Black Killer Whale Baby - Chapter 180
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 180
‘A gap in time, they said. I’ve seen everything under the sun now.’
I watched the scene unfolding before me with an indifferent expression.
Though it was my own life I was witnessing, it stirred little emotion within me.
Trauma, wounds—
I’d endured enough nightmares and had long since exhausted my capacity for shock.
Besides, in the third cycle just before this, the world had ended, but I’d already seized the Matriarch’s position I’d aimed for.
There was no reason to be shaken by encountering my first-cycle self anew.
Still, it was somewhat unpleasant.
I stared fixedly.
‘I was so small.’
How often did I get to observe myself in the third person, objectively?
“Grandmother! Gran, grandmother!”
Coldly ignored, my younger self panicked and scurried after the Matriarch.
Ah, I remember now.
I’d possessed a child-rearing story then, so I believed the same thing that happened to those protagonists would happen to me.
‘How foolish.’
It couldn’t be helped. I’d grown up on Earth surrounded by love.
It was difficult to imagine a family that didn’t love me.
Separate from the complex I suffered over being adopted.
Because they were family.
Because they were family.
I thought they would love me unconditionally.
“Annoying. Retainer, take her away and lock her up.”
“…Yes, Matriarch.”
I watched the small version of myself desperately clutching the Matriarch’s skirts.
You were so desperate back then.
“There, there’s someone trapped in the building! Pl, please help them!”
“…”
“Gran, grandmother. Pl, please help. I be, beg you…”
Yes. At first, I thought if I smiled prettily like a cute child and acted adorable, she would love me.
Next, I thought if I wept desperately and pleaded, she would help me.
“The weak are merely weeded out.”
“…”
“Survive on your own. Understand?”
Watching her receding figure, I couldn’t remember what I’d thought then.
I yawned slowly and scratched the back of my neck.
‘How long do I have to watch this? Surely I don’t have to watch until I die?’
This is tedious.
I glanced around, wondering if there might be another door somewhere.
Father’s situation was urgent right now, and there was nothing I could do about it.
I clenched my teeth.
Fortunately, it seemed I didn’t need to watch the first playthrough all the way through—the scene changed.
This time I was ten years old. Or was it nine?
It was the day I was sold to the Black Panther Family.
‘It seems the story continued as it did in the original, and I received quite a shock.’
The “me” from the first playthrough had a gloomy, timid expression. I even shrank back when the Knights approached.
I had been conditioned by the abuse of the Pufferfish Beastkin Rumi.
I was held in the grasp of the Orca Family Knights, and I wept pitifully once more.
“Please, if I can just live here, j-just let me live!”
“How pathetic. Are you still mispronouncing your words?”
“I-I’ll fix it! I’ll correct it, so please….”
Large tears fell drop by drop.
“G-Grandmother! Grandmother! Matriarch, I’ll become someone useful, s-so please.”
Absurdly, despite being abused, I considered this place my home.
I thought that if I could just survive a little longer, someday someone would love me.
That there must be people in this world like Mother and Father from Earth.
“Burn her.”
“Matriarch, please!! Don’t send me away!”
I had begged so earnestly back then, yet she sent me away anyway. Damned old woman.
I was sold as a symbol of the transaction that was concluded with the Black Panther.
Aquasiadel probably profited quite handsomely from the deal.
“….”
I wondered why she was silent, but the Matriarch was staring intently at the first playthrough scene.
I turned my head away.
Time passed a bit more, and the scene changed. It was the familiar Black Panther Manor.
Splash.
I could see myself trembling helplessly in the scattered water.
I was seventeen years old.
More withdrawn, more fearful, more fragile, and more pathetic than ever.
‘If it were now, I’d rip out every strand of hair on those bastards’ heads.’
I’d tear out their hair, bite them, and punish them however I could.
“Hehe. Go back to where you lived. Water, right.”
“Hey, but isn’t water that’s been used to wash rags too much?”
“Why, they live in dirty water anyway.”
“Ah, true.”
The remaining water was scattered across the floor.
“Lick it up. You guys survive on stuff like this anyway.”
“….”
“Doesn’t it smell fishy?”
Who are those people? Ah, they must be friends of the Black Panther Family’s Third Brother.
“My goodness, Yeongshik. That’s too harsh.”
“Ugh… but the fishy smell is hard to bear.”
“How much longer does Lord Assel intend to keep that around?”
