I Became My Ex-Boyfriend’s Concubine - Chapter 91

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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 91

Dan-bi opened her eyes.
‘Where am I?’
A pitch-black space where she couldn’t tell where the floor ended and the walls began.
There was nothing around her. She took a step forward, but it felt as though she were treading on empty air.
In this black void where she couldn’t see even an inch ahead, the sensation of a flat floor beneath her feet felt strangely unfamiliar.
Now that she thought about it, she had definitely felt this way before.
It was that space she’d occupied just before entering this world. That place where the question had appeared: “Would you like to restart the game from the beginning?…”
Crackle—
At that moment, large letters materialized in the empty space along with a burst of static.

「Would you like to start the game?」

‘That’s….’
The wording was different from the Status Window she’d seen at first. Back then, it had clearly asked if she wanted to start over from the beginning, but this time it was simply asking whether she wanted to start the game normally.
As she hesitated, confused by this discrepancy, a voice muttering from somewhere reached her ears.
“This is a game? That doesn’t make sense!”
When she turned her head, she saw someone gazing at the Status Window floating in the air.
Dan-bi narrowed her brow. The silhouette seemed familiar, and when the face came into view—eyes gleaming with unbridled excitement—recognition struck.
It was herself.
‘What? Why am I over there….’
Before she could even grasp the situation, another version of herself shouted at the Status Window.
“Of course I do! Yes!”
In that instant, the floor rippled, and both feet lifted into the void.
The black backdrop around her tore away in jagged, pixelated fragments, and shards of light came flooding in, swallowing her whole.
It was exactly the same as when she’d first been hurled into this place.
Flash!
Wrapped in a white, flickering radiance, she opened her eyes to find the landscape from the very beginning of the game unfolding before her—complete and vivid.
Inside a palanquin that lurched and swayed, a bustling Market Street, footsteps toward the palace.
Like someone watching a dream, Dan-bi stood back and observed another version of herself—now the protagonist of the game—moving through these scenes.
But the Dan-bi in the dream didn’t last long before losing her life.
The first death was disappointingly absurd. She never even made it inside the palace; a simple misstep on Market Street caused a minor accident that ended in her demise.
One blink and she was back in that pitch-black space. Soon after, a different Status Window appeared.

「Would you like to restart the game from the beginning?」

The Dan-bi in the dream seemed startled for a moment, then eagerly shouted “Yes!” As if on cue, the same game started over again.
After that, the pattern was much the same. Dan-bi died in the game countless times, and each Game Over sent her back to the beginning.
The reasons for death varied each loop.
Sometimes she died in truly ridiculous accidents, and sometimes she met Hyun and lost her life not long after.
Later, she even attempted to kill Hyun, only to be discovered and slaughtered miserably for it.
The mounting loops flashed past like a lantern show before her eyes.
It felt familiar.
It was the same sensation as those memories of her character moving on its own while she was logged out, flowing back into her mind.
But the Dan-bi in the dream had definitely started the game along the same path as herself.
Then could it be—that what she’d felt as her character moving of its own accord back then… was actually not a game character at all, but another version of herself?
That didn’t make sense. She couldn’t be two people.
Yet the Dan-bi grimly persisting through the game in the dream was her exact double.
Even after experiencing all those deaths, the grim determination never to quit halfway through—it was eerily, perfectly identical to her own.
After countless failed attempts, in one particular loop, the moment she faced her usual brutal death, a familiar message appeared in the void.

「The game cannot be terminated.」

“What? Why….”
Before the Dan-bi in the dream could even finish her bewildered protest, the game forced itself onward. One blink and she was back on that Market Street where the game had first begun.
It was a familiar sight to her. She’d lived through it before.
Ever since the Logout button vanished, this was that terrible starting point—the moment she’d become unable to step even one foot outside this world.
Her path forward mirrored his own.
The Dan-bi in her dream seemed to realize, perhaps, that she too could only escape this place by clearing the Main Quest. She clung to it with desperate tenacity.
But at the end of each attempt, only wretched death awaited her.
Die, restart from the beginning, die again—this cycle repeated hundreds of times. Through each successive loop, Dan-bi transformed, degree by degree.
Her bright smile hardened into an immobile line, and her hands grew slick with blood.
At the end of yet another death, after countless lives had flickered past—too many to count—Dan-bi was hurled back into that pitch-black void.
“Where…is this?”
The Dan-bi in the dream glanced around in alarm. The moment she recognized the familiar place, blue windows began flashing in the air with manic intensity.

