Beast Gacha System: All Mine-Chapter 38: Wrong

"He’s... alive...?"

Ruby’s eyes widened. This—

How could he still be alive? She remembered correctly. She had to be remembering correctly. His death had been a continent-wide spectacle for months. The bards had sung of his heroic sacrifice for years afterward. It was a fixed point! A cornerstone of the history!

"Ruby... are you okay?" Nikolas asked, concerned. "Could it be... the vision might have a double meaning and you only saw some parts of it?"

The offered lifeline was a noose. Her heart sank, collapsing in on itself. No. She could not, under any circumstances, be seen as wrong. Her plans, her carefully constructed pedestal, her entire future... it would all crumble to dust.

A new set of tears welled in her eyes, this time she looked happy and grateful, yet confused. "Maybe... I misunderstood the prophecy," she whispered, letting the tears trace delicate paths down her cheeks. "I saw His Majesty Dawnoro engulfed in hot clouds and ashes... so I thought... thank the gods that he’s alright...!"

Nikolas embraced her. This pure woman...

Of course she wasn’t wrong. She had never been wrong before. The prophetic tip about the wool products that generated money for his family, the undiscovered mines she’d pinpointed near their borders, it was all flawless.

It had to be a misunderstanding. His father’s report did say Arkai had deflected the flow eastward. He must have been momentarily engulfed, just as her vision showed. The outcome was wrong, but the vision itself was still sacred and true.

"It’s not your fault, Ruby. Anyway, my father and our army have been deployed to help the survivors. They’re now retrieving the bodies under the order of Lord Arkai himself," Nikolas reassured her. "We will have an opportunity to apologize later."

Ruby nodded, her body going limp in his arms, overcome by relief. But inside, everything was upside down.

No.

No no no.

She didn’t regress just to be wrong.

She didn’t claw her way back from death with all the knowledge of a future already lived just for everything to go wrong again. Everything had been perfectly on script until now!

Could it be... because she let that bitch Cecilia warm her throne for seventeen years, some butterfly effect had flapped its wings and now Arkai Dawnoro, a man destined for a martyr’s death, was still breathing?

But how? That woman had been dead for a while now. How could the prophecies that little cunt made across the years still be saving people? What the fuck was that woman, actually? She definitely wasn’t a real Saintess like her, she couldn’t peer into the future through the eyes of the gods!

Ruby had that. She had the divine visions and the memories of her previous life before she regressed. It was her ultimate cheat sheet. But this... this was a variable off the page.

Could it be... Cecilia had regressed, too?

She rifled through the hazy memories of her past life. Why would she have bothered to remember the fate of a failed, second-choice candidate for sainthood? Cecilia should have been just a footnote, a temporary placeholder, a background character in her grand narrative.

But if that background character had been working with knowledge and science alone... if she had accurately "predicted" disasters for years with nothing but intellect... what did that make her?

She knew Cecilia was smart. She knew she was infuriatingly lucky. But this?

What even was this?

If everything had gone according to the script of her past life, the north would have collapsed in the vacuum left by Arkai’s death. The ensuing power struggle would have been a grueling, years-long battle and negotiation, burning through resources and men.

Until, exhausted, the Vasiliev and Delanivis houses finally carved the territory in half, ruling as twin powers in an uneasy stalemate.

This time, she had planned to streamline the process. By giving Nikolas a head start with her "prophecy," they could have moved faster than the other lords, secured a stronger position, and avoided that wasteful, protracted conflict.

Arzhen’s interference was expected too. Let the two of them share the north, just as they shared the affections of her heart. It was a neat, efficient solution.

But if Arkai Dawnoro was alive...

Then the entire foundation of her new future was shattered. No, it had already been cracked the moment she’d made her first calculated change of running from her coronation and letting that common-born placeholder, Cecilia Araceli, be crowned in her stead.

That bitch... It all started with her.

She regretted it a little bit. Well, not for her actions, but for their inefficiency. She’d needed those seventeen years to ingratiate herself with the Delanivis, to secure the power base that would stand equal to the Vasilievs in the future she remembered.

