Chapter 85: Reverse of Faith
“Shut up!”
Damon roared, and Raines’s blue sword flew into the air, still in its scabbard. The Noel family crest, shaped like a star, gleamed mockingly on the airborne scabbard. Then, it slammed against Sue’s shoulder.
“Ugh!”
Damon muttered, his eyes glinting menacingly as he looked at Sue, writhing in pain.
“You have a lot of nerve…”
Tears welled up in her eyes.
He’s insane.
And she was terrified and in pain.
“Kekeke… Right, you’re right.”
Damon laughed, his shoulders shaking. He clutched his head.
“That bastard Raines finally betrayed me. So I burned down the entire mansion that night. The servants and Raines’s mother must have all burned to death. It’s their punishment for betraying me.”
So Damon was the one who had burned down the Noel mansion. Did he really have the power to burn down such a large mansion?
“…Well, it’s not like Raines didn’t help me at all. You can sense it, can’t you?”
He scoffed.
“He was the one who agreed to switch the target from Enzhe Lopetrefer to Sue Byron. He might have betrayed me in the end, but… We were so close. What a fool.”
“……”
“Anyway, I successfully lured you into a trap. You’re going to die by the sword of the Raines you love so much, without being able to do anything. It’s all your fault, your karma. Sue Byron Chiqmefriar.”
Sue, who had been silent for a while, finally spoke, her words genuine this time.
“…Don’t make me laugh.”
She couldn’t force a smirk anymore.
She looked at Damon Keron’s melting face and said in a clear voice,
“You’re just taking your anger out on me.”
There was no retort. But Sue was still scared. But she didn’t stop. She mustered all her strength and shouted, her voice filled with anger and relief,
“You’re just a third-rate villain, forgotten in a footnote. You chose Sue Byron over Enzhe Lopetrefer? …Haha, is that the resolve of someone who came back for revenge? What are you going to do if you’re struggling this much just to lure out a mere Byron? Enzhe would never…”
“No! It’s you!”
Damon Keron suddenly grabbed her by the collar.
Sue flinched, startled by his deafening roar.
“It’s not Lopetrefer! It’s you!”
“Ah!”
He threw her against the wall with a powerful force. She gasped, her back and head slamming against the wall.
Damon, his reason consumed by rage, threw off his robe and stomped towards her. He bent down and shoved his face in front of hers.
His eyes, filled with hatred, glared at her, his teeth bared.
“Do you even know how miserable my life has been because of you?!”
The grinding of his teeth was louder than his roar.
Damon continued to berate her, not giving her a chance to feel any pain.
“Every day, I inhaled poison, every second I felt my insides rotting. My family burned to death in the monster’s flames, I barely survived, but my entire body melted!”
“I still remember it vividly. The day I was trapped in this basement. And in the courtroom. The way you mocked me! The way you treated me like shit! I remember it all, word for word!”
Sue was terrified. Her bound legs started to tremble. She could sense death looming.
“Since then! I’ve been! Despised by everyone! Scorned! Living like trash! Damn it, all because of you!”
Her head lolled helplessly, her collar still in his grasp. She didn’t know what emotion was fueling the heat that was spreading through her body.
“You bitch!”
“Why don’t you go lick up the spit you spat?”
“……”
“Goodbye, trash.”
The force that had been holding her suddenly vanished.
Sue leaned against the wall and gasped for air. It was easy to consciously bring back the memory she had been trying to suppress.
She recited the sentences that appeared vividly in her mind, her words directed at the man who stood frozen before her.
“You disgust me. I feel like throwing up. Trash like you… belongs in the Wastelands.”
She smiled. It must have been an ugly smile. It wasn’t directed at anyone in particular. Anyone in this space could have been the target. Sue closed her unfocused eyes and whispered the words she truly felt.
“You’re just like me.”
The moment she finished speaking, her ‘friend’s’ sword flew towards her, a large arc in the air, and a powerful force slammed into her stomach.
Sue instinctively curled up. But it didn’t lessen the pain. She closed her eyes tightly and clenched her frozen fists. She could taste blood in her mouth.
“It’s all your fault! All of it! Everything!”
