I Reject the villain’s ending.

Episode 13

My Pink Is Strange]

Iros fidgeted with his fingertips before entering the Chamber of Mirrors.

Seeing that, I deliberately puffed out a sound and laughed. Let him think I was laughing at him.

Because that’s what the wicked Sierra looks like.

‘You’re shivering. Are you still afraid of this place?’

‘Today I have to go get a bow, so I can’t wait to get it done…….’

Iros’s low, carefully packaged voice trembled slightly toward the end.

‘Come here, Elijah.’

I hadn’t heard him call me by my old name in a long time.

Whenever I was angry enough, whenever I’d made a mess of him, I’d always call him by his old name.

Iros said, his heart sinking with the instinctive fear etched into his body.

‘Now, wrong…….’

‘Elijah, I’m calling you.’

‘Stand, Saint.’

Iros looked at me with pitifully trembling eyes, then slowly walked towards me, his body shaking.

Looking up at him as he stood before me, I gripped his shoulder with a cold gaze and pressed down hard.

His knees buckled and he collided hard with the floor.

Thud!

‘What dog in this world walks around on its own two feet looking down at its master?’

‘I’m sorry, sir.’

Tears prickled slightly in Iros’s eyes.

I counted the force of the blow as if I were a saint beloved by the gods, and I’m sure there was at least a gash on her knee.

Oh, this is going to hurt, but I have to finish my act.

I lifted my hand from his hair, not quite able to keep my grip on it, and leaned in to whisper in his face.

‘You don’t get to decide when you’re done, I do.’

‘Mm.’

My heart tingled with guilt as I watched him avert his eyes and bite his lip in shameful red.

‘Still, if I don’t make it clear this time, he’ll always doubt me.

Even if I could heal myself with my divine powers, I didn’t want to have a knife to my throat.

I steeled myself and opened the door.

‘Long time no see, huh?’

‘Ah, ah.’

Iros shuddered, unable to form words, like a man who had just discovered despair for the first time.

I felt sorry for him, but I put on a stoic face and put my arm around his shoulders.

‘It’s been a while, I’ve been letting you off easy.’

Iros’s mauve eyes fluttered wildly, and I closed the door. The heavy door closed with a thud.

A room of mirrors. A place surrounded by mirrors on all sides, reflecting your vision in such a dizzying array that it’s hard to find the entrance.

It was also the place Iros feared the most.

‘You’re still afraid of this room.’

‘Ah, ah.’

I whispered in his ear and shoved him into the room.

As soon as my hand left his back, Iros, surrounded by countless mirrors, shuddered, his rigid body uncharacteristically stiff for a man who had risen to the position of Guardian by swordplay.

Then his legs gave way, and he fell to his knees, begging.

‘Saint, please.’

Already, Iros’s eyes flickered with disbelief.

‘Please what?’

‘Hold me. Hold me. Your hand, your hair, anything, please.’

Don’t leave me alone.

With that plea, he clutched at the fringe of my skirt and squirmed on his stomach, mumbling over and over again.

Don’t leave me alone.

‘…….’

It was then. When I first picked up Iros, he was so ferocious that the trainer had to take him under his wing.

The trainer of apprentice priests and aspiring priests was a scumbag, to put it mildly.

He would create a fetid chamber of mirrors and lock the children who wouldn’t listen to him in there for days on end.

A room full of mirrors. A labyrinthine structure where it was hard to find the entrance.

There they would endure days and days of hunger, loneliness, silence, and seeing themselves reflected everywhere, and most of them would go insane.

‘I would never have known if I hadn’t followed the Chancellor, knowing from a glimpse that Iros was in a strange state.

It was there that he first discovered the Chamber of Mirrors, and found Iros locked in it, his mind crumbling.

Naturally, the tutor disqualified her as a saint and banished her.

Even then, Iros was trembling on her stomach with her eyes squeezed shut.

‘Please, please, whoever you are, get me out of here. Stay with me. There’s nothing here, nothing but me.

So I took her skinny hand, which was reaching desperately into the air.

‘Then I’ll stay with you. You’re my dog from now on. I’ll be your master from now on. I’ll be in charge of you.’

And with that, I picked him up once more, a scarred pink puppy.

And I laughed ecstatically. As sinister and seductive as the black cloud that threatened to engulf the country. Like a rose that could never be more dangerous.

‘Yes. I picked you up. Twice.’

‘Saint, Saint-’

‘Pink.’

‘……!’

Slowly, she bent down to Iros, who was panting in terror, and reached down to rub his cheek.

When she saw that the soft, warm cheek in her hand was stained with tears, she hugged him like a holy saint, like something out of a holy book.

‘……!’

And then, wrapped in the warmth of my arms and the warmth of my divine power, Iros stopped struggling, opened his eyes wide, and hugged me tightly.

