I Became a Leader in a Wretched Prison - Chapter 189

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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 189

Even though Helios’s greeting could be heard, Mint was lost in thought for a moment.

How can you say such things?

I wanted to tear open that head and peer into that brain. If I became you, would I be able to understand you?

For the first time, she felt regretful about her own nature.

— You can wiretap and surveil me.

Half a beat late, Mint nodded and whispered in her mind.

Helios looked at Mint like that, smiled softly, then immediately bowed his head.

Their lips brushed.

— Cheating is not allowed. If you don’t want to see me die.

At those petulant words, Mint couldn’t help but smile as well.

Click.

The door closed and only two people remained in the room: Hades and Mint.

The Old Attendant who had been with them naturally left through another door after Helios departed. This was probably something Helios hadn’t anticipated.

‘Did he plan to leave just the two of us alone from the beginning?’

It wasn’t unfamiliar. I had already expected this would happen.

Hades opened his mouth.

“You’re not surprised at all. How disappointing.”

* * *

I calmly stared at him.

“As I said before, disappointing my ass. Were you and I ever close enough to have such affectionate conversations?”

He leisurely shrugged his shoulders.

“That cold side of you is disappointing, but I liked it.”

After Helios left, I thought he would approach me, but he was still sitting in his place.

I don’t like Hades.

He’s one of the few who drew deep hatred from me. No, if we’re talking about the deepest hatred, he would proudly hold that position.

Did he say this before?

Deep hatred sometimes resembles interest. For me, it should be called observation.

The first and most intense obsession I encountered after falling into this world. That belonged to Hades.

I slowly tilted my head.

“Who are you?”

The moment Helios kissed me, I couldn’t sense any Kia from that bastard.

Hades was calm.

In a situation where he couldn’t be.

Three years was a long time for those who weren’t me. So the emotions that bastard used to pour out recklessly could have disappeared or changed.

But I know.

Hades is the same type as me.

He was a human so similar that for the first time in my life, I felt species-level disgust.

That bastard who declared he’d ascend to the throne he had no interest in and would chase me by turning the entire world upside down if necessary. Would that intense aura disappear just because time passed?

Just like how I can’t abandon my obsession with Helios.

Those of the same breed as me are humans who see things through to the end once they become obsessed.

“….”

Even at my question, Hades didn’t panic.

Instead, he slowly erased the smile he had been wearing. A face with that mask-like laughter wiped away.

“How did you figure it out?”

Thanks to his pale skin, he looked like a precisely crafted doll, yet due to the gloominess given off by his jet-black military uniform and shadows, he also resembled the vampire I had seen in the Tower.

Hades smiled again.

It was a smile closer to cold mockery.

“….”

“Does it show?”

As he tilted his head, the hair he had grown just long enough to barely cover his eyes swayed gently.

Even that small gesture was seductive, and no different from the past, but.

‘As expected, the contents are different.’

With that answer, he had essentially declared himself to be something different from my memories.

There are no monsters like ‘doppelgangers’ that replace humans in this world. Then.

‘I do have some guesses though.’

I’m not without some idea of how it might have happened.

The biggest reason is….

“Did you pay a price and lose your memories?”

The first thing that came to mind was a case of gaining power by paying a price through oaths and vows.

It was a method Mint herself had used.

However, it didn’t add up.

‘He remembers me.’

Or maybe he lost memories from a certain period.

“That was the most plausible answer, Mint.”

“Don’t call me that. It gives me chills.”

“Ah, Miss is most familiar after all, isn’t it?”

I didn’t answer.

Hades chuckled wickedly. This laugh was truly filled with gloominess like a demon fresh out of Hell.

“Wow, you’re really as amazing as I heard.”

Hades clapped briefly, clap clap.

“I never thought you’d actually notice. You must have had that much interest in ‘me’?”

“If hatred and anger can be called interest.”

“What wonderful affection. Good nourishment.”

Seeing him spout nonsense, it really is That Guy.

As I narrowed my eyes, Hades tapped his chest lightly. Then he gently rubbed his temple.

