(Alice POV)

"My chest feels smaller!" (Alice)

And with that statement, the king fainted in front of me...

...I didn't expect this reaction from him... I expected anything else except this! With a bad feeling creeping on me I immediately checked his condition. Fortunately, for me, he only fainted from what seems to be exhaustion, well it should be as expected, after all his daughter was heavily injured and now that same daughter changed bodies with another girl...

I'm gonna skip over the fact I am also his daughter...

"Ugh"(Alice)

With my guard lowered the same pain that assaulted me before waking up surged again, this wasn't a normal pain as it felt similar to being torn apart, the reason I said it wasn't normal was that I could feel the pain spreading through my body and soul. By instinct, I knew the cause of my pain, as my soul imbued with that unknown power was clashing with another power inside of the princess's body.

If you are wondering I know the pain of being torn apart one time while I was training with the witch I got careless and received a hard hit that pulverized my lower half. Thanks to the witch's quick response I got healed instantly, but after returning to the mansion the witch, my mom, Anil, and the servants scolded me for a rea~lly long time. 

Anyway, this is the same reason why I told the king we were in trouble. If my speculations are correct then the princess should be experiencing something similar right now. Thanks to my training I'm able to lessen the severity of the pain and explain everything without panicking, but don't believe the princess will be capable of doing the same, as this pain isn't something to joke about. Just imagining the scolding that is waiting for me makes me shudder.

The good news is that the celebration will be held tonight, which means I will be able to reunite with the witch and the princess before this worsens.

After suppressing the intense pain I tried to speak with Azazel and make a plan, but to my surprise instead of hearing Azazel's voice as usual I heard a beautiful voice with traces of being in pain.

"Who?! You... Are... Not... Talia!"(????)

I knew this couldn't be good with an unknown voice speaking to me instead of Azazel. Ignoring the unknown voice I immediately materialized the contract emblem in the back of my hand, when the emblem appeared the results were as I feared.

In the back of my hand was an emblem with a small white and golden flower in the middle surrounded by three flowers with the same set of colors instead of the beautiful white sword and winged demonic face. I need to mention that to my surprise the white part of the flowers resembled the appearance of a shield while the golden part resembled a bow, all of this while being surrounded by a circle that resembled a stripe of stars and gold.

This event shocked me because some time ago I theorized with Azazel that the contracts were tied to the contractist soul, I was very positive about this theory because at the moment when I made my contract I felt like the pieces of a puzzle fit together. I was sad by this discovery and just as I was feeling a sense of defeat the emblem of my contract appeared above the other emblem and collided with it.

"Wha-What are you----!"(????)

"Tsu!"(Alice)

With both of us confused about what happened an immense pain assaulted both of us, as if it was waiting for me to try that option. The pain didn't get lower as it intensified by each passing moment, it seems I have to--

"Return Talia immediately you heretic!"(????)

This isn't good! With a very bad feeling, I tried to stop the spirit to no avail. The pain intensified thanks to the spirit resistance and it got to the point it was unbearable even for me. With both of us in agony, I knew it wouldn't take long before she killed us.

"Stop in--- Stop! Otherwise your princess will die as well!"(Alice)

What I just said was a bluff to some degree, I don't know if the princess was affected by this pain but if this manage to stop the princess then it would be enough. For my fortune, the bluff worked as the spirit immediately stopped her resistance.

"Where is Talia you heretic?! What is your goal!?"(????)

Even though the spirit also experienced the same pain as me her will to know about the princess condition was unshakeable.

"About the prince---"(Alice)

"Stop spouting nonsense! I won't believe a single word! Your devil attribute is everything I need to know you cannot be trusted!"(???)

"I know this is hard to believe, but I'm not trying to do anything bad as I'm also clueless of why I ended up in this body. Right now I need you to put aside your hostility and suspicion, as I need your help for my and the princess's safety.

In the best-case scenario, both of us will suffer from occasional episodes of pain, but if my hunch is correct, we will be dead soon if we don't manage to return to our bodies."(Alice)

"How can I be sure this isn't part of your plot?"(???)

This is a good sign, although her suspicions are still standing at least I managed to get some degree of cooperation.

