them—perhaps you can get mad at them for a while—and eventually plow through them when you're most prepared...if that makes sense.

In some cases, when life sucks, one simply needs to sit in the suck and move on.

At this point, Umi wholeheartedly believes that she is—pardon her French—so fucking done.

The old sewing machine made a grinding noise as the threads got tangled with one another. A humorless smile appeared on the pale face of the silver-haired woman. She then reached for the sharp scissors on the table to cut the tangled threads. Shortly afterwards, she hummed a jovial tune as she returned to sewing the lace on the dress that she was making.

Having seen the God of Mischief again was an unforeseen method to remind her of what's real and not. The world she was presently in is just a figment of Effie's imagination, and she was sent here to fix the story. The people here are not real, and these ghosts couldn't measure up to the divine entities outside.

At the very least, amidst all the fortuitous occurrences, she can finally brainwash herself to begin searching for some friendly ghosts in the neighborhood. If that's not a victory, then Umi doesn't know any other words to describe that.

"I must say, this world does look real," Chiki commented after examining every piece of furniture as if they were the solution to world hunger. "Even you look...what's the right word..." the boy paused to think and soon finished his sentence with a conflicted voice, "...alive."

"I don't know what that means but I'll take that as a compliment, thank you very much," Umi responded with a monotonous tone.

The boy then chuckled, "Well, I should inform you that I will make the most of my time here before I get caught. If Effie isn't so busy, then she might know I'm here but since she hasn't been in her office for quite some time now, then I can happily stay for a while. This body before you is only a clone of mine, and I'm sure Agape will start looking for me as soon as she finds me missing again, so...cheer up. This ought to be fun."

"I'm not here for fun," Umi grumbled under her breath while making sure that the boy didn't hear her.

However, Chiki still heard her and simply laughed, "I am, so sucks to be you."

Umi wanted to weep and whine but there's no point convincing the stubborn god to go away, so at best, she can only swallow her own complaints.

"Well, I hope you're fond of ghost-hunting because we are going out tonight."

Putting on her signature hat, Umi stared at her reflection in the mirror with approval. With the usual black attire, she was ready to venture into the night.

Currently, she had two goals to accomplish. One is to recruit some ghost colleagues and the other one is to track down a suitable alternative for Lucian. Well, she is not merely replacing Lucian, more like she is finding another source of Spiritual Energy.