Resetting Lady - Chapter 33

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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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06. Denial, Denial, Denial

“Miss, really, how could you fire a gun in here? Thanks to you, I’m the one with all this extra work.”

Bowen grabbed Karen’s arm from behind and took away the pistol. Then he put on gloves and examined Deere’s sprawled body. His touch showed no surprise or panic. How many people knew about her madness and handled such matters?

“I’ll take care of this. Larry brought the carriage, so go outside and wait.”

“What are you again?”

Bowen pushed up his glasses and sighed.

“Let’s get the work done first, then we’ll talk.”

“Help me?”

“…No, absolutely not.”

Bowen answered Karen’s words as if he was disgusted. Ah, that’s not the answer. Bowen’s face looked incredulous. Karen regretted saying that. But she wasn’t confident about how to act naturally. Her familiar, feigned kindness was inappropriate in this situation. Fortunately, Bowen didn’t pay attention to Karen’s hesitation.

He pushed Karen out the door. Karen trudged toward the carriage. Larry was originally the driver of the carriage the lord used for business. Even though Karen’s skirt was stained with blood here and there, the middle-aged man simply opened the carriage door. Donna was nowhere to be seen.

“…Where to start from.”

Exhausting. Karen closed her eyes. Her whole body was ragged with fatigue. Her clothes were stained with blood everywhere. As she sat in the seat, she could see that the sunset had already come. In contrast to the blood-stained room, it looked so warm and full of vitality. She could hear the bustling sounds of the crowd.

“Hey, Tom.”

The boy handed her a thin blanket to put over her clothes.

“I must be crazy.”

“…”

Tom was startled and almost dropped the cloth. Seeing that face, Karen weakly lowered her gaze. She had gone that far to confirm whether she was insane… Was it all useless?

She had put a bullet in her face telling her not to be ridiculous, but in fact, it was hard to deny everything she said. Isn’t madness originally like that? Something hard to prove by oneself.

If truly all her life was delusion and her actions were just the struggles of a mental patient.

Futile. Empty. Was the experiment meaningless? Was the effort pointless? All her efforts were simply concluded with the single word of madness and resolved with the convenient means of brainwashing. The world of reason and rationality had already ended last night.

She covered her face with her hands. Her stomach felt bitter.

“So now I just need to put shackles on both hands, confess before Dulan, then put a rope around my neck and greet Nancy?”

…Not bad?

Karen felt laughter bursting out. If that happened, the torture in her head would finally end and peace would come. That would be good. Not a bad ending. No, if she could really die, wouldn’t it rather be a happy ending?

An ending befitting a mental patient.

But she postponed acceptance. It was only a possibility after all. As she told Deere, she had too many memories. 100 years’ worth of memories were stacked up too densely. From next year’s business to trivial things like other people’s sleeping habits. She could think of plenty of ways to prove she wasn’t insane from now on.

And it didn’t matter if what she did was because she was crazy. Being executed or locked up in a mental hospital. That level of resolve had ended last night.

No need to panic.

“I won’t die.”

“After all the hardship you’ve endured, how about showing a little more grit?”

“Hello, villain’s assistant?”

As she giggled, Bowen sighed and stuffed two large bags into the carriage. They were quite bulky to be Mrs. Deere’s body. Bowen made an excuse.

“There was a maid upstairs.”

“Did you need to kill her?”

“…Is that something you should say, Miss? Move your legs a bit. This isn’t a freight wagon, the space is limited.”

“What about Donna?”

“Just in case, I deliberately pushed her into the performance venue.”

“I see.”

“Are you disappointed?”

“Huh?”

“Are you disappointed that you couldn’t kill Donna?”

“Well.”

As she stretched her legs over the bag containing the corpse, fatigue and relief washed over her. The shoes were uncomfortable on her feet. Reality came rushing in. Karen looked at Bowen while pressing each joint of her fingers.

“More than that, don’t you have anything to tell me? I’m ready to be absorbed in secrets of birth and life’s reversals, things like that. Please follow the five W’s and one H.”

Bowen made a strange expression.

“Even if you suddenly say such things. I’m also in a position where I get paid for this but… Miss, you’re really quite out of your mind.”

“You’re the one who cut Nancy?”

“Suddenly.”

“It’s you, right?”

Bowen frowned and reluctantly answered.

“…Yes.”

“Why did you cut her?”

“There were too many people. I needed a place to dispose of things quickly.”

“What are you disposing of?”

At the voice that suddenly interrupted, Karen almost cursed. From pure surprise.

Raymond was looking in through the window. Seeing Raymond standing right next to the carriage, Bowen drew in his breath.

* * *

“Sir Raymond, what are you doing here?”

“I saw a familiar carriage and was going to ask to share a ride.”

“As you can see, I’ve been quite extravagant with my shopping.”

“Is that so?”

