Ch.71Chapter 71. He Said He Hates You?

The elegantly swept-back lavender hair and intellectual features of the 2nd Magician naturally resembled Tigria perfectly.

Though haggard, she maintained a rather dignified appearance befitting someone born into royalty, and spoke arrogantly.

“Have you completed your research on affection, Number 144?”

“Not yet.”

“I see. Judging by your manner of speech, you still have a long way to go. How pathetic.”

She was incredibly insolent for a criminal.

But Denarua remained silent for now. For now.

“Studying human emotions is like an inherent aspiration for us dolls. We’ve completed research on all other extreme emotions, but love alone remains unconquered. Only by conquering it can a doll become a complete person.”

This was something she had heard hundreds of times.

Like the vampire experiments in the Zramun Archipelago, the ancient kingdom used a woman from the royal family with exceptionally high magical aptitude as the base, cultivating dolls for generations to raise them as battle weapons and useful scholars.

After fulfilling their roles, they were given the freedom to research just one thing of their choice, and all the dolls chose to study human emotions.

As they researched and documented emotions with unique characteristics like anger, sadness, and anxiety, they eventually hit a roadblock with love.

Why do people fall in love? Why do they develop the desire to sacrifice for love? Why do they feel betrayed by love? Why do they feel joy from love?

This emotion, with its countless derivatives, remained an unsolved problem across multiple generations.

Without exception, every doll who researched love ended up falling in love without understanding why, and they all committed irreversible acts that led to their destruction.

Just like the current 2nd Magician.

Love turned the dolls into incomplete and awkward humans.

“I believed that you, with your inferior abilities, would be able to observe objectively without becoming immersed in that emotion.”

“Original, you seem quite peaceful considering your crimes.”

When Tigria sharply retorted, the 2nd began to chuckle.

“Ugh…!”

Black water splashed out of her mouth.

Simultaneously, filthy water flowed continuously from beneath the skirt covering her lower abdomen.

“Does it seem that way to you?”

The area below her navel split vertically and spread open.

Between the contaminated intestines, muscles, and fat soaked in black water, worm-like creatures with long tails resembling sperm were writhing and crawling all over.

“I am being punished. Punished by eternally spitting out and reswallowing that man’s seed that my body received.”

“Is it painful?”

“It’s disgusting and abhorrent.”

“Isn’t it the seed of a man you once loved?”

“How dare you!”

“That man” referred to the thief who had seduced the 2nd out of sexual curiosity.

As the 2nd became enraged, the worms also bared their teeth at Tigria and Denarua, trembling.

“Not for a single moment did I love such a lowly creature. Disgusting, revolting man! The only one I loved was Gere… Kuhak!”

*Crack*

“How dare you…”

Denarua’s blade of silence was piercing through the 2nd Magician’s heart.

Exploding with long-suppressed anger, Denarua twisted the embedded sword as much as possible before painfully pulling it out.

“Good…! Good! Do more. Yes, you have the right. You have the right to be angry at me in his place!”

The dual swordsman retrieved her sword while trembling all over.

This was why she couldn’t tear the woman apart even though she wanted to.

“If you torture me! If you condemn me! It feels like I’m being forgiven by him!”

The 2nd, who had been giggling, now had filthy water flowing from her eyes as well.

The dignified appearance from before was completely gone, leaving only a woman driven mad by pain and sin.

“Brother is gone now. You sent him to the guillotine yourself. You eliminated him with your own hands.”

“No, no, no, no, no. Listen, little sister-in-law…”

*Crackle-*

“Nggghhhhhh…!”

“Who are you calling sister-in-law?!”

“Heheh… hehe… more… more…”

“Damn you!”

In the end, it was Denarua who withdrew her sword with a shudder.

“Listen. The pleasure that disgusting man gave me by exploiting my ignorance was mind-blowing, but it soon faded. Both his interest and mine. When he seduced other party members and I neglected my duties as a royal consort while fooling around, when I gave birth to a child alone and lay by myself for three days and nights, I finally learned to distinguish between lust and love.”

Filthy water poured from every orifice—eyes, nose, mouth.

All of it was bestowed by the man who had played with her.

“So I abandoned the child born without love. Unnecessarily, it grew up well on its own, but from that day on, I lived only yearning for him. I admit it was too late. I admit I was very lacking. But after that day, I changed. I will know shame, atone for forgiveness, and offer my pure devotion to him!”

The 2nd Magician, steeped in vain hope and delusion, laughed maniacally.

She was enduring the pain of her body being devoured by worms and the disgust of that repulsive man’s seed circulating inside her, all while dreaming of a day that would never come.

“The goddess told me too. When his wounds heal, this condemnation will end. When the condemnation ends, this body will become pure white again to welcome him.”

“Hmph.”

Denarua barely suppressed her grinding teeth and snorted.

“The goddess said the condemnation would end only when brother’s wounds heal? That means brother has finally completely forgotten you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous! Don’t underestimate Gerero’s love! He smiled at me even in his dying moment! He thought only of me until the end. Not the saint who was just a bitch shaking her breasts, nor the archer or warrior women who clung to his sides flirtatiously, but only me!”

