The agonizingly long solitary confinement had ended.
A narrow room I had never once left since my transmigration. The brilliant chandelier lights of the Imperial Palace I faced for the first time, and the loud footsteps echoing off the marble—none of it agreed with me, inducing dry heaves. The alien scenery pouring down so brightly it hurt the eyes brought on dizziness.
When leaving the solitary cell, there was only one thing I had taken with me: that terrible book. Walking down the hallway with the spine clutched tight in anxiety, intense sunlight pouring through a massive stained glass spilled into my embrace. The moment the light reflected, faint lettering pressed into a corner of the old leather cover by intaglio stood out bizarrely.
[Author: Yujin]
"...What is this?"
I stopped walking and rubbed the letters with my calloused fingers. It was a clear, indelible imprint. Yujin. Kim Yujin. My real name.
Why was this insane book authored under my name? The sensation was too ominous to dismiss as coincidence. My heart beat unpleasantly, but at the sound of unfamiliar maids approaching, I hurriedly suppressed my unease and hid the book deep in the hem of my skirt. There were no clues I could uncover immediately.
Life after the lifting of my confinement flowed by bizarrely smoothly.
I had been assigned as Emperor Cassian's exclusive maid. Thinking of that terrible ruin where my head had been severed in the previous cycle, my breath should have hitched immediately, but I was nearly vegetative. It was thanks to Scarlet's pathological overprotectiveness as head maid.
She had perfectly isolated me from all manner of chores and threats in the Imperial Palace. That fragile, innocent child who used to startle and tear up at even the smallest prank grew strangely hardened as she looked at me, now a mere empty shell.
"You don't have to do anything, Unni. Just stay by my side."
Scarlet visited me every day, stroking my hair and whispering. My mental state, frayed by the terrible beheading and the shock of regression in my previous life, melted defenselessly against her cold, blind affection. Like a docile beast—no, like a child who had lost its parents—I clung to her.
The severe separation anxiety worsened by the day—my breath would quicken and my hands and feet would tremble when Scarlet wasn't before my eyes. Only by burying my face in her embrace and listening to her heartbeat could I barely fall asleep.
Then one night, as she patted my back, Scarlet gazed into empty space and whispered in an especially sunken voice.
"Unni, don't be so afraid. You'll be fine. As for that problem... I'll try to resolve it all."
"...Huh? What problem?"
To my stupid question, Scarlet only smiled faintly and pressed her lips to my silver hair. But I failed to notice that the tips of her small hands cradling my cheeks were trembling. Blind with selfish fear, I concluded that there was no problem in the Imperial Palace that innocent child, who flinched even at the sound of rain, could solve. I dismissed it as an obvious, tender comfort meant to soothe my fitful anxiety and burrowed deeper into her embrace.
While peace continued like a hothouse flower, Elise secretly slipped into my room under the pretense of night patrol.
"Has the Emperor... has that bastard Cassian come here?"
Elise's appearance as she asked, catching her breath, was wretched. The area beneath her eyes, visible beyond her helm, was deathly hollow, and her always-gleaming silver armor was covered everywhere with dark red bloodstains and scratches she hadn't had time to wipe clean. She looked like someone who had been fighting daily in an invisible quagmire.
When I nodded without understanding, Elise let out a deep, heavy sigh of relief, as though she might collapse at any moment.
"...Thank goodness. Yes, since we're drawing all of his attention, he shouldn't be able to set foot this way. Rodry. Don't worry about anything and just keep hiding like this. Just a little longer, just a little bit more. We're almost done."
"Elise, what on earth are you talking about... are you hurt?"
"It's nothing."
I tried to grab her bloodstained wrist, but Elise urgently pulled away. She anxiously scanned the hallway like someone being pursued, then left me a gaze both sorrowful and resolute before vanishing back into the darkness.
I had no idea whatsoever what they were carving away at beneath the surface to protect me, nor could I fathom their desperate struggle. I hadn't realized that the reason Cassian—even after shackling me with the title of exclusive maid—had never once summoned me was thanks to their life-or-death battle.
Only a pre-storm chill swept down my spine, as though a viper were coiled in the darkness, silently watching me.
And then, after several months passed mercilessly. The quiet eye of the storm in which I had settled was finally, ruthlessly torn apart.
Cassian appeared.
Cassian opened my door and entered without warning, reeking of blood so thick it was nauseating. With a sticky, fishy smile hanging at his lips, he looked down at me and delivered his pronouncement.
"The knight called Elise has been executed."
"...What?"
My head rang. My vision flickered out momentarily. Now that I thought about it, I hadn't seen her silver armor for several days.
"She was a spy for the Eastern Kingdom."
Cassian slowly approached and roughly gripped my chin, lifting it. A chilling killing intent seeped through the leather glove.
