Thought It Was ‘The End’, Only to Return to a Changed Genre - Chapter 54

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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 11. The Villainess Has Grit (3)

Not being able to sleep was agony beyond imagination.

It was apparently a torture method used during the Japanese occupation. Edelaine steeled her resolve as if she had become an independence fighter.

Lack of sleep was somewhat bearable, but the nightmares that flooded in the moment she closed her eyes gnawed at her mind like ants swarming sugar cookies.

‘Shouldn’t you get used to being beaten after a while…?’

Why does it hurt more the more you get hit?

Well, of course it hurts more when you hit the same spot again…

Edelaine chewed over these stupid thoughts with her dazed mind.

Since the past few years had been comfortable, the aftermath of nightmares she hadn’t experienced in a long time was even greater. This must be why they say it’s harder when you rest in the middle of mountain climbing…

The nightmares came several times in a single night. Even in the brief moments when she dozed off, days would pass in her dreams.

That’s what made lucid dreams so terrible.

Even knowing it was a dream, that time just wouldn’t end. Edelaine had lived through months of life in just two days.

There was only one way to wake up from the dreams. Then and now, ‘Edelaine’ in the dream could only wake up by dying.

All the sensations were exactly like reality.

Nothing was different.

Pain, air, smells, sounds – everything was as vivid as if it were real.

The grip strength choking her neck, the pressure pressing below her throat, the pain of fingertips pressing against bone, her vision growing dim from being unable to breathe.

The sound and sensation of sharp metal stabbing deep into her stomach, the pain that came a beat later, and the heat of blood bursting between her fingers.

Drinking poison, being attacked, being pushed by someone and falling…

Even so, Edelaine knew from the beginning that this was a dream. If asked how she could tell, she couldn’t answer. Perhaps the criterion for judgment was simple.

Believing that this couldn’t be happening.

Genevieve wouldn’t kill me, Lloyd wouldn’t betray me, and Edwin is…

‘Ah, he might do that.’

She tried to force herself to laugh as if joking, but all that came out was a dry chuckle.

And above all, Shane wouldn’t kill her.

So this had to be a dream.

Dying was something she could never get used to, no matter how many dozens or hundreds of times she experienced it.

Edelaine was afraid of death. Unlike death in dreams, real death would end everything.

She couldn’t remember how she died in her previous life, but through that death, Edelaine had gained a new life. She couldn’t think lightly that she would just reincarnate again if she died. She was afraid that death would completely end her life.

Even if Edelaine woke up from sleep, she couldn’t return to her previous life.

If she really died, she could never live as ‘Edelaine’ again. Even if she reincarnated after death and lived a different life, what meaning would that have?

Not a single one of her precious people would remain in that life.

That’s why dying was scary. Anyone’s death.

The nightmares were the same as before, yet different.

Being dragged into dreams the moment she closed her eyes and having to die for them to end was the same, but this time she wasn’t the only one dying.

‘It’s not like I don’t die though.’

As before, she could only open her eyes the moment Edelaine herself died. That was the basic premise.

As if simulating various situations, they showed her different scenarios leading to her death, but in the process of reaching those endings, many other people besides herself also died.

Close people, distant people she only knew by face, strangers – it didn’t discriminate.

Sometimes it was just a few, sometimes a shocking number died.

Some dreams were massacre endings where people died endlessly.

‘What is this, are you saying everyone should just die? The story you ruined is useless so everyone should die?’

Are you insane, world?

Edelaine wanted to hurl every curse in the world at whoever was showing her these nightmares.

Whether it was the author or some compelling force, if they wanted to say “You must die anyway,” they could have just killed her alone like before. Did they want to curse her saying “You must die” by making other people die before her eyes?

‘What a fucking kind and shitty bastard…’

They had even diligently evolved after returning after several years.

Could these be prophetic dreams?

The nightmares that had followed her since childhood were more like prophetic dreams.