The pain intensified. Sue, like Damon a year ago, or like herself on any other day, lay helplessly on the basement floor, enduring the pain. She huddled, trying to withstand the cold.
“If you hadn’t made that face that day, if you hadn’t looked down on me like that!”
Damon screamed, his voice hoarse and deafening, and he hit her repeatedly. Sometimes with Raines’s scabbard, sometimes with his leg, sometimes with his fist.
It hurts, it hurts, it hurt.
The pain was vivid, even through her thick coat.
“It’s all your fault. It’s all your fault! Because of you, the Noel family is ruined, burned down, my family is dead. No one looks at me, no one pities me. No one!”
The moment Raines’s scabbard opens, I’ll die.
…Was this what she had been living for?
Was this why she had been reborn as Sue Byron?
She would rather have died as Enzhe’s shield three years later.
“…?”
And then, through her blurry vision, she saw something on his waist.
It was the sword belt she had given ‘Leo Noel’.
His messy hair, his melting face, his tight, burned, and torn uniform – they all reflected the ‘Damon Keron’ of the past year.
Of all the things he possessed, only the sword with Noel’s crest and the sword belt she had given him were untarnished.
And sadly, in that moment, Sue Byron understood Damon Keron. The relief, the anxiety, the fear she had felt.
She had felt a sense of relief, knowing that he was ‘like her’.
And she had been afraid that she would meet the same fate.
And lastly, she had been terrified. Because she felt like she would be wearing the same expression as him when she reached the end of her path and looked in the mirror.
The broken gears finally started to mesh.
This wasn’t a moment created by a single mistake, a single act of selfishness, a single act of mockery.
They had already begun, long ago.
When? Who knew?
Sixteen years of Sue Byron’s memories flashed through her mind like a monologue, as the pain intensified.
This girl, that girl, that other girl, this kind of girl, that kind of girl, that other kind of girl… But there were too many to remember, and she wasn’t the type to remember such people.
“Clinging to Lopetrefer! Acting all cute! Shamelessly showing your face even though everyone hates you! You deserve to die!”
Right, she deserved to die.
Everyone hated Sue Byron. No one could possibly like her, clinging to Enzhe Lopetrefer Kel, unacknowledged by anyone, acting like she was something special.
The world she lived in was reality, no matter how she tried to simplify it. Actions had consequences, and her footsteps, no matter how much she tried to erase them, would remain.
The sixteen years etched in her memory weren’t ‘Sue’s’, but hers. So all the contempt directed at ‘Sue’ was directed at her.
Wasn’t it ridiculous to think that she could change it all with a single act of effort, a single act of consideration, a single word of praise?
“Raines will finally acknowledge me now. I’ll be able to clear my name and live proudly in the capital. As Damon Keron, not Leo Noel!”
Damon Keron kicked her in the stomach, his words filled with desperate longing. She felt a surge of nausea.
“…hur.”
“…What?”
His wish would never come true.
“It… hurts.”
Sue had sometimes thought of Raines as an ‘annoying child’, but she was also grateful that he had called her his ‘friend’. Leo Noel, though a phantom, had been the same. He had called her a kind person.
She thought that she, as his ‘friend’, had to reciprocate. And if he was suffering because of her, she had to find a solution.
And it wasn’t just Raines. Vercia, Raymond, the rich girl she had talked to, the baron’s son she had bumped into, the viscount’s daughter who had confessed to Acrea, and… yes, even Hanjee.
She had to offer a solution to everyone who was affected by ‘Sue Byron’.
“Hahahaha! You pathetic bitch. Of course it hurts, I’m hitting you. I’ll torture you here and then end your life.”
His fist slammed into her head three times. She coughed, her breath knocked out of her.
“It’s all your fault! All of it! Everything!”
It was unfair.
She wanted to protest, but Damon Keron’s worn shoe stomped on her cheek. Sue Byron, her face crushed, tears streaming down her cheeks, must have looked pathetic.
It was her fault. Retribution. Even if she didn’t think so, everyone would agree. That satisfying scene was being played out in the glass garden of Full Bloom.
But she was also curious.
What kind of miserable sixteen years had Sue Byron Chiqmefriar lived that she, and only she, had to bear the responsibility for all this violence?