The World Mistakes Me for Terminally Ill - Chapter 97

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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 World Thinks I’m Terminally Ill Episode 097

He declared coldly.

“I asked you. Who are you?”

Then the woman who had been staring up at him without answering raised the corners of her mouth refreshingly.

“Strange. They said you’d go crazy and rush over just seeing this face.”

“….”

“Hmm, why isn’t it working? Why won’t it work?”

The ‘Fake Elisia’ tilted her head.

“I’m the only one with color. Then I could be ‘her’ too, couldn’t I?”

It was a hint that she knew about his color blindness. Moreover, even the fact that he only saw Elisia in color.

A secret that even Elisia herself didn’t know, that no one should know except himself.

Shubel coldly dismissed it.

“Nonsense.”

“Nonsense! You were definitely interested in her at first because she had color. Then wouldn’t anything with ‘color’ work?”

Yes, that’s right. Their beginning was nothing more than light curiosity.

A contract marriage that could be torn apart at any time.

Not a deceased lover who would remain forever in his heart after parting through death.

He still appeared cold and unshaken on the outside, but the reality was different. His heart felt constricted as if blocked tight due to the embers left by his sense of defeat.

‘I know too.’

A voice mixed with tears from lack of breath echoed in his ears like a hallucination.

‘Kai is just… impossible to forget.’

What could be the heart that cared for that child while suffering from being unable to forget an old lover?

‘Still.’

‘….’

‘Right now, you’re the only one. I know that.’

The words about fulfilling the obligations of the contract shone with solid responsibility.

‘…I’m sorry.’

You should have just not apologized, my lady.

Then I would have dismissed the rumors as mere rumors and moved on.

Then I would have pretended not to notice even when seeing you being kind to the child.

Then….

‘I wouldn’t have felt such dirty emotions.’

The man who had been bored because the world was too tedious felt a terrible sense of defeat for the first time in his life.

Against a dead person, no less.

If it were a living person, he could just eliminate them, but with the dead, even that was impossible.

He could never win.

Never, forever.

“And is it okay to shove something this black in front of your wife’s face? Hm?”

Fake Elisia shed tears pitifully.

“That’s too much, sob.”

Her acting was quite excellent. Just looking at the surface, she was identical to Elisia.

His mind was already complicated enough, and seeing the fake swaying in front of him, he spoke coldly.

“The only reason I haven’t killed you immediately is because you’re wearing my lady’s appearance. Do I need to ask three times?”

“Tch.”

She grumbled as if disappointed and stared at him intently.

“Simple. I was an actress in the past. About 30 years ago by your timeline? I’ve been dead for a long time, but as you can see, only my soul got trapped in this place.”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“Do you happen to know where this is?”

“A place where the flow of time and space has stopped.”

“…You came in knowing that?”

“Of course, since my lady is here.”

What a crazy bastard. Fake Elisia made a shocked expression.

“Well… to win a beauty’s heart, you need that kind of spirit. Anyway, this place is a world inside a painting. More precisely, it’s a place where a scene from the play [Swan Lake] has been preserved.”

This place is a world where a scene from a play has been preserved.

In this theatrical world, the same day’s ball repeats eternally.

“So a time loop activates within this space?”

“Smart, aren’t you? Right. In the original play scene, the swan should run out of the ballroom at 12 o’clock when the final bell tolls… but unfortunately, this current play has no ‘male protagonist’ to break the swan’s curse.”

So the swan could never leave the ball, and the play stopped in place, infinitely repeating the same scene.

“We can’t leave the ballroom, but well, we lived relatively peacefully. The problem suddenly erupted.”

She sighed and crossed her arms.

“The ‘Caretaker’ appeared.”

Shubel’s eyes narrowed.

He had an intuition that this ‘Caretaker’ the fake was talking about was the mastermind behind all this.

“Many things changed after he appeared. Strange supporting characters started appearing and the ballroom changed too. The biggest problem is that the ‘painting’ changed. [Black Swan Lake], the complete opposite of [Swan Lake], began to be painted.”

The corruption of the world, the distortion of the play, and the birth of a new painting from it.

“Why is this a problem?”

The fake asked.

Shubel deduced the answer to this.

“Did the ball start draining life force from this point?”

“Correct. Right, the power source for painting this picture is the human life force that the ball absorbs. When life force gathers above a certain amount, the [Black Swan Lake] painting will be completed.”

The hidden second story, [Black Swan Lake], emerged.

Those trapped in the infinitely repeating play gradually had their life force drained and became part of the painting.

The way to prevent this and escape the ball is to complete the fundamental play.

“So I’m going to complete the [Swan Lake] play. As an actress, I have a responsibility to finish the performance. I’m also sick and tired of those things who don’t know harmony constantly pushing in unnecessary supporting characters.”

The fake pointed at the statues standing in the corridor. As if truly annoyed.

“…I also don’t want to see that terribly pitiful man commit any more sins.”

The last words were so small they were barely audible. Shubel, who had been silently staring at the fake until then, opened his mouth.

“Are you finished?”

“Hey! Are you even human? Why do you have no social skills! When I speak in such a tender voice, shouldn’t you at least pretend to comfort me?”

“Why should I when you’re not my lady?”

“You think I like this? Would I want to request a partner from a man who has not even a rat’s tail worth of humanity and no understanding of his role? How did you even marry such a beauty with that attitude-“

The woman who had been speaking up to that point stared intently at Shubel’s face, then suddenly understood by herself.

“No, never mind. I roughly get it.”

“There’s a limit to what I’ll listen to. Just get to the point.”

“I’m going to finish this play and prevent the completion of [Black Swan Lake]. And to do that, I need a proper partner role. Don’t you want to cure your ‘color blindness’?”

Saying that, she smiles confidently.

“If you stay here, you can keep seeing colors.”

As if certain that the other party could never refuse.

She cast the most fatal bait.

“Stay with me. Then you’ll no longer have any reason to feel deficient.”

From her fingertips, the world began to be dyed in brilliant colors.

The entrance to the ballroom where silence had fallen again.

‘Obsession.’

I looked at the unknown enemy before my eyes.

A strange being that held both hostility and goodwill toward me simultaneously.

‘Let’s think about the identity later.’

Escaping from here comes first.

I pondered how I could use this dangerous-looking being and opened my mouth.

“Fine. I understand that. So now give me a hint to get out of here.”

“Hm? I don’t understand what you mean.”

“I told you not to play dumb. If you truly locked us up for the 3rd Prince’s sake, you would have killed us from the start. Why would you bother with such troublesome antics?”

I spoke coldly.

“You’re just enjoying this situation right now.”

I analyzed his behavioral motives under the premise that he doesn’t operate with normal human thinking patterns.

What would a dopamine addict who introduced himself as a ‘Playwright’ do in this situation?

The answer is simple. He must have prepared exactly one key that makes escape possible.

Why?

“Setting the stage and writing the scenario is the playwright’s job. Completing the play on top of that is the actor’s job.”

Because it’s most enjoyable when humans who were desperately clinging to a thread of hope finally despair.

“I’ll show you a variable you can’t even imagine, so hurry up and hand it over.”

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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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