The Life of a Wise Cult Leader - Chapter 204

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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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Chapter 204

“Get me out of here! Please get me out!”

I screamed frantically into the void, but the man who had been whispering to me was nowhere to be found.

Instead, as if in response, I heard signs of someone approaching from somewhere.

“Arachne! Arachne!”

I don’t want to meet them.

However, my legs were moving steadily forward.

Clothes that contrasted with my own luxurious attire.

Noble in bearing but lacking a noble’s aura…

My first friend…

“…Eileen.”

Wavy yellow hair and blue eyes with a hint of green.

“Ah… Eileen.”

Tears streamed down my face.

“Huh? Arachne? What’s wrong…? Did you have a bad dream?”

Flushed red cheeks, long hair tied in half, a clear ringing voice.

“…Yes.”

My Eileen, so lovely that it would be strange for anyone not to love her.

“That’s terrible. Then I’ll tell you a story! Over there- I heard this from a puppeteer, and I added some fun adaptations of my own. Wait, I need a puppet for this.”

My heartbreaking.

Eileen.

“Once upon a time, the sun said-“

I see.

This isn’t reality.

Only then could I come to my senses.

Of course, since Eileen is dead…

“Arachne. Why can’t you concentrate? I worked so hard on this!”

“…Sorry.”

“But you know, I think I’m going to get engaged soon.”

Eileen put down the puppet and began sharing her worries with a deeply troubled expression.

“Actually, it’s a bit late, isn’t it? Some people arrange engagements even before birth. But you know, Arachne. I just… don’t want to get engaged. It’s good that a commoner like me gets to marry into nobility, but, hmm. I just want to live by my own strength.”

“Then, I’ll help you.”

Arachne firmly grasped Eileen’s hands.

“So you can live your own life, I’ll…”

*

Eileen died.

It was someone who had been jealous of her marrying into a noble family. They said they hated Eileen so much for wanting to travel the world doing puppet shows instead of getting married.

But that wasn’t it.

When her father, who had been running a large trading company despite being a commoner, died and Eileen was set to inherit his fortune, it was to steal that inheritance…

If only she had obediently agreed to marry into the noble family.

Could she have lived?

“Eileen… Eileen, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”

“…”

“Please answer me…”

*

“You just need to follow the predetermined path, Arachne.”

“Marry into a good family, bear heirs, and support your husband.”

“It’s comfortable when you submit to fate, so why do you always try to go a different way?”

The crying voice is irritating.

The world spins again. In the reflection of the water pool, I was a young child.

Holding my nanny’s hand as we walked through the market, children were gathered together on the street. Through the gaps between their heads, I could see a crude puppet show being performed by a merchant.

“That’s called a puppet show, young miss.”

She must have thought I was curious. Even though I already knew such things from reading and memorizing every book in the study and the imperial library.

“Is that kind of thing fun?”

“Of course. The stories are really interesting. Would you like to watch one, miss?”

“No.”

What’s so interesting about a story that’s already predetermined?

The stories Eileen told… were always changing, which made them enjoyable to listen to.

The world distorts again.

I had returned to my maiden appearance. I was sitting in a theater watching a play. The Marquis sat beside me.

“Did you enjoy it?”

“…Yes.”

“I quite liked Young Lady Crystal in that play. Haha, such a domestic woman looks so lovely…”

It’s a nightmare.

“What are you doing? Are you dozing off in front of your husband?”

“Haha, Marquis. You don’t need to embarrass her so much. How could it be easy to support her husband’s work while pregnant?”

“Tsk… Anyway, other young ladies help without complaint, but why is only our wife like this…”

“Don’t be too disheartened. Others all use attendants to support their husbands, so just by not doing that, isn’t she already a wonderful wife?”

“The child to be born this time must be a son.”

“With Lumensia’s blessing, it surely will be. Don’t worry too much.”

Crack-

“This is for the family and for the Empire, so why don’t you understand that, and why are you running around like this without knowing your place!”

“You must marry that Marquis.”

“Don’t do anything.”

“Don’t stand out.”

“Supporting your husband is a woman’s role.”

“That’s a woman’s fate.”

“You must marry the Marquis and support him to rise to the seat beside the Emperor. That’s why you were born.”

“Don’t make me regret giving birth to you.”

Helplessness covered my entire body. A fate bound helplessly, as if preserved by invisible threads.

The endless helplessness I’d felt since Eileen’s death overwhelmed me.

The voices that came like hallucinations were too noisy.

“How could a sparrow understand a phoenix’s will? Anyway, taking an ignorant woman as a wife has caused this trouble… It’s my own ignorance for marrying based on family alone…”

A phoenix was a creature that didn’t exist in this world. It only appeared in legends.

Most of his words were strange, but the rest fit together oddly well. Things that would appear in the world later…

Right. Something called an ‘automobile’? Not a carriage pulled by horses, but something that runs on an engine.

