Pretending to Be Human Is Exhausting Again Today - Chapter 2

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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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Struggling to Pretend to Be Human Today Episode 002

I, Deina Rifeon, was an imperial princess of the Empire.

I was second among the princesses and fourth among the Emperor’s children—an ambiguous ranking. Being female, I was far from the line of succession, blessed with a birth that would allow me to live my entire life like a flower in a greenhouse.

If only I hadn’t been born with cursed eyes.

‘It’s a curse, a curse has been cast!’

I was born with dark navy hair and yellow eyes. These features were the opposite of the platinum hair and blue eyes that symbolized the Imperial Family, which led priests and royals to point fingers at me as a cursed birth.

If only my appearance had been unusual, it would have ended with brief persecution, but my subsequent childhood was a continuous series of misfortunes, as if I had truly received God’s curse.

‘Did you hear? The princess’s wet nurse hanged herself!’

‘During the debutante ball, the chandelier fell and…’

‘The playmate was found in the lake in the garden! It was in the deep part where a child couldn’t go!’

‘For such misfortune to strike repeatedly, she must surely be the reincarnation of a demon!’

Inexplicable misfortunes always lingered around me.

At first, I made excuses that it wasn’t my fault, but I stopped doing that when I turned ten. The attendants who had listened to my stories died one by one or left my side, unable to overcome their fear.

Eventually, when the playmate I had confided in died, I couldn’t even cry anymore.

The curse even affected my health, making me more haggard with each passing day.

Finally, before reaching adulthood, the curse took away even my freedom to walk.

When rumors about me spread throughout the Empire, my father… the Emperor abandoned me.

‘How unsightly. Never show yourself before me again.’

He sent me to recuperate at a separate palace far from the main palace. It was called recuperation, but it was no different from confinement.

The Emperor who abandoned me, the Empress who treated me as a non-existent child, and my siblings who turned away from me.

Young me was left to live alone in the separate palace, leaving all of that behind.

‘What a terrible life.’

When I had to attend imperial events in my wheelchair, I was ignored like weeds on a wall and had to endure insulting remarks.

As such incidents repeated, even the servants at the separate palace began to ignore me.

Wouldn’t it be better to die quickly? By the time I became an adult, even my will to keep living had disappeared.

‘Everyone seems to want me to die quickly.’

At some point, I noticed that my meals contained poison. After observing for over ten years, it was obvious who the culprit was. I felt betrayed, but only briefly.

I silently accepted the sweet poison disguised with various seasonings.

‘If I don’t eat it, I’ll starve to death anyway, so there’s no other choice.’

Time passed, and one day when I could no longer go out or even leave my bed alone.

‘This is really the end now.’

I felt that the poison in my meal was stronger than before.

It seemed that those who wished for my death had finally decided on my cause of death.

“…I will eat well.”

I swallowed my anger and resentment along with the meal.

Afterward, I put on my cleanest nightgown, applied fragrant oil to my hair for the first time in a while, and lay down in bed. Hoping that at least the person who would dispose of my corpse wouldn’t be cursed, I even offered devout prayers before falling asleep.

I closed my eyes and cast my fading consciousness far into the swamp of death.

Just when I thought this wretched and hopeless life was finally coming to an end.

[Really?]

I heard a whisper.

[Do you really have no regrets at all?]

The dying me… no, the dead me naturally couldn’t answer. But some voice began to speak for my feelings on its own.

[I don’t like it. For a human who deserves to be happy to die unhappily, it’s too terrible. And to give up so helplessly like this, it’s not like you.]

That voice made a strange laughing sound and said.

[It can’t end like this, Deina. You, I, we don’t want this kind of ending. You actually want to live more, don’t you? You want to be happy, don’t you?]

Where would there be a person who wants to die?

It was a question that didn’t need an answer.

[I want to live more. I don’t want to give up on being human. I like humans.]

It was an incoherent conversation. That voice seemed to be listening to my soul’s cry and speaking, but then it changed topics on its own whim.

The way of speaking was also very strange. It was like a being from another world that had just learned human speech.

[So let’s seize another chance. It’s okay, I’m here.]

Was it going to help me? Or was it going to steal my body?

I thought I didn’t want that, but again the voice answered on its own.

[No, you misunderstood. You and I are one, so this isn’t helping.]

