Resetting Lady - Chapter 189

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

“You’re working hard. Isn’t it too difficult?”

“…Wh-what brings you here?”

This was far too bloody a space for Catherine, the lord’s wife, to enter. Dulan set down his sword and removed his gloves before standing up to wash his hands. But as he tried to leave, Catherine blocked his way.

“It won’t take very long.”

“B-but the smell…”

“It would be troublesome if others overheard this conversation.”

Dulan closed the door again. Dulan met her eyes.

“I’m going to die soon.”

Her voice was as light as if she were planning to take a walk tomorrow. Dulan was flustered, but as Catherine continued speaking, he had no chance to express his confusion.

“I’ll write down most things in my will, but it’s a bit awkward to write about Karen, isn’t it? So there are some things I want to say directly.”

“…Y-yes, I suppose so.”

“You don’t need to cook anymore. You’re being too skillful, so Karen is actually getting suspicious. Anyway, you’ll be leaving for the monastery soon, so just tell Nancy the medicine combinations.”

“…Th-the meals will taste much worse then.”

“It can’t be helped. Even when she’s forgotten everything, there are times when she refuses meals with your medicine.”

“Even though she c-can’t remember…”

“Even if you can’t remember, things you’ve repeatedly resolved… are hard to change.”

Catherine swept back the hair that had been covering her face. Karen’s appearance a few years from now was revealed.

Her striking eyes looked at Dulan from behind dark red eyelashes. Those eyes were the kind of color you might only see in a summer evening’s twilight. He saw his own reflection in those eyes. Catherine closed her mouth for a moment, then spoke to him again.

“When are you leaving?”

“I-I’ll be leaving in a few days.”

“…I see. So that’s it.”

Silence filled the room once more. But this silence wasn’t from having nothing to say—it was silence in preparation for speaking.

Dulan waited for what she would say. Suddenly the smell of blood felt nauseating.

Dulan found it hard to understand. Catherine was healthy. There was nothing wrong with her body. Why would she die?

“I-is there something wrong with your body?”

Dulan couldn’t help but wonder as he looked at her rosy cheeks. She seemed far from sickly. Catherine shook her head.

“No, but there will be.”

“It’s n-not related to illness… then.”

“That’s right.”

It was almost a declaration. Dulan knew her special circumstances. She repeatedly died and came back to life. And Dulan remembered hearing that Catherine’s mother and her ancestors also didn’t live very long.

Catherine didn’t say more about it, so he didn’t ask, but none of them lived very long. Someone committed suicide, someone died of illness, someone got caught up in war. The reasons for death were different, but no one lived to old age.

At least that was true for the ancestors Catherine knew or were recorded.

Could it not have been coincidence? Was there something that governed life beyond the repeating periods? Dulan asked carefully.

“…Is this also related to Karen?”

“To some extent.”

“W-will Karen end up the same way?”

Catherine smiled slightly at Dulan’s question.

“…I know what you’re thinking. It’s not that… It’s not related to blood.”

When she said the latter part, her face became somewhat pained. Grimacing, Catherine continued.

“Prince Guiz has sent another letter. I must protect my family.”

“Even so, I don’t think ending your life is a good solution.”

“You don’t know him. I know him. If I die, Prince Guiz will no longer be interested in our family. That’s just the kind of person he is.”

Catherine said this. Those in power become obsessed with what they cannot obtain. For Prince Guiz, that was Catherine. Catherine thought she had escaped from him, but marriage was too fragile a refuge.

Dulan had heard the lord confiding his troubles to the butler.

The estate taxes had been imposed much higher than in previous years. The sudden tax increase left them short of money. They had to borrow money. The lord ultimately had to borrow from the Verdick Evans family, rumored to be loan sharks.

Dulan being designated as the next lord wasn’t just because he was a close relative. It was also because all the other relatives had already refused to inherit the estate.

The jewelry Catherine had separately given to Dulan was enough for his parents to live on and pay for his education, but separately from that, the estate was becoming increasingly worthless. It was an estate of debt.

If Catherine died, Prince Guiz would no longer be interested in the Hyer family’s estate.

Catherine said so.

“When I die, my story ends. Now Karen will… live. That’s enough. Well, isn’t it really like a fairy tale? The protagonist usually doesn’t have a mother from childhood. Parents exit the stage. I’m done here.”

“…”

“My absence will be more helpful to Karen. What if I become weak-hearted and tell Karen the answer? So it’s right for me to die here.”

Catherine smiled.

“Karen will really live her own life. The Hyer family will provide minimal protection. That person too… is a parent after all.”

But looking at her face, Dulan couldn’t suppress a feeling that something wasn’t right. What Catherine was saying was far from the nobility of dying to protect family. Catherine looked relieved as she listed reasons why she should die.

