Resetting Lady - Chapter 44

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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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The Lord’s crying face caused a subtle but strange ripple. It wasn’t that feelings of affection suddenly surged. But the subtle displeasure and thrill of seeing a person’s true nature. And a sigh mixed with relief that you too are no different after all.

Karen felt some relief at the conclusion that the conditions of love were not the absolute faith she had imagined, under the assumption that the answer was always love. But even that relief couldn’t erase the subtle bitterness that lingered in her mouth.

“Why are you crying like that? Smile, Father.”

Karen smiled in his place. Are you sad? Are you frustrated with yourself? Still, you should smile. I’m smiling too. And I should throw some mockery at the predecessor who went before. So this is the extent of the love Mother spoke of.

“Father doesn’t trust Mother. Mother was just an excuse. If you truly believed, you would never have hesitated. You know what? Really, if you believed without a single gap, why don’t you die? There’s no reason not to die, is there? Wouldn’t a world without that love be black and white? Wouldn’t it be meaningless?”

Right? That’s what love is, isn’t it? Otherwise it would be too unfair.

“At the very least, if it’s a love worth dying for – for me, for Mother, perhaps for many more women – shouldn’t it have that much value? Shouldn’t you love to that extent?”

“…Catherine… I…”

The words “I love” no longer came out as sound.

“That’s what I thought.”

Karen lightly clasped her hands together and closed her eyes.

“Such absolute emotion, I mean. Hmm. Yes. In my opinion. Father, Father. You see.”

She lightly turned her dancing body and pointed at the portrait.

“First, thanks to Father and Mother, I’ve gained hope. Thank you. Since Mother experienced and resolved this strange phenomenon of dying and coming back to life with each book first, I can now have hope. Good. How hopeful.”

Then she added one more thing.

“Love doesn’t seem particularly necessary either.”

You can smile even with a frowning face.

The Lord still had his neck in the noose. He was holding the rope with trembling hands. Karen sighed and spoke to the Lord.

“If you can’t even die, just come down or something. My neck hurts from looking up.”

“N-no, that’s not it. I believe.”

The Lord answered hastily. But he still couldn’t step off. Karen frowned and sighed repeatedly before continuing.

“It’s already too late.”

“It’s not… too late.”

“It’s too late. The moment you hesitated, Father, you were too late.”

If you want to die that badly, I’ll help you. Karen answered through gritted teeth.

“Hastily putting a noose around your neck now won’t erase that hesitation. The answer is clear. At least if it’s love, yes. It’s not so grand after all.”

She goes beside the Lord’s trembling body and pats him soothingly. She tried to pat his shoulder but he’s too high, so she pats his leg. This actually makes the Lord sway and grip the rope tightly. And he sees himself unable to hang himself after all.

“Father.”

“…”

“What do you think I was planning to do if Father had hanged himself this time?”

After waiting a moment for an answer, Karen immediately opened her mouth.

“I was thinking of getting drugs first.”

“…”

“Later I thought about learning hypnosis from Nancy.”

There’s no answer.

Karen doesn’t mind either.

“If the scale of emotion is the answer, how much would it be? At least like I’ve been dying until now, the male protagonist should too, right? Then he’d be someone willing to commit suicide. Only then would there be at least…”

Karen blew out the candle on the Lord’s desk.

The candle went out.

“At least equal value.”

She pulled out the silver candlestick.

It was heavy and sharp.

A similar situation appeared in a novel I read before. Or haven’t I read it yet? Karen tilted her head and searched her memory but was confused.

What does it matter? Whether I strike down or stab. Either way, this should be enough to kill.

“Rolling around together in the bedroom is called physical love, and the saints’ love of giving everything to save the poor is also love, but how much value would married love have? I’m curious since I haven’t had such a long married life. Hehe, if Father had committed suicide, I would have applauded that true love while drugging the other party and hypnotizing them to see only me. And I’d make my words seem like truth, true value, like God’s language. Just as Father listens to Mother’s words and aids in murder, if Raymond believed my words and started a rebellion, that would be interesting too. Well, that sort of thing seems fine for this lifetime. I’ve decided the rules for how to live this time. I’ve resolved to become a pleasure killer.”

