Don’t Concern Yourself With That Book

*double update for not uploading on monday*

I had a great long-term plan. First I had to understand what was going on then I would prepare my subsequent plans.

When I was not thoroughly prepared, I would feel uneasy. In a way, this tendency to be perfect was the reason behind the several successes I had in my previous life. Of course, I did not want to study and even more so for work but once I had decided to take action I had to do it.

Most of the time I succeeded, but sometimes I would fail miserably.

Like now.

‘The sins of interacting with a forbidden judge and the templar who is the embodiment of chaos.’

I had regressed a total of 38 times.

This was my 39th time in the past. I could never live past the last day and was killed repeatedly.

‘A templar who was the embodiment of chaos.’

This was a crime I had never heard of. No one in my palace knew anything. In my numerous deaths, I could not find the reason behind the reason why my life was cut short.

I had had enough of this.

‘How did it go the first time round…’

The clear sky, the clouds I could see in the far distance and the soft feeling of a blanket on my feet. I touched the blanket once more before kicking it off and jumping up to my feet.

‘What day is it?’

Hannah had come in and announced that it was the morning of the 8th.

‘… The 8th day?’

Ah, then I realised that even when Castor killed me, I would still regress to the previous day. When I first regressed, it was hell. I would look at the familiar faces in front of me and wonder whether or not these faces were real. Torn whether or not what I was facing was reality, I had been stricken by anxiety.

It became clear to me on my second death. I had been stabbed by his sword and it hurt so much that I still had goosebumps when I regressed.

“Hannah, what day is it?”

When I came to my senses after my second round of pain, I was in my room on the 8th day again.

I felt like a beggar. I felt so much like a beggar that I was speechless.

Just a while ago, I would have seen Hannah’s back stabbed with a sword. The sight of blood gushing all over was so horrible that it was easier to think of it as just a dream.

My third death was in the Forbidden Forest. I wanted to avoid meeting the Crown Prince at all so I used the teleportation stele. However, I arrived right where the Crown Prince was.

When I could not answer the three questions, I had a knife stabbed in my neck. No, stop. Please. After begging in tears, I would open my eyes and find myself in my room again.

‘Stop it! No. I don’t want to die! Please!’

While hugging my clean body as I crouched and trembled, I met my fourth end. Castor had sauntered in with his muddy feet and stabbed me with his blood-stained sword. I had opened my eyes with a loud scream which concerned my nanny who anxiously called me from outside my door.

‘Bastard. Son of a bXtch.’

Quickly, I dipped the nib of my quill in ink before writing on parchment.

–3… 9. Fall… Soon, my quill snapped. I had written down the past attempts with a broken quill to remember. That happened a dozen more times.

When I tried to escape death by drawing clues from the novel, I had never imagined I would be stuck in such a situation.

No way would this end after I die since this was a reincarnation. I believed that I could get used to it since I had already died once before. Who knew whether or not I would regress would induce such an anxiety-inducing fear.

‘I would never have expected myself to be able to regress and die over and over again.’

I should have escaped from this place years ago without ever being able to find the diary.

“Ha… Until when….”

The quill crumpled in my hand. I wanted everything to just stop.

I felt empty and it hurt.

If the absolute conclusion for me was death, then I was a corpse that was not even allowed to rest.

The fact that I had to repeatedly experience death was alarming but I could do nothing other than to accept reality as it was.

Just by living life repeatedly, I was experiencing the life that the most powerful people in human history like Qin Shi Huang, had always yearned for–immortality. (1) When I regressed for the 5th time, I finally came to terms.

How would I die the next time?

Ah. I could not remember. For some strange reason, I could not recall anything that happened from the 6th death onwards. Did I lose my sanity for a moment? My memories were all jumbled up and I could barely count the number of deaths I had been through.

I wanted to die like this.

Then, I gradually recalled my 19th death when I was not killed by Castor.

I killed myself.

I had suffocated myself, drowned myself and fell to my death. After changing the method in which I died so many times, I had become indifferent to death.

‘Castor was disgustingly handsome.’

Watching his black hair flutter like the night sky when he arrived in the middle of the day, I had to contemplate who was more handsome–him or Duke Develo.

I was still in a disgusting amount of pain but Castor was able to bring down his blade looking relaxed as if he was going to get drinks next door afterwards.

“Why? Why am I regressing? What the hell does this mean?”

The novel was a romance story written in the perspective of Rusbella. It was a story of how she went on a trip and met the Prince of Walter, faced opposition against their love, ran away to Kaltanias and achieved happiness after hard work.

Even within the novel that ended with such a happy ending and the diary that could foretell the future, I could not find anything that could explain why I was living my life repeatedly. Could it be something that I could not remember?

‘Die.’

In my 30th death, I learnt that the pain I felt kind of swelled though I was still dying over and over again.

But of course that did not mean I had not done anything. It would not make sense if I did nothing to get away from that psychopath. I ran away to the laundry place, the 4th Prince’s bedroom, the stele and anywhere I could find to escape this hellish repetition.

