I Transmigrated as an Extra in a Trashy Dark Romance Game - Chapter 35

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※ This work contains depictions of coercive relationships, explicit language, and other graphic content. Reader discretion is advised.

His words seemed to be the final blow. With nowhere left to retreat, Marie, already teetering on the edge, plummeted over the cliff. The sweet dream shattered with a crash. Faced with reality, despair clouded her face as she slumped to the floor.

“Why did I…?”

The thick fog clouding her mind began to clear. As memories of her abnormal behavior surfaced one by one, allowing her to think clearly again, Marie trembled and crawled toward Kaidros.

“So-Sorry, I’m so sorry, Your Grace… I must have been bewitched by something. Please forgive me…”

Her face drained of color, she hiccuped, clutching at the hem of his trousers, desperately begging for forgiveness. Watching this, the Viscount clicked his tongue in disbelief.

“Tsk! A mere maid, mocking the viscountcy since the last incident, you must have thought me a fool.”

The Viscount, who had seen Marie disgrace his family since the ruby brooch incident, turned to the head butler.

“Don’t give her a single coin of severance. Give her a whipping first, then hand her over to the authorities so she can properly face punishment for a commoner daring to tarnish a noble’s honor!”

Watching Marie being dragged away by the servants, arms held firmly, Edith felt as if she were seeing an overlay of her own past self being unjustly dragged to the attic.

Meeting Marie’s gaze, Edith saw Marie, even while being dragged away, desperately looking around for someone to save her. Feeling Edith’s eyes on her, Marie looked back with a pleading expression.

‘What did you do, Marie, when I looked at you with a pleading expression like that?’

“Ah!”

Edith gave Marie a bright, angelic smile. Without even a moment for regret, Marie, her spirit broken, hung her head low and was dragged away.

* * *

Quite satisfied with the revenge Kaidros had orchestrated, Edith rolled around on her bed before asking him something she’d been curious about, as he sat in the chair.

“When exactly did you plan all this?”

“I merely handed over the ruby brooch and waited, that’s all. The rest was the ugly greed of the human enchanted by the jewel creating this situation on her own.”

Recalling the name and description of the jewel she had once heard, Edith nodded in understanding. She had finally taken proper revenge on Marie, one of the villains who had tormented both her and the original Edith from the past. Now, the one remaining was…

For Edith, the priority was the instigator who ignored her words and created this whole situation: Viscount Moulton. But before taking revenge on him, she had to solve one unforgettable curiosity first—the one the Crown Prince had mentioned.

‘Besides, I didn’t know you’d help me this sincerely… Though you did do something terrible…’

“Um… thank you, Lord Kai.”

Feeling grateful to Kaidros, who had helped her—and the original Edith—get revenge, she blushed in awkwardness, ashamed of her prejudice against him as just another protagonist in this dark story.

‘Right, maybe I was prejudiced.’

A vague thought surfaced that she might be able to navigate this bleak world. Seeing the devoted knight commander and the dragon, who, unlike in the original story, was helping her, she thought that if she could interfere with the remaining two or even change their minds, Serenity might live a life of comfortable freedom.

‘If I can endure the remaining half-year or so a bit longer, the year will pass…’

She became lost in the thought that if she kept Edith’s heart stable, she might return safely. Sensing that her face looked relieved, as if she had shed everything without regret, Kaidros approached and seized her hand.

“Ow, what are you doing all of a sudden?”

‘Ha! Me, a great and arrogant dragon…?’

Realizing the emotion he felt in that moment was fear, Kaidros dismissed it as nothing and released her hand. As if trying to erase his own thoughts, he spoke to her teasingly.

“If you’re grateful, why not cry for me just once?”

At the words of the increasingly perverse, capricious dragon, Edith felt her face burn with embarrassment. She shooed him away from her bed.

“…Ah! Speaking of which, I promised to go to the temple with Miss Langor. Would you like to join us?”

“The priests would dislike me… Can’t you two just go alone?”

She was puzzled by his clearly displeased expression at the mention of the temple, but Edith, not yet giving up on her intent to somehow pair the two, didn’t back down.

“Absolutely not! You must become friends with Miss Langor.”

Unaware of how Kaidros truly felt about her, Edith cheerfully shook her fists up and down, oblivious as she spoke. Watching her rack her brain so earnestly, he wondered what ulterior motive she had for saying such things and sighed.

“Fine. I want to grant whatever you wish for.”

“Thank you so much, Lord Kai!”

“If you’re grateful, I’d rather you cry for me…”

Still unable to let it go, Kaidros was ultimately shooed out the window by Edith.

Banished, Kaidros drifted languidly, gazing up at the summer night sky filled with stars that looked like a river of milk. Meanwhile, Edith felt reassured, thinking that as the situation gradually resolved, she wouldn’t have reason to be melancholic for a while.

However, complacent in this moment, Edith had no way of foreseeing that she would soon regret ever deciding to go to the temple. Nor did she anticipate the backlash that would come from Marie, whom she had driven out today.