His face was already gray.

“Father, you want to die, don’t you?”

“That’s… right.”

Looking up at the Lord’s face, unable to bear the self-loathing he felt, Karen kindly offered.

“I’ll help you.”

The Lord seemed to feel those words like salvation. Even though the Lord couldn’t kill himself, he didn’t want to refuse Karen’s hand, which bore Catherine’s face.

People are truly complex and mysterious.

Looking at the Lord’s face showing slight satisfaction, absurdly enough, Karen smiled. He didn’t have the courage to commit suicide, but he had the courage to make his daughter a murderer.

“But before that, I have some more curious things. About the men who courted Mother before she met Father, or if there are any unusual keepsakes?”

“I…”

Thud.

At that moment the Lord’s eyes widen. His legs shake. His face contorts. A choking sound follows. But even that doesn’t last long. Tom was faster than Karen. He must have been calculating the moment to intervene. The moment Karen pulled out the silver candlestick and turned around, the boy ran.

“Gah… urk…”

Tom, who had been standing at the doorway, quickly ran over and grabbed the Lord’s legs.

Even while being kicked, Tom used his whole body to hang on. The desk the Lord had been standing on was pushed away as he struggled, and the rope properly caught around his neck, strangling the Lord. Breath stops faster than you’d think.

And then no movement.

He’s dead.

But more important than that.

“…Why?”

Karen is confused. Why? Why on earth? Confusing. Now, why are you here?

“What have you done?”

It was a murder that happened so suddenly, so absurdly.

In that moment Karen truly couldn’t think of anything.

It was something that had never happened before, an unpredicted event, and too big a matter to enjoy as entertainment.

“What is this.”

Karen belatedly raised the silver candlestick, but Father was already dead. Stabbing him further would just be damaging a lump of meat. Karen blinked. Is she feeling empty right now? Frustrated? She doesn’t know.

She pondered.

“Tom!”

She couldn’t understand.

Why did it turn out this way?

It happened in an instant.

Tom killed the Lord.

“…Just what.”

Karen stared at Tom’s face once more.

Tom also looked at Karen. Tom wasn’t angry, nor was he happy. It was different from his bold action just moments before. That face was one frightened by his own actions. Seeing that face, Karen felt completely deflated. Why? Why make that face? If you were going to do that, why did you do such a thing?

“…I don’t really.”

Know.

Karen found it hard to understand.

“Um, uh, yes. I don’t really know. You weren’t a main character… I really don’t know. So you, Tom, you shouldn’t be doing this here. You until now were, I mean, originally you were grateful to me and admired me and were my stepping stone for love.”

Karen shut her mouth in self-disgust.

That’s right.

In the end, Karen hadn’t valued Tom importantly. Had she merely wanted to create a scene by saving Tom, like protagonists in other books do?

“Is this how it should be?”

That disgustingly intense obsession with life. The moment she saw the determination to burn the inside of one’s own mouth with fire, Karen intuited.

She would die this time too, due to her own sins. And since that’s a plausible story… Karen accepted it.

Karen had been secretly prepared to die.

“Not prepared…”

She had been expecting it.

Isn’t that a decent story too? It’s also a common story. A story fitting for good triumphing over evil. A story of avenging one’s parents. A story of killing a mad murderer and finally becoming happy. Karen thought of her own direction in secretly trying to make Tom the protagonist.

Give him a painful life, threaten him, mock that life while committing evil acts. The boy gradually becomes healthier… but one year is too short. If the story had been longer, would she have exited as the villain?

Karen was curious.

“If you… were to kill someone, I thought you’d kill me.”

“…”

The severed tongue could only make gasping sounds, but it was enough to express the boy’s anger. Tom expressed his rage with his whole body. Tom, who had watched all of Karen’s evil deeds, knew Karen properly. He knew her madness and beliefs.

“…You really know how to screw me over.”

Karen turned her gaze from Tom to her father’s corpse. The face of the man who had once been handsome was grotesquely contorted. He too must have prepared for death countless times, but surely not a death like this.

“Are you satisfied with this?”

She was curious.

Are you satisfied with this?

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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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