SSS-Class Sui**de Hunter - Chapter 109

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 109. The Way She Loves (1)
1
Silver Lily Young Lady stands in a midnight corridor.
Behind her, a massive mirror has been placed.
A full-length mirror.
Smooth and pristine.
In the mirror where moonlight slides, only the Young Lady’s upright back is reflected. Since the mirror shows nothing but a glimmer of moonlight and a single strand of hair, Silver Lily Young Lady looks like an island standing lonely in a dark sea.
“You have nothing to say.”
…….
“Your face betrays your discomfort. Your expressions are clear—even at night, they’re easy to read. Just by looking at your face, I can tell this is the first time.”
First time?
My heart has been trembling with unease since just before. Even now. Why does Silver Lily Young Lady speak to me with such warmth?
A blade merciless and cold to everyone. The Moon of House Ibantia.
There’s no reason she should be kind to me, the butler of the Young Miss of the Golden Finch.
There couldn’t be.
“…I fell silent because I didn’t know what to say, my lady. If I’ve been discourteous, I beg your forgiveness. Is this…a dream? Did you also appear in the dream I’m having?”
The response Silver Lily Young Lady gave was a very strange expression. The smile that formed at her lips felt like a scar.
“An amusing question. Yes, your dream has devoured my life. I understand now that love is merely offering one’s life to someone else’s dream.”
What could she mean?
“I become your dream, and you become my life, and we call this exchange of dream and life between us love.”
What does that signify?
I didn’t understand what it meant. There were many other things I didn’t know.
Silver Lily Young Lady, her scarred smile still in place, explained one of those unknowns to me.
“But you didn’t ask out of such romantic sentiment, surely. I shall answer seriously. Don’t worry about the servants not being visible. I’ve disposed of them all.”
“Why…”
“And let me warn you. Never call me Young Lady again with that mouth of yours.”
Silver Lily Young Lady smiled.
“I will tear out your heart and kill you.”
…….
I cannot comprehend this.
Just now, Silver Lily Young Lady directed killing intent at me. The words about killing me. That was absolutely not a lie. It wasn’t bluster either. If I call her Young Lady even once more, her Rapier will surely pierce my heart.
Though that would happen.
‘Why?’
Why is the killing intent she sends to me not cold, but so terribly warm?
Could a declaration to kill someone be this comforting?
“Come closer.”
Her voice called to me like a gesture. I couldn’t refuse. As I stepped toward Silver Lily Young Lady, she pointed me toward the full-length mirror.
“What do you see?”
“…I see you standing beside me, my lady.”
“And?”
“A dark corridor…only moonlight reaches it faintly. Except for you and me, almost nothing is visible. Everything else is buried in darkness.”
“And?”
The Young Lady asked. It was strange. She was demanding a different answer. As if there was still something I should be seeing in the mirror. But what else could be reflected there?
“And what else do you see?”
…….
“Speak without hiding.”
I decided to look more intently into the mirror. I narrowed my brow and furrowed my eyebrows. But even so, what I saw was largely the same.
‘After all, I see only darkness. Unusually crimson eyes, and…’
That was the moment. A sharp sting! A headache crashed down upon me.
Incomprehensible characters flashed before my eyes.
+
■■: ■■■
■■■: ■■
■■ ■■: [■■], [■■■], [■■], [■■]
■■ ■■: ■■
■■ ■■■: [■승], [연■], [■■■ ■■], [■■■], [■■■], [■■■■], [■■], [■■■ ■■■ ■ ■■ ■], [■■■■ ■■■■ ■], [■■ ■■■■ ■]
+
“Ugh, huah…?”
Nausea surged up.
-Kim■ja ■■! Get■ ■ ■■ ■up!
[■■■■ Dragon■■■ ■■■■■ ■■■■s!]
Without thinking, I wrapped my hands around my throat. In that same instant, pain lanced through my neck, though I couldn’t fathom why.
Since I couldn’t make sense of it, I turned my mind to other matters.
‘At least it’s empty inside.’
I hadn’t retched. The thought of vomiting before the Red Daughter of House Ibantia was unbearable. I swallowed my nausea with desperate force.