As if I was the only lifeline in the world.

I watched Iros’s face in the mirror as I cradled his head in my arms and whispered commandingly into his rattling ear.

‘Don’t forget. That I am your master and benefactor.’

‘…Yes.’

‘Even if everyone in this world wants to kill me, you must protect me. Don’t doubt me. Do not betray me, Iros Elijah.’

‘Yes, Saint. Yes.’

She said it again and again as if brainwashing him, and he responded as if mesmerized.

Filled with fear, Iros repeated the same words like a parrot, relieved to be in my arms and then anxious when I pulled away.

The old Sierra, who knew the fear of being alone to the bone, used Iros, who had the same trauma as me, in this way.

Abandonment, reaching out.

Repeat it over and over again, instilling it.

To make him love me, so he couldn’t leave me.

‘Then he would resent me for pushing him into this room, and then he would resent me for thinking I loved him.

And so the love affair is complete.

It’s a much stronger bond than the usual loyalty and oaths.

After three hours in the Chamber of Mirrors, I lay Iros on my lap, exhausted and faintly asleep, and stroked his hair.

‘Your eyes are red. You’ve been crying a lot.’

‘Mmm.’

Iros moaned softly and frowned as I ran my cool fingertips over his reddened eyes.

I ran my fingers through his hair, this time gently and unobtrusively, and his frown relaxed, and I heard him breathe evenly.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen him sleep like he’s passed out.

Looking at Iros sleeping as soundly as a baby, it was clear that he would not wake up today.

‘Guess I won’t be getting a bow today.’

I looked down at Iros’s large hand, still clutching mine, thinking that I would have to hunt hard tomorrow to find a bow worthy of my efforts.

‘I know I’m a wicked girl, but you can’t let go of my hand. you’ve got it.’

‘…….’

‘I’m not going to destroy the country, and you don’t have to kill me, and that’s how we’re going to change things.’

I don’t know who I’m talking to.

But I know one thing for sure: I won’t live like I used to, and I won’t die like the novels I read in my previous life.

I’m not going to live in anger, I’m not going to live in resentment.

‘I’m going to live a long life in peace, a long life as a saint, a saint that doesn’t suit my personality.’

Maybe it’s because I died once as Kim So won.

I was now afraid of dying, and the anger that had always been bubbling up in my chest had subsided, making it seem like a distant memory.

‘I’m no longer a wicked woman, no longer a filthy bastard, no longer a blackness.’

I will live as Saint Sierra.

‘So let you slowly change, too. By my side, by my sword, by my guardian.’

I cannot change the past, but I can change the future.

I still don’t know why I died and came back to life, why I suddenly had memories of my previous life, and why my life was written as a novel.

Still, we’re here, and we’re alive.

‘Mmm.’

‘You’re up already?’

‘Hm, saint.’

He’s not quite awake yet, judging by the way her unfocused eyes are groggy.

Staggering to her feet, Iros presses her forehead against my shoulder, her pretty face brimming with tears, and shakes her head.

‘Forgive, forgive…….’

‘That’s enough.’

‘……!’

Hmph. Iros’s shoulders visibly slumped.

After a moment, Iros raised his head, his violet eyes watery with tears and his pink lips curled.

‘Don’t be angry, don’t abandon me. I’m your one and only sweet puppy.’

‘…….’

No……. I meant it to mean I was okay now, but Iros must have taken it the wrong way.

‘Iros, I think there’s a misunderstanding, I’m not abandoning you or giving up on you.’

‘Calling me by that name scares me, so please call me my sweet pinkie, like you always do.’

‘You’re kidding.’

A tear fell from her white, pretty face and landed in my lap.

‘Iros, in such a weak voice, with such a pleading face, rubbing her cheek against my hand.

‘Wow. I’m such rubbish.’

This shouldn’t be possible in the mindset of my former life as a 21st-century Confucian girl.

My heart is pounding. My heart was beating like hay on fire, racing with heat.

I was sure I was a rare piece of rubbish that couldn’t be recycled, couldn’t be recycled, couldn’t burn or rot.

It’s like I’m not even there.

I must have another name for trash.

‘Pinkie.’

‘Nae.’

‘Let’s call it a day.’

‘Already?’

‘Huh?’

What is this……?

‘You didn’t use to do this, now you’re roughly dragging me to my room and tying me to the bed, ugh!’

‘Stop, stop! You still need more sleep. You’ve got a long way to go to come to your senses!’

‘But then you always tear my clothes and whip me again, Woop!’

‘You just pass out and wake up tomorrow.’

‘No, ugh!’

I didn’t think I could take any more of this, so I quietly struck Iros on the nape of his neck, knocking him out.