With both great houses in her thrall, not even the Temple or the Iondora Empire could touch her again. Arkai’s death was supposed to be the catalyst, the first domino to fall in the glorious chain of her ascent.

Well. This was the inherent risk of rewriting history. She would adapt. She had to.

But the how of it all gnawed at her. How could he have possibly deflected the mountain’s fury? Was there some detail about his death in her past life that she’d missed? Had the Arkai of that timeline been weakened beforehand? Or, more terrifyingly, had the Arkai of this timeline been... saved?

Her mind snagged on Cecilia. The woman had nagged about Mount Saede for years. Perhaps, thanks to her incessant warnings, Arkai had been better prepared?

No.

Not that.

She dismissed the thought. Saede’s eruption was fundamentally unpredictable. Even Ruby, with her lived experience, had forgotten the exact date. She’d only known it was around this season. If not for the reminders buried in Cecilia’s old, filed-away predictions, she might have missed the window entirely. So, preparation alone couldn’t be the answer.

So... how?

Even if the man was a monster of strength, which he was, the evidence showed he hadn’t been prepared. His frantic, continent-wide call for help proved he’d been blindsided by the initial eruption. So what changed between the initial disaster and the second wave?

In the past life, the second wave was what had killed him. The historical records were clear. Arkai, believing survivors were still trapped, had raced up the mountain in a desperate, heroic, and ultimately fatal attempt to turn the flow. He’d been engulfed, and his loyal men, refusing to abandon their king, had died with him in that valley.

The variables were the same. The mountain, the man, his motivation.

Yet the outcome was different.

Ruby’s contemplation deepened. The equation was identical, but the sum had changed. There was a new, unknown factor. An X she had not accounted for.

What changed this time? What, or who, gave him the power to succeed where he had once inevitably failed?

She needed to find out.

She needed to go there herself and look this anomaly in the eye.

***

CRASH!

The sound of shattering ceramic ripped through the sickroom’s silence. A priceless vase lay in shards, destroyed by the tremoring hand of an old, heavily breathing tiger.

"Shameless!"

Propping his gaunt body up on the bed, fueled by a rage that was the last fire left in his withering frame, Anton Vasiliev snarled.

"He dared break off his bond with Cecilia, and now what? He just swallowed that little bitch’s words of Cousin Arkai’s death whole? He no longer has shame!"

The darkness of the room enveloped the ailing king and the few loyal aides who dared report the outside world’s chaos to him.

The fire of his anger spent, Anton’s body sagged. His voice, when he spoke again, was weakened. "Have you found my daughter-in-law...?"

A solemn voice answered. "No, Your Majesty. Lady Araceli’s whereabouts are unknown. She had been gone for days now, ever since... ever since the Prince brought her away. When he returned, he was alone. He said Cecilia had left as they separated, and he didn’t know where she went."

When Arzhen returned, he no longer carried Cecilia’s scent. He was once more a beast without a bond. His strength that had allowed him to stand toe-to-toe with the Werelion King, a power gifted entirely by his bond with the Saintess, had been severely diminished.

"Useless son..." the old man sighed, his voice now a death rattle of disappointment. "And about Cousin Arkai... you’re sure he’s fine?"

"Yes, Lord."

"Alright..." He laid back down. "Tell him we also don’t know where Lady Araceli left. Tell him I’ve been... weak... I don’t know anything anymore..."

The aides exchanged glances, sadness in their eyes. "Lord..."

"Leave," Anton commanded. "Go and tell Arkai... and continue the search for my daughter-in-law. Don’t stop until you find out what happens to her."

"Yes, sir."

As the door clicked shut, the old tiger’s hand crept to his chest, clutching at the fabric over his failing heart. Cecilia had found the Meleth Flower. She should have been able to separate cleanly and safely. The bond should have been dissolved with no more than a bittersweet ache.

But what if...

He shook his head.

No. My son was stupid, he wasn’t evil. He’s arrogant, not a monster. He surely... surely... won’t harm her.

Right...?