Edelaine saw various future situations in her dreams.

Even though her memory of the novel’s content was hazy, being able to know exactly when Lucian would get hurt and when Lloyd would be abandoned in an alley was all thanks to her dreams. Otherwise, even a hardcore fan who savored every line wouldn’t be able to remember the content so accurately.

If it hadn’t been for the dreams, she would have activated her hope circuit thinking she could somehow change the future where she would die with her own hands, but there were definitely parts that benefited her.

In her dreams, Edelaine crossed age boundaries.

Even at 10 and 11 years old, she dreamed of being 17-18.

‘Probably because she was still alive at that age in the novel too…’

Dreams about the near future were almost prophetic. The dreams showed exactly who was doing what and where. She still ended up being brutally murdered, but Edelaine gained many hints from her dreams.

Thanks to the age difference between her real self and her dream self, it was easy to distinguish that they were dreams.

Though it became more difficult as she grew up, the dreams still consistently helped Edelaine.

But now they weren’t as generous as in those days.

Perhaps because she had grown into an adult, there was no mercy from the start.

They would start with scenes of someone chasing her trying to kill her from the get-go, or she would be stabbed with a knife without warning. Honestly, this was terrible too, but it was rather better since it ended quickly if she could endure the momentary pain.

Edelaine was murdered by almost everyone.

Among the killers were people who made her think ‘Wait, you hated me too?’

There were times when she closed her eyes while dying, thinking “What was that person’s name again…” The emptiness of dying at the hands of someone whose name you don’t even know.

‘I think I’m going to die…’

Fortunately, thanks to Shane confining her to the bedroom, Edelaine was barely able to endure. When she woke up from nightmares, Shane would be holding her tightly while sleeping, so Edelaine could finally realize that him trying to kill her was just a dream.

If the nightmares were some possibility that the world was showing Edelaine for disrupting the predetermined story, then among the countless dreams, some truth would be included.

To determine what that was, she needed to compare it with reality.

If it had been a little while ago, Edelaine would have run away without looking back.

If she had these nightmares again on the day she returned to Delmez and was kidnapped, or if it had been right after the wedding ceremony she was forced into through threats, she wouldn’t have thought twice.

‘No, to be more honest.’

Even if it had been before she promised Shane she wouldn’t run away.

She would have begged Lucian on her hands and knees, risked her life with Lloyd, or knelt and pleaded with her parents and brothers to run far away from Shane and Genevieve.

Because any ending different from the novel still meant that ‘Edelaine’ was an obstacle to this world.

Happiness? What’s that?

You have to be alive to enjoy anything.

It’s better for you all to be alive than dead too.

Since staying in the same space seems to result in everyone dying or me dying, I’ll get lost, so please live well among yourselves.

From far away, from a very distant place, I’ll watch how you all live.

As a third party who can’t even be a supporting character or extra.

That’s what she would have done.

But Edelaine had promised Shane.

That she wouldn’t run away, that she would return to him.

Now she couldn’t retreat.

‘I was complacent.’

Right after the ‘villainess’ returned, the ‘female lead’ became endangered, so naturally she thought it was the ‘villain’s’ doing.

When circumstances showed that wasn’t the case, she hoped that maybe now she could feel at ease. The nightmares had struck her from behind telling her not to let her guard down.

Edelaine gritted her teeth.

When she was young, she tried hard not to fall asleep. There were many days when she didn’t want to sleep, so she pinched her hands and arms, slapped herself, and cried.

But now Edelaine didn’t fight against the overwhelming sleep and nightmares.

Even when tired, she sharpened her nerves even more, trying to find something in her dreams.

Dreams of dying at the hands of someone she loved, dreams of all her loved ones dying – they were nothing but terrible, but conversely, it meant she had regained her own weapon.

Among the countless possible worlds her dreams showed, Edelaine had to find the existence of the ‘Mage’.

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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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