Thought It Was ‘The End’, Only to Return to a Changed Genre - Chapter 4

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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 1. The Male Lead is a Villain (3)

【The Saint I Thought Was Fake Turned Out to Be Real】 was a novel set in a romance fantasy world.

A world where gods, magic, spirits, and monsters coexisted, as you’d find in any novel.

The setting was that humanity had to defend their territory while confronting monsters.

Fighting monsters was fine, but the problem was the poison that flowed from their corpses.

The poison seeped into the ground, gradually contaminating the world.

That’s where the ‘Saint’ became necessary.

The Saint was the only being capable of purifying the contaminated land, water, and air.

Naturally, she was revered as humanity’s savior, and nations that possessed a Saint were promised prosperity.

The female lead, born as a ‘Saint,’ was destined for a tragic fate. She lived as an illegitimate child of some noble family, suffering abuse until she was discovered by chance by the male lead, and the story began when the male lead, realizing she was a Saint, brought her to the Imperial Palace.

Of course, the ending was the male and female leads getting married and living happily ever after.

‘To think a happy ending is determined by whether a couple gets together—can it really be this much of a flower garden?’

When reading it as a novel, that seemed natural so I didn’t think much of it, but now that I’d become part of that world, it struck me as absurd.

It was convenient because it was such a simple indicator.

‘It’s over once the female lead becomes happy.’

The world would be saved by that, but not Edelaine, who was the villainess.

‘Damn it, I’m on the female lead’s side! I was the kind of reader who always sympathized with the female lead no matter what I read.’

Edelaine ground her teeth.

There were several men who loved the female lead besides the male lead.

A real villain sorcerer who controlled monsters, a boss of a criminal organization operating in the shadows, a crown prince who stood at the pinnacle of power and schemed as naturally as eating.

To show a good example of how even such people could become captives of my precious girl, the author presented various male supporting characters.

It wouldn’t have been strange if any of those male supporting characters had killed ‘Edelaine.’

Even the strongest villain only died wistfully at the very end, but Edelaine alone was destined to exit midway.

Whether it was poisoning or what, her cause of death wasn’t properly revealed because it was disguised as suicide.

Wasn’t it too cruel a fate for a girl who was betrayed by the fiancé she’d loved since childhood?

Though she did commit attempted murder.

It seems she also attempted to poison the female lead.

‘…She did cross the line a bit in the novel…’

Edelaine resolved never to lay a hand on the female lead.

The villain ‘Edelaine’ in the early part of the novel wasn’t just a character who tormented the female lead. Using ‘Edelaine’s’ murder by someone who loved the female lead as a catalyst, the Saint would begin to truly awaken her abilities.

Something about guilt and responsibility for being unable to save ‘Edelaine.’

‘What nonsense. She couldn’t feel guilt or anything when she was messing with someone else’s man.’

Edelaine became gloomy at the fate of having her fiancé stolen by the female lead, being poisoned by her partner as an example, and even being used as a catalyst for awakening.

‘Wasn’t the Edelaine in the novel just too useful?’

If only she didn’t have the role of awakening the female lead, she could have quietly disappeared.

If I just watched while knowing the future, I’d end up doing nothing but serving as a tool before being poisoned to death.

No matter how I thought about it, breaking off the engagement was the only answer.

Edelaine was someone who had no interest in what belonged to others.

Even if Shane Blancarde was pretty and handsome, and a very charming fiancé who treated even his young fiancée kindly.

‘So what? Am I going to live off his charm?’

To Edelaine, who had died once, charm had no value. Even rolling in a dung field was better than the afterlife.

From then on, I began investigating the characters from the novel.

The materials I obtained by acting cute to my parents a few times and asking for favors were quite substantial.

“The young crown prince would be at the Imperial Palace so I don’t need to look for him separately, the whereabouts of the female lead who isn’t a Saint yet are under investigation… I can’t know about the sorcerer who will cause monster rampages until he appears, and I’m figuring out the structure of the criminal organization… As for the male lead, the materials are…”

The quality was unbelievably good for something commissioned by a child out of curiosity.

The information about Shane was particularly detailed. They seemed to regard it as a sign of interest and curiosity toward her fiancé.

‘This is why people with power are scary. They can do anything if they set their mind to it.’

‘Edelaine Bertrand’ was the youngest daughter of a prestigious family, befitting her engagement to the eldest son of a ducal family.

The Bertrand family held the title of marquis, which was below duke but still among the highest-ranking nobles in the empire.

They had a long history, fertile estates, and especially solid finances.

