[Episode 97] - The Tale of Snow White (3)
My father was dead. What did that have to do with me, his own flesh and blood? I wished she would just direct her obsession toward my father. Being the target of Vivian’s obsession only left me disgusted and annoyed.
Until the year I turned ten, Vivian truly didn’t lay a hand on me. Rather, the fact that she didn’t touch me was frightening in itself. What could she be thinking, keeping me alive?
That doubt didn’t last long. The year I turned twelve, Vivian revealed to me that she was a ‘witch.’ And she said I had the talent to be a ‘witch’ too. At first, I thought she was a lunatic.
I’d already known she was crazy, but now she seemed even crazier. When she said she was a witch and that she’d teach me witchcraft, I truly wanted to hang myself and die on the spot.
‘You have talent, you know. The talent of a witch. So consider it an honor. Opportunities to learn magic from me are few and far between. Witches do not normally take disciples. But you are the child who inherited the blood of the one I love.’
Who asked her to teach me? She was the one forcing it on me. I wanted to refuse, but it’s not like I had the right to refuse, did I? Reluctantly, I had no choice but to attend Vivian’s lessons every single day.
Honestly, I would have rather she killed me. Vivian had no talent for teaching. She didn’t instruct me properly, and if I said I didn’t know something, she was quick to slap my face first. She’d beat my cheeks and the inside of my mouth until they burst during class, then heal me with magic when it was over.
You can probably guess why Vivian healed me, right? She treated me so others wouldn’t see my wounds. Vivian cared more about other people’s gazes than I’d thought. She absolutely loathed the idea of anyone nearby whispering about her.
Honestly, the lessons themselves were interesting. The existence of ‘fairies,’ which I had assumed were visible to everyone, were actually seen only by Vivian and me. Or that we used ‘magic’ by borrowing the power of those fairies.
It was only in my thirty-fourth life that I finally felt something changing. Even if I regressed and the next life began, I thought it might be a little bearable since I would have magic.
I hated Vivian to death, but I loved magic. The fairies I met each time I learned magic were all kind children. Yes, I think that was when I first met Ainsel. Vivian’s familiar, the mirror fairy Ainsel.
Ainsel hardly ever got involved with me. Ainsel always stayed in Vivian’s room. Even when she came outside through an earring, she wouldn’t say a word, busy watching Vivian’s mood. Even in my eyes, she looked like quite a pitiful fairy.
And so, I began growing as a witch under Vivian. Evading a hunter who tried to kill me, I met Brownie in a cottage, met Cat Sith in another village, and met many other fairies. I called those children ‘dwarves.’ They were cute, tiny children.
But as I grew as a witch alongside the dwarves, Vivian seemed to grow anxious. Perhaps she thought I would become a stronger witch than her; starting from the year I turned seventeen, she began keeping me in check.
That’s why. That’s why I told you not to even dream of raising Titania as a witch. Because I knew you would grow jealous of Titania as she grew as a witch, and that you would eventually kill her.
One day when I was seventeen, Vivian made me a proposal. She asked me to perform a certain ‘ritual’ with her. The ritual was called the ‘Ritual of the Full Moon,’ and she said it could grant one wish.
I snorted at Vivian as she explained it. If such a convenient ritual really existed, there was no way she would tell me about it, right? I could clearly see she was up to something. I refused, saying I wouldn’t do the ritual.
But perhaps that answer hurt Vivian’s pride; she tried to kill me again. Once again, she started childishly putting poison in food, and pathetically tried to push me down the stairs to kill me. Really, I thought, what a consistent person.
Thanks to the dwarves, I no longer fell for such childish pranks, but honestly, I was curious about that ‘Ritual of the Full Moon.’ If the ritual that granted wishes was real, couldn’t it end this hellish regression?
The moment I thought that, I began investigating the ‘ritual.’ I stole Vivian’s materials and sought opinions from other witches in the coven. And amazingly, I was able to learn that the ‘effect’ of this ritual granting wishes was real.
‘Then, truly...’
Truly, couldn’t I end my regression?
Couldn’t I finally die properly?
Since I had learned that the ritual’s wish-granting effect was real, there was no need to hesitate any longer. I performed the ‘Ritual of the Full Moon’ to die properly. Because I needed rest.
While preparing for the ritual, the ‘Great Witch Morgan’ came to stop me, but I ignored her. The rest of finally being able to die properly was flickering before my eyes—did they expect me to endure this? As if rebelling against her words, I poured even more power into the ritual.
Isn’t it funny? The me who had lost all will to live because of my repeating life, finding the motivation to strive... in order to die.
Honestly, I think that was the most meaningful moment of my life.
Anyway, the preparations were easily completed, and I headed to the lake on the night of the full moon. I lied to the dwarves and went out to the lake, slowly immersing myself in the water and submerging.