Raymond smiled like a fox as he looked at the large luggage inside the carriage.

Karen smiled as she looked at Bowen. Fortunately, he had hardened his expression and was standing back as an ordinary servant.

“Really… you’ve done quite a lot.”

“Right?”

“So what kind of disposing were you doing?”

“Oh my… Sir Raymond, you shouldn’t ask about such things.”

Karen looked at his face with a smile. She didn’t expect Bowen to be able to handle things that far. This was her part. Naturally, Bowen withdrew from the conversation.

“Men and women’s affairs can be shameful, but it’s ultimately our family’s business, so please don’t pry into it.”

“I won’t tell anyone, so couldn’t you share that terrible secret with me too?”

Karen felt like her smiling face might have a spasm. She wished he would leave now. Preferably forever. She wished he would get shot and shut up like Mrs. Deere.

“This is a secret. Nancy and Bowen have taken a liking to each other. Did you know?”

“I didn’t know.”

“And Nancy’s disappearance this time was because she went into hiding to give birth. She ran away to have the baby quickly.”

“That’s quite terrible.”

“Right?”

Bowen’s face twitched. But Karen continued the conversation without stopping. It would be troublesome if he wanted to see the purchased goods. She didn’t have a gun now either. Even if she did, she wasn’t confident it would succeed.

“What about Miss Evans, and how are you out here?”

“Miss Evans’ feet seemed to hurt too much, so I was going to use a carriage. I happened to see a familiar crest, so.”

She remembered Isella bustling about in excessively high heels. Karen felt cold sweat as she looked at Raymond’s oily smile. Now she wasn’t just a suspicious woman spouting nonsense, but a murderer sitting on crushed corpses in front of a knight.

“I see.”

“The festival is still in full swing, but you’re going in already?”

“I’m going to uncover a terrible truth right now.”

“Murder, rape, robbery, theft, fraud, unauthorized eating?”

Karen answered seriously.

“It’s not that level, it’s a very terrible story.”

“Indeed?”

“Secrets of birth.”

“I also had a time when I wondered if I might have secrets of birth.”

“Like wondering if you might be the emperor’s illegitimate child?”

“You know well.”

The trivial joke rapidly softened the atmosphere and scattered the purpose of the conversation.

That specialty wasn’t only Raymond’s. Karen smiled brightly and turned the conversation to the engagement.

“I’m nervous because the Countess is coming.”

“That’s understandable.”

Karen thought as she tapped the trunk under her feet with her foot. Not just birth. Raymond was still handsome, suspicious, and annoyingly interfered with Karen. Still, still. Karen mulled over those words. In Karen’s memory, the engagement had never progressed this quickly before. Things had proceeded more leisurely. The Countess’s attendance – that was already as good as marriage.

“I was aiming for Sir Raymond, so it’s disappointing.”

“Haha, that’s unfortunate.”

“It’s a girl’s dream, so you shouldn’t take it seriously, you know?”

Dreams must be awakened. Just as water in a glass must be drunk.

Right now, Raymond isn’t an important matter to Karen. But Karen felt a creeping sense of displeasure. While she floundered in the chaotic sea of her mind and shot people dead with a gun, Raymond and Isella would be having sweet worries about unwanted marriages and contractual relationships.

So Raymond would marry Isella just like that? Karen felt a sensation of her insides twisting. It was clearly different from jealousy toward another woman marrying a good man. While she was planning a grim future of whether she would die or go to prison, if the truth ended with her own madness.

They would just live happily and well enough.

Karen chewed the inside of her mouth because she was unbearably envious of that. Seeing that she had absolutely no desire to purely bless the couple, she must certainly be a villain. Slightly unhinged.

* * *

She thought she would be confined immediately, but surprisingly Bowen led Karen to the study. He confiscated her gun, but it still seemed like too lenient a measure in Karen’s view.

“I only received orders to protect you unconditionally.”

“So how much are you getting paid?”

“You’d be surprised if you heard. The cost the Lord spends on protecting you, miss, and supporting your actions is no joke.”

So that’s where the budget was leaking from – he was pulling this kind of stunt. Karen was dumbfounded as she pulled out all the study drawers and looked through them.

“Why does he do such crazy things?”

“…Beats me. I’m just doing it for the money.”

“So tell me the rest about how you dismembered Nancy. How cruelly did you handle it? And why didn’t you lock the door?”

Karen continued the questions she had asked in the carriage. At the questions, Bowen looked at Karen with distaste, scratched the back of his head for a moment, then answered.

“Well, I personally disliked that woman a bit too.”

Bowen looked around the study once, then headed back toward the door.

“This one locks properly. I was trying to clean up in a hurry, but of all rooms, that one’s door wouldn’t lock.”

So that was it. Karen remembered the story Mrs. Deere had told about confining Dulan and releasing the pack of dogs. So after that, had that room really not locked? The truth is always mundane when you know it.

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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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