I Became the Wife of the Hero Who Killed Me - Chapter 167

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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 167
Rumble—
Two enormous creatures clawed at each other, their bodies tangled together as they rolled across the ground.
I couldn’t believe it.
Just moments ago, my cat had been resting peacefully in my arms—how could she have become a monster like this?
“What in the world……”
Purple eyes flashed between the thrashing beasts.
I had seen that color before.
‘You’re frightened, aren’t you? It’s all right. Come here, let Mother hold you.’
‘Kyaaaaoow!’
‘Mother? Don’t struggle so…… Ugh!!’
The day Edwin and the Inquisitors had first clashed in the Caldric Mountain Range.
Back then, I’d rationalized it away—told myself the light had bent strangely because of the lightning that tore across the sky.
Yes, I’d ignored it all along, but perhaps I’d known the truth all the same.
That something was wrong with Nero.
She understood my words far too well to be merely a clever cat, and more than that—her age didn’t add up.
I had raised Nero since childhood, so if I met her again now, she should have been an old cat.
Of course, to my eyes she would always look like a kitten, but by Imperial Calendar year 875, Nero’s fur should have been streaked with gray.
Yet the Nero who had reappeared looked exactly as she had when she was young.
Just as she lived in my memory.
“Who are you? Where is my Nero? Where did she go?!”
I stumbled to my feet, my voice cracking with desperation.
I had fought to maintain composure all along, but before this impossible sight, reason crumbled away.
That was when it happened.
Bang—
The black monster froze at my cry. Its opponent seized the opening and lunged, tearing at its throat.
The balance of combat shifted in an instant.
‘What… what do I do?’
My mind screamed that this was my chance to flee.
But I couldn’t tear my eyes from the creature that bore Nero’s face.
Somewhere along the way, I found myself holding my breath, praying that the black monster wouldn’t be hurt, that it would overwhelm its enemy.
Why, I didn’t know.
Then the black monster cried out.
[Mother, run!]
“……!”
Mother.
The monster had called me Mother.
I stood frozen, blinking in disbelief, when the serpent-shaped creature suddenly rolled its eyes and twisted toward me instead.
I couldn’t run. My body had gone rigid.
The black monster, pressed back throughout the fight, summoned every ounce of strength and tore at the serpent’s neck.
[Run, I’m telling you!]
“……Nero? Is it really you, Nero?”
How was this possible?
How could my child become a monster? My cat, whom I had raised from a scrap of life, cherishing her every moment.
[I’ll explain later—please, just run!]
The battle grew fiercer.
Each time I saw fangs and claws ripping into the black monster’s flesh, it felt as though my own heart was being torn to shreds.
“How could I run and leave you alone?!”
[That’s the only way Mother can survive!]
“I already failed to protect you once before—how could I live with myself abandoning you now?!”
The memory of Nero’s final moment burned sharp in my mind—the kick from a military boot.
Discarded on cold earth, bleeding silently as she watched me dragged away. My baby, helpless.
Then, I had been powerless to do anything but watch her die.
[I’ll find you. I found you this time too. So……!]
The serpent seemed to recognize that I was her weakness.
It attacked me with taunts, and Nero took every blow meant for me—even strikes she could have dodged—upon her own body.
Through my tears, reason finally returned.
My presence was hindering her. She needed me gone to fight at full strength.
I wiped my wet eyes roughly and called out.
“You have to come back safe! Nero, there’s so much I want to tell you. So much I want to show you, want to share with you……”
I backed away slowly, taking in every detail of Nero’s form.
At first, I’d thought it was merely a colossal shadow, black as pitch, but now, seeing the monster from a distance, I could make out Nero’s likeness in its shape.
Only the form had changed; I could feel it—this was my offspring.
Finally, I turned and began to run.
My limbs, exhausted and wrung dry, felt nothing, yet I drove myself forward with every ounce of strength I possessed.
