Chapter 169 - North Korean rabbit

Chapter 169

Evangeline let out a scream that bordered on a desperate shriek and slammed her fist against the iron bars.

Blood spurted anew from the wounds on her knuckles and fingers, but she seemed to feel no pain at all.

*Bang!*

She swung her hand so violently that blood splattered even onto her face.

The tears dripping down mixed with the blood, making it look as if she were weeping tears of blood.

It was a pitiful sight, but I had experienced too much to feel any sympathy for Evangeline.

Her eyes rolling wildly with near madness, Evangeline shrieked.

"What do you mean by that?! What do you know to say such things? How dare you speak to me like that?"

Maintaining composure in the face of Evangeline's rage was not particularly difficult.

Twirling the ends of my hair with my finger, I asked in return.

"And you, did you really think I would never find out?"

"...?"

"That I am the protagonist of the 'original work,' and you are merely a supporting character trying to steal that position."

"Don't, don't make me laugh!!!"

Evangeline screamed as if she would cough up blood.

She kept slamming her hand against the bars until a fingernail broke, but she paid it no mind.

"I am the real protagonist!"

Pointing at herself with a bloodied hand, she raged.

"I am different from the likes of you! I am not like you, who just did as she was told, clung to a man, depended on him, and did nothing but cry! I can forge my own destiny! I have been doing so!"

I tilted my head and asked. It was absurd.

"What do you mean I just did as I was told, clung to a man, and did nothing but cry? I don't remember...!"

As I spoke, a part of it began to make sense.

"Perhaps that's how it seemed until the day before the wedding... Ah! Is that what you thought while watching the 'original work' protagonist Hilia?"

"...!"

Evangeline's eyes widened.

The insults she had just hurled at me were a bit strange.

They didn't sound like words directed at the 'me' standing before her, but rather like a description one would give of a flat, one-dimensional 'character' drawn in text on a screen.

Like the words of a 'human' looking down upon a character in a book, boasting that they themselves were different.

"What's wrong? Being pushed aside by a mere, insignificant character like this?"

I was confident Evangeline would hate my words enough to make her teeth chatter.

So I said it on purpose.

Bending my knees to meet her eye level, I asked.

"Did you never once suspect? That there was something strange about me. How I knew the Dragon's Eclipse would occur..."

"...!"

"And how I knew how you would try to exploit the Duchess of Müzen's allergy and countered it? Why Aaron Müzen became a Sword Master so quickly. There must have been so many other strange things."

Evangeline, who had been glaring at me with a face frozen white, asked.

"Why wouldn't I know? I was sure when I saw you could speak Korean."

"Oh? I was a bit surprised, as I expected you to realize it sooner."

"I had already been suspicious before that!"

Evangeline scowled deeply and shouted.

"Whether you were a transmigrator too!"

The moment the word 'transmigrator' left her lips, Evangeline seemed to realize something herself.

An inexplicable smile bloomed thickly on her face.

"If you are a transmigrator, do you think that's my weakness?"

"Of course! Because Hilia's life, and even this world, ultimately aren't truly 'yours'!"

The elation rising on Evangeline's expression grew even more intense.

"It's me! I knew it! I should have been 'Hilia Delphin'. You stole my body!"

I belatedly understood Evangeline's sudden confidence.

'Ah, so she thinks we both transmigrated and our bodies were swapped.'

Therefore, it could be reversed.

It seems she held onto the hope that by seizing the protagonist's body—my body—she could achieve what she wanted.

My assumption was confirmed by Evangeline's following words.

"Give it back! I am 'Yushina'! If so, then I should be Hilia! This loser's body suits you!"

*Bang! Bang! Bang!*

She struck the bars several times harder than before. Blood splattered onto the hem of my dress.

A laugh burst from me without my realizing it. As I laughed for a moment, a look of bewilderment appeared on Evangeline's face.

"Why do you think I must be a transmigrator too?"

"What? But you just said..."

"I never said I was a transmigrator. Because I'm not."

Confusion colored Evangeline's face.

Smiling sweetly at her face, frozen white like a corpse, I asked.

"Why? Didn't you see that part in the <Book of Fate>?"

* * *

Evangeline, no, Yushina, found a glimmer of light in her despair.

She had gleaned a hint from the foolish Hilia, who had come to mock her downfall.

'Right, there's no way the protagonist, me, could lose like this! This is just a crisis leading up to the climax!'

The greater the hardship, the sweeter the happy ending achieved by overcoming it, wouldn't it be?

The moment Hilia spoke Korean and confessed to being a 'transmigrator,' she suddenly understood.

The answer to the doubt she had always harbored since realizing she was a transmigrator.

"If I was going to transmigrate anyway, I should have been the protagonist. Why did I transmigrate into the villainess?"

She was 'Yushina'. The true protagonist of this world, the master of the <Book of Fate>.

She had her protagonist's position stolen by another transmigrator, no different from an uninvited guest!

That's why she was in this crisis now.

Once convinced, it was as if a light turned on in her head, and a way to overcome this predicament came to mind.

'Right. The <Book of Fate>!'

The only part of the <Book of Fate> she could read.

After three repetitions, the sentence written in Korean came to mind.

「'Yushina,' who read the 'book,' was reborn as its protagonist.」

Once she escaped this prison, she would rewrite that sentence.

'The protagonist, who mistakenly transmigrated into Evangeline's body, reclaims Hilia's body.'