Then what is it exactly?

[It’s remembering again. The memories of when you were me. The memories of when human Deina was the demon Asmodina. From when you were a demon who loved humans.]

At that moment, I opened my eyes.

* * *

“…!”

The first thing I felt upon opening my eyes was that they felt gritty, as if sand had been sprinkled in them.

I blinked desperately to produce tears, and belatedly noticed that changes had occurred in my previously aching body.

‘My goodness, it doesn’t hurt?’

My stomach that had always stung as if I’d swallowed thorns, my lungs and throat that had made me gasp heavily with every breath, and my limbs that had been heavy as if weights were attached—everything felt light.

It had been so long since I’d felt the sensation of not being in pain that the present felt strange instead.

The joy was brief, as I became dizzy from the decades and centuries of memories swirling in my head and squeezed my eyes shut again.

‘Asmodina.’

The name of the voice that had spoken to me at death’s threshold… no, my past name.

Only then did I realize that all these memories were from a previous life.

The Demon King’s daughter, the vanguard commander of the demon realm who had achieved victory in dozens of wars, and the heretical demon who loved humans.

‘My God, I really was the reincarnation of a demon.’

It was the moment when the delusion of being “the reincarnation of a demon,” which I had desperately denied as false rumors, became reality.

I couldn’t come to my senses from the memories of my previous life that poured out unexpectedly.

My sense of self wasn’t shaken. It was because both personalities were similar.

The problem was that the amount of memories was too vast.

It felt like being forced to memorize dozens or hundreds of books.

Especially problematic was her peculiar taste.

‘My past self really loved humans quite a bit.’

Perhaps because she was a heretic born in the demon realm where individualism didn’t exist, she really loved human stories.

Human heroes, romances that transcended social status, artists who overcame adversity… she was told she might even marry a human.

It was a past that didn’t suit Deina’s life of being betrayed by humans.

But since both were me, the mixture of Asmodina’s emotions of loving humans and Deina’s unpleasant experiences made me nauseous.

It was because of the complex emotions of liking them but wanting to hate them.

Just as I was trying to suppress my past emotions and calm my mind.

“…I said!”

“Ahhh!”

An irritating noise disturbed my ears.

‘Who’s in the bedroom?’

I wanted to focus on organizing my memories, but the noise was too loud to ignore.

No matter how much I’m an ignored princess, what are they doing in someone else’s bedroom?

Finally, unable to contain my anger, I opened my mouth.

“It’s noisy.”

The words I spoke after a long time flowed out more comfortably and smoothly than I expected.

I was quite pleased that speaking didn’t hurt my chest, but I didn’t show it and sat up.

It was to see with my own eyes what they were doing to make such noise.

“What’s all this commotion in someone else’s bedroom?”

And I was flustered to face an unexpected situation.

It was because familiar men and women were entangled together.

One was Hans, a servant I occasionally saw outside the window, and the other was Liribel, a maid who cleaned my room.

‘A love affair… probably not.’

Seeing Liribel struggling while being grabbed by the collar and Hans full of murderous intent, it didn’t seem like a situation to take lightly.

“That’s, that’s impossible! I definitely killed you!”

Soon Hans began muttering incomprehensible words. My head was spinning with confusion, so I couldn’t easily understand and waved my hand as I spoke.

“I don’t know what’s going on, but… how about you let go of that kid’s collar first?”

“So you were in cahoots after all!”

But instead, I seemed to have provoked Hans’s anger, as he swung his dagger toward Liribel.

Startled by the sight, I reflexively thrust my right hand forward.

Though it was an unconscious act, the demon clan’s magic power dwelling in my body faithfully carried out what its master desired.

[Shadow.]

I thought I heard my voice from the past behind me.

At the same time, the shadow on the bedroom floor transformed into something like an awl and pierced through Hans’s arm.

“Aaaah!”

Hans rolled on the floor.

As I stared at him blankly, the freed Liribel looked at me with a bewildered expression and said.

“D-dark magic?”

‘Oh no.’

Even if I had to use magic, I should have used something inconspicuous!

I tried to hastily make an excuse, but Liribel’s words came faster.

“Wow, that’s totally cool!”

It was pure admiration, like a little boy catching a rhinoceros beetle for the first time.

Flustered by the unexpected reaction, I blinked my eyes in bewilderment.

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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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