I'm Stuck on a Remote Island With the Male Leads

Thank you so much for your unwavering hearts toward me. I want to repay your steadfast trust.

“My situation is, so to speak, complicated, so I wanted to properly explain it to all of you when I meet the Saintess……”

I sighed as I thought about how to explain it. “I think the Saintess had been through something related to me too. It’d be good to meet her as soon as possible and have a conversation.”

In retrospect, it’s strange.

I accepted another person’s memories without any difficulty.

Despite the jumbled memories, as if I were the original Margaret, I accepted them without a sense of alienation.

It’s ridiculous, but now I know why. It was possible because I was the real Margaret.

I bit my lip and lowered my head. Then I calmly began to explain to the three of them about what I had been going through, and the conversation between Anata and Yuanna.

The three men listened to me talking about the past and were silent for a while.

After bringing up the story of living in another dimension and talking about 《Something More Important Than Survival》 I read then, I felt embarrassed and so stupid that I couldn’t stand it.

I firmly believe that I transmigrated into a world in a novel. In the meantime, I worried unnecessarily and doubted them excessively.

“I’m sorry for deceiving you all this time.”

To be honest, even if these three men felt betrayed after hearing this, I had nothing to say.

“……I didn’t want to die.”

Enoch stared at me without saying a word.

It was Ruzef who broke the silence and gave unexpected comfort.

With eyes full of trust, Ruzef took my hand carefully and whispered, “Just as we said. We believe in you. So please trust us too, Young Lady.”

My cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

I kept my mouth shut and just nodded. My eyes grew hot again. Ruzef smiled at me and patted me on the head.

Then Enoch said, “You must have been scared.”

I raised my head again and looked at him.

He added, “Thank you for your answer. You’ve had a lot of trouble carrying a heavy secret all this time alone.”

I vaguely thought that Enoch might believe me. Because I also trust him.

“And I’m sorry I didn’t notice.”

Enoch’s next words made tears well up in my eyes again. I gritted my teeth and frowned so as not to cry.

“Sob.”

In the end, I was overwhelmed and shed tears again.

“Margaret, don’t cry.”

Kayden gently wiped my tears with his thumb. The touch was so warm it brought me to tears even more.

Ruzef, who was just listening to the story, continued to stroke my hair and comfort me. He didn’t say much, but his kind touch was a great comfort. So, in the end, my crying didn’t stop.

I feel like a seven-year-old child. I don’t know how many times I’ve cried since I came here. I am worried that my tear ducts may be out of order.

Enoch comforted me. “Stop crying. Your pretty eyes will be all swollen.”

My pretty eyes? Enoch is a man who always speaks sweet words straightforwardly. But somehow, those words made me feel embarrassed and finally, I stopped crying.

“By the way, I have a question.”

At his words, I looked at him with a puzzled face.

He said in a low voice, “About the story in the novel.”

Novel? Ah! He seems to be talking about 《Something More Important Than Survival》. Enoch looked me straight in the eye, then slowly lowered his gaze. His eyes fixed on my lips.

Enoch smiled and gently rubbed my lips with his thumb. He raised his gaze with a languid movement and met my eyes.

He asked, “Do you like me that much? To the extent that you think of me as the male lead of an adult romance novel.”

“What?!”

Enoch burst into laughter at my surprise. He laughed so innocently like a child.

The emotions that had been sad until a while ago melted at once like melting snow.

“Wait, is the male lead the Crown Prince? Margaret, that novel’s contents are all lies.”

At Kayden’s words, this time I looked back at him with a bewildered face.

“It’s easy to say what you can’t prove,” said Enoch as if provoking.

Kayden exploded with rage. “Why do you think I can’t prove it?”

Then Kayden looked back at me. “Margaret, don’t you believe me? Let me know if you need proof. I’ll show you as much as you want.”

I shook my head vigorously as Kayden spoke as confidently as when he would take off his clothes.

“I don’t need it.”

Despite my stern answer, Kayden did not flinch. He glared at Enoch again, and Enoch’s eyebrows raised disapprovingly.

“It’s really the first time I’ve seen a wizard put his actions before words. By the way, that’s not a compliment.”

“Of course I know that’s not a compliment, you think I’m an idiot?”

