Resetting Lady - Chapter 42

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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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“Th, this….”

“I’m sorry, Isella.”

“Are you making fun of me right now?”

Yes.

Karen thought it was quite cute how Isella’s facial expressions were so varied as she looked at her in bewilderment.

Come to think of it, why didn’t Verdick teach her these things? Was it the limitation of the merchant class? Most people finish this kind of etiquette before their debut. Minor mistakes become magnified like treason to those who want to tear others down.

‘Then the one who taught me… must have been Mrs. Deere, not Nancy.’

If repetition is truth, then is entering the book also truth? That’s difficult. Reason and madness mix, and truth, illusion, falsehood, and delusion all blend together confusingly.

The biggest problem was that she had lived only as “Karen” for such a long time that her awareness as a person outside the book, not Karen, was faint.

‘Is there a way to verify it?’

Karen frowned. Catherine had spoken about it, but she also said she was like a book, so there was no certainty. And beyond Karen, Catherine might have suffered from delusions and forced those delusions on her daughter as well.

“Karen!”

“Just a moment.”

After explaining to Isella about thirty times repeatedly, she didn’t know who was more pathetic.

Karen felt gloomy recalling the memory of having to teach Isella about high society one by one as her maid. Isella’s personality itself didn’t like learning from others. She was at least capable at counting numbers, but when it came to etiquette or interpersonal relationships, her knowledge was practically nonexistent. No interest, no concern.

“Her parents ruined the child.”

“…Excuse me?”

Ah, the words slipped out unconsciously. Karen clicked her tongue at the words that came out without her knowing. She gritted her teeth against her palm that followed.

Smack!

“How dare… How dare…. Someone like you…!”

Her cheek stung. This life sure has many hardships. Karen rubbed her cheek and sighed.

“My rank is higher, Isella Evans.”

“You… What makes you so… so great?”

Other than rank.

“…My face?”

“What, what?”

Ah, I should endure this. But Karen was genuinely irritated at Isella for interrupting her thoughts with such trivial matters.

“Raising your voice like this isn’t good, Miss Isella. Are you planning to disgrace your father’s face?”

“You beggar-like….”

“Stop it, Isella.”

Raymond grabbed Isella’s hand.

“That woman dared to say what…!”

“Isella Evans.”

Raymond’s voice turned cold.

“Please find your reason.”

Isella’s forceful slap had been so loud that most people in the hall were looking this way with shocked and interested faces. Karen wondered if she should compliment her on having the qualities of a clown for drawing public attention with a single slap.

“It’s fine.”

Because it was entertaining.

Isella burst into tears.

“Lord Raymond!”

Karen smiled at Isella, who paid no attention to her saying she was fine.

“It’s alright, Miss Isella.”

Isella didn’t even pretend to listen and cried while leaning against Raymond. But it was pitiful that no tears came out. Isella collapsed while crying with sound at least. Raymond awkwardly caught her.

“I’m so wronged, Lord Raymond…!”

“Miss Isella Evans, tears are not good when there are many watching eyes.”

Raymond offered a handkerchief. Verdick approached hurriedly with a pale face. He bowed to Raymond and Karen in greeting, then grabbed his daughter’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry. Miss Hyer, Lord Raymond.”

“It’s fine, Mr. Verdick.”

Verdick forcibly dragged Isella away. Isella clung to Raymond, but Verdick was stronger. Isella resisted but soon fell away, continuing to cry with her mouth.

“….”

“…They’re gone.”

“…So they are.”

As Verdick and Isella moved away, Raymond looked at Karen and clapped his hands.

“Impressive.”

“Manage your fiancée better.”

Karen grumbled at Raymond.

“Her character is something she created herself. Why are you demanding I control her?”

“That’s true, but actually, if Lord Raymond hadn’t been looking at me earlier and missed the timing to stop Miss Isella, I wouldn’t have been slapped.”

Of course, that wasn’t true, but what would he know? Then he’d probably agree. Anyway, such things were trivial. What mattered was that Karen had been hit by Isella, and Raymond disliked that.

Raymond hesitated and then bowed his head.

“I’m sorry, Miss Karen Hyer.”

And Karen found his approach bothersome right now.