「System Error」
「Bug Occurrence」
「Deletion」
「Regeneration」

Countless messages appeared and vanished in turn, while loading windows rolled across the void at random.

「Helper/Assistant Summoning In Progress.」

An unfamiliar Status Window materialized before her.
“Helper/Assistant?”
Dan-bi’s brow twitched faintly. She stared down at something clutched in her hand for a long moment.
A Yellow Ornament.
‘A norigae? Why do I have this before the game even starts?’
Before the question could fully form, the pitch-black floor rippled, and the Dan-bi in the dream vanished.
Crackle—
A figure materialized above the empty space, assembling itself like fragmented graphics amid the white noise.
Surely not.
“What do I do now?”
What appeared before her eyes was herself. More precisely, the self from that distant past, the moment she first set foot in this world.
Poised awkwardly as if to strike an invisible foe, scanning every direction with wary vigilance—it was exactly how she had looked in that first loop.

「Game Over」

A new Status Window appeared in succession.
“Game Over? I haven’t done anything yet?”
After her bewildered question came the next prompt.

「Would you like to restart the game from the beginning?」

Watching the YES and NO buttons materialize below it, the Dan-bi before him rested her chin in her palm.
“Hmm, something feels off.”
After a brief hesitation, she shouted loud enough to ring through all the surrounding space.
“Yes!!”
At that instant, the ground beneath her feet convulsed grotesquely. It felt like being swept helplessly away by undulating black waves.
The moment she lost her footing and fell backward, her body shot upward into empty space.
Then the black background around her began to tear away in square graphic fragments.
In her receding vision, Dan-bi gazed blankly at her past self crumbling from the feet upward in the same manner.
Soon the world before her eyes flickered white, and all space vanished in an instant.

Splash!
When she opened her eyes, darkness still surrounded her on all sides.
In the moment she wondered if she had returned to that strange space again, an intense cold wrapped around her entire body, and she gasped.
Dan-bi opened her eyes to slits, surveying her surroundings.
All around remained pitch-black, but it was entirely different from before. Fluttering sleeves, a tight chest, gasping breath.
She was underwater.
As she regained her senses and turned her head, a familiar silhouette drifted toward her through the currents.
A man floating in the fathomless deep, his eyes closed.
It was Hyeon.
The moment their faces met, everything that had come before rushed in like a flood.

“……Your Highness?”

Hyeon, who had thrown himself after her without hesitation from the cliff’s edge. The warmth she had cradled against her chest. And the frigid water they plunged into together.
Dan-bi cut urgently through the current toward him, reaching out to grasp his limp, splayed hands.

“Do not return to this place again.”

His voice brushed past her ear, and her fingertips faltered.
But the hesitation lasted only a moment—his eyes, pressed shut, slowly began to open.
Deep eyes that held her within them.
Hyeon reached toward her first, and Dan-bi, as if entranced, stretched her hand to meet his.
The instant their hands found each other.
‘This is……!’
White light poured from where their fingertips touched, spreading in all directions at once.
The underwater darkness, submerged in pitch black, suddenly suffused with blue light—a sight both strange and wondrous.
Gripping Hyeon’s hand tightly, Dan-bi cut desperately through the water in the direction the light led.
“Gasp!”
How long had they been swimming?
At last she broke through the water’s surface. Hyeon emerged behind her, breathing heavily, and Dan-bi rushed to him in one urgent motion.
“Your Highness! Are you all right?”
“Hah… what in heaven is this……?”
Above Hyeon’s low voice, strange light wavered and danced. Dan-bi lifted her head numbly, taking in her surroundings.
The world that had been shrouded in colorless darkness was now awash in hues of every shade.
Blue light rippled mysteriously across the water’s surface.

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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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