Transmigrated Into A Tragic Romance Fantasy – Chapter 66

At the End of Despair, Found

‘Is it… a ghost?’

As I got closer, the sobbing became clearer.

The sound was so mournful and sorrowful that it was hard to believe it was coming from a human.

It felt as if the very essence of sorrow had manifested into sound.

Moreover, I could sense only one presence, and the idea of a [woman crying alone] in an old mansion on a cold November night was utterly unimaginable.

Even though it didn’t seem threatening, I didn’t let my guard down.

My hair stood on end, and a chill ran down my spine.

With my heels lifted, I stealthily approached and stood before the door from which the sound emanated.

-Ah… Haa…

Between the sobs, I could hear something muttering.

It was a sound I had heard in my previous life.

It was similar to the sound made by the speech-impaired woman who lived next door when she urgently came to find me, using sign language and desperately moving her mouth when her son was bitten by a giant centipede.

-Oooah… Huuuh… Ah…

The muttering, filled with nothing but frustration at the inability to speak properly.

The kind of muttering that made the listener more frustrated than the one making the sound.

What was she trying to say all alone?

Or was she talking to someone else?

I grabbed the door handle.

Preparing to use magic if necessary, I stoked the heat in my danjeon.

Slowly.

Creak….

I opened the door slowly.

I saw a bed.

On it lay a neatly arranged skeleton.

Startled at the thought that the skeleton might be sobbing, I opened the door wide to follow the sound coming from the right.

“Aah… Huuu….”

“……”

I saw a woman crouching in front of a window frame without a window.

Her hair, which could have been white or gray, was a tangled mess spread across the floor, and her body was as emaciated as the skeleton on the bed.

And.

For some reason, she looked familiar.

Both the sobbing and her appearance in the moonlight.

I blinked.

The sight of a woman crying alone in a forsaken land, in a ruin, was so alien that I found it hard to believe even with my own eyes.

Moreover, her hair, so disheveled it was hard to call it hair, her limbs, reduced to bones, and her clothes, torn and tattered to the point of being more rags than clothes, looked less human and more like something else.

It felt like I was seeing an illusion, and it would have been more realistic to shout that a ghost monster had appeared for the first time in this world.

Perhaps I had already been ensnared in someone’s trickery and was seeing hallucinations, I thought for a moment.

“Ugh….”

The woman turned her head to look at me.

Her dark blue pupils scanned me.

The swirling storm in the deep blue depths slowly calmed.

Despite the dark blue, I could sense the original color hidden within.

And it was a familiar pair of pupils.

Which made it all the harder to believe.

They were eyes that shouldn’t be seen, in a place where they shouldn’t be.

Surely, this was a cunning trap laid by some malevolent being.

The absurdity of the illusion was crafted into a plausible reality to deceive me.

Only six months.

A long time, perhaps, but too short for Remian Winterfell to be crying alone in this forsaken land, to be reduced to bones.

In a place without a single ray of light, without a single person, without a single warmth, filled only with death, it was far too short a time for her to be crying as if on the brink of a cliff.

What kind of person was trying to test me?

Why were they showing me this?

Was it to deny the prayer I had offered for her at the end of the Engagement War?

Was it to punish the bystander who had escaped the guilt alone?

Was it to impose guilt on me, saying that her current state was my responsibility?

Whatever the reason, it was a truly wicked trick and a truly perverse stratagem.

Whether this reunion was someone’s wish, an illusion, or a rare coincidence, it was undoubtedly a wicked and perverse moment.

For me, who had never expected to witness such a sight even once, even for a moment, it was a moment of confusion and shock, and in that time, Remian’s sobbing stopped.

Thud.

As if her last cry had burned away her remaining life, Remian collapsed weakly.

“L-Remian…?”

I had to call her name involuntarily.

It was the name I had called out after six long months.

And it was a name I had thought I would never call again.

I hurriedly ran and checked her pulse.

Fortunately, it was still there.

Faint, but as if clinging to life with the last bit of willpower, it was still beating.

I quickly hoisted her onto my back.

It might be a cruel joke, a malicious trap, but her condition seemed too critical to think about such things.

I didn’t know if my actions were in a dream, in an illusion, or in a trap.

