I lifted eyelids as heavy as waterlogged cotton.
The first thing that stabbed at my sense of smell was the bitter, acrid reek of medicinal herbs and the stench of blood.
“……Kh, ugh.”
The moment I drew breath, a horrific pain surged through me as though knives were hacking my lungs to pieces. I reflexively tried to curl up, but
I didn’t even have the strength left to twitch a finger.
My vision slowly came into focus. On the ceiling hung a golden chandelier so extravagant it made my eyes ache, and carved into it was the black rose motif unique to the Rothschild ducal house.
‘……I’m alive.’
If I hadn’t kicked the bucket, then this was definitely an inner chamber of the Rothschild ducal house.
Along with relief, a translucent blue system window appeared directly in front of my eyes.
[Status abnormality: ‘Shadow Spider’s Deadly Poison’ detoxification complete.]
[Warning! Due to extreme damage to the body, the penalty from ‘Curse of Karma’ has accumulated.]
[Current remaining vitality: 8%]
[Caution: For the time being, if you operate mana or act contrary to the original character’s disposition (villain), you may die instantly.]
“Haa…… damn it.”
A cracked, metallic sound forced its way through my lips. My vitality was only 8 percent. My body had become even more pathetic than an ocean sunfish that would keel over with a single tap.
And yet a faint smile spread across my mouth.
Even shouldering this harsh penalty, I had perfectly overcome the most important first survival branch.
‘When I took the poisoned dagger in Ellara’s place, my acting was absolutely flawless.’
I recalled Ellara’s face as she held me in her arms, stricken with shock.
Even as I was dying, I did not lose my arrogance. “I only saved you because my plan would be ruined if you died,”
I spat out that cold, insufferable line with impeccable timing.
There was no way the Empire’s youngest Sword Master, suspicious and proud as she was, would fail to see through that shallow scheme of mine.
Since she realized I had not saved her out of pure goodwill, she would surely find me repulsive and yet thoroughly ignore the matter, saying, “In any case, I owe him my life.”
That was the best-case scenario I had been aiming for.
A perfect two-birds-with-one-stone tactic: maintain Ellara’s hatred of me (avoid the curse penalty), while also erasing the justification for her blade to come flying at my neck (the death from the original work).
‘Good. I’ll use recuperation as an excuse to hole up in the ducal territory and never come out. As long as I don’t create any reason to get entangled with Ellara, my life is safe.’
Just as I was about to close my eyes again in satisfaction, having established the perfect master plan—
Creeeeak—
The enormous oak door of the sickroom, which had been firmly shut, opened with a chilling scrape.
I let out an irritated sigh. It was probably a servant coming to disinfect my wounds,
or else the biological father of this damned body, Duke Rothschild, who cared more about the ducal house’s dignity than his own son’s life.
Conscious of the system’s curse, I glared with the force of someone ready to grab an ashtray and hurl it at a servant at any moment. A villain had to have a filthy temper even when he was sick.
“What bastard dares come in without even knocking……!”
But the arrogant abuse that had been bursting from my mouth froze and stopped short the instant I saw the visitor standing in the doorway.
“…….”
The person standing by the door was neither a servant nor the duke.
A pure white knight’s uniform. The treasured sword of the Imperial Family at her waist. And long silver-gray hair that seemed to shine on its own even in the dark.
It was the heroine of the original work and the reaper meant to take my head, Ellara von Valerius.
But there was something strange about her appearance.
‘Why…… why are the bloodstains still there?’
At least several days should have passed since the assassination incident at the banquet hall.
Ellara’s silver hair was stiff with clotted blood,
and on her pure white uniform, the dark red blood I had vomited up remained hardened like a ghastly pattern. As if from the moment she had held me in her arms and been drenched in blood,
she had not lived a single second of any other life.
Even more chilling were her eyes.
Her silver-gray eyes, which had always looked at me with the disgust one would show an insect and dripped with coldness, were empty.
No, they were not empty. They were filled with something black as pitch, sticky and deep, and shone with a bizarre intensity.
Thud.
My heart began to pound madly with an ominous feeling. A hunch crawled up my spine that something had gone terribly, terribly wrong.
Step, step.
Ellara slowly walked toward my bed. Each time she took a step, the cold metallic sound of her armor striking together tore through the sickroom’s silence.
I suppressed my instinctive fear and forced the corner of my mouth to twist upward.
If I wanted to live, I could not stop acting like a villain. If anything, now was the time to drive the nail in firmly.
“Who told you to let a mongrel into my room as it pleased?”
My cracked voice echoed through the sickroom.