Silver Lily Young Lady remained unmoved.
“I asked what you saw.”
Such a cold woman.
A bitter taste bloomed across my tongue.
“Letters… strange letters are visible. And voices… strange voices… I’m not certain.”
“Voices, then.”
Silver Lily Young Lady smiled at that—a faint smile, though this one seemed closer to an actual smile than before.
“You are loved.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t follow…”
“Tell me about the letters.”
She moved on without explanation, and I could only stare blankly at her. Her smile had faded at some point, but she showed no impatience—merely repeating herself with the same flat tone.
“Did you not say strange letters were visible? Speak.”
“I… can’t see them clearly. They’re not complete letters, just… fragments of them, only fragments…”
“Recite even a single fragment.”
“‘Master’… ‘lover’… Beyond that, there’s nothing else. Absolutely nothing.”
“Hmm.”
The Silver Lily Young Lady rested her chin in her palm.
For some reason, her brows had drawn together.
“I see. ‘Master’ refers to a teacher, and ‘lover’ means a beloved. What you’ve left behind at the very end is quite fitting. Yet ‘master’ appears before ‘lover’? I understand it, though it displeases me somewhat.”
“Young Lady, I’ve understood so little since this began. You said this is no dream, but what is it you want of me?”
“I want you.”
“I beg your pardon. I still don’t understand…”
“What dream did you have?”
Silver Lily Young Lady cut off my words with ease.
‘No matter that she is the Red Daughter of House Ibantia…’
‘I remain the butler of the Young Lady, her only servant…’
‘And the Crown Prince himself favors her deeply, yet to be treated thus…’
Countless thoughts tangled in my mind.
Yet none of them stirred my heart. I swayed like music that had lost its rhythm, ready to crumble.
“I don’t remember well. But in the dream…”
In the end, what trembled from my lips was obedience to her question.
“In the dream.”
“…You were looking at me, and tears streamed down your face.”
Yes.
“I was in a chair… bound by rope, I think. Around my entire body. I didn’t know why I was bound, but in that ornate room, only you were there, looking down at me.”
Just before waking.
I had clearly seen that scene.
“It hurt. My chest… pierced by the blade you drove through it. But that wasn’t all. In the dream, I…”
“You?”
“…I remember feeling terribly guilty toward you.”
“Yes.”
Silver Lily Young Lady smiled once more.
Merely looking at that smile nearly broke me into tears, and my stomach lurched.
“I’m relieved you at least know how to feel remorse.”
……
“Do you know why you dreamed such a dream?”
“No. I don’t. Not at all…”
“It is because it is my trauma.”
Trauma.
“I’ve never told you this. My mother took her own life.”
What?
My mind went white with shock.
“It happened when I was so young that I cannot fathom her reasons. The Duchess of House Ibantia. The Moon of House Ibantia. For someone with such power and wealth to end her own life—the reason escapes me, but the words she whispered to me the final night when she called me to her side, and the scene of everyone burning her remains in silence, all of it I remember vividly.”
This.
This is knowledge I should not possess. Words I should not hear. That House Ibantia harbors such a calamity. A tragedy too grave, too bitter even to be weaponized in political strife.
“But.”
The Silver Lily Young Lady gazed at me.
“Even that memory is no longer my trauma.”
“…….”
“The Crown Prince gave you the Blue Coral Ring today, I hear.”
One step forward.
The Silver Lily Young Lady drew closer to me.
“In my last life, I despaired over it. Or perhaps I raged. I was envious, jealous—you could say that too. All of it filled my heart to bursting. I drew my blade in a heart consumed by the curse of the world, and I drove it through the reflection of my own heart in the mirror.”
Her footfall made no sound.
Only then did I realize she was barefoot.
“But even that is no longer my trauma.”
Press.
Her foot came down upon my shoe.
A light, almost negligible weight pinned one of my feet to the ground. I could have stepped back whenever I wished, could have broken free at any moment, yet held by nothing but the half-weight of her body, I found myself frozen entirely.
“Not even the ten days that repeated like eternity.”
