Don’t Look for the Resurrected Villainess - Chapter 136

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 136

The Black River flowed.

The dizzyingly high sky was red and black rain fell upon the world.

My goddess was in despair.

「…You cannot hear me.」

The voice that had guided me, the blessing that had granted power to my voice, had disappeared.

「Like this….」

My goddess had been defeated, and I too had been defeated.

The knight I had deeply trusted had betrayed me and succumbed to the enemy’s whispers, so there was nothing more I could do.

「You may resent me if you wish.」

Standing at the edge of the cliffs and gazing at the world with vacant eyes, I heard a sorrowful voice reach my ears.

「But I could not lose you.」

「Ah.」

Letting out a sigh, I slowly turned around. There stood my knight. As always.

Meeting his upright gaze, immeasurable despair washed over me.

All this time I had thought he was looking at the goddess’s representative, but he had been looking at me from the beginning.

Why did I realize this so late?

「How does it feel to return to being God’s puppet?」

At my question, he pressed his lips together in a straight line.

Looking at him like that, I couldn’t even feel resentment. Rather, I felt more pity.

While it was true that he had been a faithful puppet of God, after regaining his freedom through me, he had been the man who stood at the forefront condemning God more than anyone.

The person who had comforted me, saying that death would be true freedom for the countless lives that had to follow inescapable shackles.

‘The one who had rejoiced at existing as a person rather than God’s toy….’

What was it that turned him back into a puppet?

「Why?」

At my quiet question, his face contorted.

「Do you truly not know why you ask?」

Could it be so disappointing that I didn’t recognize his feelings?

Then did those wildfire-like emotions that could spread anywhere cloud his eyes and lead him down a foolish path?

Was this my fault for giving a newborn child overwhelming freedom without teaching them how to use it?

When I looked at him with pitying eyes, he stubbornly furrowed his brow.

「What I desire is you, and God has promised to fulfill my wish.」

「My foolish first knight.」

At his straightforward words, an inevitable sigh escaped me.

Unlike God, who could weave the threads of fate and raise puppets at any time, a goddess’s representative is not chosen carelessly.

And I, as the goddess’s representative, was her fragment and part.

「I cannot escape God’s wrath.」

The God who gave birth to all things wants his created toys to move according to his will forever.

Whatever God had promised, the end would be miserable mockery.

「….」

I quietly looked down at my hands. These were the hands that had liberated those who had followed God’s will like puppets.

「Your naivety is pitiful.」

At my bitter murmur, he contorted his face.

「If your annihilation lies at the end of this path, I cannot overlook it.」

「Birth is God’s will, but death is the will of life.」

The method the goddess chose to break the eternal shackles of life was to share her power with everyone in the world.

So… to gift all life the freedom to die.

「It’s not annihilation, but exercising my final power.」

In exchange, the goddess would disappear, but at the same time, a balanced providence of life and death would be completed throughout the world.

My final duty was also that. To give up all the power I possessed and complete the providence of this world.

「In an unbalanced world, God’s puppets will always appear.」

Those puppets would draw others into their fate like spider webs, bind them with threads and lead them to become new toys of God, and thus be trapped forever in an inescapable life….

I wondered if that was what he wanted. Whether being with me was important even if bound tightly by the threads of fate.

Emotions, actions, judgments… What meaning would being together have when everything was predetermined?

However, before I could ask, he spoke first.

「But even if everyone else becomes free through death, it won’t be freedom for you. You… will not be reborn.」

「That is my duty.」

「You said you would awaken the freedom of life in everyone. Then why do you not care for your own life?」

Saying this, he took one step closer to me. Just then, clouds hanging in the sky cast diagonal shadows on his face.

「If your own life doesn’t exist, how can you awaken the life of others?」

His voice, mixed with resentment and pity, sharply pierced my heart.

Surprisingly, his words sounded somewhat persuasive.

Come to think of it, since becoming a representative, I had never once thought I could live my own life.

Since my soul was dedicated to the goddess, I had always felt this life was something temporarily borrowed that must be returned.

「My own life….」

It was difficult to imagine myself as anything other than a representative. I wasn’t sure if this was something I should worry about from now on.

The current me had lost my power and become merely human. And before me stood someone who wanted to keep me by his side, even if it meant making me God’s puppet.

I stared intently at his sword, which shone pure white despite being soaked in blood, then moved my lips.

