Chapter 68
Theo spoke with a hint of sarcasm, as if even thinking about spouting nonsense required effort.
He had to think before talking nonsense—what an absolute fool.
"Looking at everything you’ve done, you don’t exactly seem like someone who wants this to end."
Of course not.
If it ended, then Alicia would truly be gone.
"Same goes for you, senior. If it pisses you off so much, you could’ve just hurried over and saved Alicia."
Ah, is it time to hurt each other again?
We had exhausted every possible insult, so neither of us really reacted to anything anymore.
It didn’t matter who spoke—me or him.
We would just look back at our miserable circumstances, lament how useless we were, and call it a day.
"...If I could have, I would have done it already."
Tiring.
Even getting angry felt like too much effort now.
Before, I would have grabbed the nearest weapon and lunged at Theo. Now, I didn’t even feel like doing that.
Rather than screaming and tearing each other apart, mindless chatter seemed like the better option.
"Sure. Just sit down. Stop looking down on me."
I closed Alicia’s eyes.
If I stared at those empty pupils too long, I’d feel hollow too.
"First time seeing Alicia in person?
You’ve always just seen her buried underground.
She’s beautiful, isn’t she?"
I stroked her pale face, now drained of blood.
Even if Theo collapsed in despair before me, I wouldn’t offer him comfort.
That was his job, not mine.
I was the grieving, unstable heroine here.
If he comforted me, maybe his favorability would rise just a little.
Out of 100, maybe by 0.1.
"I told you before. Not sure when, but I definitely said it.
She can never be saved. As if someone decided it.
A life so meaningless, it barely seems worth living."
A strange life where death just sent me back again.
If I could save Alicia and die, maybe I could at least have a gravestone:
‘Ellen, the kind sister, died here.’
What a shame, huh?
Or maybe,
‘A useless failure who couldn’t save anyone rests here.’
"Then why not just die? For good."
"It’s not that easy. You want to kill me?"
"I’m exhausted too."
Being stripped of death was a crueler fate than it seemed.
Maybe I had killed myself in a past life.
And this was hell.
Though, it wasn’t quite hellish enough.
Maybe I was being forced to create my own hell, slaughtering demons endlessly.
If that was the case, wasn’t I more devout than those church bastards worshiping money?
Ah, a guest.
What do you do when a guest arrives?
It was morning—should I offer him breakfast and send him off?
"Must have been a long trip here. Want something to eat?"
"Why do you act like nothing’s wrong…?"
"Should I sob and scream her name instead?"
I wanted to conserve my emotions.
If Alicia’s death became tedious rather than tragic…
What kind of person would that make me?
Losing a loved one should be heartbreaking, not boring.
Otherwise, I’d be nothing more than a psychopath.
I hated that idea.
I wanted to stay human—someone capable of love, even if I was a madwoman.
Because a person who can’t love isn’t a person at all.
"You’re getting tired, aren’t you?
Just because I lash out a little, you make such a big deal out of it."
"If that was all you did, maybe I could ignore it. But you…
Yeah. I’m tired. Fucking tired. Because of everything you’ve done."
Maybe I had grown numb, but Theo hadn’t.
He still remembered every single thing I had done.
Strange. He never seemed to get tired of this.
"Heh. What if I said I don’t remember?"
What had I even done?
At least, I had never acted against my heart.
Whenever I wanted something, I tried to achieve it.
I failed many times, but I had poured everything into saving Alicia.
Even if my efforts had always been in vain.
I smirked and mocked Theo.
He didn’t slap me—just weakly patted my cheek.
"...Miss? Who is that man?"
I laughed for a long time while Theo grabbed me by the collar and shook me.
From afar, we must have looked absolutely ridiculous.
A pair of lunatics playing their sick little games—it wasn’t a pleasant sight.
And as expected, Marco, having finished scouting the perimeter, appeared with his gun aimed at Theo.
"Boyfriend, did you come looking for me out of worry?"
Marco blinked in slight confusion.
It wasn’t wrong. He was my friend, after all.
"How romantic."
"Right? Ha, if only you’d arrived a little earlier."
At my words, Theo’s pupils trembled violently before he collapsed onto his back, arms sprawled wide.
"Why the hell did I end up in this nightmare? And why am I stuck with this lunatic?!"
"Probably because you did something to deserve it."
"...I lived a normal life. And I would’ve continued living normally if not for you."
Yeah, if not for me.
I wondered, if the original me—the Ellen born and raised in this mansion, without these strange memories—what would she have done?
Would she even have been close to Alicia?
Of course. There’s no one in this world cruel enough to hate Alicia.
Beautiful, kind, and lovely. Never even got the chance to grow up.
Maybe if she had lived, she’d have become ugly over time.
But I’d have loved her just the same.
"Unlike you, I don’t have crystal-clear memories of everything I’ve done."
That wasn’t a lie.
If my memories were as sharp as his, I would’ve stopped Alicia from ever stepping into that carriage bound for the city.
Who cared if our parents burned to death in the theater?
Julian? He was a little pitiful, but sometimes he made it back alive.
"You went on a killing spree, slaughtering demons, then suddenly opened fire at the academy.
Last time, you killed your own brother, gathered your subordinates, and stormed the imperial palace—only to burn alive."
Did I?
Maybe.
I remembered how I died. Just not why.
Which meant I was probably saner than Theo.
Not remembering meant I didn’t have to think about it.
"Hmm, I don’t recall."
"Ethel tried stopping you from killing the demons in Rosenberg’s house, so you killed her. And you executed Isabel just because she was a church official."
"She was already being tortured and dismembered. If she was fine with it, why shouldn’t I have killed her?
And the church? Throw some money at them even in death, and all is forgiven. I don’t remember, but I’m sure that’s how it went."
"...Yeah, probably."
See? The church was like that.
Rather than pointing my good left hand at Theo, I raised my tattered, broomstick-like right arm and jabbed a finger at him mockingly.
"But in the end, none of it mattered.
Everything we did was erased.
So what’s the point of even talking about it?"
"...Didn’t you say you were tired? Didn’t you say you didn’t even want to lift a finger?
Didn’t you say killing demons wasn’t even fun anymore?"
"Did I say that out loud?"
"How many times do you think we’ve had this conversation?
You always say that once all the demons are dead, you’ll finally be relieved—only to shoot yourself in the head.
And then I wake up.
Again.
In front of that fucking mad count."
Probably.
What else was there to do after killing all the demons?
Keep breathing and wasting oxygen?
Throw tantrums at innocent people?
One thing was certain—I wouldn’t be doing anything productive.
"Ah, yeah, that happened."
"Please, just…"
Theo was crying.
A grown man sobbing wasn’t a pretty sight.
"If you want this to stop, then tie me up somewhere. Lock me in a basement. Drown me in drugs."
"...You’d just come back. Again. Ha, ha."
"Shut up."
I turned away from Theo, ignoring his hysterics.
How many times did he need to go through this before he learned to accept it?
Crying about it wouldn’t change anything.
"...Where are you going?"
He looked at me with a pitiful expression, voice barely above a whisper.
"Don’t ask things you already know. This isn’t your first time."
"...You crazy bitch."
The plan was simple.
Do what I always did.
And Theo, like always, would stand in my way, exhausted but still wearing that familiar, irritating smirk.
A reflection of my own twisted grin.
It was disgusting.
"You think you’re some tragic protagonist, don’t you?
I’ll drag you out of this loop. I’ll prove you were just a miserable failure."
"Fuck off. Ha ha."
I wasn’t a failure.
Just someone who had a few more chances than most.