TRWVPS 27

Chapter 27

Normally, he would have pretended not to notice, but this time he couldn’t. Raymond had been pushed to his mental limits.

Erin looked at him and smiled.

Raymond, pale as a sheet, cried out.

“I… I su… surrendered… a knight treating someone who surrendered like this… it’s… it’s not right.”

The pain kept him from speaking properly.

But Raymond forced the words out desperately. He had a strong feeling that if he stopped speaking now, there would be no turning back.

“You… you believed… that if someone killed… they would fall into hell…”

“Yes, Raymond. I still believe that.”

Erin agreed with his words.

In her first life, the naïve Erin had believed she would go to heaven.

She thought she would never kill anyone, never hate anyone.

If living kindly meant she could go to heaven, then she had decided to live that way.

On that distant day in the past, when Titi—the cat she used to feed at the Academy—died, Erin had stood in front of its grave crying, praying to God.

‘I’ll listen to my mother, I’ll live kindly from now on, so please let me meet Titi again in heaven. I won’t hate anyone. Please… I just want to see Titi again.’

But now she knew. To fight demons, you had to become one yourself.

She would never see Titi again.

Because she would fall into hell.

Erin raised her sword.

Raymond’s face twisted with terror at the sight.

His body began to tremble uncontrollably. He shouted at her.

“Demon…!”

Erin had no intention of denying it.

Her sword slashed toward Raymond, and she gave him the same pain she had once endured herself.

She whispered softly.

“Go on ahead and wait for me.”

When everything was over, they would meet again in hell.

Cleaning up afterwards was not difficult.

In her third life, Erin had often been chased by monsters, and she had learned what needed to be done to erase her traces.

She collected the bloodstained leaves and sprinkled powder to erase the scent.

It was something she had prepared before leaving for the subjugation.

The southern mountain paths were steep, full of cliffs. And though there weren’t many monsters, plenty of wild beasts had made their home there.

Erin abandoned Raymond’s body at the bottom of a cliff.

‘With so many hungry wolves around, the body will disappear quickly.’

The subjugation force had to reach the Wolf Tribe’s territory within a set time.

They couldn’t afford to release a large party to search just because one person had gone missing.

Besides, Raymond was a high-ranking knight. No one would think something could have happened to him in the mountains.

Most would simply assume he’d had a sudden change of heart and returned to the Marquis’s estate.

He wasn’t a student of the Academy, nor was he a noble. Although his skill earned him near-noble treatment in high society, here he was just one knight among many.

And many would think that if a high-ranking knight couldn’t even survive beasts or stray monsters in the mountains, then he wasn’t worth keeping around anyway.

Just like her own death in her first life, Raymond’s end was equally pathetic.

‘Death is the same no matter what.’

Even though she had personally cut off the nightmare that had tormented her for so long, Erin felt nothing.

She only gazed down at her own hands with a blank expression for a long time.

So this was all it amounted to?

Her heart beat slowly, heavily.

Suddenly, an old memory resurfaced.

The central hall of the Academy. Erin had once gone to see Ferdin in the provisional knight order’s meeting room.

Why had she gone? In truth, she remembered there had been no real reason.

In those days, she often went to Ferdin for the most trivial excuses, simply because she wanted to see him.

Of course, once she realized her very existence was nothing but a burden to him, she had stopped.

But before realizing that, she had loitered around him many times.

That day, she had probably gone saying she’d brought some delicious tea from the Eastern Continent.

Even though she knew, in her head, that he didn’t like her, she couldn’t stop herself.

And as always, Ferdin had greeted her kindly.

But that day, he had stared at her longer than usual.

Just as her face was growing hot under his gaze, Ferdin spoke in a low voice.

“I don’t believe that you killed Calyps, Dame Erin.”

“……”

“You’re not the type of person who would kill someone innocent. At least, the Erin I’ve seen is not. If you don’t want to talk about what you’ve been going through, that’s fine. But… if you’re ever ready, I’ll be here to help you.”

