Resetting Lady - 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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What Karen truly finds displeasing is not the murmuring surroundings, but his attitude of glaring around without any awareness.

Shame. That man reeked of nauseating medicine, wine, and the fishy smell of rain. There were no suitable clothes for him who had just arrived. His attire didn’t match the occasion, and the hem of his pants still had moisture from wiping off mud.

His large eyes were lifeless, with dark shadows beneath them that made children cry just from looking, and even the maids would sometimes startle. And those eyes were fixed on Karen again. Of course, Karen, who had grown accustomed to this over a hundred years, felt no particular emotion.

“What you’re… thinking.”

“You already know.”

A tall but scrawny man with no money and no bedroom skills – completely unattractive. A man who doesn’t love Karen but feels lust, arrogant and rude. Karen disliked him. And she disliked herself for feeling that dislike. Because she found it ridiculous to be angry at mere ink on paper.

If you had been an attractive man, there wouldn’t have been any conflict in the novel!

Even this thought was absurd. What was this man anyway? She had even tried just marrying this man, but it was useless. When she ended her life with Dulan and returned to the beginning again, that anger reached its peak. Everything was meaningless. She had tried pitying others, and had lived like a nun, keeping everyone at a distance.

“Living has no meaning.”

“Mar…riage.”

“‘All women facing marriage have similar worries and frustrations, but most of those concerns disappear after marriage. Stop thinking you’re a princess from a fairy tale, Miss Hyer…’ – that’s what you were going to say, right?”

“…Similar.”

Just like that, what else. She responded inwardly with a sneer. This was what you had said to me many times, stuttering all the while. You’re going to marry me, so wake up from your dream.

“It’s not like that.”

I wish it were just that kind of complaint.

I just want to age. Or I just want to die. No… I just hate this place. I’m tired of it now. Similar conversations, similar situations – I’ve gone through them a hundred times! Damn stutterer!

Karen swallowed her scream and imitated a seventeen-year-old girl pouting appropriately. Twenty-five-year-old Dulan was somewhat impressed by that beauty and stopped his sneering. Dulan thought Karen was immature, and he was right.

About a hundred years ago. Maybe even now. No one treated Karen as 117 years old, and she had no awareness that she should act like she was 117.

Karen, beautiful young lady, red hair, an eternal girl with impressive violet eyes.

The dance music began.

Karen took Dulan’s hand with a sullen face. A smooth start. Dulan was clumsy at dancing, but Karen didn’t want to repeat even tripping over feet, so she skillfully held and led Dulan. It wasn’t exact, but this was roughly the sixty-ninth time dancing with Dulan. She held his waist and spun.

Who will kill me this time?

Death had now become the most fun and exciting event. Karen now even orchestrated her own death to some extent. Repeating deaths mixed up her memories and confused people. From minor issues like whether she had this conversation with him last time, to major problems of being murdered after accumulating grudges.

No matter how she lived, she would die at the end and start again. What did it matter? But the similarly repeating daily life and same conversations were the most tiresome. Karen wanted new reactions as much as possible, and in this countryside with no wars, love affairs were the most stimulating events.

Anything is fine, just entertain me.

What should I do this time?

It was her seventeenth and 117th birthday.

She would have to wait another month to meet Raymond. Those few pages of description, this unimportant period was too boring. The only important thing during this time was confirming how unattractive and rude Dulan was as a man, and how beautiful, witty, and precious Karen was to marry him.

The song ended.

“I, I won’t ask you to love me, Karen Hyer. We’re… relatives and it’s awk… but, but if we don’t marry, the territory will belong to the State… to prevent that, marriage is nec, necessary…”

“You don’t need to explain so faithfully what we both already know.”

“…Then, then at least smile. The entire… manor is mocking me.”

Pain surged through her wrist. Idiot, you’re gripping too hard. It’s going to bruise. Karen hated pain. No matter how much she experienced it, she hated it and wanted to postpone death. Pushing aside the rising irritation, Karen placed her other hand on Dulan’s chest.

“It’s not like that, Dulan.”

“I, I can’t stand being treated like a fool.”