If the <Book of Fate> was something where goddesses recorded the world's destined fate, then by rewriting its contents, she might be able to change many things.

No, it must be possible. It had to be.

Her mind was dyed with elation.

That was the moment. When Hilia denied being a transmigrator.

A truth she had never expected shook her to the core.

"I am 'Yushina,' who died in Korea and was reborn in this world, and I am Hilia Delphin."

"And I am also a regressor who lost everything because of you and traveled back in time three times."

If she had heard these words in any other situation, she would have laughed them off as a ridiculous lie.

An excessive delusion.

But she herself was already a transmigrator.

Moreover, Hilia had utterly defeated her and driven her into prison.

In this situation, was there any reason to lie?

She couldn't possibly accept it.

If she acknowledged Hilia's words as truth, then this defeat would be entirely her own fault.

With a mind hardened like stone, she desperately denied it.

It couldn't be.

No. It must not be.

Hilia laughed openly and began to bring up facts that were impossible to deny.

"Why? Didn't you see that part in the <Book of Fate>?"

"...How do you know about that...?"

The <Book of Fate> was never mentioned in the original work.

No, wait, was it? She couldn't be sure because she didn't remember all the original work's contents.

Her thoughts became tangled.

She couldn't fully believe Hilia's claim that she wasn't a transmigrator.

This itself might be a scheme to confuse and torment her.

At that point, she belatedly realized.

Whether she was a transmigrator or a regressor wasn't important.

The conclusion was that Hilia had defeated and crushed her.

Whether as a regressor or a transmigrator, she had made full use of her knowledge and advantages of the future.

A vicious anger and sense of despair took hold of her.

"You're cowardly!!!"

"...What?"

"Whether you're a regressor or a transmigrator, you knew the future and all the hidden facts! That's how you beat me!"

"So?"

"That's unfair. It's dirty! It's cowardly!"

Hilia looked at her with a momentarily blank expression, then soon let out a hollow laugh and asked.

"You think I'm cowardly?"

"Yes!!!"

"Then what about you?"

"What? I...!"

She flinched. She belatedly realized what Hilia was pointing out.

It was given concrete form through Hilia's words.

"You, as a transmigrator, also knew a lot, didn't you?"

Unlike her, Hilia, who hadn't shown much emotion, revealed raw, unfiltered emotion for the first time.

It was the scent of blood, wounds, and pain.

"Until I regressed, you, using the advantages of being a transmigrator, stole everything from me and killed the people precious to me!"

*Screech!*

Hilia's fingers, still pale and delicate, scraped against the iron bars.

A grating noise, resembling a chilling scream, echoed.

The moment she met Hilia's eyes, blazing with intense hatred head-on, she shrank back.

She couldn't even imagine such sincere anger and pain.

A shiver ran down her spine.

"......"

She wanted to deny it, but now she was cowed and frightened by Hilia.

Hilia, who had been glaring at her for a moment, quickly composed her emotions.

Suppressing the hatred, rage, and resentment that had bordered on madness, she donned a mask of tranquility.

She wanted to laugh at Hilia. To say she was pretending to be unaffected.

But she couldn't muster the courage.

Hilia continued in a voice that had completely regained its initial calm.

"Frankly, I still don't understand why you want to be the protagonist so badly."

From Hilia's perspective, these words were not just for the Evangeline before her eyes now.

They were words for every Evangeline from all the cycles she had experienced.

Though she knew Evangeline's real name was Yushina, to Hilia, she was still 'Evangeline.'

So, on purpose, she called her name with even more emphasis than when she had said 'Yushina' moments before.

"...Evangeline."

Hilia's invocation of 'Evangeline' was synonymous with saying, 'You are nothing but a supporting character anyway.'

Evangeline's entire body trembled violently, her fear momentarily forgotten.

Envy, jealousy, bitterness, misery, resentment. All sorts of negative emotions swirled in a chaotic mix.

Scraping together the last of her courage, she cried out desperately.

"No, I am Yushina! I am the real protagonist! I am the real one...!"

"Shall I tell you the truth?"

"What?"

"Why you transmigrated?"

Evangeline's shoulders stiffened.

This had been a question she had carried ever since realizing she was a transmigrator.

Why? For what reason?

The answer she wanted was predetermined.

Because she was special. Because she was the protagonist.

But she didn't think that kind of answer would come from Hilia's mouth now.

"It was just a mistake."

"...What?"

"It's merely an error that occurred because you and I happened to share the same name."

It was absurd. It couldn't be.

But even as she opened her mouth, no words of denial came out.

The Archbishop's words came to mind.

He said that before the current reality was written in the <Book of Fate>, similar but different contents were repeated three times.

And that the protagonist of those had the name 'Yushina.'

She had never experienced regression.

But Hilia was stating the number of those repetitions, the regressions, accurately.

'If what she says is true... then I... I am...!'

A wave of despairing realization surged from deep within her chest. Hilia's final declaration, like driving in a nail, pierced her ears.

"You are just Evangeline, nothing more."

She couldn't refute it, even with desperate denial.

* * *

Hilia left, laughing at Evangeline.

Evangeline was left alone in the darkness once more.

Trembling all over, she shook her head again.

"No. I am not Evangeline. I am the real one. I, I am the one...!"

She was muttering like a madwoman.

Then, the presence of a person gradually approached her.

"...Your Grace!"

She, who had been almost out of her mind, could barely lift her head at the urging voice.

"Your Holiness!"

How he had managed to sneak in was unknown, but Archbishop Bio stood before her.