The Boss Wants to Die - Chapter 35

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

The boss wants to die.
Episode 35
‘I feel like a thief, hanging around like this.’
He hadn’t planned to tail them from the beginning.
He’d simply turned back on the way to High-Level Village because he had something to say.
When the two of them rushed out of the shop, he’d followed them on impulse, and it had come to this.
‘I’m only watching because something felt off.’
Normally, Aksin would have sensed Michael’s presence instantly, but the fact that she remained completely oblivious suggested her mind was elsewhere entirely.
Michael studied Aksin intently.
She was behaving differently than usual—strangely so.
At first she’d seemed embarrassed, her face flushed, but now she looked flustered.
Her arms were drawn tight against her chest, as if she didn’t know what to do with herself.
Like a small child afraid of being hurt.
It was unbelievable.
Michael stood rigid, his right hand clenching into a fist.
The sensation of a blade piercing a heart returned to haunt him.
That very hand—the one that had run through Aksin’s heart as she lay helpless and bewildered by unfamiliar affection.
Blood pooled slowly on Michael’s lips.
“I wanted nothing more than to die, to never be hurt again!”
Akt’s scream as he cradled dead Aksin, wailing into the darkness, seemed to echo through the Aksin standing before him now.
“Ugh.”
Michael’s head felt as though it might crack open. He grimaced and staggered.
The fracture in twisted time seemed to transfer itself directly into his skull, etching an indelible scar he could never erase.
“Damn it.”
He gripped his head with both hands, yet his gaze remained fixed on Aksin as he bit down hard on his lower lip.
Aksin’s eyes—eyes that had always looked down on others—were wide and round now.
Because they were red, the sight conjured the image of a frightened rabbit.
If he were standing right in front of Aksin looking like that, he’d be tempted to ask if she’d eaten something bad, yet Akt showed no surprise whatsoever.
He knew.
He knew Aksin’s true self, from her previous life onward.
And Aksin, gazing up at Akt, was tense.
Her fur stood on end, trembling with joy so acute it bordered on pain, and she was terrified of losing that precious feeling.
‘Inexperienced.’
From any angle you looked at it.
She was a rather timid, ordinary person.
And Michael couldn’t believe he’d ever made such an assessment of Aksin.
‘It’s an act.’
Aksin—timid?
‘That’s ridiculous.’
Then what was everything he’d learned up to now?
What did it mean for all those people who believed Aksin to be absolute evil?
What of all the Players trying to kill her?
What of a world that allowed such things?
……The sublime justice he’d been pursuing—what was that?
[Waiting time has expired. Quest achievement rewards are being automatically distributed.]
[One hidden story has been unlocked.]
“Wait…….”
Michael wasn’t ready.
Not yet, not to witness Aksin walking out into the sunlight beside Akt, her hand clasped in his, smiling brightly.
Because he’d dismissed Aksin’s smile as nothing but mockery, all this time.
He’d scorned it.
Yet his eyes soon filled with darkness.
The same unhesitating void as when he’d killed Aksin.
No—
The scream caught in his throat, echoing soundlessly inside his chest.
Michael clamped his hand over his mouth and curled inward. The room spun; nausea rose in his throat.
“Ugh…….”
When he opened his eyes again, he found himself adrift in a space of unknown origin.
His head throbbed with splitting pain—he had no idea how far back through time he’d traveled.
His vision, which had been nothing but white, grew gradually clearer, and the still space took on definite form.
Michael surveyed his surroundings with a sickly pallor, taking in the space where I stood.
He was positioned before an enormous bed.
The antique bed was immaculate, yet somehow carried the faint smell of old dust.
Lying upon it was Aksin—inert and mineral-like, as though crafted by some artisan’s meticulous hand.
Her placement was utterly artificial, as if someone had arranged her there with deliberate care.
Her hands rested neatly above her navel, and no blanket covered her.
The dress lay spread without a single unnecessary wrinkle, perfectly composed.
To anyone’s eye, she appeared merely ‘placed’ upon the bed.
Michael stared at the sight for a long time—it felt profoundly unnatural.
Aksin’s presence seemed to fade like that of someone who’d wandered into the wrong room.
Then crimson eyes opened.
Not as though she’d merely woken from sleep, but as though life itself had just been breathed into her.
Aksin rose, her mind glazed and vacant, and looked about in confusion.
She remained that way for a long stretch—much like Michael had when he first arrived and tried to make sense of this place.
“What…?”
The moment awareness of her surroundings returned, Aksin pushed herself upright.
Disoriented and stumbling, her foot caught nothing and she tumbled beneath the bed’s edge.
Her skirt flipped up absurdly, exposing the pale skin of her thighs and calves.
Michael felt no stirring of desire at the sight.
