Speaking admirably, Ermeldine couldn’t be angry with Luni. She couldn’t explain that he was one of the people who had a hold on her life.

“All right. I appreciate your sentiments. But from next time, I’ll handle it myself.”
“Her Majesty the Queen is too kind for you to act like this!”

“No, I can do it. I told you that you were ignorant. I won’t stay quiet next time.”

Ermeldine gave me a confident smile as if telling me to trust her, but Luni felt uncomfortable.

“While planning to apologize again…”

Ermeldine pretended not to hear Luni’s muttering on purpose.

‘I’m tired.’

After Luni and Mago went to organize their belongings, Ermeldine was left alone in the bedroom.

Leopold still hadn’t contacted her, and unexpectedly, she met someone she didn’t anticipate.

‘No, I should have expected it. Leopold, didn’t he create a character that wasn’t in the original work, a sub-male lead with the role of sealing Ermeldine’s magic?’

Although I came to a refreshing place to clear my head for a moment, it only gave me more headaches.

‘Tired. Really tired.’

For the first few months after the possession, Ermeldine was in a state of extreme tension.

Adapting to a completely new world was challenging enough, but when that world was entirely hostile to her, it was only natural that it would be difficult.

Every person she met was in a situation where they wanted to hate and kill her for something she hadn’t done.

It always felt like standing at the edge of a cliff.

One wrong step, and it seemed like she would endlessly fall into the bottomless abyss.

In the early days of the possession, even without doing anything, everyone envied Valer, who was loved by all.

No matter how much she opened her heart and tried, all that came back was suspicion and mockery, crushing her shoulders with self-loathing.

It was the same in her past life.

Wherever she went, the label of an orphan never came off, and no matter how much she cared about her words, people’s evaluations were consistently the same.

‘Because she’s an orphan.’

Children who have been genuinely hurt are prone to distortions.

The void that cannot be filled forever has a certain impact on the personalities of children, and because Hyeyeong had faced countless orphans at the orphanage, she knew the effect it had on their personalities.

Of course, she received plenty of love from the teachers, but the warmth of family could never be the same.

Children who learned to give up from a young age had no expectations for people or the world.

Therefore, they tried even harder to become good people.

Children who didn’t want to attach the label of an orphan, who tried to live more honestly and justly than anyone else.

Sometimes she felt jealous of Balier, who was loved by everyone, even though he did nothing.

Even though she opened her heart and made an effort, the evaluations of people were inevitably linked to the label ‘Because she’s an orphan.’

That phrase was so unpleasant to hear.

No matter how much others could overlook shortcomings as momentary whims or small flaws, she could only be evaluated with the phrase ‘Because she’s an orphan.’

She hated hearing that phrase so much.

She didn’t know how much effort she had put into not showing any gaps to anyone.

How much tension and effort she had put into living every day, trying to hide herself and act like a good person.

When she finally became able to naturally wear the mask of a good person, someone she worked part-time with said something.

‘She’s struggling not to show that she’s an orphan.’

Of course, not everyone she met in her life was a bad person.

There were people who sincerely understood her situation, people who tried to befriend her for who she truly was, her original self.

However, bad memories always surpassed good memories.

Deeply carved wounds, even if healed, left terrible scars.

When she broke up with Kyungsoo, Hyeyeong was almost in a state of being caught up in Noirose.

Around that time, after hearing such words, she was neither a person so weak that she would twist nor so strong that she would hear such words and not feel anything.

‘Her Majesty the Queen is too kind…’
At Luni’s words, Ermeldine let out a bitter smile.

When she was an orphan, she struggled, but now that she had become the queen, she finally received the evaluation of being kind.

In reality, as Ermeldine, her actions were merely to survive and to shake off the evaluation that bound her, saying, ‘She’s an orphan.’ Nevertheless, she heard words of being too kind from those close to her.

‘It’s somewhat successful if even Luni thinks that way.’

The content of the original novel is fading away, so why haven’t the scars from the previous life been erased at all?

‘Even if I act the same, at least here, I don’t hear the orphan label. Well, I’d rather be a witch or a devil.’

Ermeldine quietly looked into herself.

New wounds engraved with the words witch and devil in her new life over countless scars she received from hearing the word orphan.

Numerous bright red freckles were visible, so many that it felt like her breath was being choked.

Blood-red spots were seen here and there, and blood and pus were oozing out.

Although she received the evaluation of being a good person, the landscape of her soul remained the same.

‘Even to me, it’s a disgusting sight.’

Ermeldine, exhausted from gloomy thoughts, lay silently, gazing blankly at the ceiling.

As if begging for favor almost like begging for alms, after barely peeling off the sticky hatred and resentment that stuck to her, when she tried to catch her breath and clear her mind, she faced the same hatred as before, making her feel empty like a flood.

A vague emptiness that couldn’t be expressed in words stung her chest.

‘I’m annoyed. I’m really annoyed. Who said they wanted to enter such a body?’

‘How much more do I have to act like a kind person and live? It’s really tiring!’

Lying sprawled on the bed, folding her hands and placing them on her forehead, as she was lamenting her situation, a harsh voice that grated on her nerves was heard.

“What are you?”

In a long time, hearing informal language, Ermeldine lowered her hands and looked up, and Arabian was looking down at her with those intense red eyes.

“What?”

Ermeldine momentarily wondered if she misheard, but the question was the same.

“What are you?”

“Huh?”

Feeling drained, Ermeldine raised her upper body and stared at Arabian with a cold gaze.

“Do you not remember the person you met a while ago?”

“I don’t remember. How can I forget the dirty and disgusting soul of Her Majesty the Queen? I only asked because I saw ‘you’ for the first time.”

“Seeing me for the first time?”

“Who are you?”

“Me?”

Ermeldine, somewhat coldhearted, found the sudden question oddly familiar.

The same question she heard a few months ago from Valier.

“Could it be that you’re also—”

“It can’t be! That filthy soul can’t become so pure!”

“What? A pure soul?”

“Yes. You. You’re too clear and white. Isn’t it absurd? Who are you?”

“A clear and white soul?”

Engulfed in depressing thoughts, Ermeldine forgot the moment when being revealed as a reincarnator could be dangerous.

“My soul is clear and white?”

Though she asked in her own way, as she suddenly looked up with teary eyes and smiled brightly, Arabian was bewildered.

“Answer the question! Who are you? You’re not Queen Ermeldine!”

In the face of his certainty, Ermeldine nodded obediently.

“Yeah. That’s right. I’m not that person.”