Unlike when I’d been with Nero, the world around me shifted with astonishing speed.
Sheer cliffs and jagged stone formations, parched wastelands, endless sand deserts—
I halted abruptly and whispered to myself.
“It would be more sensible to believe this was a dream.”
My body, heavy and sluggish with exhaustion, suddenly felt weightless, as though I’d been released from gravity itself.
I continued forward as if entranced by something.
A soft song drifted from somewhere.
Sunlight poured through an old window so brilliantly that, without thinking, I wept.
Then came the sound of hurried footsteps drawing near.
“Oh no. Dear, our little princess is crying again.”
“Why does she keep crying? Could something be hurting her?”
“Let me check. Her diaper’s clean, and I just fed her not long ago….”
It was a scene I had no memory of, yet I understood it instinctively.
These were my parents, as they were when I was newborn.
Mother lifted me from the cradle and tried to nurse me, but it was no use.
Everything felt so sorrowful that I could only cry with all my might.
Father watched anxiously, then, as if remembering something, began to sing a lullaby softly.
“Sleep well, our Elze. In the front courtyard and the hill behind—”
“All the birds and lambs are sleeping too—”
Seeing my parents smile tenderly at each other, I too felt happiness blossom within me.
I surrendered to the pleasant drowsiness and closed my eyes contentedly.
This place was the beginning of my life, unfolded like the Lantern of Past Lives, shown to me by the Door.
* * *
Edwin had positioned his troops to prevent the monsters from descending into the residential areas, then thrown himself alone into the Black Continent.
His subordinates protested desperately, but none could stop him.
In a land where both time and space were twisted, Edwin rode like a madman, searching for one person.
“Elze, where are you?! Elze!!”
The lesser monsters recoiled from his overwhelming mana, slinking away of their own accord.
Any giant monster that dared block his path fell easily each time he drew his sword.
His destination had been clear from the start.
The Door.
If that conscious entity was at work, it would certainly draw Elze to it.
He himself and Morcatus—beings who disrupted the world’s order—had converged for this reason alone: because Elze’s soul had been reborn into this world.
He had to stop her before she crossed the threshold.
Once a mere mortal stepped beyond that boundary, there was no escaping it a second time.
‘Please, let me not be too late.’
The landscape shifted moment by moment.
He’d traveled this region so many times that he could picture it with his eyes closed; now he entered the familiar territory.
As he calculated whether he might close the Door before Elze was drawn through, something entered his field of vision.
Someone lay collapsed on the barren earth.
Hair that gleamed like starlight even in the eternal night, and the arctic fox fur cloak he’d hunted and sewn himself—a sight burned into his memory.
“Elze!”
Edwin tumbled from his horse and rushed toward her.
“I’m here. Elze, Elze… please, open your eyes. Please!!”
He gathered her fallen body urgently into his arms, calling her name, but no answer came.
It became clear in that instant: Elze’s soul had already left her body and been drawn into the Door’s threshold.
“Please….”
Edwin held her ravaged form silently against him.
Bloodied soles, ankles swollen dark crimson, wounds visible through rips in her clothes—each mark carved into his heart.
Yet by a mercy, Elze’s body was still warm.
Not much time had passed.
‘There might still be a chance.’
He could not abandon hope now.
Even if it meant grasping at a gossamer thread, even if it were a rotting rope, he would cling to whatever sliver of possibility remained to bring her back.
There were words he had to speak to her.
He had to beg and plead at her feet, asking forgiveness for his own terrible ignorance.
It would have been enough even if what returned was not affection.
Like a wretched beggar, if he could only scrape together some small fragment of compassion she might deign to offer him.
Then there was nothing he would not do.
…….
Edwin straightened the slumped body and carefully arranged his cloak over it, then turned his gaze away.
His cold, settled eyes fixed upon the continent of eternal night.
He soon stepped toward the boundary of the “Gate” following Elze.

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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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