"You had a very loyal retainer. They pulled out her fingernails and toenails one by one in the dungeon, flayed her skin... yet she didn't bat an eye."
My stomach overturned. Dead? Elise? In the last cycle, she had burned to death trying to save me, and this time too she had been torn apart tragically after torture in the dungeon? She who had looked at me with a bitter smile, calling me her 'childhood friend,' had once again because of me...
"Hah..."
A black, viscous emotion surged up from the pit of my stomach like vomit. I felt my mind would completely collapse in this terrible, cyclical slaughter. But the nightmare didn't end there. Cassian's cruel lips opened again.
"Head Maid Scarlet was the same. Quite the tenacious one."
"..."
My heart stopped. I even forgot how to breathe.
"I thought she was a frail, stupid coward trembling and hiding behind you, but she had joined hands with the central nobles beneath the surface to strangle me. One wrong move and my head would have flown off in a coup."
Cassian's purple eyes flashed with delight and madness.
"Well, in the end, I tore them all apart and killed them, of course."
Scarlet... is dead?
Emotions surged like a massive tsunami.
["You'll be fine, Unni. As for that problem... I'll try to resolve it all."]
Ah.
Only then did I understand the meaning of Scarlet's voice etched into my mind. It hadn't been shallow consolation. While I hid in that child's embrace, trembling like a separation anxiety patient, that fragile, innocent child had been preparing a life-risking betrayal behind the scenes, inciting nobles to strike down the Emperor who was strangling my life... to pull me out of this hell.
I sank. Into an endlessly distant bottom.
What had I done in this life? Crushed by the shock and terror of being beheaded in the previous cycle, I had done nothing but hold onto Scarlet's skirt and whine.
I was like a maggot. The face of my terrible father, who had suddenly fallen into gambling addiction and abandoned his family, came to mind. I had sworn I wouldn't live like that bastard. Like father, like child, was it? While trying to protect my meager safety, I had thoroughly stood by and watched those who had willingly thrown away their lives for me.
'You pathetic bastard... I really am a goddamn retard.'
My vision distorted. Hot tears streamed down my cheeks, drop by drop. Scarlet. I'm sorry. Because I was stupid, because I was a useless maggot who couldn't do anything, I'm sorry that I got you killed again trying to protect me.
"Ah... Aah..."
I collapsed, wailing like a beast.
I was thrown into the dungeon.
A damp, cold stone floor where no light entered. A world without Scarlet was a perfect vacuum. My hands and feet trembled, and my teeth clattered loudly.
I refused all food and drink. I had lost track of how many days had passed without a sip of water. I merely huddled in the darkness, facing the torn corpses of Scarlet and Elise like hallucinations.
Heavy military boots sounded from beyond the bars. It was Cassian. He pushed the coarse bread and water the guard had brought toward my feet.
"Eat. I won't let you die."
I looked up at him blankly with empty, utterly dead eyes.
Suddenly, a very bizarre thought bloomed in my mind.
A romance fantasy? The male protagonist of a novel?
I didn't give a damn about that anymore. Only a pure, immense desire to tear apart and kill Cassian Esteban, that arrogant and disgusting man before my eyes, in the most painful way in the world exploded like an active volcano.
I would kill him. I would tear him to pieces and chew through his entrails. The author bastard, this shitty world—I'd burn it all down.
The moment sticky, pitch-black killing intent completely dominated my entire body.
Kiiing.
The axis of the world twisted bizarrely. Cassian's breathing, the sound of torches burning, the nauseating stench of the dungeon—all of it was erased as if temporarily paused. And all the color in the world was sucked out, dyed in a murky ash-gray.
It was that 'ashen world' I had seen right before my regression.
The book I had hidden in my bosom, which had never once responded to my will, rose into the air, emitting light on its own. Swish! A familiar scene unfolded in the empty air before me. Shadows spinning ceaselessly like casino machines. A 777 slot machine.
I looked blankly at the slot machine floating in the air, then realized abruptly. Ah, this shitty system. Now I think I understand.
It never responded no matter how meticulously I planned my escape or how rationally I struggled, but only when I immersed in extreme pain and despair, spewing killing intent, when destructive emotions exploded like mad in my head—only then did this book open.
'Ah... so it was all for that damned dopamine?'
It was a disgusting, sadistic system that bestowed gifts only when I suffered, lost precious ones, and my extreme emotions heightened to captivate the interest of the readers beyond the pages.
"Heu... Euhuhuhu."
A bizarre laugh leaked through my cracked lips. I heard the sound of the rational fuse in my mind burning out completely. Looking up at the ashen void, I laughed like a crazy bitch, like fucking mad.
"Euhahahahaha!"
Bloody tears flowed down my chin. You want fun? You want stimulation? You brain-rotted dopamine junkies.