And then I made a wish.
‘Please, a life without regression.’
Then, bubbles surged up from the bottom of the lake. Contradicting the rising bubbles, my body sank deeper into the lake, falling further and further down. I tried to swim up to the surface, but instead of rising, I sank deeper and deeper, as if someone had grabbed my ankles.
‘Like hell it’s a wish-granting ritual!’ As I was cursing like that inside my mind, a familiar death came for me. Thinking I was regressing again, I naturally closed my eyes. Once this brief pain ended, I would become a child again, and this hellish life would unfold once more.
The moment I came to and opened my eyes like that.
-Slap! Who are you! Who the hell is in my cottage?!
‘Uh...? Brownie?’
My thirty-fifth life.
Unlike the familiar regression to childhood, I opened my eyes in Brownie’s cottage. Moreover, my body had regressed while remaining that of a seventeen-year-old. I rejoiced, wondering if the ritual had worked, but once I learned the truth, I couldn’t be happy.
Because in this timeline, another ‘me’ existed who was not me.
That’s right. That ‘Titania.’
I snuck into the royal palace and was shocked to see Titania in the form of a two-year-old. No matter how I looked, there were no traces of regression on her.
The me of this place was truly a baby who knew nothing. I suspected—though I couldn’t be sure—that Titania was perhaps a new me who had come into existence because I had escaped the regression.
Then what about me? What on earth was I becoming?
...I didn’t have the leisure to think about such things back then.
Looking around, Aurora was still alive, and you, Vivian, were as ill-mannered as ever. I had only one thought: I had to protect Titania. Because if things continued this way, she would clearly die just like me.
Thinking so, I moved to protect Titania. I changed my face with magic and disguised myself as a maid, protecting Titania from Aurora and Vivian. I thought that was the reason I had come to this place.
But as time passed, I began feeling something strange in my body. The inside of my body hurt as if tearing apart, and sometimes my heart ached as if it would shatter.
That pain was a ‘side effect’ of the ritual.
Escaping the regression was good, but I had also begun escaping the mold of being human.
I was gradually becoming not a human, but a fairy.
As my body gradually became that of a fairy, I felt as though I was losing my ‘self.’ I had finally escaped the regression, yet now I was beginning to lose even myself.
I hate it. I hate that above all.
Since I’ve escaped the regression, I want to die as a human.
To live normally.
To love normally.
To marry normally.
To bear a child normally.
To die by the side of those I love.
I want that kind of normal life.
Not the life of a fairy, but the life of a human.
After that, I began frantically looking into my situation. I even sought out ‘Dr. Frankenstein,’ who was said to have made fairies into humans, but it was no use.
He told me that he had merely trapped fairies in the artificial bodies he created, and that the humans he made weren’t real ‘humans.’ To solve the problem I was experiencing—
not the process of a fairy turning into a human.
I had to know the process of a human turning into a fairy.
But I knew of no one who had gone through the process of a human turning into a fairy except myself. I wanted to ask the Great Witch, but that unemployed shut-in Great Witch had no intention of leaving the Fairy Realm.
I didn’t know the way into the Fairy Realm. Moreover, the Fairy Realm strictly prohibited the entry of humans. It wasn’t a place where I, still a human, could enter.
Dr. Frankenstein’s words that it might take years to get a response even if I wrote a letter to the Great Witch made me anxious. For the time being, I asked Frankenstein to examine me, but he soon lost his life in an accident.
I don’t know if it was truly an accident, but I heard that the workshop containing his knowledge and everything he had created burned down. All except for one child he had created. That’s right. That girl is the current Frankenstein.
Anyway, anxious, I began investigating this situation. I read books and learned about fairies, but as expected, nothing could cure me. Each time, Dr. Frankenstein’s words echoed in my ears.
That I had to know the process of a human turning into a fairy.
‘But there’s no one else like me, right? There’s no one other than me who turned from a human into a fairy? There’s only one specimen, so how...!’
One specimen.
In that moment, I thought it couldn’t be helped. If I was the only specimen, then I just had to increase the number of specimens, right? I just had to experiment on other humans.
But honestly, my conscience wouldn’t allow me to make others just like me. Because that was an act no different from murder. So I...
chose someone my conscience would allow.
‘First Queen Aurora Snow White.’
‘Who...?’
‘Do you know the story of the fairy who spends their whole life with the one they love?’
With Aurora’s permission, I began turning her into a leanan sídhe. Besides Aurora, I chose people my conscience would allow and began turning them into fairies. Only then could I die as a human.
...You know, Vivian.
I know what I’m doing is wrong.
But I don’t want to die as a fairy.
I want to be happy, like Titania.
That’s all.