Surviving as the Wife of the Swordsmanship Clan’s Troublemaker - Chapter 134

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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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Chapter 134

My eyes fluttered open at the gentle touch of fingers brushing through my hair from crown to tip.
‘Where am I…?’
The moment I realized I was resting my head against someone’s firm lap, my vision gradually sharpened into focus.
The landscape spreading before me stole my breath away.
It was the ruins of a castle, its great pillars stretching toward the heavens.
Above it all, pure and sacred moonlight cascaded down like a benediction.
‘Is this Paradise?’
Contrary to my expectations that a place bearing only the name of Paradise would be hellish, it was breathtakingly beautiful—as though it belonged to another world entirely.
“Lara.”
A soft voice reached my ears. I turned my head in surprise and found myself face to face with a man I’d never seen before.
Silver hair flowing long, and eyes that held an otherworldly depth.
A face like carved marble, skin pale as moonlight.
This was Johannes in his true form—stripped of the Crown Prince’s disguise.
“Welcome, Lara.”
His voice resonated with an ethereal purity.
“To our cradle.”
I didn’t want to believe it, but one thing was certain: Johannes and Hallara were far more than simple acquaintances. I could no longer deny that hidden layers existed beneath what was written in the book.
“Of course, this cradle will soon vanish as well. Our plan has unraveled.”
Now that Docheop had discovered the truth, all-out war seemed inevitable.
“Being here again makes it clear.”
He murmured softly.
Clear about what?
‘That I’ve possessed someone?’
I hastily suppressed the thought.
Even while masquerading as human, Johannes had sensed something amiss with my soul.
I had no idea what abilities his true form possessed.
“What on earth happened to make your soul change like this?”
Johannes’s large hand gently cradled the back of my neck.
“Don’t kiss me.”
I spoke firmly, watching his face draw closer.
“I may have reluctantly followed you here, but I’m not the person you’re talking about.”
I’d agreed to follow, not to be touched at his whim.
He seemed to ignore my words entirely, leaning his upper body even closer.
“Wait—are you even listening to what I’m saying!?”
Instead, he pressed his forehead firmly against mine. The touch carried a cool, ethereal warmth—nothing like human body heat.
“Don’t worry. Your soul, scattered like fragments. I’ll make you whole again.”
How?
Was he trying to restore me to my original self?
“I don’t want that.”
I would rather have died than return to that place.
“Shall we start by piecing together that pathetic, wretched fragment of your human past that you’ve buried deepest within yourself?”
“I don’t want to!”
“Open your eyes. And remember clearly the pain you’ve forgotten, Lara.”
He whispered those final words.
“Please….”
Soon my words became slurred as if under anesthesia, and the world began to distort.
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***
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Nausea swept through my entire body. My consciousness plummeted into the abyss.
How much time had passed?
A warm, gentle hand caressed my head.
“Our little Lara, you’ve come home from playing with the spirits again, haven’t you?”
As I opened my eyes to that tender voice, I saw a woman who looked exactly like Hallara.
I knew instinctively.
It was Hallara’s Mother.
“Which spirit did you play with today?”
Though I had never felt a mother’s warmth before, tears streamed down my face for reasons I couldn’t explain.
“Oh my. Dear me. Something upset you today, didn’t it?”
“No, no it didn’t.”
“It’s alright. You can cry. With mother, it’s fine to whimper and whine when things are difficult.”
“Really, it’s nothing….”
“My good daughter. Oh, but I’m sorry for laughing. Your tears are just too adorable.”
With those words, Mother smiled warmly.
But that smile did not last long.
The scene changed.
“You killed the sheep, didn’t you?”
Villagers armed with weapons stormed into our house.
They burst through the door with muddy feet and dragged Mother out without hesitation. To the side, a sheep lay dead in a grotesque heap.
“No. I know nothing of this!”
Mother cried out, but they would not listen. She clutched at the skirts of the Neighbor Woman standing in the corner.
“You know I’m not like that. Please, say something for me.”
The Neighbor Woman seemed to hesitate for a moment, then kicked Mother away.
“How ridiculous! You witch! I saw it. I saw you two talking to thin air. You must have summoned a demon and ordered it to kill the sheep!”
