Resetting Lady - Chapter 136

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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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03. The others

Karen loves Raymond.

But as time passed and she began to be cut off from everyone except Raymond, Karen had more time to think.

Is it love when only two people exist in a perfect world?

Will things really be different after a year?

There is no such thing as a world inside a novel.

But Karen still felt like she was inside one.

It was just that there were now two people trapped inside the novel.

* * *

The trigger was a fingernail.

Raymond didn’t say who the fingernail belonged to. It seemed like he would tell her if she pressed further, but she didn’t particularly want to. Nothing changed just because Karen had discovered the fingernail. Raymond casually accepted her question and cut it off, saying it was necessary.

After that, Karen couldn’t find any other strange signs, and Raymond didn’t let anything show. Even without discussing it, their conversations flowed smoothly and the scenery remained peaceful.

There were many things that could be buried.

Right now they were lovers who had just fallen in love, and in a year they might be people separated by death once again. Neither wanted to become uncomfortable with each other over unnecessary disputes. Karen felt this way, and so did Raymond.

Time flowed as it always did, impossible to tell whether it was fast or slow. Early summer approached. The roses at Tess Manor bloomed magnificently, just as Isella had boasted they would.

It was a brilliant summer.

The profusely blooming roses were still beautiful despite their owner’s indifference, and there were still various species as if remembering their dead mistress.

Among them, one profusely blooming variety particularly caught the eye. It was a variety with white outer petals and red inside. It was a variety she’d never seen before. From a distance, it had the beauty of a paper crown. The harmony of the soft pink petals—not a vivid red—and the gentle white petals was quite beautiful. Karen picked one of those roses. Then she brushed off a small bug that was clinging to the rose.

Even though the roses were beautiful, it was obvious there was no one managing them. Here and there she could see traces where bugs had eaten the leaves, and there were many weeds mixed in. The branches hadn’t been pruned either. But a bit of wildness also had its charm. It wasn’t bad yet.

There were bugs, the clothes were unfashionable, and there wasn’t much makeup, but still there was peace here. So there was no need to worry. But Karen kept thinking of one person who continued to gnaw at her heart.

Even when she shook her head telling herself not to think about it, that face kept coming to mind like a bug in the rose garden, continuously making her heart uncomfortable.

Was Isela Evans still missing?

Karen didn’t like Isella, but she didn’t dislike her either. What was the point of getting angry at people in a novel anyway? That was her creed.

When someone’s father was swindled and lost all his fortune, when she went from being in a position to order maids around to becoming a maid herself, when she was slapped for the tea being cold, when she had to endure the sticky hands of middle-aged men. Even when she collapsed from working day and night.

It’s okay. It’s okay.

I don’t hate. I don’t love. I don’t fear. I don’t grieve.

Everything is just events in a book. She was convinced that when time passed, she would eventually meet her end and return to her place. She sought only that one thing.

Again. She doesn’t regret it. She thinks it’s natural. Now everything has come back to life again. Donna is once again a laundry maid who can’t do her job well, and Tom will get beaten by Thomas.

But Karen couldn’t understand why Isella bothered her so much. No, maybe it was natural.

If she was the heroine of a romance novel, wasn’t Isella a supporting character?

A supporting character who causes trouble for the heroine until the end and exits disgracefully. An ending befitting that role.

“Do you like my necklace?”

“You’re my maid now!”

“How dare… you… how dare…”

Isella was jealous of Karen. It was blatant. From monopolizing Raymond’s attention, to drawing people’s gazes in high society, to just moving around and smiling.

Karen couldn’t understand it.

Appearance was ultimately just that. It only briefly drew people’s attention and that was the end.

Karen had no money and no powerful parents. Even when Isella grabbed her hair and threw her around, it only ended with other maids later holding her hand pitifully, and other nobles clicking their tongues.

Even when she became Verdick’s adopted daughter, that didn’t change. Verdick mercilessly whipped her since she wasn’t his real daughter, and when Isella opened her eyes, she ultimately drove Karen to death.

All Karen had left was just Raymond’s sympathy. Because of that, Verdick killed Karen dozens of times over.