‘I thought I’d be able to enjoy the good life being born with a golden spoon.’

Edelaine compared the novel’s content from her hazy memories with reality.

However, no matter how much I looked through the investigation materials, I couldn’t figure out who the culprit was who would kill me. This wasn’t revealed until the end in the novel either. Because it wasn’t worth that much.

Edelaine grew increasingly anxious.

I didn’t care who the Saint was, or whether she dated or fell in love with my fiancé, but I wanted to avoid getting caught up and dying in the process.

‘The nightmares are becoming more and more specific…’

I thought it was just the content of the novel I read in my previous life remaining in my head and appearing as dreams.

But apparently that wasn’t the case.

Edelaine recalled this morning’s events.

*

From the day I started having nightmares, Edelaine couldn’t sleep properly.

‘What kind of torture is this…’

I repeatedly suffered from nightmares until dawn, then dragged myself up when day broke.

There were often cases where I spent an entire day in the nightmare before opening my eyes, so there was no time for fatigue to fade. Today was the same.

‘How fucking original, damn it… Why would my brother go on a business trip? He’s still a minor.’

In today’s dream, Edelaine was killed by a servant that her second brother had brought. The boy that her second brother claimed to have hired during his business trip was an assassin employed by a criminal organization boss.

‘The foreign country my brother went to was the Tihit Kingdom, and he did some kind of business there…’

The Tihit Kingdom was a country with no connection to the Bertrand family.

It wasn’t a country where the second son of a marquis family would go to study, and it was completely out of the blue.

For a nightmare caused by anxiety about possibly being murdered, it was specific, but I still thought it was absurd.

If I quickly found the culprit who would kill me, this anxiety would disappear too.

I was stirring my soup without appetite when my mother spoke.

“Edelaine, do you have no appetite?”

“Yes, a little… I didn’t sleep well.”

“You couldn’t sleep because you’re sad that your second brother is going on a long journey.”

“Yes, that’s… what?”

“How thoughtful of you. But your second brother would want you to see him off with a smile rather than looking sad. If you give him a kiss on the cheek, he’ll bring you lots of presents when he returns.”

“Brother is… going… where did you say he was going?”

“He said he’s going to the Tihit Kingdom. He has some business he wants to do.”

“…”

This was the first time I was hearing this.

“He said he wants to start from scratch in a place where our family’s influence doesn’t reach. Really, he’s so full of ambition, he doesn’t think about his worried parents…”

But it was content I knew. Because I had seen it in my dream.

‘It wasn’t just a nightmare…?’

The color drained even more from Edelaine’s face.

The nightmares were closer to prophetic dreams.

Along with various deaths, they also showed situations that would soon unfold in reality.

When I dreamed of my eldest brother being at the estate, I heard news that morning that he would be returning to the estate, and when I dreamed of my mother lying sick in bed, my mother really fell ill shortly after.

It was as if mocking me, asking if I still wouldn’t believe even with this.

Even when the ‘Edelaine’ in the dreams tried to rebel to survive somehow, or pretended to accept the female lead, the end was always death.

As if the duty of ‘death’ that influenced the female lead could never be avoided no matter what.

The types of death shown in the dreams were also varied.

Even if I bore the damage to my family and forcibly broke off the engagement, the end was poisoning.

Even if I didn’t break off the engagement and acted like a follower of the female lead, I was assassinated in my sleep.

Even when I tried to flee to a monastery, I ultimately died in an accident.

‘At this point, I’m not even a villainess, I’m just a complete idiot!’

This was ridiculous.

Edelaine ground her teeth in frustration. She felt indignant and wronged. No matter what she did, the nightmare followed her like a shadow.

There had been just one moment when she was freed from the nightmare.

The week when Shane had left the country on official business.

During that time, she didn’t have any nightmares. Of course, the nightmares started again as soon as Shane returned.

‘It seems I have nightmares when I’m closely entangled with major characters. Unless I get very far away from the story, it looks like I can’t escape the nightmares either.’

The nightmare seemed to be warning that no matter what Edelaine did, she couldn’t avoid ‘death.’

The more she watched the characters—no, the people—moving without a single deviation from the novel’s content, the more Edelaine felt the coercive force of fate strangling her neck.

She had no choice but to accept it.

This world wanted ‘Edelaine’ to die.

‘They’re telling me to die when I can’t do this or that.’

Did they think she would obediently die for them?

She didn’t want to die twice. Edelaine wanted to live. So.

‘I have no choice but to fake my death.’

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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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