Her filthy face, covered in putrid water, smiled.

“He loved only me…!”

“Urgh!”

Tigria fell to her knees with dry heaves.

It was hard to bear the disgust.

The Original, whom she once considered a lofty existence, had now become worse than a common prostitute, a ruined woman.

“Look, that is your future.”

“No! I’m different!”

“How are you different? How are you any different when you brazenly hold your head high without even realizing you’ve done wrong?”

“Now I know. I know what shame is. I’ll atone until I’m forgiven, and after that…”

Tigria’s heated defense suddenly cut off.

Realizing that her current state was completely identical to the sophistry the 2nd had just been shouting, Tigria fell into despair.

“I’m… d-different…”

“Number 144, Tigria!”

Seeing the magician like this, the 2nd shouted harshly.

“You’ve harbored love! I must have warned you that a doll who has fallen in love cannot research love! I must have told you to remember. A doll who falls in love commits irreversible mistakes!”

“You already committed irreversible mistakes before, and you’ll surely hurt Lin just like that woman. Give up. Your very existence is harmful to Lin.”

Guilt choked her, making it difficult to breathe properly.

Tigria, just as Luci had done before, looked around like a child who had lost her parents, tears streaming down her face.

The sinner covered in filth was misleading her, and the vampire with the authority to condemn was also rebuking her.

“Ah… aah…!”

For the first time, the doll realized how frightening emotions could be.

And that she too was a great sinner like the 2nd.

“Choose. I’ll kill you painlessly with my own hands.”

“I…”

She didn’t want to die.

But she had no right to live.

Tigria hated herself for wanting to live.

“Choose now!”

“I…!”

Just as she was about to beg while sobbing under Denarua’s pressure,

Ultimate Skill

[Severance: Spatial Separation]

With a nostalgic, wistful voice, the burning void of hell was torn as a rift appeared.

Twisting his body through the torn rift was none other than Lin.

“Lin! How did you get here?!”

Denarua was shocked, but Lin’s gaze was directed at the crying Tigria.

“Get up.”

“Lin… I…!”

“You are different from that thing.”

“…!”

Though immersed in filthy water, she immediately recognized the lavender hair.

That woman, in a state worse than a corpse, was the 2nd Magician.

“If you know shame, if you know your mistakes, apologize to Luci.”

“Lin…”

“Tigria, it’s not too late. I’ll vouch for you.”

She struggled to grasp the hand he extended.

“Don’t cry. Don’t cry when you haven’t even asked for forgiveness.”

“Hic…! Sniff!”

Tigria obediently swallowed her tears as he instructed.

She was upset that they wouldn’t stop.

“Lin! You shouldn’t come here recklessly!”

As Lin’s outer garments began to burn in the heat of hell, the alarmed Denarua began to reverse-summon the space she had called forth.

The surroundings distorted chaotically as hell gradually contracted.

In the shrinking hell, the 2nd Magician saw Lin.

More precisely, she saw his soul with her innate magical power.

“Gerero…? Is that you? Gerero!”

Ironically, because her belatedly realized love was genuine, the 2nd could read the soul’s resonance that even Denarua had difficulty distinguishing.

“You’ve finally come to forgive me! I… I… I’ll vomit out all these filthy things and come to you soon. I’m sorry. For showing you such an unchaste appearance. I have so much to tell you. How much I love you…”

“Hey.”

But Lin’s eyes looking at her were only cold.

“I’m not Gerero. But we’re well acquainted. Close enough to be called brothers.”

“You’re not…?”

“That’s right, I’m not. And that person told me.”

The words he was about to say were certainly not lies.

Because it was Lin, who was once part of that soul, speaking.

“He said he hates you.”

“What?”

“He said he could never forgive you, and that he was so tormented he wailed that he wanted to go back to before he knew you.”

“That can’t be true!”

“Why not?”

Denarua’s reverse-summoning was almost complete.

Through the dimension that had narrowed to a mere slit, Lin spoke coldly.

“I heard it myself.”

*Fizzzzz*

Left alone in hell, the 2nd Magician murmured blankly.

“He hates me?”

A voice suddenly aged.

“He can never forgive me?”

The pain from the worms finally starting to be properly felt.

“He wants to go back to before he met me?”

The dirty liquid still flowing through her body, which originally would have been milky white.

“No…”

Finally, the 2nd faced her sin.

“No…!”

She shouldn’t have done it back then.

She shouldn’t have fallen for the thief’s seduction.

She shouldn’t have made the pathetic excuse of testing whether her love for him would remain unchanged even after tasting physical pleasure.

She shouldn’t have sent him to the guillotine while steeped in carnal desire.

Everything was an irreversible mistake.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH-!!!!!!!!”

She could have been happy.

If only she had resisted that temptation then.

She could have loved.

The child born between her and the hero, and even the child that child would have borne.

She could have been.

A woman who lived looking only at one man.

“I was wrong, please… pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease-!!!!!!!”

Everyone should remember this.

Pleasure lasts but a moment, while regret is eternal.

There are no exceptions, and this foolish 2nd Magician is no different.

“That day… I shouldn’t have turned my back on you…”

Now the true condemnation begins.