Right now, I could only think about saving the paper-light Remian on my back, who felt so insubstantial that it was hard to believe I was carrying a person.

Whether by coincidence or trickery.

If she were to die because of my hesitation, it would surely give rise to a new guilt.

If the paper on my back was not an illusion but the truth, then it was only right to save her first, and I dashed to the first floor where our camp was being set up.

“Rendler-!!”

Urgently calling out to Old Man Rendler, who had the first aid supplies.

**

“I will do my best to heal your pain. Please, accept my efforts. Dear.”

“…Ugh.”

I tried to endure it.

Because the sinner who destroyed everything deserved to accept their punishment.

Without my father and Gelwood’s decisions, the festival for all and the sacred family tradition would have been ruined.

So it was my fault, and I deserved the punishment of an engagement with the instigator.

But the word ‘dear’ coming out of the instigator’s mouth, causing a surge of nausea that I tried so hard to suppress, was something I couldn’t control.

“You don’t want anything from me? Even if you crush my hand with your shoe heel and spit on me, I’ll do anything if it can heal the pain.”

“Nothing.”

“What…? No, out of sincerity, at least a little…”

“I’m sorry.”

I realized then.

The torn wounds never healed but festered without being stitched, and there was nothing to heal in the first place.

I realized that dirt had accumulated in the split scars, something that could never be cleaned.

“What do I have to do for you to forgive me? Damn it, if you keep saying I don’t have to do anything, what am I supposed to do?!”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because we are a couple now, we have to make peace and live well, so I’m apologizing like this-!”

“You want to live well? It’s not because you want to be recognized as a husband on the hundredth day and get a pardon from my father?”

I had overheard it by chance.

When you were muttering alone after drinking in the office, I overheard it by chance.

The real reason you wanted my forgiveness.

I heard what kind of deal you had made with my father.

I don’t blame my father, of course.

It’s a natural desire for the family head to want to preserve the tradition of living a happy life with the winner of the Engagement War.

“Did… did you hear that…?”

“Regrettably.”

Thud.

At this moment, you knelt down.

“Please, I beg you like this! There’s really not much time left now! Forgive me! Let’s live happily together-! I’ve been begging for the apology you wanted so desperately, why won’t you accept it?!”

If it weren’t for the scars of that day, which started throbbing more intensely the more time I spent with you, and the screams that pierced my ears vividly, I wouldn’t have rejected your wish.

I would have tried to endure the recurring nightmares for the rest of my life.

I would have tried to live through the days that were so miserable I wanted to die.

Just like now.

Enduring and enduring for ninety days after the Engagement War, not revealing it to anyone.

“I will talk to my father well, don’t worry. I’ll tell him you made bone-breaking efforts, reflected every single day. Even if I didn’t accept you because of my own shortcomings, everyone will return to their daily lives safely.”

On the ninety-ninth day.

I sincerely said that.

Even though you drunkenly insulted me as ‘scum,’ ‘trash,’ and ‘a woman who deserves to be hurt,’ I tried to make our best ending possible.

I had already hinted to Sir Gelwood, and he also said that my father would approve if I spoke.

“…You bitch, did you think I’d be fooled easily? Just die with me, you fucking bitch.”

On the hundredth day, late at night, you sneaked into my bedroom and pointed a knife at me.

I should have known then.

There was no such thing as the best ending for us.

“Why, why are you doing this, Deron.”

I should have known earlier.

“Scream-!!”

“What’s going on! Lady Grand Duke!”

“Damn it…!”

Crash!

“He jumped out of the window! Chase him-!”

I should have known that the cursed woman shouldn’t live a proper life.

If I had died sooner, no one would have been hurt.

“Lady Grand Duke?”

But.

Again.

Why.

Do my eyes open?

I thought it was really the end.

Why am I seeing the blue sky?

“Are you a little more conscious now?”

…Why am I seeing Elden’s face?

“If you have the strength to swallow, please drink this. It will help with recovery.”

Why am I, who deserves to die, basking in the warm sunlight?

Why am I, who deserves to die, being supported by Elden?

Surely, I should have died.

I believed without a doubt I would die.

Is it a hallucination before death?

Is it a delusion before death?

I don’t know.

Just.

Please…

Please… just.

Please, let me…

[T/N: I took a little break from tling. And yeah i’m confused too.]