I secretly rummaged through bookshelves or supported my husband’s work, piecing together… one by one. The puzzle pieces.

And I discovered a shocking truth.

This world was the second world.

The world had a predetermined ‘story’, and the world flowed according to it.

‘Then my Eileen.’

My Eileen’s death was also fate, story, and scenario determined by this world?

Such a thing…

I can’t accept it.

*

I went to find my husband. She was already covered in blood. It was her son’s blood. The husband stepped back in fear but couldn’t move.

I could at least listen to what he had to say for a moment.

Before tearing out his heart, I listened to my husband’s words. My husband chattered his teeth and begged me for mercy.

“I really loved you.”

“Love?”

“I did everything for you.”

“If that’s what you call love, it was truly shallow and worthless love.”

“What exactly did I do wrong to deserve this?”

“Well… wrong. I’m not really sure either.”

“Killing your son. Are you in your right mind?”

I approached my husband.

“Please, Arachne. Tell me what I need to do. I sincerely admit that whatever I did, it’s all my fault. Please, please… can’t you give me a chance? Please give me a second chance…”

A second chance.

A puppet show that unfolds as predetermined in a second world. A world with a fixed ending controlled by an absolute being.

What meaning could this possibly have.

I’m sick to death of such things.

“Honey… you are a puppet and this world is a puppet show. Your story is already written, so you’re just repeating your own life. Until the world ends. So then, what will you do?”

My husband looked uncomfortable. He couldn’t understand what I was saying.

“What are you talking about…”

I already knew he wouldn’t understand. Even my family didn’t understand. Even my son thought I was crazy. Ordinary people can’t understand. Of course. The only one who could understand me was 9-year-old Eileen.

“You don’t need to understand. It’s only natural that a sparrow can’t comprehend a phoenix’s intentions, isn’t it?”

The heart I tore out with my hands was surprisingly.

Cold.

She sacrificed her son and husband to summon the god of night written only in ancient stone monuments. A powerful being with various epithets like God of Darkness, God of Death.

It would become the best card for me.

“Now no one can control me… it’s fine.”

The Widow looked at the mirror. What was reflected in the luxurious mirror with intaglio and relief was her own figure with a bit more flesh.

“Widow spider who devoured her husband!”

“Widow spider who devoured her husband!”

“Widow spider who devoured her husband…!”

“I heard that Young Lady even killed her son?”

Black flames melted the surroundings as if burning them, and the mirror shattered.

The Widow in the broken mirror was sometimes young Arachne, sometimes a young man, sometimes a Pregnant Woman, sometimes covered in blood all over her body, and sometimes wearing a Black Veil.

The broken mirror fragments began to twist while emitting an eerie light.

Eventually, within tens of thousands of fragments, the crude puppet show stage she so despised unfolded. On it, puppets hanging from threads were grotesquely reenacting the most desperate moments of life.

That bloody ritual of cutting down her son, tearing out her husband’s heart, and summoning the god of night.

Every scene was repeatedly screened while hanging from someone’s fingertips.

“Haha. I’m not afraid of such things anymore… so stop it, Cel.”

[“What would you think if that desperate ritual where you summoned the god of night was actually part of a ‘script’ thrown to you by these demons to relieve their boredom?”]

“That can’t be. This wasn’t written in the records of this world. Only by borrowing the power of demons could I escape from the trajectory of fate this world had woven. I escaped destiny. This is an absolute truth!”

[Why don’t you realize that you weren’t a avenger who rejected fate, but merely the lead actor who most faithfully performed the script in a puppet show written by demons who are the new playwrights?]

“…I’m not ignorant. I just don’t believe in truths that don’t fit.”

Then the hallucination was heard again.

Clap clap clap clap clap clap-

Along with the sound of applause, a demon’s voice appeared and whispered.

-Ah, Arachne! What a truly magnificent performance! From a Young Lady losing her friend and going mad, to becoming a widow spider who kills her husband… those desperate tears you shed were truly thrilling.

I gritted my teeth.

“Eris. If you’re watching, please let me out. Since this is a Mental Space, if you ask Oigis, I can get out quickly.”

-Oh! My mistake, I’m Geras. I guess you didn’t recognize me because of my way of speaking? And sorry, but I won’t get you out of here.

“…Geras? Whoever you are, please get me out of here quickly. You know that if you suffer damage leading to death in Mental Space, your mind gets destroyed and you become a vegetable, right? You still need me, don’t you.”

-Hmm. Let me tell our main actor who faithfully performed the script know one more fact.

Stab-

A long spear pierced through my chest from behind.

-Unfortunately, what the Savior said is true. We did need you, but now you’ve served your purpose. Actors who have served their purpose are meant to exit the stage.

“Kugh.”

-Now, it’s time for your exit.

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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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