Rather than looking worried about Karen, she seemed happy. Even while Catherine continued speaking to Dulan, she seemed to be suppressing her expression intermittently. It was the face of someone who had something to say but couldn’t say it.

“…If you have something more honest to say.”

Dulan made the sign of the cross and looked at Catherine. It was an expression that he wouldn’t mention it as God’s apostle. Though he was still a young priest who hadn’t received formal ordination, his gesture of making the sign of the cross was skillful. Dulan swore to God and asked Catherine.

“Do you really mean that?”

Are you really saying you’ll die to protect Karen?

Dulan looked up at Catherine. Their eyes met. Catherine moved her lips for a while before speaking.

“Actually… I’m tired of it.”

Catherine clenched her fists. Fatigue washed over her face. Catherine looked at Dulan and confessed her true feelings.

“I’ve really grown tired of living more. This much is enough. I don’t want to see the end either. I’m tired of watching whether Karen will succeed or not. I understand why mother committed suicide. If I’ve prepared this much for my daughter, I’ve done everything I need to do. Right?”

It would be okay for me to die now, wouldn’t it? Her eyes asked Dulan as they looked at him.

Those weren’t eyes seeking truth. They only wanted agreement.

“As a priest… I cannot recommend suicide.”

“I can commit suicide plenty without your help.”

“You’ll f-fall to hell.”

“That’s an amusing joke. How many times do you think I’ve died so far?”

Dulan was silent for a moment before answering.

“…Y-yes, I was just saying it out of courtesy.”

“Right.”

Catherine smiled.

“That’s why I like you.”

Catherine became visibly ill within a few days. She wasn’t versed in all knowledge, but she was versed in suicide. Among suicide methods, there were those using medicine.

Catherine brewed and took medicine herself. She said she was receiving examinations from Dulan, but in fact, during the time she met with him, instead of receiving examinations, she was swallowing poison. When he wasn’t there, she did it alone. Her attending physician would be at a loss not knowing the reason, but it couldn’t be helped.

“H-honestly speaking… rather than going painfully, going c-comfortably would be more…”

“No.”

Catherine said curtly.

Dulan couldn’t understand. He had accepted that she would commit suicide because she was tired of repeated deaths. But why choose a painful way to die?

“Dulan, do you know the mind of someone who self-harms?”

“…”

“I want to control the time of my own death. By putting poison in my body… I feel relief in the fact that I’m controlling my death. This is good not just for me but for others too. I need time to face the death that will slowly approach, and he and my friends need time to let me go.”

“If y-you think of others that way… living more would be…”

“That much is too bothersome.”

Catherine chuckled.

Catherine looked up at Dulan blankly. Her cheeks were hollow and the area under her eyes had turned black, making her original beauty disappear. That was just a precursor. She would gradually weaken like that and then die. This was suicide.

Her rough, hoarse voice continued.

“What are we?”

Is repeatedly giving birth to children what life is? Living continuously in stopped time makes you think many strange thoughts. Mother was like that, and grandmother was like that too. We’re livestock offered to God, so we just live like this.

Long ago, priests told us we had received infinite blessings. Because we could know the future and enjoy near-immortal eternal life if we wanted. Since we atoned for people’s sins through death, heaven was promised to us.

Living a repetitive life, no one has avoided committing sins. No one. Is everything resolved because we died? Is it nothing because time didn’t overlap?

Compared to other women, it might certainly be fortunate. All women stake their lives on marriage, and after marriage they must live raising children. It’s hard to have a profession, they inherit almost no property, and even their names don’t remain.

But should we consider it a blessing to live such lives where we give birth to children, die, and that’s how life ends? Since anyone’s life goal inevitably becomes children anyway… that’s… strangely miserable.

If you were royalty, you could make saving the country your aspiration.

If you were a man, you could make a profession your goal.

But for us, who can only aim to have children and thereby reach death, we can find no value other than love.

Then I wanted to at least die while loving.

And I did my best but failed.

But my daughter will succeed.

…So please help me. So that Karen won’t curse my choice… When she truly… catches a man she can think of as happiness… so she can get pregnant then.

The funeral was held simply.

It was a lonely funeral, unlike Catherine who had once been surrounded by royalty and nobility. Because Catherine had died of illness, only the minimum number of people attended. Since a plague was spreading nationwide at that time, people were afraid to venture outside their own towns.

Since Dulan had not yet received formal ordination, he only watched the funeral as an assistant priest. However, when reading the eulogy, he had some doubts about the phrase “will go to heaven.”

Would she really go to heaven?

That day, Dulan decided to become a heretic for his god.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————