"I know you are still suspicious about me, but if we want to save your princess I need your cooperation. As for my devil attribute, please gloss over it, the wi-- Miss Fayna already knows about it, so at least I'm an ally"(Alice)

"..... I'll cooperate and keep silence about your attribute, but under one condition."(???)

Yes! Now with her cooperation, everything will be ea---

"Tell me about your true identity, otherwise you can forget of obtaining my cooperation"(???)

"Wait a second... what do you mean by identity?"(Alice)

"Don't try to fool me, before I was panicking thanks to everything that happened so far because of that I didn't care to know the truth. But now knowing you aren't a threat, at least for now, I need to know who you are.

If you take into consideration that you know Fayna and the unusual attitude of Talia's father towards you it's easy to connect the dots. You are that girl that resembles Talia, in other words, you are Alice. Only you can match both of the previous criteria."(????)

For the love of--- Why everyone wants to know about me?! I know it's a big deal but can you please stop putting me in these situations every single time!? Why do I have to work so damn hard to cover my identity from everyone if in the next moment another person asks me the same thing again!?

Without energy to hide my identity and with my speculation that the princess probably knows the truth by now I told everything to the spirit. I tried to summarize everything about me, with the king fainted here and almost an hour since he pushed everyone out I knew I was out of time.

"A twin... How can this be..."(????)

"I know, I know. So, can I have your cooperation?"(Alice)

"Yes, I'll cooperate. My name is Valkyrie, It's a pleasure to meet you Alice Hol."(Valkyrie)

Hearing her calling me Hol made my neck itch a little, I wasn't too comfortable to hear that, but for the sake of cooperation, I accepted it, at least for now.

"Alice, how are you going to perform at the party tonight? Let's say you have the etiquette of Talia, what are you going to do about her light attribute. I can't assist you if you can't use the light attribute."(Valkyrie)

"Did you forget about it? I can use the light attribute, not at the princess's level, but at least to some degre--"(Alice)

"You... what!?... no.. that's right... you previously did that"(Valkyrie)

"My king... is everything alright? The queen wants to enter right now."(????)

It seems that my little talk with valkyrie took more than I thought. With my time over I still needed to share my plan with the king, but as you can see, he fainted not long ago.

"Hey Val, where are the princess's books?"(Alice)

"Val? There is one on the cabinet at your right"(Valkyrie)

I couldn't let the king on the ground, so I dragged him into the bed and grabbed the book inside of the cabinet, to my fortune there was a luxurious writing device with the shape of a pen already inside of it... I won't admit this was very convenient. Anyway thanks to this it took me no time to write an improvised plan and hide it inside of the king's clothes before opening the room while acting as a well-behaved princess. I'm glad the witch taught me how to imitate a princess because now I can boast that I can act like one as if I was one as well.

"Please forgive me for the delay, my dad fell asleep not long ago. He was very worried about my condition and once he learned I was fine he succumbed to the fatigue. I'll have to ask you to take him to his room"(Alice)

It seems that my acting was spot on, as the servants didn't notice anything strange and carried the king outside of the room, I was a little worried that the note would fall off from his clothes but seeing that nothing happened made me relieved. With everyone gone the only one remaining was the queen, as she was looking at me with displeasure.

"You can't get out in your sleeping clothes! Only your husband is allowed to see you in this state! What if other people see you as an easy person?!" (Aiya)

The queen went on and on scolding me for my previous behavior and other faults, at some point I lost track of her words as my mind was full of countermeasures for tonight's party.

"And with this, you need to get ready for tonight"(Aiya)

Irritated by my lack of response the queen grabbed my hand and dragged me to another place. It wasn't that I endured her attitude like nothing, as my mind fell in chaos by an unknown yet known feeling...

This wasn't at the level of bad, this was bad news on top of bad news, the queen... was afflicted with the same unknown power as my mom...

By the time I understood her condition the queen was gone and a lot of maids were around me with large rows of dresses in front of me. Something told me I have to live through hell and I have to endure it if I wanted to keep my facade up.

Between my rejection and little setbacks... I won't admit it was my fault... time flew by. I'm amazed that it took me a lot of time to be ready because there were only a few minutes before the party started. While shallowing my tears in denial the maids guided me to where that family was. The person who received me was the king, it was good that he read the note as he nodded at the moment he looked at me. The prince and queen didn't say anything as we were about to enter the salon.

Now the real challenge begins