His growling was amusing. The cute word ‘fool’ doesn’t suit you. High pride but low self-esteem. She had seen this side quite often too. This narrow-minded young man’s attitude wouldn’t change even if his marriage to Karen was arranged. This was his nature.

Maybe it was because he wasn’t Karen’s match in the main story. Perhaps he would mature only after decades more had passed, after raising children and enough time for those children to become fathers themselves. But what Karen knew was the young man before her eyes, suffering from an inferiority complex, and since she had never seen time pass, it was meaningless. In Karen’s time, he never changed.

Karen recalled the time when she thought that a peaceful marriage with her original fiancé Dulan Lloyd might be the key. Back then, Karen seemed young too. Or was she? It might have been recently. Her mind, having lived as a child for over a hundred years, was like a randomly arranged bookshelf.

Even when Karen whispered love, he was suspicious. When she first tried to win over Dulan, who was completely opposite to Raymond who approached first and pledged unconditional devotion and selfless love, it was quite refreshing.

How was it back then? Karen pondered how to live this life. The book she had read halfway through last time was ordered from Raymond’s manor. It wasn’t even published yet. Should she finish reading that book? But the meeting with Raymond was still far off.

This period was only important for how well she could break up with Dulan. Karen knew more than thirty ways to torment Dulan and humiliate him. If she did nothing and let it pass, they would marry, but after doing that several times, it became boring too.

What didn’t I do at this time?

Since it wasn’t time for events to occur, Karen spent most of this time casually. It was still cold season, making it hard to go out to the garden. A time when no exciting people came, with only a few maids and servants and her pathetic fiancé. In the beginning, she was always filled with emptiness. This time was her 117th year since seventeen, a monumental time known only to her. She wanted to do something different.

“Come to my room tonight.”

Come to think of it, she had never done this with Dulan today. This time was just time that flowed by. Dulan was tired and sullen from his long journey, and it was time to feel hurt by such a Dulan. And time to be disappointed in Dulan who had become uglier than in childhood. This time, should she try tying up Dulan and whipping him?

But Dulan frowned at Karen’s words. Would he get angry, would he curse her as a lewd woman? The man’s response to Karen, who waited for an answer with anticipation, was unexpected.

“…Are you planning to lock the door and release a pack of dogs?”

“Oh my?”

“Damn it, you did that on your tenth birthday.”

There was such a setting? She felt slightly better from the incoming freshness. I didn’t know ‘Karen’ had such a past. Even during married life, he never mentioned it, but it comes out this way. Very good. Such small pleasures. Karen became cheerful and laughed genuinely.

“Then let’s go right after this dance ends.”

“Why?”

“What else, let’s have the wedding a bit early.”

“…I don’t understand.”

She pinched his chest over his clothes.

A weak moan was heard.

Even without love, you have sexual desire, right? I know you.

“Don’t you want this kind of wife?”

You do.

Smiling, she covered his lower body with her voluminous skirt. A lady’s manners.

Why do sex and death feel connected? When shuddering with fear, holding someone made it a little better. That sensation was quite good and the warmth touching her body seemed to give comfort. The most intense part of life seemed to give confidence that there would be nothing depressing, even briefly.

However, it was also like a pseudo-experience of death in advance. The feeling of being pushed up to the edge of heaven then crashing down to the edge of earth. Of course, there were men who only made meaningless body movements like waving branches in the air, but Dulan wasn’t quite that bad.

Unlike the brilliantly beautiful Karen, he was scrawny and pale with a hooked nose, had a gloomy personality, and had a natural talent for inflating Karen’s casual remarks. His attitude of looking down on others often made him a laughingstock, and he had no ability in managing the territory, mostly relying on Karen’s father. He hunched his shoulders when walking, so his posture wasn’t good, and his back was bent.

Going round and round through fixed years, you’d think some charm would show. It was after considerable time had passed that Dulan became somewhat endearing to watch. By then, almost everyone looked similar. After aging more than Dulan, she could see his gloominess and meanness and the environment and nature that made him grow that way. Now she could find him somewhat cute.

“…Ah, pa?”

Even asking that, he didn’t seem worried at all but rather seemed to be enjoying it. Dulan became noticeably excited after seeing Karen’s bloodstains. Karen held back a sneer watching him like that.

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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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