Thought It Was ‘The End’, Only to Return to a Changed Genre - Chapter 87

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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 16. The Blade Below the Neck (3)

Her hair was grabbed and yanked, snapping her neck backward.

Her scalp burned as if it would be torn off completely, and a groan escaped involuntarily, but before she could even catch her breath, she was kicked in the ribs. Edelaine couldn’t even scream and just endured the pain.

She had held back at first for fear of being caught, but a scream erupted from Genevieve’s direction as well.

“Edel, aine, huk!”

She tried to call out “Genevieve,” but a palm like a pot lid came flying toward her face. Edelaine instinctively raised her arms to protect her face, but it was too late. Was there a slapping sound? For a moment, she couldn’t hear anything, and her vision went black.

The merciless violence showed no mercy.

When Edelaine barely managed to open her eyes, she saw the vicious face of a man grinning wickedly. Her vision was hazy. The hypnotized man was looking at Edelaine but wasn’t really seeing anything.

He was like a doll rather than a person. A doll without any emotions.

That’s why he could commit such cruel acts without showing mercy.

With the single-minded determination to escape somehow, she dug her nails into the back of the hand that was gripping her hair, but he didn’t even blink. He seemed to feel no pain at all.

“Lady Edelaine, I’ll cast a spell so please escape, ack!”

Genevieve was caught with both arms twisted behind her back. And then her face was slammed straight into the floor.

In the meantime, Edelaine was kicked in the stomach once more.

“Lady Edelaine!”

A painful scream rang out sharply.

The terrible pain of her organs trembling shook her entire body horribly, making her head spin completely. She almost lost consciousness, but Genevieve’s scream sounded so painful that Edelaine barely managed to bite the inside of her cheek.

Genevieve struggled and screamed something, and finally the man’s eyes became cloudy and dim. She had cast a spell. Edelaine didn’t miss the opportunity and swung the hammer she was gripping at the man’s face.

She definitely felt the impact of hitting him, but couldn’t tell if she had knocked him down.

The man staggered. Edelaine broke free from his grip and crawled on all fours to press against the wall.

“The rat bastards I thought had run away came looking for me on their own.”

“Who are you calling rat bastards…”

Edelaine swallowed her curse and glared with wide eyes.

It was the first time seeing her face-to-face.

The face she had so desperately wanted to see in her dreams.

Even though seeing it now was useless, she wanted to clearly engrave in her eyes the face of the one who had committed such acts.

It was a woman with long black hair.

Her deer-like long neck was exceptionally pale. Her elongated eyes cast deep shadows, and a single mole under her right eye completed a sensual and haughty impression.

So it’s you. The mage.

The final ‘character’ that composed this world.

With this, she had met all the major figures from the novel.

For a face she had wanted to see, it wasn’t welcome at all.

Edelaine licked her lips as she noticed flame-like emotions flickering in those brown eyes looking at her. She had no idea when they had met before for her to be hated like this, but it seemed she could use this highly excited state to her advantage.

She looked over Edelaine leaning against the wall and Genevieve kneeling with both arms twisted behind her back, then spoke.

“It must be you two, right? Seeing how you were hiding.”

“You’re the ones who kidnapped people in the first place. What makes you so great that you can treat us like rat bastards, damn it.”

“Your mouth is quite foul despite your appearance?”

“Why should I choose nice words for your sake? Even pouring out curses wouldn’t be enough.”

What’s so pretty about her.

The mage chuckled.

“True. There’s no point in hearing nice things from someone who’s about to die anyway, it would only make for unpleasant dreams.”

“Don’t do it! Please, don’t touch Lady Edelaine!”

When Genevieve screamed, Edelaine inwardly swallowed a groan.

‘That won’t work, Genevieve…’

Edelaine had deliberately tried to provoke the mage to make her attack first.

Excluding the man holding Genevieve down from behind, there didn’t seem to be anyone else here who could serve as the mage’s fighting force. If that woman lost her reason and attacked first, she felt there would be quite good odds in pure hand-to-hand combat.

But at Genevieve’s scream, the mage seemed to remember who her real prey should be.

