Resetting Lady

Carynne gripped the silver candelabra and leaned against the wall. She wanted to cry. So she did.

Warm streams trickled down her cheeks. There’s no one here. Why? Where did that side character who slipped through her fingers disappear? She couldn’t have possibly escaped from this hallway.

“Isella… Where are you?”

Isella had disappeared. She disappeared when she was supposed to be here. Just like Nancy. Just like her on that day.

“Isella. Isella. Miss Isella Evans…”

I can call you over and over like this, like a caring lover. Please come out. Please don’t disappear. Die in my hands. Please, come out and scream. This is too much. I’m spiraling back into the world of madness again and I hate it. It should be Carynne who kills Isella.

But no matter how many times she walked up and down the corridor, she couldn’t find the girl.

“ISELLA EVANS!”

Even though she yelled so loudly, Isella did not come out.

Carynne collapsed to the ground. She couldn’t stop crying. Please come out. I want you to die in my hands. Or you can kill me. I don’t care whichever. I hate this nonsensical world. Nothing is clear, the truth is ambiguous, this place is just too much.

“Please come out…”

Carynne waited, moving only slowly. It’s fine. This is still fine. Let’s think about it. Let’s cast doubt over it. Doubt is what will save me. Let’s think it over again, where Isella went.

But no. It’s not fine.

“…It hurts.”

Pain was shooting up from her foot. Carynne curled up in that hallway.

“It hurts so much…”

I think I’m dying.

Carynne did not like pain.

But what she hated more than pain was the fact that Isella was gone. Once again, Isella had disappeared. If she had succeeded in escaping, she wouldn’t have stayed so quiet.

This situation was so heavy and unpleasant.

“…Don’t be like this.”

I seriously hate it, something like this. Was it too much to just wish for a person to die, to bury them six feet underground, to wait for that body to rot, hoping that time moves on?

Carynne wiped away her tears and limped back to the fief lord’s study. Every step brought her pain. At best, her bones were just fractured. But it was this pain that, at least, comforted Carynne.

“……”

Isella disappeared and left Carynne in panic, but the pain that Isella inflicted was also the only thing that could save Carynne.

“…I’ll just go back.”

She already went back and forth many times. It’s a waste of time to do one more lap here. Carynne decided to confirm something else that was important.

“No way. I don’t think that’s it.”

Throughout the entire time she was on her way back to the study, Carynne muttered, No way, no way.

“It’s come to this now, but it’s just too mean.”

Something was about to happen as she wished, but then, this again! The story got all ruined again, this is too much!

Carynne suppressed the urge to scream and just forced herself to move. Moving with one swollen foot was taking too long and it was giving her so much pain. It took her at least five times longer than usual to walk back to the study.

She closed her eyes and prayed.

“Please…”

Please don’t disappear, Father. I hate this. I hate having any delusions, I hate mysteries, too.

Before opening the door, Carynne took a deep breath. She grabbed the knob, turned it around.

Ka-chak.

And opened the study’s door.

“…Ha.”

How fortunate. The fief lord’s body was still there, swaying slightly while suspended in the air. It looked the same as when she had left it before. Carynne let out a sigh of relief after making sure that it’s still there.

What a relief. Father, you’re really dead.

“Father.”

The body was hung right there. Although Isella had disappeared, her father’s corpse was still hanging like this. So, was it that Isella just really succeeded in running away?

“Tom… Are you there?”

Carynne held the candelabra tighter as she looked around the room. Maybe Isella’s here, too. As they say, you return to where you begin. Right? Maybe. Isella might be hiding here while thinking that she wouldn’t be found.

Carynne looked under the desk and peeked through the bookshelves. She stumbled and collapsed several times because her foot was in terrible pain, but she continued to look between the sofas and statues, hoping also to see a little head that’s crouching for dear life…

Tom wasn’t here.

“Did you run away to someplace else?”

That might be the case. Carynne wasn’t surprised by this. Since he had done something so resolutely just a while ago, he was surely already long gone, taking advantage of the current situation.

“If you wish for revenge, then come out now… I can kill you, too.”

