The World Mistakes Me for Terminally Ill - Chapter 99

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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 099

30 years ago, there was a famous ghost story in the West.

A great actress called ‘Swan’ who drowned in a mysterious accident. And an unknown painter who loved her obsessively.

The painter couldn’t forget her, so he preserved the dead woman’s soul in a canvas, and everyone who saw that painting fell into a coma without exception.

That’s how it earned the nickname ‘the man-eating painting.’

‘Urban legends tend to be exaggerated, as they usually are.’

To begin with, preserving a human soul in a painting was impossible with ordinary human power.

People whispered that the painter had sold his soul to the devil, that the drowned woman’s resentment had settled into the painting.

‘The problem is that it became reality.’

I recalled seeing the Blue Lake painting in the room where I had found Ruone.

It was an unfinished work, so I didn’t recognize it at first glance, but now that I think about it, I could see the distinctive painting style of [Black Swan Lake] that I knew.

“Did you hear all these ‘rules’ from the Caretaker?”

“Y-yes.”

“I see. Thank you for being honest with me.”

I looked down at the maids’ tense faces with the backlight behind me and brought my index finger to my lips.

Shh.

“And here’s a piece of advice: you can live longer if you keep your mouth shut.”

As I turned my back and walked away from them, I could hear sounds like ‘Eek!’ and ‘The mastermind…!’ sobbing behind me.

‘The female protagonist the Black Mage mentioned must be that actress who was first preserved in the painting in the story.’

I need to find her first. I was certain that Shubel would be there too.

‘Before finding a complete exit, I need to prevent the completion of the play and buy some time.’

To do that, I thought I needed to check the painting. I crossed the ballroom that looked like a bizarre abstract painting.

By half-threatening everyone I met, I finally succeeded in finding the room where the [Black Swan Lake] painting was located.

Creak.

When I re-entered the space I had first escaped from, I saw a huge canvas with a pale lake painted on it.

The moment I faced it with my naked eyes, I felt severe dizziness.

-Fall in.

-Let yourself fall in.

A voice echoing in my head.

My vision distorting bizarrely.

‘If something feels wrong, close your eyes first.’

Erban’s words suddenly came to mind, so I closed my eyes.

I bit my lips and desperately clutched the crystal butterfly necklace.

“You.”

And without realizing it, I leaned on the cold touch of the necklace and asked.

“Where the hell are you?”

At that moment.

Flash-!

Along with intense light, a path appeared in my black vision.

A symbol of miracles.

Together with an aurora-colored butterfly that guides the lost.

Shubel answered the fake.

“Don’t be mistaken.”

His coldly falling words were dry.

“Do you think I would accept a proposal from an untrustworthy subject for such a trivial reason?”

“It wouldn’t be such a trivial reason, would it?”

The fake didn’t back down.

As she reached out her hand, vivid colors spread over the black and white background.

“Isn’t this a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for you? You accepted the marriage in the first place because you were interested in her color, didn’t you? I’m saying I’ll return your world to its original light.”

For the first time in his life, Shubel was able to confirm the color of the full moon.

A silver moon. The same color as Elisia’s disguised hair.

Even so.

Strangely.

‘I feel no emotion at all.’

The sensation when he touched her, when every nerve in his body seemed to burn toward her. That terrible thrill that made it impossible to look away even for a moment.

The colors here might be splendid, but they couldn’t reproduce the heat of that time.

Shubel gazed at the colorful world with bland, dry eyes.

“You speak as if you know me well.”

He twisted the corner of his mouth. This very space trying to control him had become unpleasant.

“The Caretaker behind you must have told you to say that. To shake me with such words.”

“That’s-“

“Actually, that kind of thing doesn’t matter.”

“What?”

“I’m just displeased that a fake is impersonating my wife.”

Looking at his wife grieving for the dead, Shubel felt his reason paralyzed by jealousy and terrible defeat he had never experienced before.

If the opponent hadn’t had his wife’s appearance, he would have torn her apart from the beginning, whether she had color or not.

The only reason he had endured until now was because he too needed confirmation.

Indeed, was what he coveted Elisia’s ‘color’? Or was it ‘Elisia’ herself?

“There’s no need for two suns in the world, is there?”

And he reached his conclusion.

Shubel swung his sword without hesitation.

Crash-!

Like paper being torn, everything before his eyes was ripped to shreds.

A gale blew, shaking the terrace, and the statue monsters screamed.

The fake Elisia stared at him as if in disbelief.

“You crazy bastard.”

The world inside the painting distorted. The paint colors that had covered the surroundings evaporated, and the world began to be covered in black and white again.

Even so, not a trace of regret or lingering attachment remained.

Crackle!

Purple sparks flew dangerously around Shubel.

He recalled how the mana, which had always been docile and obedient before him, would scatter whenever he tried to use power in the room where he found the painting.

This space was created by someone of his kind.

Because they shared the same essence, he could ignore the barrier and infiltrate, but as a price, his power was restricted.

‘So what.’

What does that matter?

If the world blocks the path to his wife, he’ll just destroy it.

If two suns rise, he’ll gladly hunt down and bring down the fake.

Certainly, at first it was true that he had approached her because it was interesting that she had color.

But the layers of accumulated time and emotions had finally melted the monster’s frozen heart.

Now what he needed wasn’t a world of colors, but just one person who possessed them.

He had to return.

To his wife’s side.

“You crazy bastaaaaard! Are you saying we should all die! What kind of lunatic is this! Kyaaaah!”

The fake screamed as she was torn apart. Since she was originally a soul within a painting, she would be revived in another space.

Her feelings toward him would become somewhat, no, very bad.

‘Do I care?’

He just needs to look good to his wife.

As power beyond his limits manifested, a single red line was drawn across his smooth cheek like a sculpture.

Just as his eyes, consumed by madness, darkened.

“Shubel!”

Brilliant silver hair cascaded down like shattered fragments beyond the broken illusion.

The snow fairy he had placed in his wife’s pendant fluttered past before his eyes.

A woman falling from the air against the backdrop of a massive gray-white moon.

‘An angel.’

Red eyes and purple eyes collided. Shubel’s eyes widened without him realizing it.

“…Elisia?”

He hastily threw away the sword where the power of calamity had been gathering and reached out his hand, and the warmth he had been waiting for nestled into his arms.

In exchange, the terrace collapsed with a crash and the two bodies fell into the space where the lake spread out.

Even in that dizzying sensation of falling, only one person’s voice was clear.

“I can’t live like this, really! You said you wouldn’t get hurt!”

Thwack thwack!

Elisia, who had become extremely sensitive to her husband’s injuries due to fear that Shubel’s bluffing self-harm attempts and those close to her might get into accidents again, pounded his chest frantically.

Seeing her nagging instead of being scared even while falling from dozens of meters in the air, Shubel’s madness lost its way.

“Ah, that is, my lady, so-“

Even while taking hits from her soft fists, he held her preciously, afraid he might let her go.

Shubel had acted so domineering in front of the fake, but as soon as he saw Elisia, he lowered his tail.

When he pitifully cast his eyes downward, Elisia hesitated.

She said sulkily.

“You know you’re going to get scolded when we get home.”

“…Yes. I’m sorry, my lady.”

He willingly fell into the blue lake while holding his wife in his arms. The corners of that man’s mouth were subtly turned up.

His only sun had come to find him.

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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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