「Whose blood is that?」

「It belongs to those who blocked my path.」

I murmured with a bitter smile.

「They were once people who greeted you with smiles. Rejoicing in the freedom they had found.」

He remained silent. Though anguish showed on his face, an even greater stubbornness coexisted with it.

「…It’s all over. There are no knights left to block my path, and you can put down the heavy burden the goddess thrust upon you.」

「You don’t even give me time to mourn.」

Smiling bitterly as I murmured, I turned my gaze. In my view, I could see black river water churning violently below the sheer cliffs.

In those rough waters, the goddess’s power that had gone berserk at the last moment and lost its way was dissolved.

In the past, it would have posed no threat to me, but for the current me, it would be threatening enough.

「I promised I would grant you rest, so wait. That’s what I promised.」

Murmuring quietly, I took one step closer to the edge of the cliff.

「To whom?」

「To my knights.」

To my knights who trusted me and knelt, who willingly offered their necks.

How irresponsible and uncertain that promise had been.

Breathing a sigh, I slowly turned to look at Samuel.

「Samuel Bent.」

The shadows cast by the clouds lifted, revealing Samuel’s pale complexion.

「Since I’ve lost the power to fulfill my duty, I should consider my life according to your will, shouldn’t I?」

I pulled up my dry lips into a faint smile. Samuel seemed to sense something and tried to approach me, but I shook my head and increased the distance between us.

Now the void was within reach. I felt no fear.

I didn’t want to fall to being God’s toy, and to avoid that, I had to endure even the angry goddess’s power.

Even if it would make me forget my promise.

「For now, I want to rest.」

So on this dark and gloomy day, I would gladly accept the death given to me.

* * *

When I opened my eyes, it was late at night.

I slowly sat up after staring blankly at the ceiling.

‘A dream….’

Disjointed scenes rummaged through my memories. I sat there dazedly with my hand on my forehead, then turned my gaze to the window.

I could hear the sound of rain from outside.

As if entranced, I threw off the blanket, got down, and approached the window, slightly lifting the curtain.

In the darkness, I could see a world thoroughly soaked. It looked exactly like black rain.

‘…That’s an absurd imagination.’

Dismissing the thought that had unconsciously surfaced, I forcefully drew the curtain shut.

‘A dream, of all things.’

Was this really something that happened in the past? Or was it imagination constructed from the information I’d gathered so far?

Standing there blankly with a confused expression, I gritted my teeth.

Either way, it probably didn’t have any particular meaning.

‘If it really happened, it’s already past and done with, and if it’s imagination, I can just forget it.’

But even so, my mood remained consistently low.

Because all the emotions that the ‘proxy’ in the dream had felt still lingered throughout my body. Especially the emotions I felt right before waking from the dream.

“Hah…”

The emotions I felt in that moment… reminded me of when I faced my final moment on the execution platform.

Terrible emptiness and solitude, hollow void.

A faint joy that I could finally escape from everything…

“I should just go back to sleep.”

I shook my head and climbed back onto the bed. However, once I settled in and lay down, my mind became wide awake instead.

Naturally, the scenes I had witnessed in the dream surfaced in my mind again.

I also remembered the name that had emerged at the end of that utterly depressing conversation.

‘Come to think of it, was Samuel still Samuel in the past too?’

Unlike other Dura’han, despite being a soul that had undergone repeated reincarnations, he lived with the same name.

His obsession felt so intense that it seemed somewhat frightening.

‘He already seemed to be mistaking his feelings about me, intoxicated by past emotions.’

I wasn’t sure if I should keep him at This Manor. Having roughly grasped how he had betrayed and what our final moments were like made it even more unsettling.

I raised my body that had been lying down and sat on the edge of the bed, lost in thought. Then I unconsciously fidgeted with the ring.

I hadn’t particularly intended to activate the ring. I had simply forgotten that touching the ring would activate it.

“Huh?”

Only after seeing the glowing ring did I remove my hand, but it was already too late.

My vision shook, and for a moment my head felt dizzy. Strength drained from my body and my limbs went limp, but I didn’t feel the sensation of collapsing onto the bed.

As if being sucked into something, my consciousness flickered. All of this happened in an instant.

And when I regained consciousness again…

‘Huh…?’

Surprisingly, the place where I was sitting was an Imperial Palace Guest Room.

To be precise, on top of the guest room bed.

Which meant… right next to the sleeping Jeon.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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