"Yeah, fuck... I'll kill them all."
Emperor or noble, I'll tear them all apart and scatter their remains. I'll burn everything until this shitty world turns to ash. As if responding to the curse-laden oath I spat toward the ashen void, the slot machine stopped spinning with a loud alarm. It was the moment the three shadows aligned perfectly.
Since my despair and killing intent had reached their peak, I expected it to grant me a tremendous power capable of overturning the entire world. But what the slot machine vomited out was nothing but empty space.
[Oh dear, too bad, it's a dud?]
"...What?"
[Didn't know there was such a thing as a dud?]
[You must've been so looking forward to it, what a shame.]
[Even your beloved Scarlet, and your loyal Elise, were all tortured to death and torn apart.]
Black ink slithered across the pages like a snake, mocking me. Something in my head snapped with a pop. Reason. Or the final Maginot line of patience a human could endure. Such things were completely shattered, ground to dust, and scattered.
I looked up at the ashen void and opened my mouth silently. Certainly, I had gone mad. I had completely lost my mind in this hellish cycle of regression.
[But don't be too disappointed. A dud doesn't give a new Gift, but it has a special rule.]
[It allows you to use a previously acquired power 'just once.']
A previously acquired power. In my mind flashed the cute fairy wearing a jester hat I had met in the previous cycle—the 'Bomb Witch.'
Ah. Once. Just once.
I laughed, dragging the corners of my mouth up grotesquely like a madman. The muscles of my face, smeared with bloody tears, twisted grotesquely. Once would be enough. That damned author bastard who mocks me. That son of a bitch who designed this dog-shit system and is probably munching on popcorn from beyond the pages.
'You son of a bitch. No matter what it takes, I will find you and kill you.'
My eyes were bloodshot. I would gladly use this one chance. I didn't care if my body was torn to shreds hundreds or thousands of times. The book disappeared into the air with a cheerful sound, and the frozen ashen world regained its original repulsive colors.
"...I told you to eat."
I heard Casian's cold voice from beyond the iron bars, looking down at me. He alternated his gaze between the bread crumbs scattered on the floor and my wretched appearance, his eyes gleaming with arrogance.
I staggered to my feet. My legs trembled from long starvation, but the pitch-black madness enveloping my entire body supported my frame. I approached the iron bars and looked straight into Casian's haughty purple eyes.
His brows narrowed slightly. I opened my lips, caked with blood scabs, and gathered all the malice remaining in my life to whisper sweetly.
"You eat it, you son of a bitch."
"...What?"
It was the moment Casian's flustered eyes widened.
"You fucking maid's bastard. Just die."
I used the Bomb Witch's power. The moment the destructive will within me manifested in its most brilliant and horrific form.
Kwaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!
A massive explosion that seemed capable of annihilating the entire underground prison erupted from my body. The world was engulfed in blinding red flames and pure white flashes that threatened to steal sight itself.
My skin was the first to char black and melt away, and my bones shattered into pieces, scattering in all directions. The flames tore through the sturdy iron bars like paper and completely swallowed Casian, who stood before me.
My second life was torn to shreds along with the terrible suicide bombing that brought down the entire underground prison of the imperial palace.
And. My vision flipped once more, and that terribly familiar ashen silence returned. My scattered flesh and droplets of blood lost gravity and floated in the air. The collapsing fragments of the prison also froze in place like a paused video screen. And then, that damned book fluttered in the air and opened before my eyes again.
#
[#2. Final Report]
▶ Strategy: Lethargy and dependence on others
[No different from a shut-in.]
▶ Achievement: Freeloader
[Scarlet, do it for me! Elise, do it for me!]
▶ Witches encountered: 0
[My word... to think I'd draw a blank.]
[Overall Review]
While the supporting cast was playing political games, lived like a vegetable then randomly committed mutual suicide with the emperor—absolutely cancerous play!
[Ratings]
★☆☆☆☆ │ Is the protagonist's intelligence for real?
★★☆☆☆ │ Scarlet's out there busting her ass while all he does is whine from his corner;;
★☆☆☆☆ │ Is this story nothing but frustration?
★☆☆☆☆ │ Another mutual suicide ending with the male lead lolol so predictable, I'm dropping this.
★★★★★ │ Gotta give credit for the insane decisiveness to blow the emperor's head off without hesitation just because of a bad roll.
#
My vision twisted and a bizarre rewind began. My flesh, crushed into the floor, stuck back onto my bones as if pulled by magnets, and the flames that had engulfed the underground prison were sucked back in reverse and vanished.
Time sprinted toward the past like a madman. My vision flashed completely white. And when I opened my eyes. I was sitting again on that hard, musty bed in the solitary cell.
As Iliana Rebnie, her silver hair disheveled.