It was a blatant lie. The real culprit was the Neighbor Woman’s son, who had tormented the sheep and accidentally killed it. She had sacrificed Hallara and her mother to cover up her own son’s crime.
“Why are you doing this, ma’am!”
“Don’t complain. If you quietly take the blame, your daughter will live. Or shall I reveal that you belong to that cursed family, Brinihanta?”
“No, that can’t be. Not Hallara….”
“Then die in silence.”
At the Neighbor Woman’s words, the woman finally confessed her crime.
A caustic, acrid smoke that seared the lungs came rushing toward me. As my eyes snapped open again, I found myself unable to breathe.
“Kill her! Burn the filthy witch!”
“No wonder her face was so pretty—she was a witch all along. Serves her right. Ptooey!”
The Town Square flickered with torches glowing crimson in every direction.
In the center, a wooden cross-shaped post stood atop a massive pyre.
Hallara’s Mother was bound to that post with thick rope, her body drenched in blood.
“No. No!”
A shrill scream tore from my throat. My chest felt as though it were being ripped to shreds.
Flames erupted viciously from beneath my mother’s feet.
The Neighbor Woman then whispered something to the Village men before gesturing toward me.
“Seize that one too. She’s the witch’s daughter!”
“Run. Lara! Don’t look back—just run!”
My mother, spotting me trembling among the crowd, let out a desperate, blood-curdling wail.
“Aaaahhhhh!”
From within the agony of flesh charring black as coal came my mother’s anguished screams. I fled the Town Square on legs that shook uncontrollably.
“The witch’s spawn must burn too!”
“Let’s extinguish the witch’s bloodline!”
The revolting stench of spittle from creatures less than human.
Eyes brimming with malice.
At the smell of burning flesh, I squeezed my eyes shut.
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***
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I opened my eyes amid flames that refused to die.
“Where am I…?”
It was a new place.
Deep in the Forest, far removed from the Village, where not a sliver of light penetrated the darkness.
Memories flashed past like a lantern show.
There was no mercy in the place I had fled to.
I had escaped the Village and fled through pitch-black darkness, pursued relentlessly through the night by a wild Fox that gnawed at my ankles. With a body barely ten years old, I endured hunger and terror, stumbling through the Mountain in darkness to hide.
When morning broke, I straightened my crumpled body and stood. I gasped for breath, covered in dirt.
But then I heard a faint animal’s whimper beneath my feet.
When I lowered my head, the Fox that had hunted me through the night lay collapsed, mortally wounded by a hunter’s trap and bleeding out.
[This is the beast that spent all night treating you like prey, biting and tearing at you.]
Johannes’s voice whispered past my ear like a murmur.
[You can kill it. No one has the right to blame you.]
My heart pounded wildly.
Strength surged into my grip. An impulse seized me to snap its neck right then and there.
The thrill of crushing something weaker.
My body already trembling with the pleasure of it.
“I can’t possibly feel the same way.”
I clenched my teeth and pulled both hands back.
“Medicinal herbs or something….”
I looked around frantically.
“There’s no way I would know such things.”
I was neither Hallara nor a person of this world.
I was merely an ordinary housewife who had lived as a daughter-in-law in a prominent family in the modern era.
There was no way I would know about medicinal herbs like some heroine from a novel.
“Just stop the bleeding first.”
I bit the hem of my worn skirt and tore it into a long strip. With trembling hands, I wrapped it tightly around the wound, and the blood that had been seeping out gradually began to slow.
“Water. I need water….”
For the gasping creature, I carefully gathered the night dew clinging to nearby leaves. I let the water droplets from my fingertips drip into the Fox’s parched mouth.
“Live. Please.”
Large beads of sweat fell. The Fox’s labored breathing gradually stabilized. It struggled to open its eyes.
“Good.”
Only then did the trembling in my hands subside.
But my relief was short-lived.
Like enormous glass shattering, everything scattered and shattered in all directions.
“Gasp!”
My eyes flew open.
It was Paradise again, not the damp Forest.
The tender hand that had been brushing back my hair suddenly stopped.
Johannes’s gaze wavered as he looked down at me.
“You….”
His hand gripped my chin roughly.
“Who exactly are you?”

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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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