Resetting Lady - Chapter 242

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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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After a long time, Karen finally gave birth to a child.

Fortunately, Dulan arrived in time and reduced the labor pains with morphine, but that didn’t mean there was no pain at all. In the beginning, she had to endure pain that literally felt like her entire body was being torn apart. If Karen had a gun, the pain was so severe that she would have shot herself in the head, saying she couldn’t take it anymore.

Karen, who had finally given birth to a baby that looked like a bloody mass and then fainted, opened her eyes at dawn the next day.

When she opened her eyes in the darkness, there were two men standing beside her, unlike usual. One was Raymond, and the other was Dulan, who had been hiding everything for a long time.

Should she thank him for helping with the delivery? But those words wouldn’t come out even if her mouth was torn. However, she was too drained to be angry. After giving birth, everything felt tiresome and she just wanted to stay asleep, intoxicated by medicine. Her whole body ached.

“You can still sleep more, Karen. The baby was born safely.”

It’s all over now.

Raymond’s voice was gentle. But Karen had to confirm. She had already told Raymond several times before, but maybe, just maybe…

“…Is it a son?”

Karen asked in a tired but slightly hopeful voice.

Raymond thought for a moment.

Would it be better to answer that it was a son? What if he immediately found a newborn baby somewhere and placed it in Karen’s arms, saying “Here is your son, our child will no longer suffer,” wouldn’t Karen be satisfied with such a lie?

Karen had been certain not long ago that a daughter would naturally be born. A daughter with the same fate as herself and her ancestors. Like her mother, like her mother’s mother. Like the saint from 2000 years ago who was first offered as humanity’s sacrifice.

But now Karen was craving an answer. If a son had been born, it would mean that the long task passed down through bloodline had finally ended. Because a son couldn’t bear children from his own womb.

If he told her that what was born was a son, Karen would be able to find peace.

Raymond was tormented by temptation.

“…No. Your child is a daughter. You expected it, didn’t you.”

It was Dulan who answered instead of Raymond.

Raymond looked at Dulan resentfully, then lowered his head when he realized Karen was looking at him. And he hugged the baby in his arms tightly. The newborn daughter who couldn’t even open her eyes yet was just close to a bloody mass.

Then he realized what he had been thinking for a moment. Even though he had sworn not to lie, he was still a human who wanted to hide unpleasant truths.

Raymond approached Karen.

The newborn baby in her father’s arms was sleeping with her eyes tightly closed. He laid the baby next to Karen.

“She’s a beautiful daughter, Karen.”

“…A daughter.”

Upon hearing those words, Karen felt the hope she had harbored crumble. That thing in Raymond’s arms would grow up just like her and face her first death at seventeen, then repeat death thereafter.

Just like herself.

Karen felt as if she was experiencing labor pains again.

There was only one answer.

Her mother did it, her grandmother did it, her great-grandmother did it. They all passed on the given death by giving birth to daughters. She was doing the same thing. No one could repeat death forever, could they?

But even though she had already expected the answer, having the miracle she had hoped for denied before her eyes was quite heartbreaking.

“Right now… I don’t want to see her.”

“Karen.”

“Please take her away. I’ve arranged for a wet nurse to feed her, so take her to the nurse.”

Raymond picked up his daughter again. Karen turned her body and her shoulders were shaking. Even though it was an inevitable thing she had expected and something she had experienced herself, it was painful.

“…It’s okay. I also expected it… We all go through this…”

But even if it was a fact she had resigned herself to mentally, seeing it with her own eyes was another matter.

“But right now it’s a bit… difficult.”

“…Let’s go out, Priest. Karen, rest well and call me again when you feel better.”

“…”

Dulan and Raymond closed the door and went out.

As soon as the door closed, crying echoed from inside the room.

“Waah…”

The baby also started crying. She had woken up from sleep upon hearing her mother’s crying.

“Shh…”

Raymond held the baby and patted her back. The maids waiting outside the door reached out to take the baby, but Raymond shook his head. He still had things to discuss while holding the baby.

“Priest, this way.”

Raymond walked with Dulan. They went down to the first floor of the manor, and when they opened the southern door, a new space appeared.

“This is…”

“Yes, I made it modeled after the Crystal Palace that will be built next year. There’s something similar at Evans Manor, but this is the first time it’s been built on this scale without using any brick or stone construction. You seem to remember it.”

It was a Crystal Palace that the original Dulan wouldn’t have been able to see. But Dulan knew this sight because he had to live a long life in his previous life without committing suicide as promised.

It was night and cold outside, but inside the greenhouse it was warm. Unlike the outside with only bleak bare branches, inside various plants were growing. It was a strange space detached from the world.

Raymond sat on a chair in the greenhouse and invited Dulan to sit as well.

When Dulan took his seat, Raymond spoke.