Karen thought about the fingernail. She looked down at her own fingernails. She couldn’t really tell. Someone’s fingernail had been pulled out. Raymond had pulled out a fingernail. To get information. Maybe to vent his anger.

Isella had gone missing.

Was the owner of the fingernail Isella?

But what problem was that?

Even if Raymond pulled out someone’s fingernail because he loved Karen, because he needed her, how could Karen blame Raymond for that? Why should she be surprised by it?

But Karen found the thought that the owner of that fingernail was Isella strangely uncomfortable.

Why was that thought so uncomfortable?

It’s okay because it’s inside a book.

It’s okay because they come back to life.

It’s okay because she herself has died many times.

But Isella had never once killed Karen.

“The child is also guilty. Karen, all people are influenced by their parents. They receive inheritance and receive names, so why do you think they don’t receive crimes? And if they grew up under such a person, it’s obvious. That child will also become a criminal.”

Isella said this while looking at her pathetically. Karen thought then: if the same situation befell her, would she accept it?

Isella’s father, Verdick Evans, had killed Karen Hyer many times.

So did Raymond kill Isella? Would Isella accept her death?

Of course she wouldn’t. As all people would. She had thought that only Raymond was the unique person and that would be enough, but imagining Isella being tortured and killed by Raymond was this uncomfortable.

If she had killed Isella herself, she wouldn’t have felt bad. If she had killed her in front of Verdick, she would have felt even more exhilarated. But the assumption that Raymond tortured Isella to death was this uncomfortable.

What was the difference? Karen kept thinking. What she could do, what she could do in this mansion with just the two of them, was only think.

And she came to an immature conclusion.

It was because she had dismissed it as being inside a book, but it wasn’t a book.

It was because they were now real people.

Because she was a person and Isella was also a person.

And because Isella was, in the end, a rare person who had never once killed her.

“…Hah.”

But Karen sighed and closed her eyes. The poetry wouldn’t enter her sight at all. Who was she pitying?

This too was ultimately unnecessary cheap sympathy, something not even worth thinking about, a solitary amusement. Luxurious surplus emotion.

Karen sighed.

She must have spent too much time with Isella after all.

But that worry was very brief. Even in this life there was peace, but time was bound to flow and incidents were bound to happen.

Mocking bird songs could be heard. The scent of roses wafted. The poetry book she had been holding was lying beside her.

“…”

Karen realized she had been sprawled on the garden bench and had fallen into a nap. Her mind had been hazy and then her eyes opened. She felt someone’s presence. It was still Raymond, no one else. Raymond’s golden hair was shining in the sunset. But he wasn’t staying still.

Karen wondered if he was acting like that because she was asleep and couldn’t wake him. But even so, Raymond was too strange.

‘…Why is he like that?’

Raymond seemed not to notice Karen’s gaze and was still distracted by something else.

But he wasn’t exactly doing anything either. He wasn’t talking to her or watching her. Raymond was walking back and forth around Karen, pacing restlessly.

He looked like he had something important to say to her but couldn’t, and was fidgeting anxiously. It made the observer more nervous.

“Ahem, ahem.”

Karen cleared her throat. But Raymond still didn’t stop his restless steps. He seemed to be quite deeply lost in thought.

“Lord Raymond.”

“…Karen, are you awake?”

Raymond stopped walking. But his expression was awkward and his fingers were fidgeting.

“Did you burn dinner or something?”

“Pardon?”

“Or did you tear your clothes again?”

“No.”

“Then I’m curious why you look so distracted. And your buttons are done up wrong.”

Raymond grumbled.

“Well, it’s just the two of us anyway… I’m sorry.”

Karen gestured to Raymond. Raymond approached the bench. Karen sat up straight and unbuttoned Raymond’s shirt and redid it.

“I can do it myself.”

“You look too distracted right now. What’s going on?”

“…It seems something has come up that absolutely can’t be postponed.”

What could it be?

Karen felt a slightly racing curiosity arise.

Something being postponed, Raymond being so anxious like this. It was something rarely seen.

“Why don’t you just say it instead of fidgeting like that? Just tell me.”

When Karen looked at Raymond, he frowned slightly and answered. He seemed displeased about having to say this.

“Karen, how well can you handle a gun?”

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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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