Her hand drew near.
“The sight of my world steeped in blood and falling to ruin, the demons wearing mockery in the shape of my own tongue and lips, all the things that once lacerated my heart—none of it is my trauma any longer.”
Delicate fingers.
“It has ceased to be.”
My neck.
“From this moment forth, only you have the sole right to wound my heart.”
Both her hands closed gently around my throat.
“Even if the man with the cruelest tongue in the world poured curses upon me for two days straight, it would pale beside a single sigh you cast upon me in careless silence.”
From the little finger to the index finger—from the thinnest to the thickest—I felt every increment of pressure she applied against me.
“Even if someone armed with the most vicious malice in the world lashed and scourged me, it would not match a single smirk that falls from your lips. Though the number of those who could kill my body in this world is beyond counting, there is only one person who can wound and destroy my soul—and that is you alone.”
My breath caught.
“So my trauma is already determined. There is only one.”
My throat tightened.
“Young… Lady…….”
“Fool. I warned you plainly.”
‘If you scar my heart, I will kill you.’
“You have scarred me.”
Warm flesh.
Red eyes smiled down at me.
“I have broken no promise since I was four years old. Die.”
“…….”
“Die, and love me again when you return.”
I could not.
For some reason, I could not resist.
[You have died.]
And.
[Recreating the trauma of the enemy who killed you.]
[Penalty severity: moderate.]
[Realm of Hungry Ghosts.]
A dream within a dream unfolded.
* * *
I do not want to kill him.
Looking at the man before her eyes, Rabiel Ibantia thought: I do not want to lose him. It struck her, even as she pondered it, how possessive a creature she truly was. The thought was almost amusing.
—Young Lady, think about it. If you’re the Young Lady, you’ll be able to think of exactly what I’m thinking of. You’re a Regressor just like me, after all.
A dangerous man.
Rabiel grasped his scheme at once. He was choosing to become completely immersed in the role of “Butler.” And if he regressed one day from the “Butler’s perspective,” he would return to a time before she had yet offered her heart to the mirror.
He could overturn the very gameboard itself.
‘Clever thinking.’
It would indeed be a stratagem that exploited the Tower’s blind spot.
‘A face so innocent, and yet from what mind does he conjure such cunning schemes.’
There was a certain pleasure in discovering that the man she had come to love was not a fool. Yes, it was deeply satisfying. And yet, for all that, Rabiel Ibantia opposed him.
—Gongja, it is too dangerous.
The reason was simple.
—I will not remember you.
Herself, Rabiel Ibantia, would not remember Kim Gongja.
Even if you were to go back one day and stop yourself from driving a blade into the mirror, and thereby prevent the tragedy of ten endless days from repeating, it would mean nothing if you did not remember me.
I do not wish to live.
I wish to live with you.
The days we spent together.
The fortnight’s rest you granted me for the first time.
All those memories make me who I am now. Without them, I can no longer be Rabiel Ibantia.
Does the man before my eyes understand? That even if I escape from the maze of ten days in such a manner, I would not be grateful at all.
It’s alright.
He must have known.
I will find a way to solve this, no matter what.
The way he speaks so infuriatingly gives him away.
Please trust me.
…….
Rabiel Ibantia fell silent.
She was briefly numbed by the harshness of those words. Trust, he says. To trust a person without any reason whatsoever. Late—far too late now—she regretted the promise she had made days ago to believe in him. But drowning in numbness and regret was a luxury Rabiel Ibantia could not afford.
‘I trust him.’
I trust the man I love. I trust his competence. He is the man I chose. He is mine. Surely he will succeed in persuading the Tower and achieving regression to one day prior.
The real problem comes after that.
‘How will I reverse an Immersion Level that has climbed past ninety percent?’
If he succeeds in regressing to one day before, he will certainly not remember me. Even if he did, it would be nothing more than a faint impression. It would be impossible for him to recall concretely the days we spent together.
‘…….’
No.
‘Wait.’
There is a way.
At the method she recalled, Rabiel gasped, and gasped again. The assessment that all the poisons of the Empire spring from her own heart passed through her mind. It was not long-lived. It could not be.