“Priest Dulan, I know you’ve made great efforts. So my child was born like this. First of all… Yes, thank you.”

But Raymond’s expression wasn’t particularly bright either.

He had expected it too. Outside, he had shown the image of a father endlessly embracing and rejoicing over his child in front of his family, and having a child was certainly a miraculous happiness.

But at the same time, intuiting the shadow of death was also inevitable.

His daughter was born in love, but she was also born under thorough calculation.

Because the parents had to create life in order to reach death.

And seeing Karen’s expression, Raymond could no longer hide the darkness he had kept suppressed rising up.

“Priest Dulan, you must be quite old now. Not as much as me, but still.”

“…”

“Isn’t there any other way?”

“…I don’t know.”

“Haven’t you tried hard enough, or do you need more time?”

“…I did my best.”

“Do you need more time?”

“…What are you trying to say?”

Raymond looked down at the baby.

She couldn’t not be cute. She couldn’t not be lovable. But even so, there was something more important.

“That day hasn’t come yet. There are still a few days left.”

“…”

“If we leave first before then, you’ll be able to buy time.”

Dulan didn’t understand what he meant for a moment.

And soon realizing, he grabbed Raymond’s arm.

“Stop it.”

“We can start over, can’t we?”

The child was born, but that day hadn’t come yet. Raymond listened to Karen’s crying and thought.

If he wanted a more perfect future from here, starting over might not be bad.

It might be better to abandon the current child and repeat death again until finding a certain happy ending. If they died, and even the child died.

Until Dulan found the perfect answer.

“Lord Raymond, it’s not certain.”

Dulan said urgently. Raymond’s hand was above the baby’s neck.

Dulan grabbed Raymond’s arm. But Raymond wasn’t angry, instead speaking to Dulan in an extremely gentle voice.

“I’m not blaming you now, Priest. You should continue to regret, atone, and find answers.”

“Repeating won’t produce answers!”

Dulan was barely able to shout.

“Waaaah!”

The baby burst into tears in surprise. The sound of birds fluttering in the greenhouse could be heard. Raymond looked down at Dulan, then rocked the child to soothe her.

“Shh… Don’t cry, little one.”

Dulan gasped for breath.

It was hard. Living was hard. He couldn’t know how far he had to go to get answers. He couldn’t even imagine how long they would force life upon him.

“Baron Raymond… Even if you start over now, answers won’t come.”

Dulan gasped for breath.

* * *

Humans had original sin.

Being born itself was a sin. The first human committed sin and was cast out from God’s garden, and all his descendants became sinners. No matter how much good a person did, it was insufficient for God. No matter what sacrifices people offered to God for atonement, they fell short of God’s standards.

People found and offered one woman who was the most flawlessly beautiful, gentle, faithful, and just turned seventeen. But she too fell short of God’s standards. So God bestowed repeated death upon the woman.

Die and be reborn to become flawless. And offer death to God once again. A single death is not pure enough.

And the first saint received it gladly. That joy was incomprehensible to humans. It was an ecstasy only saints could know. Whether it was arrogance, extremely developed compassion, or ecstasy from faith.

And the death task given to women was one million.

“…One million times.”

“Yes.”

Dulan gasped for breath.

Two thousand years had passed since the first saint died.

Karen was the 117th saint.

By simple calculation, each person would have had to die 8,547 times for it to end.

“There are no records… No one knows how many times they’ve died so far. Karen lived a hundred times, but her mother lived seventeen times. The Countess lived seven times, and Carla Archduchess lived seventy-seven times. There are no more records beyond that.”

Carla Archduchess was born during the war.

Her mother was one of the refugees. No one knows which family’s daughter she originally was. However, one of the generals at the time saw her beauty and took her as his wife. She couldn’t speak properly and was born among gypsies so she couldn’t read, but it was still an acceptable era.

The general on the battlefield didn’t want a smart wife. And after giving birth, the general’s wife died, and his daughter Carla became the Duke’s wife.

The Archduchess only discovered for the first time at seventeen that she was repeating her life, and using legends, wealth, and power, she was able to guess her fate. The reason for starting her repeating life again just days before her seventeenth birthday, and even the number of times.

And she used her position as the Duke’s wife to lead the war to victory. It was the answer obtained after seventy-seven deaths.

But that was the end.

No one knows how much remains of the one million deaths.

Through the number 17, one could guess from the saint to her ancestors, but the number of deaths for each person wasn’t passed down.

“But no matter how I think about it, the first or second person wouldn’t have done it for tens of thousands of years.”

“…Karen went mad after a hundred times, but someone who understands their situation might be able to endure even ten thousand years.”

“That’s nothing but baseless hope.”

Dulan dismissed it.

“Even if I kill that child, I won’t get an answer. All records were burned during the war.”

“…”

Raymond closed his eyes.

There was nothing more they could do now.

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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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