Erin hadn’t been able to respond. No one had ever said such words to her before.

‘But Ferdin, this time you were wrong. I wasn’t such a good person after all. I couldn’t forgive Raymond. And… I don’t think I ever will.’

She thought with a blank face.

If she really had been as good as Ferdin believed, would she have forgiven Raymond?

If he learned what she had just done, would he despise her?

Ferdin was so kind that he might even forgive this version of her.

And his knight order members were the same—almost excessively gentle.

Erin knew that Amon, whenever he looked at her, always hesitated as if he wanted to ask something.

It was probably about the wound she’d received—the one that had already scabbed over.

But he also seemed to know that she wanted to keep it hidden, so he never brought it up.

Leaning against a nearby tree, Erin watched Ferdin from afar.

He still hadn’t returned to camp. Instead, he was carefully scanning the surroundings, searching for something.

Watching him from a distance, Erin thought again.

Even if she went back in time now, she would do the same thing.

It didn’t matter if Ferdin despised her. It didn’t matter if people called her a villainess for her merciless hand.

She was used to being hated anyway.

If anyone threatened Ferdin or his knights… she could become a demon again at any time.

The quiet camp suddenly grew noisy.

Ferdin had returned from outside and woken everyone, saying they needed to find Erin.

But Erin was found inside the camp.

When she casually emerged from her tent, Ferdin froze.

The woman who had vanished from before his eyes earlier was already back in camp.

Not only that, she looked far too calm for someone who had just made the shocking declaration of breaking off their engagement.

Greeting him with a light nod, as if nothing had happened, Erin left him speechless.

Derek, standing blankly beside him, poked his side and asked.

“Didn’t you say you were going to talk with Erin Lyser? Your face looked downright murderous. And why did the two of you return separately? Don’t tell me you fought? Did you?”

Ferdin didn’t answer Derek’s flustered questioning.

He didn’t want to tell him that Erin had proposed breaking off their engagement.

If Derek heard that, he’d definitely celebrate. Even now, the tone in which he asked if they fought carried a hint of expectation.

If he learned what had been said, he’d no doubt say “Good riddance!” and demand they break up immediately.

For some reason, that thought made Ferdin feel unpleasant.

He looked at Derek and said.

“Shut your mouth, Derek.”

Derek’s face soured. But, noticing Ferdin’s expression, he obediently fell silent.

For some reason, Ferdin seemed deeply unsettled.

Normally, he was very tolerant, but if you messed with him at times like this, things could turn serious.

Remembering that, Derek squinted suspiciously at the two of them.

‘Something definitely happened.’

His sharp instincts told him as much.

But since neither of them gave away the slightest sign, there was no way to know what had truly happened.

By morning, others began to notice something strange.

Raymond hadn’t been seen since the previous day.

At first, they thought nothing of it. But by the time the subjugation force was preparing to depart and he still hadn’t appeared, it was clearly odd.

Caron was the first to speak up.

“Raymond’s disappeared, hasn’t he?”

Since he was always hanging around Erin, it wasn’t hard to notice his absence.

“What? Did he just return to the Marquis’s estate without saying anything?”

“Shouldn’t we search for him?”

“But he’s a high-ranking knight. In a forest without many monsters, it’s hard to imagine something happening to him…”

“Maybe he had urgent business. Of course, abandoning the subjugation without a word deserves punishment.”

“Could it be he ran away…? Either way, we can’t afford to waste time. Count Leon hates it when people are late.”

Although Raymond was technically part of the subjugation, he wasn’t obliged to stay.

His sole purpose was to protect Erin. Beyond that, he contributed little.

In fact, most people only ever saw him staring at Erin in a way that seemed creepy.

“Honestly, isn’t it a good thing? That guy gave me chills the way he looked at Dame Erin sometimes…”

“Yeah. I get that he was being diligent about his duty, but it was too much.”

Some members of the subjugation force even seemed pleased that Raymond was gone.

Among them, only Caron tilted his head in puzzlement.