Genevieve, who had fallen into panic, was panting as if she might hyperventilate.

“Right, right. That’s how it was.”

“What’s right, you crazy bitch…”

“I had forgotten that you’re that woman’s weakness.”

The mage’s lips stretched into a wicked grin.

“Yes, it would be perfect if you became my blade.”

The mage in her dreams had chosen the method of controlling people to hurt others. Even in situations where she could wield the blade herself, she deliberately used the method that could hurt that person most painfully. Even though it was much more troublesome.

That was probably that woman’s true nature.

A nature that enjoyed finding people’s weaknesses and crushing their hearts.

“Our girl doesn’t have any weaknesses like that…”

“Who’s your girl? Don’t tell me you’re talking about the Saint?”

Mocking laughter pierced her ears sharply. Damn it, what business is it of yours that I’ve claimed my female lead…

“Lady Edelaine, close your eyes!”

She squeezed her eyes shut and lowered her head. Even without understanding why, since Genevieve was telling her to do it, there must be a good reason.

But closing her eyes with someone about to attack her right in front of her wasn’t easy. Moreover, she could hear Genevieve’s screams.

“Hng, ahhh!”

“Genevieve!”

“I’m fine! You absolutely must not open your eyes! If you do, that woman will get her way, ugh!”

Fine my ass!

She could hear the sound of groans being swallowed through clenched teeth, probably from being hit wrong while resisting.

Edelaine tried to endure as well. However, when the woman’s pointed shoe dug into the ribs that had been kicked by the man, she couldn’t hold back her scream. More than the pain, she worried that Genevieve would suffer hearing her scream.

She succeeded in enduring with her eyes stubbornly closed, but her hair was grabbed and her head was lifted, and fingers with long nails forcibly opened her eyes.

The woman’s soft voice whispered.

“Too late.”

*

Her vision became distant.

Her body was falling backward, but it felt slow as if in slow motion.

The confidently smiling woman’s face, the sudden silence where all sound disappeared, and Genevieve’s wailing face.

Is this what it would feel like if one’s soul was ejected from the body?

Edelaine was sequentially deprived of her five senses. First her sense of smell and hearing were taken, then her sight… But rather than being blocked, it felt like her senses were being separated as if they weren’t her own.

It resembled death.

‘Am I going to die?’

Edelaine had feared death her entire life. Ironically, thanks to that, she had to experience countless near-deaths, but it wasn’t entirely without gain.

She was confident that her stubbornness and mental strength to not die easily were second to none. Rather, it was a sensation she had experienced so often since childhood that she was almost familiar with it.

And precisely because of that, she knew this wasn’t real.

Real death was much more terrible than this.

Much, much more futile and cold.

Just before all her senses were completely taken away, Edelaine bit her tongue with all her might.

She couldn’t cut her tongue off completely, but the pain that made her mind snap awake restored her stolen senses.

The subjective time felt long, but in reality it had happened in the instant when she made eye contact with the mage and was about to fall backward.

Edelaine reached out to grab the mage’s collar and kicked her stomach hard with her foot.

With a cry of pain, the woman fell over. Edelaine jumped up and spat out the bloody saliva from her tongue. It hurt so much that tears came to her eyes. The smell of blood filling her mouth was so fishy and terrible.

“How dare you try to control someone, you amateur.”

“Ugh, urgh, h-how, how.”

“Do you think I’ve only died once or twice?”

This is the result of what the world has trained me for, damn it…

Although she had kicked the stomach hard, it wasn’t strong enough to make her unable to get up and just roll around. She was probably experiencing the backlash of a failed curse. If she was going to kill her, now was the only chance.

‘This is self-defense.’

Edelaine calmly grabbed the mage’s hair and slammed her head into the floor.

There was a thudding sound.

It seemed like screams could be heard as well.

“Let go, let me go!”

I can’t kill with bare hands. My body was hot as I gasped for breath, but one side of my head felt strangely cold. Sounds seemed distant, as if water had gotten into my ears.

“-Lady Edelaine, behind! Behind you!”

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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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