I Became My Ex-Boyfriend’s Concubine - Chapter 89

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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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Episode 89

At first, she harbored no particular suspicion about the direction the System was guiding her.
By completing the Sub-quests one by one, the path toward the Main Quest naturally opened before her.
From palace entry to Audience, every step had been groundwork for drawing closer to Hyeon, her target.
Since the Main Quest itself was to assassinate Hyeon, creating a point of contact with him was a necessary step to seize her opportunity.
The rewards given to her—the Short Sword and the Antidote—she had taken for granted as proper game items.
The Short Sword served as a weapon to carry out quests, and the Antidote as a tool to preserve her life in moments of peril.
She had believed that everything was being granted to her in perfect alignment with the Main Quest’s purpose.
But her certainty in the System began to waver when she performed the Rain-Making Ritual mission.
The moment rain fell to reshape the world’s fate, Dan-bi’s own world turned upside down.
Vast, overwhelming memories came flooding into her mind.
The memory fragments all bore a striking resemblance—as though repeated countless times, and in each instance, she had always been trying to kill Hyeon.
Dan-bi grasped it instinctively.
Perhaps this game was not her first time. Perhaps the player within the game had tried to kill Hyeon again and again.
And surely, that reason had to be deeply connected to the Main Quest that demanded his death.
Yet there was one thing that nagged at her. It was those moments in her memories when she came closest to killing Hyeon.
Ultimately, she had never once succeeded in completing the Quest—only to meet her end.
The causes varied.
The blade she drove toward Hyeon shattered in her hands, or she suddenly plummeted from a cliff, or a bolt of lightning struck her down without warning.
At the critical moment when she was about to kill him, something always intervened, and the mission failed.
Too precise to be mere coincidence.
Dan-bi wondered if perhaps all of this was not simple accident at all.
It had been since the moment the rain began to fall, when her relationship with Hyeon started to shift.
Hyeon, too, drenched in that rain, began to recall memories from previous cycles—memories she could not fathom.
More precisely, they were memories of the moments when she had tried to kill him.
This was absolutely not to her advantage.
Although he was cooperating with her now for reasons she could not understand, should the conflict between them reach its peak, she would have no ground to stand on.
How could it be easy to keep at her side someone she had tried to kill countless times? She could only count it as the greatest stroke of fortune that Hyeon was extending his hand to her now.
“……What are you thinking so intently about?”
At the low sound of Hyeon’s voice, Dan-bi suddenly snapped back to awareness. He was watching her with curious eyes.
Dan-bi shook her head quickly.
“It’s nothing.”
“You have not yet answered my question.”
Still, Hyeon did not look away.
“I asked you—what is it that you wish to confirm by finding and examining the Jade Seal?”
“Ah, that is…….”
Dan-bi hesitated for a moment before speaking carefully.
“Your Highness, do you remember what was said about the Jade Seal being created?”
“Do you speak of that sorcery?”
“Yes. I cannot help but feel uneasy about it.”
There was another thing that bothered her—the strange Status Window message that appeared when the reward Item was granted after completing the Sub-quest.

「System: Scanning reward list……」
「Error: Unable to locate suitable reward object.」
「Impossible」
「Warning: Reward dispensation unavoidable.」

The Status Window had searched for a long while before dispensing the reward.
Instead of an Item dropping straight away as before, it seemed to malfunction—the display had gone haywire, which left her deeply troubled.
After all that upheaval, the reward that was finally given was the Jade Seal.
The Jade Seal was not an Item to be glossed over lightly.
It was strange enough that something so important, bearing such deep connection to this world, had been given as an Item. But the manner of its bestowal felt somehow off.
Rather than being freely offered, it felt as though something had forced it into her hands against all resistance.
Dan-bi sensed that the Jade Seal might be harboring a secret she did not yet know.
‘Perhaps this is my chance.’
After her deliberation, she had resolved to accept the Jade Seal—yet those old memories kept surfacing, weighing on her mind.
The tragic endings, the deaths that came at the critical moment when she had been on the verge of completing the Quest.
If I could find the Jade Seal, perhaps I might reach an ending different from the previous cycle. That was the thought that had seized me.
It was then that Hyun broke the silence with a question.
“So if you’re saying you want to verify something through the Jade Seal… are you suggesting it might be connected to your way out of this world?”
“…Yes.”
Dan-bi flinched at the question that cut straight to the heart of the matter.
Though she had offered no lengthy explanation, he read her true thoughts with perfect clarity. She couldn’t decide whether to find that reassuring or troubling.
“Your Highness! I’ve brought some firewood for you.”
“Dan-bi!”
At that moment, Som and Rang came inside, their arms laden with dry wood.
Rang positioned himself in the center of the Cave, set down the dried kindling, and struck his Flint repeatedly against the logs.
Soon a small spark caught, and the flames rose bright and vivid—a rich, brilliant red that reminded her of something she had recovered once before.
Dan-bi stretched her hand toward the fire. Warmth traveled across her palm.
After watching the flames for a long while, Dan-bi closed her eyes slowly, as though enchanted.
Her consciousness grew hazy, and deep sleep descended upon her.
Soon a familiar face flickered across her darkening vision.
A worried face, arms wrapped around her back, holding her close.
It was Hyun’s face, the one she had seen in the burning pavilion.
Or had it been then?
Suddenly, another image layered over that face.
She saw Hyun with his arms spread wide, as though willing to meet the blade he thrust toward her.
It was clearly not a recent memory. Then could it be a memory that had flowed in from a previous cycle?
Dan-bi hesitated as she watched Hyun’s hand bleeding from where he had grabbed the blade and pulled it toward himself.
It was as though he had resolved to meet the blade himself.
It was while Dan-bi bit her lip at this incomprehensible sight that—

“…do not come back here.”

At the sound of his voice ringing in her ear, Dan-bi lifted her head. She could see tears streaming down his cheeks.
As their eyes met, he whispered:

“Never come back to this place again.”

“…!”
The moment her eyes opened, the cold Cave filled her vision.
Dan-bi jerked awake and looked around urgently.
Som lay curled up like a shrimp beside her, sleeping soundly, while Rang sat across from her with his back against the cave wall, eyes closed.
Dan-bi exhaled with relief. It had all been a dream.
But when she looked around again, there was no sign of Hyun.
Had he gone for a walk at this deep hour of night?
Dan-bi rose as though in a trance.
Just as she was about to turn toward the entrance, she heard a strange sound from behind her.
She turned her head at once and caught sight of a figure’s shadow at the far edge of the pale moonlight seeping through the entrance.
The shadow then slowly vanished into the deep darkness within the Cave.
“Your Highness…?”
Dan-bi moved deeper into the Cave as though entranced. Her foot touched a puddle, sending small ripples across its surface.
“Your Highness!”
Her footsteps continued, pressing deeper and deeper. With each step inward, the air grew sharp enough to cut her skin.
The puddles that had splashed beneath her feet moments before had hardened into solid ice, and from above, treacherous icicles hung precariously.
Just as Dan-bi tried to stop in the darkness where she could barely see a hand’s breadth ahead, a bluish light began to spread from the end of the passage.
Dan-bi moved toward that light as though bewitched.
There stood an Ice Pillar—a massive column of ice formed from a stream of water that had frozen as it poured down from the ceiling.
Before the luminous ice column, Dan-bi slowly reached out her hand.
“Is the light coming from here…?”
That was when it happened.
<It’s been a while.>
At the sound of a voice coming from before her eyes, she snapped her head up. Her own reflection was visible on the surface of the blue ice column.
But the Dan-bi within the column wore a bitter smile, unlike herself.
<Somehow, you’re still alive?>

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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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