I lifted my chin and glared at her with as much contempt as I could muster.
“As if being born with lowly blood wasn’t enough, now you’ve even acquired the vulgarity to crawl into a noble house’s private chambers at will?
There’s no need to prove with your whole body that you’re a fatherless bastard.”
Normally, by this point, killing intent should have flickered in Ellara’s eyes, and her hand should have gone to the hilt at her waist.
But.
“…….”
Ellara did not get angry.
Far from placing her hand on her sword hilt, she came right up to my bed and suddenly dropped to her knees on the floor.
Her two hands carefully enveloped my pale right hand, which lay helplessly sprawled on the bedsheet, as if she were handling a glasswork piece that might shatter.
“C-crazy…….”
“Even now……”
Ellara’s lips trembled, and a voice like a suppressed sob leaked out.
“Even now, are you trying to deceive me, Lord Kailan?”
“What? What the hell are you talking about, you mad—!”
“Cough, kuhak!”
The moment I raised my voice in agitation, my overtaxed organs strained, and black blood surged out past my lips again along with a cough.
Before my eyes, crimson letters flashed: [Warning! Stress levels rapidly increasing!]
“My lord!!”
Ellara screamed and tightened her grip on my hand. Her grasp was so strong it felt like my bones would be crushed,
but more than that, I couldn’t breathe because of the expression that had appeared on her face.
She was crying.
The knight of ice, who seemed as though she would never shed a single tear in her life, was wearing a uniform stained with my blood and sobbing like a beast.
“Why did you say such cruel things to me…… Why did you try to isolate yourself?”
“What nonsense are you……”
“I know. I know that you have long been fighting this terrible illness alone, without anyone knowing.”
‘……Huh?’
My thoughts came to a halt as though someone had struck the back of my head with a hammer.
Illness? Fighting alone? What the hell is she talking about? I only coughed up blood because I’m under a villain curse!
Ellara lifted her tear-streaked face and met my eyes. In her pupils, a grand cathedral of delusion beyond anything I had imagined had been erected.
“All the things you did—treating me harshly, humiliating me in front of others……
They were meant to make me strong enough to survive alone in this Imperial Capital, and to turn the assassins’ attention toward yourself……
Did you think I would not realize it was your noble sacrifice?”
‘No, it’d be normal not to realize that! Fuck, I just insulted you by calling you a bastard!!’
A scream rose all the way to my throat, but Ellara had clearly interpreted my silence as “the shame of a noble soul whose truth had been exposed.”
“Why did you try to throw away your precious life for me? Why did you insist on playing the villain until the very end, trying to bear this heavy burden alone!”
“Hey, let go. I said let go!”
Horrified, I tried to shake her off my hand.
But the resistance of a terminal patient whose strength stat had hit rock bottom was less effective against a Sword Master than the flutter of a feather.
If anything, my rejection seemed to have flipped her switch in entirely the wrong direction.
Rustle.
Ellara rose from her seat. For a fleeting instant, all expression vanished from her tear-soaked face.
In its place, a suffocatingly cold madness of obsession filled her empty eyes.
She bent at the waist, casting her shadow darkly over my face as I lay on the bed.
Her faint scent of lilies mixed with the stench of blood rushed over me, numbing the tip of my nose.
“Did you tell me to let go?”
Ellara’s cold fingers slowly wiped away the bloodstain at the corner of my mouth.
“I cannot.”
“What……?”
“You threw away your life to save me. Therefore, your life now belongs entirely to me.”
She pressed her lips close to my ear and whispered. Her icy breath sent goosebumps rippling over my entire body.
“Even if you refuse, even if you once again pour cruel abuse on me and try to push me away……”
Ellara’s silver-gray eyes curved bizarrely like a crescent moon.
It was not the face of a woman in love. It was the face of an unleashed hunting dog that would bite its master to pieces if it meant keeping him by its side.
“Even if I have to break your arms and legs, I will not allow you to take a single step out of this bed without my permission.
If it means saving you, I will gladly turn this world into hell.”
‘She’s insane.’
This woman had now gone completely, perfectly insane.
[Warning! The ‘Obsession Level’ of a specific individual (Ellara von Valerius) has exceeded the limits permitted by the world setting!]
[The heroine’s alignment will be forcibly changed from ‘Lawful Good’ to ‘Chaotic Evil - Yandere.’]
Watching the warning messages flash in the system window before my eyes, I squeezed my eyes shut.
The heroine of the original work, who was supposed to take my head, was going mad trying to save me.
It seemed my perfect survival plan had been fucked on a cosmic scale from the very first button.