Rabiel Ibantia realized she would carry out that method.
‘I will.’
And so Rabiel Ibantia etched into her own heart the method she had conceived, the method she would carry out.
‘I will kill this man.’
Trauma.
He had confessed to her nearly everything about himself. Told her. His ability carries a side effect: he glimpses the memories of whoever kills him.
‘If only I could make this very moment into a trauma.’
When he kills me, he will glimpse this—now.
Not my past, but this very moment I am thinking right now.
-…….
Then. If only that were possible.
-I could tell him again all that I wish to say, all the memories I wish to give him, everything.
-Through me, he could remember once more.
-Yes.
Rabiel was certain of success.
-Since I became your first bastard, you will become my last bastard.
My Gongja.
-I have truly taken a wicked man as my lover.
Are you listening?
I am happy because of you. I do not wish to lose you. I do not wish to lose like this the time we have spent together.
You said, ‘I will keep a diary from today.’ You said so to show me your entire day. Was that promise a lie?
You said, ‘I will learn music.’ Because you hope I might spend a quiet evening listening to your music. Was that wish truly false?
I wish to see your days. I wish to bid farewell to evenings with you. Your days will surely make me smile, and evenings spent with you will be happiness. I wish for my smile and your happiness to overlap.
I do not wish to kill you.
I do not wish to lose you.
-Are you alright?
-Yes… for now, I’m alright… more.
-You want more kisses, then. Truly a spoiled child, my love is.
Look at me.
Look at yourself with me.
You are a simpleton. Innocent, even. I wonder how you manage to live in this world with such innocence, yet the question answers itself soon enough—it is because you have died thousands of times over.
There are many reasons to abandon innocence. There are few reasons to preserve it. Though there are many reasons, you do not abandon it; though there are few reasons, you preserve it. This is why I call you pure.
I cherish your purity.
-Are you still alright?
-Rabiel…….
Are you afraid of losing yourself? Terrified?
—I love you. I love you, Rabiel….
—I know.
It’s all right.
—Even if I’m born again, I’ll love you….
I am here.
Trust me as I trust you.
Lean on me.
—So please, let me never forget you. Even in death, let me never forget you….
—I know.
One person alone cannot protect themselves.
One person alone cannot protect the world.
But the two of us together—we can do anything.
I too am afraid. Afraid of killing you.
Even knowing it will scar me, approaching you this way is terribly, desperately frightening.
But my fear will not hinder me from being with you.
Look.
—…Heavens.
Soon, you—submerged entirely into the Butler’s role—speak to me.
—Young Duchess.
Thump.
My chest aches. Burns.
It hurts that you call me Young Duchess instead of the other name—that you’re not yourself.
—Surely you haven’t kidnapped me just now, have you?
Your face says you don’t believe it. The doubt in your eyes as you look at me—it wounds. Your reaction, as though you’re seeing me for the first time in your life, is agony.
—This exceeds all bounds. No matter how far the power of House Ibantia reaches, this is too much. Do you hate Miss Geumsa so deeply that you would threaten even a mere servant like me?
Listen to me.
This is the wound you left me with.
—Gongja.
Do not forget.
—…Who are you looking for?
Never. Not even in death.
—My lover.
The man who gave me his heart.
—The man I will give my heart to.
You dwell here.
In my heart.
—Go, and return to me.
—…….
—I will be waiting for you.
Do you hear me?
Can you hear?
Gongja.
I love you.
SSS-rank Hunter: Living by Dying (Serial Publication)
Author │ Shin Noa
Publisher │ Kim Joo-hyung
Published by │ J Plus Media Co., Ltd.
Marketing │ Han Jae-hyuk
Address │ Room 204, 288 Digital-ro, Guro-gu, Seoul (Guro-dong, Daelyung Post Tower 1st)
Email │ [email protected]
Website │ www.jayplemedia.com
© Shin Noa 2019
※This work is published by J Plus Media Co., Ltd. under contract with the copyright holder. The contents may not be used in any form or by any means without the permission of the publisher and author.
Violation of this may result in criminal and civil legal liability.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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