Chapter 32
* * *
When I opened my eyes, I saw a familiar desk.
I must have fallen asleep while playing the game again. Judging by how numb my left arm was from lying on it, I’d slept longer than I thought.
“How long was I out? I feel like I had such a vivid dream… but I can’t remember it.”
It felt like I’d dreamed of becoming a character in the game. But no matter how hard I tried to recall it, my mind was blank.
That’s when I spotted a hair tie on the floor in my field of vision.
“Guess it came undone while I was sleeping.”
As I carefully gathered my brown hair and tied it up again, something clinked around my neck.
“A locket necklace…? Did I ever own something like this?”
Ah, maybe my younger sister secretly put it on me.
Probably to apologize for breaking my birth mother’s keepsake yesterday.
“Yeah, that’s right. As if it wasn’t painful enough that my mom’s keepsake was ruined, my mother scolded me too, didn’t she? Just for crying over something like that.”
That was why I had turned the game back on again.
Whenever I got hurt by my family, I would come back to this game out of habit—especially to the parts involving Odette.
“What if… later in the story, the family regrets abandoning Odette?”
“Maybe the male leads even feel sorry toward her. Please. Even just a little.”
Once upon a time, I’d played the game holding onto those tiny threads of hope. But after playing it hundreds of times, I knew better now.
I didn’t understand why I was so obsessed with the villainess, but I couldn’t help myself—Odette always lingered in my mind.
On the phone screen I’d left on, a scene featuring Odette was just playing.
It was a scene from <Karl’s Route>, where Karl confesses his hatred for Odette to the heroine.
“Odette. That woman might as well have killed the remaining children.”
Karl, newly awakened as a Transcendent, said this with a grim face.
“Ever since I was the only one left, I’ve lived in hell, Charlotte. I know why God chose me to be a Transcendent—so I’d have the power to kill her.”
His red eyes were ablaze with vengeance.
“I’ll kill her with my own hands and come back. Please, order me to kill her.”
I’d seen this scene dozens of times while playing his route. And yet, every time, it upset me.
Having read the lore book several times while playing Karl’s route, I knew his anger made perfect sense.
“Ten years ago, countless disasters struck the tundra where the Kingdom of Fenrir once stood, wiping out the entire clan.
Only four children survived—Karl, then seven years old, and three even younger.
Suddenly becoming the clan’s head, Karl fled to the Empire and barely managed to support the infants by begging and working as a mercenary.
However, due to Odette threatening the Emperor of Barcheha—saying she couldn’t bear to breathe the same air as ‘filthy foreigners’ despite being a noble purifier—the children were thrown into the refugee district.Even after three years in the refugee zone, Karl didn’t resent Odette. But then a tragedy struck again.
On the last day of the Founding Festival, a disaster occurred in that very district.
It was the one day Karl had stepped outside, sent out to receive his slave branding as per Odette’s order.
While he was away in the capital, all three children were swallowed up by the calamity.The next day, Karl learned from the warden that Odette had deliberately chosen the refugee zone because it was known to have the highest rate of disasters in the Empire.
From that day on, Karl believed Odette had killed the children—and later, he would cut off her head with an axe.”
“Yeah, I get it. Karl had every reason to hate her. Anyone in his position would want to kill Odette… but—”
“…But that was Karl’s misunderstanding. Of course the count lied, didn’t he? There’s no way Odette knew any of that.”
I startled myself, realizing I had spoken aloud.
“Why did I think that just now?”
Was I getting too immersed in the game? Was I starting to hallucinate?
“I really need to stop playing this game. I’m getting way too emotionally attached to Odette.”
I turned off the phone and stood up from the desk. I was thirsty and wanted some water.
“It’s late, so I should be quiet. Mom’s been really sensitive lately.”
I tiptoed into the kitchen. But just as I arrived, I heard voices leaking out.
“Mom, so we’re really getting rid of her, right?”
“Of course. The disownment will be finalized by the end of the month.”
“What if she doesn’t agree?”
“As if she has any say. Don’t worry, my princess Songyi.”
“My friends keep asking if she’s really my sister. It’s so embarrassing. Everyone thinks she’s my real sister.”
“…What is this?”
It wasn’t even a complicated conversation—but my mind went numb and refused to comprehend it.
“So… so they’re abandoning me?”
As I realized what was happening, my heart pounded so hard I thought it might burst. I froze in place.
My legs shook. My vision spun.
“You’ve had a hard time, my daughter. But not for much longer, okay? The business is finally doing well. Once we erase that blemish, you’ll go back to being an only child.”
It felt like the ground beneath me had collapsed.
Was this really the same mother who once cried in front of me, begging me not to go to college? Who wept so pathetically, saying I’d make Songyi feel small if I did?
I thought it was my role to endure. That as family, I should always put my sister first. I thought that as long as they needed me, I would do anything.
“I have to run. Please—legs, move.”
I had to get out of there. If they found out I’d heard this, I’d be in danger.
I was desperate. As if I already knew what was going to happen next. As if I’d lived through this moment before.
“Yay! So now we’ll never have to see Han Su-wan again?”
“Songyi, why do you think I adopted her in the first place? Your dad needed investment. That chairman—he’s obsessed with family values and Christian ethics. We had to fake being a good adoptive family. But now your dad’s business is thriving, and we don’t need her anymore.”
“Seriously? But Mom, sometimes you left me behind to go out with her!”
“Silly girl. Why would I love the fake when I have the real thing? I only put up with her for your sake. I sweet-talked her into giving up on college so she could focus entirely on helping you get into university.”
“Please, let me escape. Soon—”
I was practically begging my own frozen body to move.
Then—behind me, I heard my father’s thunderous voice.
“What are you eavesdropping on like some stray cat?!”
At the same time, his giant hand slammed into the back of my head.
Pain spun my vision into a whirl.
“Honey! What are you doing?!”
“What the—Han Su-wan?! Dad, did she hear everything?!”
“Yeah. She was sneaking around listening. I swear, this creepy brat—no one could ever love her.”
My mother and sister stormed out, glaring at me with icy eyes.
“This is bad! What if she reports us?!”
I scrambled to my feet, then ran toward the stairs, aiming for the front door.
But at that moment—
“You little—!”
My father shoved me hard in the back.
“What?”
Startled, I turned—only to see myself already airborne. Through my fluttering hair, I caught a glimpse of his twisted sneer.
THUD!
Pain exploded all over my body as I crashed down the stairs. Warm blood trickled from my head, and my limbs went limp.
“Kyahh! Dad, are you insane?! What if we get caught?!”
“This is better. We’ll just say she slipped on the stairs and died. There’s no one else here—if no one reports it, it’s the perfect crime—”
Their voices echoed faintly as my consciousness began to fade.
None of them came to check on me. They only worried about their own futures.
“So that’s how it is. Not even for a single moment did they ever love me.”
Despite everything I’d done. Despite how badly I wanted to be part of the family.
I thought that if I tried hard enough, maybe I could truly become one of them. That someday, I could be loved.
But it was all a foolish fantasy.
As darkness completely swallowed my vision—
“When the real one’s right here, who would love the fake?”
—my foster mother’s mocking voice echoed endlessly in my ears.
And then, I was consumed by utter, perfect blackness.
* * *
Odette gasped awake, panting.