“I’m surprised you didn’t know.”

As Kayden showed signs of attacking, Ruzef sighed and tried to calm the situation down.

“Guys… first of all, we have to sort things out and find Sir Diego as soon as possible.”

At Ruzef’s words, Enoch and Kayden finally stopped their reckless quarrel.

So after we finished our meal, we packed our things.

“We’d better take a look at the map.”

At Enoch’s words, I took out a map from my crossbody bag and unfolded it. The bunker we’re in is probably where the supplies are located.

Then I remembered Jenas’ words that the mother of monsters is at the eastern end of the North Island.

I have a bad hunch that Diego might be there for some reason.

“Can you tell me in detail how Sir Diego disappeared?” I asked Ruzef.

He looked at me calmly like a docile sheep and answered carefully after a moment’s recalling.

“It was the middle of the night. We searched for you but to no avail, so we looked for a place to sleep. While exploring the surroundings, we found something strange.”

“Something strange?” Kayden, who was glaring at the map, raised his head and asked back.

“What do you mean?” asked Enoch, motioning for him to get to the point.

Ruzef continued, “An old man called us through the bushes. He was in human form, but the vagueness of his features made him look like a ghost.”

Ruzef lowered his voice even further. “At first, I thought he was a real person and tried to approach him. But Sir Diego stopped me because he noticed the old man had no feet.”

Oh, my God.

I took a deep breath as I listened carefully.

‘Why are there so many ghosts on this island?’

I remember seeing the woman I assumed was Anata’s spirit in the bunker and in Jenas’ cabin.

Besides, there were moving skeletons in this bunker.

Maybe… could they be the souls of those who died while being used as test subjects on Alea Island? Since the experiment has been going on for a thousand years, how many people must have died on this island in the meantime?

“We ignored him and continued to walk. We passed him and walked for a long time, but at the end of the path stood the old man again. We must have obviously walked past him.”

It was a creepy story, but Kayden didn’t react much, and Enoch just listened with a calm expression without much agitation.

“The problem happened next. Suddenly a lot of people began to surround me and Sir Diego.”

“What? A lot of people?”

“Actually, I didn’t even know if they were real people. I wondered how they suddenly appeared in the middle of the forest, and suddenly the figures of people whose faces were hard to recognize increased one by one and surrounded us.”

“Well, could it be that you two had hallucinations? You may have inhaled the poisonous gas of the anaconda monster without you knowing it.”

Kayden, who had been quietly listening to Ruzef’s story, had a good point. This is a credible inference. This one is more likely.

We’ve seen a lot of strange things here. It could even be called an island of hallucinations.

“I don’t know because I’ve never met an anaconda monster, but I was probably hallucinating. Strange things have happened many times on this island, after all,” replied Ruzef, rubbing his haggard face.

He continued, “They seemed to be looking for someone. They wandered around us for a while and then just disappeared.”

They seemed to be looking for someone? Why do I have a bad feeling that the ‘someone’ they were looking for was me?

Isn’t it similar to how monsters like me because of my mana?

“In the end, we couldn’t sleep and stayed up all night wandering through the forest. Fortunately, the monster didn’t appear in the meantime as if they were avoiding those ghosts.”

“……”

“After wandering around all night like that, we found a river and took a break in front of it. Perhaps due to the accumulated fatigue, I immediately fell asleep.”

Ruzef rubbed his haggard face again. He does look tired.

“Then when I woke up, Sir Diego who sat next to me was nowhere to be seen. He disappeared leaving only his sword. Isn’t it very strange that a knight who has wielded a sword all his life, and the Commander of the Imperial Guards, left his sword on this dangerous island and disappeared somewhere?”

“So you didn’t find Sir Diego?”

At my question, Ruzef shook his head with a face like a war veteran delivering disastrous news.

“No matter how long I waited, he didn’t show up, so I went around looking for him, and there was a map like this not far from where I was.”

“A map?”

At Enoch’s question, Ruzef took out a piece of cloth from the pocket of his priest’s robe and unfolded it.

The map I have only has a bunker mark, but on the map that Ruzef took, a mysterious monster is drawn in the eastern part of the North Island.

Suddenly, I remembered the story that Jenas had told me about the ‘mother of monsters.’