The aura of terror radiating from Aksin only made her disheveled state appear more frantic and undignified.
“Where is…”
Still seated, her back pressed flat against the wall, Aksin gazed down at her own hands.
Then she examined her skin, her hair, her forearms, her clothes, her fingernails.
With trembling fingers, she even traced her face.
It was a profoundly unsettling sight.
It resembled someone clawing at a cursed mask that would not come free.
Her fingers, driven by terror, sketched across her own features with a chilling, skin-crawling desperation.
As her fingertips brushed the delicate lashes and the proud line of her nose—tracing them as though they belonged to a stranger—Aksin whispered in a hoarse voice.
“I… I can’t remember anything…”
Boom-boom-boom-boom—!
The ground began to shake violently.
Demon Castle swayed like a rocking horse in response to the tremors.
Stone fragments fell from the ceiling, and dust billowed thickly from ancient furniture.
Aksin shrieked and clapped her hands over her ears.
“Aaah!”
[An intruder has appeared!]
Michael could see the Hologram that flickered into existence before Aksin’s eyes.
‘The System appears even for monsters?’
Recalling this startling fact, he circled near her position.
Aksin, drifting like a phantom through the air, noticed nothing of Michael’s movements around her.
“What… what did it say?”
[An intruder has appeared! Time to teach this presumptuous rat where it stands!]
“What? What does that…”
Despite the panic in her voice, Aksin rose and changed her clothes.
As she dressed with practiced efficiency, the fear that had drained her complexion was replaced by an ashen hue.
Contrary to her distress, the Chiffon Dress—known to all who inhabited this world—rose from her feet and enveloped her.
The Silver Tiara.
The Black Evening Dress.
Lips a vivid crimson.
Brilliant, formidable, arrogant—Aksin incarnate.
Only she remained ignorant of what was transpiring, panic-stricken as she examined her garments.
Michael’s senses felt unnaturally distant. He had never imagined such a thing.
‘Aksin not knowing who she is…’
Aksin’s crimson eyes trembled uncertainly.
Yet she could not remain in a state of panic.
She began to move against her will.
Like a marionette on strings, every joint creaked with each step.
She resisted, her expression twisted with disdain, but her elegant, weightless gait carried her swiftly from the chamber.
Aksin advanced toward the broad hall beyond.
Only then did Michael recognize that this place was the legendary Demon Castle Great Hall.
“I thought I’d die getting here!”
“Every breath costs blood — this Poison Damage is suffocating. My throat’s seized up.”
Four Players stood in the Demon Castle Great Hall, gasping for breath, eyes darting across every shadow.
When Aksin spotted them, relief bloomed across her face.
Michael, who remembered how startled Aksin had been when she first woke, recognized that smile at once — the smile of someone drowning, suddenly finding air.
“Um, over… over here……”
Aksin called to them softly, hesitantly.
“There! There she is!”
The archer wiping sweat from his brow had barely spotted her before drawing his bowstring taut.
“Wake up, you bastards! She’s here!”
Aksin stood frozen, staring blankly at the arrow aimed at her chest.
Her expression was stupidly vacant — nothing like the Aksin who had cast skills with a mere gesture.
Where was that composure? Where was that presence? In its place hung this slack, wandering mind.
The sight of her relieved face flickered in his memory, and Michael felt his blood turn to ice.
His chest hollowed out as though he’d just discovered a child drowning.
“What are you doing?! She’s not attacking!”
His body couldn’t possibly be here — and yet his palms were drenched in cold sweat, a phantom sensation so vivid it dizzied him.
Michael was tense enough to retch.
He lunged forward to grab Aksin and pull her clear, but his hand passed straight through her.
“I’ll Stun her first! Fall back in formation!”
The archer released a Poisoned Arrow.
Whistle—shriiek!
The shaft flew smooth as a fish cutting through water, aimed straight at Aksin’s belly.
Thwack!
The impact rang out like striking an organ.
Like punching a water balloon full of fluid.
Michael clamped his hand over his mouth, watching the arrow lodge in Aksin’s abdomen. A scream was clawing up his throat.
It was horrible.
Not just the crude cruelty of the arrow buried in flesh.
But the awful clarity of her helplessness — he knew her situation in a way they never could.
Michael remembered it all with perfect precision: Aksin, bewildered and terrified, yanked into this Great Hall without warning.
Horror descended like a suffocating weight.
She looked down at the arrow in her belly, confused, as though she didn’t yet understand what she was seeing.
‘This can’t be….’
Michael shook his head and stepped backward.
‘This… this is abuse. This is abuse, and…!’
But there was no one to appeal to.
If he told them Aksin was being abused, they’d brand him a heretic.
Just as he had branded Akt.

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