“What can we do? Since Lady Lili said she’d protect them…”
“Tsk tsk, I suppose the unfortunate ones comfort each other? Those who care for Lady Lili can only feel sorry.”
Some affected sophistication with elegant malice. Others took direct action.
Either way, it was equally terrible.
I watched it all with indifference.
‘How much longer do I have to see this? I’ll probably die soon after this anyway.’
Thinking about it again, I did die quite young. Around twenty years old, if I recall.
“Clean this up.”
The Dragon Duke spoke coldly, holding a bouquet of flowers for Lili in his arms.
“Can’t you even speak properly?”
I could see Assel’s face. His gaze full of contempt and disdain.
“Father said if you harm Lili even once more, he’ll cast you down to the depths.”
“…”
“You’re animals that lived in dark seabeds anyway, so it might suit you.”
That was when it happened.
An ominous aura emanated from beside me.
When I turned my head, I saw the Orca Family Matriarch with her jaw clenched like a walnut, trembling with rage.
A sharp, murderous intent radiated from her. As if she wanted to tear apart both the fantastical Assel and the Dragon Duke.
I looked at the Matriarch with indifference.
She wasn’t angry because of what I experienced.
Simply.
“How dare you treat an Orca like this…”
She was feeling righteous indignation that an ‘Orca’ was being treated this way by a land-dwelling beastkin, by a Black Panther.
Look at her—only now showing her rage after the Black Panther appeared.
It was laughable.
When I let out a small chuckle, a terrifying gaze fixed on me.
“What exactly is this?”
Ah, I’d been wondering when she’d ask this.
“Can’t you tell by looking?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
As the Matriarch’s expression grew more fierce, I arrogantly lifted my chin as if bestowing charity.
“The Dragon Duke manipulates space and time.”
“…”
“This is simply something that might have happened on some other day.”
I had no intention of telling this Matriarch that I was a regressor.
‘For whose benefit?’
He must be wary of me starting to speak casually.
If his wariness grows any further here, it’ll just become bothersome to return and actually become the Matriarch.
I made my judgment with no emotional turbulence, coldly and plainly.
“In truth, I never acted that way to receive your affection. I was a granddaughter without equal in cleverness.”
“….”
“Even after becoming the Dragon’s Bride, I wasn’t suddenly sold off to the Black Panthers, was I?”
You wouldn’t be any different now from that figure unfolding before my eyes.
“….”
“So it might have been something that could have happened. This.”
I turned my head away.
“Calypso, was it? You die from being such a nuisance. You.”
I could see the original story’s male lead laughing. My figure slowly collapsing while spewing poison as well.
The death of a villain in a book. Of course, it seemed I had never acted like a villain in the book before.
“Your fiancé will handle it himself, they said. You.”
And in the empty, worn carriage, ‘I’ blinked my eyes hazily.
It was a lonely death.
I evaluated the scene before me calmly and peacefully.
“Ah, I’m dead.”
Finally, the first cycle seemed to be ending. How tedious.
They’re not going to show me the second cycle like this, are they? How bothersome.
“….”
When I turned my head, I could see the Matriarch staring blankly at me.
I smiled faintly.
“What are you looking at?”
Unfortunately, my wish did not come true.
After the first cycle’s death, the space shattered and reassembled itself.
The newly appeared place was a familiar space once more.
The Black Panther Manor.
The one saving grace was that I didn’t have to watch the second cycle for long.
I could see my figure dying from tetanus.
‘Back then, I think I was begging the gods to let me die quickly.’
It was so painful and uncomfortable that dying all at once would have been better.
‘Still, it was less difficult than the first cycle.’
I thought coldly while watching my figure die in agony.
‘If there’s a next life anyway, it would have been better to die faster.’
But how long are they planning to show me this, second cycle and all?
I wanted to see Ekion.
I couldn’t hear Ekion’s voice from before anymore either.
“What a pathetic death.”
“…Is this saying that this isn’t reality?”
“If this were reality, would I be standing before you?”
Like most people, the Matriarch had not considered regression.
It was only natural.
Immediately after, as if deliberately commanding me to witness my entire life,
the third cycle unfolded.
‘Ah, at least this one is worth watching.’
I assessed it indifferently, scanning the space that spread before my eyes.
‘Hm?’
…This was different from before.
Unlike always showing me my own form, this time it revealed the landscape first.
“…Aquasiadel?”
It was the landscape of the Aquasiadel Manor that both the Matriarch and I knew well.
However, there was a difference.
It was half-destroyed, in ruins, with corpses scattered everywhere.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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