Chapter 136
Cynthia swallowed her ragged breaths. Of course, she already knew how to escape even after seeing the ending. There had already been a previous round of transmigration in which she returned to the real world without intervening in the game’s story, so there was no way she didn’t know.
“…Alright. I’ll do it.”
She took the axe out of her inventory and gripped it.
Simply escaping the mansion wouldn’t do. At best, she might be able to get out of the mansion, but she wouldn’t be able to return to her original world. In fact, there had already been a time in the past when Segleninde tracked her down perfectly, even after she fled all the way to a distant country on the opposite side of this world.
No matter where Cynthia went, he always managed to find her. There was no need to reconsider this fact, proven through countless repetitions of the cycle. So this time, she resolved to do something she’d done before and, at the same time, something she was doing for the first time.
“Haaah!”
CRASH!
Cynthia swung the axe and smashed the music box in the Sky Garden.
The music box, which had been spinning cheerfully, was split in half, and when she checked the save window, she saw that the save file stored there was also cracked. As expected, it worked.
Without wasting any time, Cynthia hurried before time ran out.
She ran through the entire mansion, smashing each music box she had saved with one by one.
Bang!
The axe crashed down on the music box in front of the third-floor master bedroom. Next, she slid down to the lower floor, destroyed all the music boxes on the second floor, split the one in the Spring Flower Garden in half, then rushed straight to the Moon Flower Garden and smashed the save point there too.
She even destroyed the music box in the secret passage, and just as she was about to go down to the first floor—
The time-stopping magic ended.
“CYNTHIA!!!!!!”
Segleninde’s roar echoed thunderously throughout the mansion.
The whole mansion trembled with a quake-like vibration, windows and walls twisting bizarrely as the entire space distorted. Cynthia didn’t spare a glance at the horrifying sight and instead turned to dash down the stairs.
CRASH!
She smashed the music box in front of the black statue and then sprinted toward the final location.
Now, there was only one save point left on the first floor.
She raced across the long hallway, only to have the statues guarding the first floor rush out all at once to block her way. Gripping the axe tightly with both hands, Cynthia swung it and shattered the statues, then charged through the scattering debris.
She kicked open a closed door with all her might, revealing the grand main ballroom on the first floor.
There, a single music box was spinning alone. But before she could enter the ballroom, the sound of urgent footsteps rushed toward her.
When she looked back, Segleninde was running toward her, his face pale. His expression was desperate, anxious, tinged with sadness and anger. Cynthia dashed forward without hesitation. At the end of the pounding footsteps chasing after her, his breath brushed the nape of her neck in an instant.
As she shouted and swung the axe at the music box, Segleninde’s hand grabbed the back of Cynthia’s neck.
CRACK!
The axe crashed down on the last music box, smashing it, and Cynthia was yanked backward as if being dragged.
Segleninde climbed atop her as she collapsed to the floor, nearly thrown down. Cynthia smiled with a determined expression.
“I won.”
Then, just as she was about to strike her own neck with the axe, Segleninde wrenched the weapon from her hands with overwhelming strength and hurled it far away. The axe spun through the air and lodged itself in the wall, shattering it.
His face looked utterly devastated.
“You can’t die. That’s not the right way.”
“No? This is the right answer.”
Cynthia, still smiling, quickly raised one hand.
“Goodbye, Sellie.”
She revealed a dagger she had taken from her inventory and hidden up her sleeve on the way down here.
A dagger Segleninde had once kindly bought for her.
The Instant Death Dagger.
Before Segleninde could react, Cynthia deftly stabbed the dagger into her own neck.
“SIA!”
His shattering scream poured out as if wailing.
Cynthia felt the tears streaming down her cheeks as she closed her eyes. With her final, blood-frothed breath, a short pain throbbed and then ceased, like a drumbeat.
* * *
“Haah…!”
And Cynthia woke up in reality.
Instinctively, she reached for her neck, but there was no wound. The faint pain faded like a hallucination, leaving only the tracks of tears soaked into her cheeks.
She slowly looked around. What she saw was not a grand, luxurious room in a splendid mansion, but a shabby, cluttered studio apartment where just one glance could take in the entire layout.
She had returned to the real world. Realizing that, tears welled up again.
“Hic, hiiiic…”
She was back. She really, truly was back. On Earth.
No longer a fallen noble lady, nor a mage banished from the tower, nor a maid or a princess. Just Shin Sia, a Korean woman, existed here.
She cried for a long time, then finally managed to regain her composure.
And she saw it.
On the bright screen of her laptop in front of her was the title screen for ‘Coffin of the White Rose’, and from the edge of the laptop monitor, a pure white tentacle was leaking out.
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