“Please don’t interfere with me anymore. I’m already… having enough difficulty.”

So don’t come any closer. You’re not particularly needed in this life. Hoping for another corpse to know the truth, Karen turned her back on Raymond.

Raymond didn’t follow.

* * *

In the middle of the night, Karen was taking out all the books from the study and piling them up.

“I hope something special like Mother’s diary comes out.”

How had she lived, by what method had she escaped from this cycle of life? Karen was extremely curious about that.

The lord’s study had only one door entering from the corridor, but the inside was spacious with separated spaces. Karen was searching through materials in the inner study, even using a ladder. There was the smell of old books.

“How did people in the old days use things like quill pens?”

Flipping quickly through writings from the past century, Karen searched desperately for more private materials.

Creak.

“Didn’t Mother leave anything like a diary?”

The lord, who had stayed at the banquet even later than Karen, entered the study with a tired-looking face.

When Karen gestured, Tom closed the door.

“I don’t really know.”

Did you really love her?

Karen didn’t know what expression to show the lord, so she turned her eyes away.

As expected, he’s not much help.

“Father said you trusted Mother, yet you don’t know much.”

“Love is loving even without knowing.”

The lord made a noose with rope.

“Shall I help you? I’m confident since I’ve tried it a few times.”

Karen offered, reflecting on her past suicide attempts. But the lord glanced at such a daughter once and then tied the knot firmly again.

“No. …There shouldn’t be traces of another person on the knot.”

“Ah.”

It wouldn’t matter much if she were dragged away as a criminal either. Karen wondered if she should be moved by his consideration.

“But what you said at the banquet earlier was too much. It sounded like you were announcing suicide.”

The lord had made a request about Karen in front of Verdick and Lady Elba. That his health wasn’t good and since Karen wanted to go to the capital, he was entrusting her to them. Verdick reluctantly agreed and Lady Elba gladly became a witness.

“Still, wouldn’t that be better.”

“Is that so.”

“Yes.”

“Then, um… should I go out?”

“…Yes.”

Karen went outside the door and put her ear to the door together with Tom.

“Hey, Tom.”

“….”

The boy raised his head.

“Perhaps your wish might come true. If I lose my father and fall into hardship, I’ll become an orphan, so wouldn’t that be revenge for you?”

“….”

Tom opened his mouth but no words came out. Karen gave up trying to read his thoughts from his face.

“Never mind if not.”

And Karen waited. For the sound of a thud.

For a long time.

Until the angle of the moon changed, that sound was not heard.

No way.

Creak.

She opened the door.

The Lord was in tears with a rope around his neck. But his feet were still on the chair.

Ah.

I see.

“You’re scared, aren’t you?”

“…No, no I’m not.”

But his face said otherwise.

“You’re afraid of death.”

She approached the Lord. She understood his feelings all too well. That emotion that was frightening and agonizing even when you got used to it, that despair that came right before, that final thought.

What if it really ends?

The sensation of breath stopping and all the values accumulated in life becoming meaningless, becoming the same as a stone on the street. The expectation that the world would flow on without you, and after billions of years passed like that, one person would have no value at all. Thoughts that came again and again. The fear of being crushed under that enormous flow.

But Karen had overcome that fear.

If you die 100 times, you’re forced to overcome it. You’re forced to accept it.

Now the fear Karen tasted before dying wasn’t the dread that it would end when she died. It was fear of life. That terror that filled her head until her breath was cut off.

What if I live again this time too.

That’s why she was lonely. In the end, the Lord would never be able to understand her. The only person who could understand her had died long ago without even leaving a memory. Karen couldn’t even reminisce about Catherine.

“It’s okay.”

But even if the Lord couldn’t understand her, Karen could understand the Lord. The Lord didn’t know, but Karen remembered. She remembered that fearful past. Though it was so long ago. She remembered too. Her first death. That fear.

“Haa….”

So she understood his self-loathing stained with tears. Even in the pain where the world seemed to collapse from despair, the greater pain was the pain of longing for life. Apart from the sorrow of bereavement, the heart that didn’t want to die. Primitive fear and rejection.

“I, I am….”

He was someone who had used absolute love as his own indulgence. And he had weighed love on scales and collapsed from the result.

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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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