I had been torn apart by the hound. I broke my back in the laundry place. In the playbacks of all my deaths, I had learnt that Hans, the knight guarding the main gate, was indeed very handsome. But nothing else changed.

With my face buried, I took a deep breath.

“What should I do?”

There were so many fucked up things in my previous life.

I had worked in a company where employees were thrown into hell dozens of times a day. I could not tell whether they were working service jobs or being slaves to the customers. When I opened my eyes in the morning till I closed my eyes at night, all I did was work. But I was still placed in the blacklist by that nutcase.

As my manager said, to live was to endure but I thought I had endured more than I could in this life.

However, more than anything, I just did not want to see the Crown Price again in my next life.

I soon became immune to the fear and just felt helpless.

‘It wouldn’t make sense if I could remain sane after dying 40 times without the help of a God.’

I was still rational and my sanity was intact. On the last day, or rather on the day of my 38th death, I could even look directly into Castor’s eyes.

I was not afraid anymore.

Was I sure I was not stuck alone in hell? Was I sure I had not gone crazy yet? I had my doubts.

Looking at the sky that was still beautiful as if it was a sunny spring day, I could still smell blood on my body so I could not sleep properly.

Seriously, I became enlightened when I realised that it would be more strange if I had not gone crazy.

Ah… Was this the buff I received?

“Ha. Hahahaha. This is crazy.”

Why was this happening?

Why was this happening to me?

I was not the main character and neither was I any of the supporting characters. I was just an extra that could not even become the villain. Why would it be a good idea to let me live my life over and over again?

Crash.

I would rather just die for the story to progress! I did not understand. My death was just like a dog’s death! It was not going to mean anything!

When I released my fingers, I noticed ink splashing across the white paper. They served as evidence for the accumulation of my anger and doubt.

Only with a firm will would the fear disappear.

But now even that was going to fade.

On my 24th death, Amor drank poison and died. I did not go to save him because I did not want to see him. What was the point of saving him? But in my 37th death, I went to save him again. If I did not do this at the very least, I would have gone crazy.

‘What do I mean to you?’

The indifferent gaze from those unisexual eyes that looked inhumane. The reason why I was going crazy was because of Castor.

That bastard.

Crying, begging, kneeling or lying down did not change anything. Hannah had died first and then Bess, Anna, nanny…. Ah, my nanny.

‘My head was sliced off and carried in Castor’s hands.’

After Castor killed me or after I killed myself, I would find myself back on the bed. And then, it repeated…

After screaming and dying countless times, all I could see was Castor drenched in madness.

I could not even remember the last time I had a cozy and comfortable sleep. Through the sleepless nights, my heart would unknowingly continue to break down just like sand in the desert. Amor who treated me like a stranger even when I was so broken and Hannah who did not know me at all had kept smiling.

Why? Did I become royalty just to become abandoned filth in such a lonely world?

“Get a hold of yourself.”

Smack!

I slapped my cheeks to maintain my sanity. I wanted to believe that there was still hope. I could not give up living. That was the only way I could make sure I could retain my humanity.

I was still alive and I had not given up. So as long as I remained true to myself, I would never go crazy and be able to find a clue to the future.

… Even if I would have to die meaninglessly dozens of more times.

“I’ll have… three major rules.”

After about 40 deaths, I drew up some rules for myself.

The rules were as followed.

1. 1. When I die, I would regress to two days in the past. So that, two days later, I would face the Crown Prince. He would then ask the three questions over and over again.

1-1. The questioning.

1-2. It did not matter if I spoke according to the diary or not, I would die either way. (What did you want me to do then? Fuck.)

1. 1. The longer the episode continued, the more painful it got.

1. 1. Even if I tried to avoid the Crown Prince, I would meet him somehow. If I succeed in avoiding him, I would die for some other reason. (I took my own life in the 19th, 20th and 21st deaths, I died after consuming some poisonous grass in my 13th life and I fell down the stairs in my 26th…)

I wrote about my 39th regression at the end and looked at my paper.

‘I don’t want the death of my maids and nanny to be on my name.’

I took a long breath. The last entry of the diary. If I could not find another clue, I would be living forever within this time period.

I would have rather just died and disappeared but after about 40 regressions, even that wish faded.

I was left with only traces of fear and anxiety that there might not be an answer. That there was no way of erasing this nightmare and escaping this purgatory. But I still gathered what remaining spirit I had like a rotting root to fortify my will. As soon as I stopped believing, I would just become a living corpse. My soul would dry up and disappear, leaving only my skin.

“Let’s stay positive.”

I whispered to myself as I clung onto my shattered pieces of hope. There must be a way.

Before it was too late, before I lost my reasons to live because of what I had written on this piece of paper, I needed to find a way.

T/N:

(1): A very important figure in Chinese history since he was the one who united all the small kingdoms and became the first Emperor of China. In later parts of his life, he became obsessed with immortality and feared death so he desperately sought for the elixir of life yada yada. If you want to know more, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_Shi_Huang#Great_Wall