“How unfortunate. ‘He’ would have been so pleased to hear that.”

“…He?”

An odd way of referring to someone. Hades stood up from his seat as if he had been waiting for that question.

“That’s right. He never even attempted oaths or vows. The idea that he might lose something precious in exchange for becoming stronger. That fool was afraid of losing you.”

“This is the first I’ve heard of monsters that devour human bodies and mimic their appearance.”

“Haha, did you think ‘I’ was someone who could be easily devoured?”

“I think you’re a bastard who wouldn’t die even if killed.”

At my calm response, Hades muttered quietly, “As expected.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint your expectations. Unfortunately, no such monster exists. I am, for now, Second Prince Hades.”

“…”

“You could say I’m someone missing one thing from what you remember?”

He didn’t seem inclined to beat around the bush. Hades spoke bluntly.

“Think of me as a personality stripped of that disgusting obsession with you… yes, stripped of the essence called love.”

I frowned slightly, unable to understand immediately.

“You created a personality? Was it multiple personality disorder?”

“Unfortunately, there was no such mental illness. Not until he created one himself?”

Dark red Kia rippled around Hades.

Soon after, Kia shot up with a whoosh from the ground where I stood.

Since I was already prepared for an attack, counterattacking wouldn’t be difficult.

However.

‘This isn’t an attack?’

“Ah, it’s not an attack. Just.”

“…”

Hades smiled slyly.

“To show you directly why things turned out this way.”

When I closed my eyes and opened them again, I was standing in the same place. However, everything around me was filled with Kia.

‘A space created with Mental Realm Kia?’

Since mental-type Kia doesn’t work on me anyway, I leisurely looked around the place for now.

The purpose might simply be to trap me, so I needed to get out before Helios arrived.

Before long, I came face to face with the sight of a ruined room.

Unlike the neatly organized room from just moments ago, all the furniture was broken and shattered.

And among it all, I could see someone standing there in complete disarray.

“…Right, I couldn’t find her this time either.”

“I’m, I’m sorry, it’s a, a mortal sin…”

Someone was trembling as they gave their report. This lasted only briefly before the reporter’s focus disappeared.

It was brainwashing.

“…So it’s not the Eastern Continent either.”

I quietly observed the man who had grown thin and looked almost like a broken person.

I didn’t feel anything in particular.

Just the impression that this bastard had lived quite a mess of a life. It was Hades.

Beneath him lay those who were either dead or not breathing, scattered everywhere.

“Ha, haha. How can this be….”

Hades grabbed his own face.

“Miss, did you leave me alive and then depart just to burden me with this kind of deficiency?”

Hades muttered toward the empty air. It seemed like he had been searching for me, just as Helios had.

His glistening eyes stared into the void. Soon, physiological tears flowed beneath his wide-open eyes.

He was crying while laughing.

“How can this be, I’m hopeless at becoming Emperor. Every minute, every second, thinking like this.”

I had traveled all around the continent. No matter how much of a prince he was, he couldn’t search the entire vast continent.

Hades seemed to have made that judgment.

To find me after becoming Emperor.

“I decided to become Emperor, conquer the land, and then find you afterward.”

A familiar voice came from behind. Without turning my head, the owner of the voice soon appeared beside me.

It was ‘Hades’ in a neat state, the one I had seen in reality just moments ago.

“Watch carefully. This is the moment I was born, Miss.”

‘Hades’ nodded toward one spot.

“The deficiency after Miss left had more impact than expected. Truly foolishly so.”

In the space where people had died and furniture was in complete chaos, Hades was bursting into mad laughter.

Soon the laughter stopped abruptly.

“I thought about it. This feeling of wanting to keep you by my side, to confine you, to tie you down—it comes from my love.”

“….”

“Let’s forget it for a moment. For the sake of the goal.”

“….”

“Isn’t it ridiculous?”

I slowly turned my head.

‘Hades’ smiled with blood-red lips, ecstatically and as if tearing.

“That he became a fucking lunatic by tearing apart his own mind just to find you.”

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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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