Chapter 27

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Translator: Harry Potta

Chapter Title: Chapter 124

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“Hah!”

I opened my eyes.

“Cough! Cough cough!”

I’d clearly thought I was dead the moment my throat was crushed.

Yet the sensation of still being trapped in that situation lingered, and for a while, I frantically rubbed at my neck.

Only after repeating the motion dozens of times did I finally come back to my senses.

I’m alive.

I’m alive.

Back then, I’d been sure I was going to die.

A wave of relief washed over me at the realization that I was still breathing.

Die! Die! Die already!

The woman’s voice, filled with malice as she screamed those words, echoed in my mind.

That woman who looked exactly like me, wearing Rozhi’s face.

She had killed me.

…Was that really Rozhi?

Had she come back?

But how? Her body was one I had…

Only then did the surrounding scenery finally register.

“What the hell is this…?”

The modern interior, plastered in black and white, was something I’d never seen in the world I’d possessed.

What the hell is this…?

I pulled back the covers to get up.

As I swung my feet to the side of the bed, a cold, sharp sensation clamped around my ankle.

Something was caught on my foot.

I yanked the blanket away in shock…

“What in the world…?”

I discovered a shackle.

To be precise, there was a shackle locked around my ankle.

A shackle?

In a daze, I reached down toward my ankle.

I slipped my fingers into the slight gap between my ankle and the shackle, trying to pull it off.

But the shackle didn’t budge an inch.

“……”

The long chain attached to the shackle on my ankle led to where it was bolted into the wall beside the bed.

“This is insane.”

That was when I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror on the nearby vanity.

Not Rozhi, but me from Korea.

I approached the vanity mirror as if drawn by a spell.

Black hair cascading down to my waist, black eyes.

Not as stunning as Rozhi, but the real me—the one people had often called pretty enough.

My cat-like features bore a slight resemblance to hers.

I couldn’t tear my eyes away from my reflection.

Why do I look older?

Come to think of it, my hair was longer too.

Overall, I appeared far more mature than the version of myself I remembered.

It looked like at least five years had passed.

I couldn’t shake off the shock easily.

As I stared into the mirror, the words whispered by that woman with Rozhi’s face—who had grinned chillingly just before I died—came back to me.

See you again.

See you again…

As if she knew I wouldn’t die.

I’d returned to Korea, so how…?

Click.

That was when a sound came from the opposite side of the room.

Suddenly, the backing track of a song started up, and an eerie rhythm pulsed through the room.

Crawling into the swamp of despair.

You know that mire, pitch-black, where despair awaits…

A song, out of nowhere…?

I spotted an old radio tucked away in the far corner.

I walked over and picked it up.

What’s the name of this song…?

Right on cue, the lyrics flowed out.

“Savior.”

That was the title.

In this situation, it felt utterly out of place.

I frowned and pressed the button to turn it off.

I’ll save you, my dear…

Long-buried memories from the distant past shattered through a glass barrier, fragments surfacing one by one.

My head throbbed.

“My head hurts…”

It really did—like my skull was splitting open. My vision swam, nausea surging up.

“Ugh…”

Unable to withstand the headache, my body swayed.

I grabbed the vanity in a panic.

Clutching my head, I struggled to hold myself up.

My vision grew dimmer. As I slumped down, a blurry shape appeared before me.

A photo?

A picture frame I hadn’t noticed before caught my eye.

But I couldn’t take it all in before collapsing completely.

It had only been a few days since arriving in the Northern Region, yet so much had happened.

All of it in the worst possible way.

Arjen had lost what he’d longed for all these years.

“…Rozhi.”

He murmured the name of someone who was already dead and gone.

Arjen loved beautiful things.

But that hadn’t always been the case.

Arjen pursued perfection.

That hadn’t always been true either.

They said that in his earliest childhood—too young to remember—his face bore an ugly, indelible scar.

His parents had despised him for it.

Yet at the same time, unable to forgive such a flaw in the heir to the marquis household, they scoured the land for someone to remove it.

Did their relentless efforts pay off?

Arjen succeeded in erasing the large scar from his face.

But every gain comes with a price.

In exchange for removing the scar, he acquired a curse.

In noble society, a curse was impure. An absolute disgrace that should never exist.

Arjen’s parents searched far and wide for a way to break his curse, eventually receiving an oracle.

The reason you’re cursed has nothing to do with that scar.

It’s all because of a transcendent being.

So, conversely, if you find that transcendent ‘being,’ won’t the curse lift?

All who heard the oracle spoke those words in unison.

A transcendent being.

What else could that mean besides a Transcendent?

The curse devouring his body was because of a Transcendent.

Find one, and they wouldn’t be spared. With each passing day, his hatred only grew.

It was a deep-seated grudge, festering for far too long.

Yet even after finding a transcendent being, his curse showed no signs of lifting.

Why?

That was when one particular existence caught Arjen’s eye.

A maid with pink hair who approached him, hair fluttering. From that moment on, enduring the curse became far more bearable. Perhaps the solution to this curse was…

“Pointless now.”

She was dead.

In an unexpected, utterly meaningless way.

Until the dead of night, he couldn’t lie down. He stood by the window instead.

As the moon hidden in the clouds revealed itself and then hid again, he remained there.

After a long while, Arjen finally moved.

He didn’t even know where his feet were taking him.

Moments later, for reasons he couldn’t fathom, he found himself in front of the room holding Rozhi’s corpse.

A few hours earlier, the Seyblin Baroness had rushed to the Northern Region.

She would be taking Rozhi’s body away.

So there was no point lingering here…

Arjen clicked his tongue and turned to leave.

If not for the loud thud from inside the room.

Thinking he’d misheard, he paused to listen at the door. Then another sound came from within.

Arjen’s expression hardened as he stood watch over the silent room.

He reached out and flung the door open.

And there, he witnessed the bizarre sight of a corpse coming back to life, crawling out of its coffin.