‘Hel. My hell.’
I am your doom. The death of corruption. The tragedy of the beginning.
So you called me that. So I had to be your hell.
In the dazzlingly white shadow, you whisper to me.
‘Hel. My love.’
Even so, I was your love.
Even if it was a lie, it was fine.
I would willingly fall into your embrace, deceived. Entrusting my soul to the darkness like a resting place.
But misfortune came to your end, the unknown light in the black mist targeting your breath.
Unable to lose you again, I am ready to extinguish all the lights of the world.
The only promise I couldn’t keep becomes a frail vow dripping with bright red blood. A painful oath…
So it’s okay.
Don’t worry.
I will, protect you…
―You said you wouldn’t worry me!
Startled.
A cry mixed with sobs rings in my ears.
A very familiar and important person’s voice.
Who is it?
As I instinctively move towards the voice, you grab my sleeve.
‘Don’t go, Hel.’
You look at me with tears in your eyes.
‘You promised to be with me. To be together forever.’
Don’t cry. I won’t go.
I won’t leave.
I’ll be with you.
So…
―You said you would protect me!
Again, startled.
Ah…
I remember. This voice. And,
‘I will protect you. No one will harm the Princess.’
‘I understand. I’ll make sure our Princess doesn’t have to worry.’
The moment I recall the promise never given lightly.
The fog clouding my eyes disappears, and the person I promised to protect appears.
Luibel Ajester.
Not the you I can no longer protect, but the person I can still protect. The person I must protect.
The owner of the half-hearted heart.
Perhaps the last person who can fulfill the long desire of my life.
‘A chance!’
I kicked the fallen sword away with all my might and knocked Anselot down.
Then I climbed on top of him and started punching him.
“You bad person!”
“Ugh….”
It seemed like a groan came from below.
“Liar! Trickster!”
“Cough….”
The groan was a bit louder this time.
But I didn’t relent, hitting him harder, pouring my emotions into it.
“You said you’d protect me! Huuk, you said you would!”
Overwhelmed by uncontrollable grief, I cried out loud.
“Wa, wait…”
“You fooled me into trusting you! You despicable bug!”
“Just a moment, Princess…”
“Like a bug isn’t enough! You’re worse than a bug!”
“Prin…”
“You’re worse than a bug! It’s an insult to bugs to call you one!”
In the midst of my relentless punching, suddenly.
Squeeze―
Strong arms enveloped me.
“Let me go!”
Thinking it was Anselot’s counterattack, I panicked and struggled to break free.
As I fiercely resisted, fearing another attack from him.
“Princess.”
A calm, soft voice reached my ears.
Realizing it, I slowly stopped resisting and looked down.
Our eyes met.
He was looking up at me.
With clear, ruby-like red eyes, free from the blackness.
“Anselot……?”
Realizing he had regained his senses, my eyes widened in shock.
Then, thick tears that remained in my eyes fell down again.
“Princess. Why are you crying? Your beautiful face is getting wet, it makes me sad.”
“Why wouldn’t I cry!”
I raised my voice angrily.
“It’s because of you!”
“Did I make you cry?”
Anselot looked at me, bewildered, as I continued to be furious.
He then reached out and gently wiped the tears from my eyes.
“I was bad. Then hit me more.”
“Think I can’t hit you if you say that!”
Without hesitation, I hit his chest a few more times.
“Ugh….”
Having been hit in the same spot again, Anselot let out a pained groan.
I stopped hitting him.
“Wait, you. I’m not done hitting you yet.”
With a voice still full of resentment, I warned Anselot and then got up from atop him.
I then turned to look at the black mist, still taking the form of a young woman resembling me, restlessly fidgeting.
‘In the original, Hezen overpowered the mist with brute force.’
But doing so would harm Ile’s true body, which was probably hiding somewhere in this forest.
I took a step towards the black form.
As I did, the mist flinched and took a step back.
It was hard to believe that this was the terrifying black mist that beguiled the forest wanderers, looking so frightened.
‘Originally, Ile didn’t release the mist to harm people.’
I thought of the original Ile from the book.
Who am I?
Yoon Sena, who read and re-read countless times and became an expert in character interpretation.
The Sage of Light, Ile.
Before awakening and leaving the forest with Hezen and his companions, Ile, who was called ‘Dreamy Ile,’ was abandoned by his race as soon as he was born.
Just because he was mixed with human blood.
The forest, long inhabited by monsters and deserted by people, was a dark and lonely place.
Ile, corrupted by loneliness, used the mist to beguile wanderers who lost their way in the forest.
Inviting them to stay together in the peacefulness of the mist. To stay together for a long, long time.
Sadly, contrary to Ile’s wish, those ensnared by the mist slowly lost their life force and died.
Male lead is a Divorced Husband
She said to him: “Tell me, what makes you like me? I’ll change it!”
Liu Changning transmigrated into a female cannon fodder character in a female-dominant novel.
After reading the first half of the novel’s plot, the first thing she did upon transmigration was to divorce the Pan Jinlian-style male protagonist she had just married.
She indulged herself, pretending to be ugly and poor.
But as time passed, the way that man looked at her became more and more unusual…
Liu Changning was dumbfounded: Tell me, what makes you like me? I’ll change!
――
This lifetime, Pei Yuanshao was rejected by the same woman twice!
The first time, she drove him away. Forced by the situation, he endured the waves of anger in his heart, yielding and humbling himself.
That person lay slanted on a rocking chair, her sallow face emotionless: “If you don’t want a divorce, go cook!”
Pei Yuanshao’s face was dark and gloomy: “You!”
The second time, after the crisis in Jinling City was resolved, the new emperor sent someone to pick him up. He turned around, stammering: “I… I have to go. If you keep me…”
That person lay on the kang bed, her back to him, as if she had long anticipated this day, crisp and clear: “Goodbye!”
Pei Yuanshao was so angry his fingers trembled: “You… you!”
The mission of family and country made him restrain himself, averting his eyes and turning to leave this broken household.
Two years later, they met again. Seeing her ethereal face, his body shook like a sieve.
“She was originally a ‘she’!”
At the Qionglin Banquet, the top scholar of the imperial examination, a talented person with exceptional speech and conduct, all the unmarried young gentlemen from aristocratic families looked at her with shy and timid eyes.
The peerless imperial official Pei Yuanshao felt the anger in his heart erupt. He pointed at the woman surrounded by the crowd at the Qionglin Banquet, his thin lips slightly curled: “Little sister, I wants that person to be the wife-master of my Mingde Prince Manor.”
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