Even so, there was only silence in the room. Amidst the lonesome feeling that quietly settled in, the only one in here other than her was the fief lord, who had already become nothing but an object, moving slightly, slowly, to and fro like a pendulum.

And then— an outburst of screams.

The servants could be heard yelling and shouting. The loudest voice was Borwen’s. He’s asking for people to evacuate the mansion.

“Ah…”

It’s over.

Carynne covered her tear-stricken face with both hands.

It was now impossible to fix everything.

Anyone who’s caught to have killed someone would be imprisoned.

No, that’s fine.

This was not the worst outcome. It’s not. This was much better compared to her father disappearing, Isella disappearing, everything else disappearing—her sense of time, her sight, her senses getting all messed up.

The current situation was this: the murderer would be caught and sent to jail.

But of course, this was the lesser evil. Carynne laughed dejectedly. Once she’s been sent to jail, she would get no more information after this. If all went well, she’d be deemed as a madwoman… a madwoman who killed her own father.

Isella would certainly testify to this. There was no point in trying to say that Tom was actually the one who killed the fief lord. Isella would be on the witness stand and testify that Carynne was the one who killed him and that Carynne attempted to kill Isella as well. She wouldn’t be able to get out of this.

Still, Carynne didn’t feel particularly wronged by this supposed outcome. It’s true that she wanted to kill her own father. Well, wasn’t it that she’s actually enraged by the fact that she lost her prey?

“If Isella’s successful, then it’s already hopeless for me.”

It’s now impossible to fix everything. I should have killed Isella right away there. I didn’t expect Isella to avoid the blow. Maybe even the fact that Isella saw Nancy’s body was wrong, just a trick to confuse me? Carynne thought that this might be possible.

The fief lord had died a few times now, and every time it happened, Carynne had to squeeze out some tears somehow.

And yet, on the other hand, Isella could shed tears from her eyes oh so effortlessly. To generate sympathy, to ridicule Carynne. You pitiful murderer.

“What now…”

Carynne sat on the floor and took off her shoes. Her foot had become so swollen that even wearing a shoe over it was painful. Her head was also hot for some reason—no, it felt like her entire body had a fever.

“…With this kind of situation, wouldn’t it be better to just hit my head with a brazier and get it done and over with?”

Once Isella succeeds in gathering people to her side, then Carynne would surely be thrown into a dark, damp prison, and she would have no more access to more information in this life. If it’s like that, then the best course would be to commit suicide quickly to just skip over this complicated situation.

“If that’s successful, too…”

When it’s not the right time yet, hadn’t she failed each suicide attempt from before? No, there was a time when it was successful.

“I think? …Or, no? Isn’t this confusing?”

Carynne wasn’t even sure of it anymore.

“Well, there’s no meaning to this either anyway…”

Carynne didn’t like the idea of going to jail. In retrospect, dying in that place would just be unpleasant and squalid. More than anything, it was going to be a physiological problem.

She opened the window. The wind was cold over her eyes.

“Please let me kill myself. This is better than that.”

The wind blew strongly towards her. Carynne sat by the window and looked down at the ground below. If there’s enough time, she could still be saved by medics.

“Ah, but I still feel like I’ll die.”

They’d be the perfect engagement gift—the corpses of the fief lord and Carynne. Isella and Verdic would be positively ecstatic.

While crying and saying how scared she was, Isella would be back in Raymond’s view. Without a hitch, the fiefdom would be in Verdic’s hands and he’d benefit greatly from this. Time would move on like that, and…

Carynne would wake up in that garden once more.

“My coin…”

She held her coin in one hand. This was her one and only comfort throughout these years. It’s the first thing she’d think about during every beginning. It was the only evidence that could pull her back to her senses. As her entire body heated up, this coin alone opened her eyes to reality.

Tears were blocking her eyesight.

Carynne threw herself out the window.

“What are you doing?!”

But at that very instant, someone grabbed Carynne’s arm and shouted at her in a furious voice.

It’s Raymond.

This time, once again, he came to rescue her.

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