I Became My Ex-Boyfriend’s Concubine - Chapter 77

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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 77

Whisk, whiiiish—
With a sharp sound, Dan-bi’s hand shot forward.
The Short Sword in her grip grazed perilously close to Hyeon’s Dragon Robe sleeve.
Seizing that narrow opening, Dan-bi pirouetted and cut off his escape, then drove the Short Sword deep toward his chest where his balance had fractured.
Hyeon’s reflexes snapped him backward an instant before the blade made contact.
The cold steel whistled through empty air.
Dan-bi pressed forward with a broad swing of her arm, but he had already widened the distance.
“Hah, hah…”
Dan-bi caught her breath, adjusting her grip on the sword hilt.
Hyeon stood opposite her, cradling Myeong-i in his arms, his eyes fixed on her. His brow was deeply furrowed.
Eyes filled with wariness.
Dan-bi’s face tightened as she bit her lower lip. In that instant, a blue Status Window materialized in her field of vision.

「Main Quest: Assassinate the King — In Progress.
An opportunity to complete this quest stands before you now. Kill the King at once and achieve your objective.」

Glowing red text blinked relentlessly, urging her to end Hyeon.
But the real problem was not the Status Window obscuring her vision. It was this body of hers, thrashing about as though strung by someone else’s puppet strings.
As if resolved to kill the King at all costs, the blade swung only toward Hyeon, and her body followed helplessly in its wake.
Dan-bi struggled against her uncontrollable limbs and thought of a single person.
‘It has to be her.’
The game’s Dan-bi who had invaded Uisang-go and attacked Hyeon during his logout.
The original inhabitant that this NPC possessed.
Whether it was a setting imparted by the system or a primordial self, the shell called Dan-bi had a true owner.
If her reasoning was sound, it might very well be that other Dan-bi now controlling this body.
The original Dan-bi, who had been lying dormant, had clearly raised her head under the guise of the system’s command.
She was a character that moved of her own volition even when the user did not log in.
If she was an existence that moved according to set parameters like other NPCs, then losing control of her body to her in this manner was hardly an impossibility.
And one thing was certain: just as before, she aimed for Hyeon’s life.
In truth, Dan-bi’s goal was no different. She wanted only to complete this quest and escape from this tedious world by any means necessary.
But not now.
‘Why? Why not now?’
She asked herself, but an answer did not come readily.
In reality, this was the perfect opportunity to kill Hyeon.
Inside the burning Jeongak, alone with him and no one else.
If she killed him here and left him in the flames, concealing the deed would be ideal.
She need not even soil her hands—a single push backward would end it.
By all rights, it was a chance that would never come again, just as the Status Window said. Yet her heart would not move.
‘He came to save my life?’
Could she really be wavering again for such a trivial reason?
She couldn’t. How many times had she sworn she would not hesitate next time?
So why…
‘That’s right. There’s still the Sub-quest left.’
The excuse she barely found was the Rain Ritual Ceremony.
She could not abandon the Sub-quest she had labored so hard to bring this far.
If she aimed for the moment right after the Rain Ritual Ceremony opened, she could complete both quests at once.
The terror of being trapped in the game forever if she left the Sub-quest incomplete.
Flimsy pretexts that she herself could not believe tumbled through her mind in confusion.
It was as she struggled to steel herself with these rationalizations.
Whiiish—!
Her feet had carried her to within a breath of Hyeon.
Catching his unguarded moment as flames blocked his escape route, Dan-bi’s hand wielded the blade of its own accord.
Hyeon twisted his body urgently toward the side not holding Myeong-i.
But it took only an instant for the sharp blade to slice across his back.
“Your Majesty!”
“Ugh…”
Red bloodstains spread through the rent fabric of the Dragon Robe.
Hyeon narrowed his brow and quickly retreated backward.
Contrary to her own scream, Dan-bi reset her grip on the blade and took a stance as if to rush forward at any moment.
Watching her, Hyeon’s face hardened quietly.
His face was already a mess of streaming sweat, but he was so breathless that he hadn’t even the luxury of reaching out a hand to steady himself.
The situation was not good.
The smoke was making his vision increasingly blur.
At this rate, he would suffocate and lose consciousness before the blade ever found him.
The same appeared to be true for Dan-bi.
Even as she lost her balance and swayed, the movements of the arm holding the blade were grotesquely precise.
In stark contrast to her wildly thrashing limbs, her complexion had drained to the pallid gray of a corpse losing life.
Hyeon found this dissonance bewildering.
He had simply come to rescue her from the burning chamber, yet she struck without warning.
Could all of this have been a trap to lure him here?
The fire, her captivity—everything……
‘No, it couldn’t be.’
The woman he had come to know would never be capable of using a child, no matter what her aims.
Above all, he knew the sincerity of her struggle—the sleepless nights she had spent in the Sangui-won over this past month.
It made no sense that someone so earnest about the Rain Ritual Ceremony would perpetrate such an act before the ceremony itself had even concluded.
But there was more.
“Your Highness, please escape!”
What was strange was the desperate urgency in her voice each time the attacks came.
As if she were being puppeted against her will by someone, she moved her lips frantically, as though trying to give him room to flee.
The anguish etched in her eyes was too vivid to dismiss as mere smoke-induced distress.
In that moment, a forgotten memory suddenly surfaced in Hyeon’s mind.

“I was so eager at the thought of beholding Your Highness’s countenance that I spent the night wakeful, and it seems I dozed off carelessly. I humbly beg your pardon for my discourtesy.”

It was that day—vivid beyond what any dream could be—the first time he and Dan-bi had shared a chamber.
Just as he was pressing her roughly to read her true heart, she who had seemed to lose consciousness suddenly awoke and spoke in a way that made no sense.
That strangeness—the way she had seemed like a different person—now overlapped uncannily with this very moment.
‘An Outsider, she had called herself.’
Her words—that this was merely a virtual world—now rang with sudden clarity in his ears.
Fragments scattered like shards fell into place all at once.
Her erratic, hitherto inexplicable behavior now began to align with the word “Outsider.”
‘Could she have actually meant……’
His mind had not yet caught up to the situation.
Thud—!
Dan-bi, who had come within sight, suddenly halted her advance.
Or rather, “bound herself” would be the more accurate phrase.
Before Hyeon could even dodge, she wrenched the hand holding the blade upward and, without hesitation, drove it downward.
“Ugh……!”
“My lord!”
The sharp blade sank deep into Dan-bi’s thigh.
Hyeon started in shock and rushed toward her.
Crimson blood flowed from the wound, soaking the ground in a dark sheen. As she collapsed to her knees, blood poured between her trembling fingers in a scarlet flood.
Hyeon urgently gripped her shoulders.
“What on earth are you doing!”
“It’s… it’s over now……”
As their eyes met, she smiled faintly.
“It’s all done, Your Highness.”
The blood pooling on the ground touched the wavering flames.
At that moment, the black fire that had been raging began to turn red from its depths.
Hyeon stood transfixed, watching the sight unfold.
Within the colorless world that had been dimming as the Jade Seal vanished, only the flames recovered their true crimson brilliance and surged forth.
The color that had disappeared was slowly returning.

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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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