I Reject the villain’s ending.

Episode 3

With Iros’ help, I went to the people I had bullied and apologized to them.

The first time I went, they all stirred up a fight and cowered in fear at the sight of me.

It was natural but it still left a sour taste in my mouth.

I don’t know how many more people I would have bullied in my ever-growing blackness if I hadn’t found my past life memories.

It would have ended in death.

Thinking about it, I’m glad that my memory of “Kim So-won,” who had a normal mindset in my previous life, came back.

“I’m sorry. I insulted you, whipped you, and fired you from your job according to my mood.”

“Seo, saint, why are you doing this to me? are you trying to drag me somewhere to kill me…….”

“No, I’m sincerely remorseful for my actions, and that’s why I’ve come to apologize. You don’t have to forgive me I know best what I’ve done.”

Looking into their fear-filled eyes, I bowed my back and head and apologized for my mistake.

I didn’t ask for forgiveness in the first place.

Then used my overflowing divine power to heal the wounds and scars I had caused.

When I healed a girl with a large burn on her face by pouring hot tea on it, I was so disillusioned that I couldn’t even remember the sobbing girl’s name.

‘I was such rubbish.’

I went to dozens of people a day to apologize, and for a long week, I didn’t eat and went around apologizing.

He still has half a list of people to apologize to.

“Haha. I healed them. I apologized. I gave them a lot of money in compensation. I don’t think they’ll be reinstated, will they?”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because… they’d hate me.”

Honestly, I wouldn’t want to be reinstated either.

You’ve been a bully to everyone around you – maids, servants, apprentice priests, coachmen, gardeners, you name it.

I could see why the temple was always short-staffed. Because of me, they were all fired from their jobs, and there was no one to work.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized how much I had done.

“I’m sorry,” Iros said comfortingly as he watched me mumble through my sandwich at the outdoor table.

“I know you don’t like it, but at least you’ve apologized and said it won’t happen again, so I won’t despise-no, hate you as much as I used to.”

“Pink, I think I just heard the word contempt.”

“You’re mistaken.”

“Really?”

“…….”

What an unbelievable lie. You try to hide your expression, or at least try to keep your fluttering pupils still.

He said it in a comforting way, but it was cute because I could tell he was lying.

“Ah, now that I think of it, I owe you an apology too.”

“You mean to me, Saint?”

He looks at me, her mauve eyes narrowed, as if to say, “You to me? The innocence in her gaze pricked my conscience.

“You’re the one who stuck by my side the longest, the one who listened to me the most.”

It was Iros Elijah who had been with me most of the time, except for when I slept and bathed, and who had tolerated my foul temper the most.

His pretty, stoic face and beautiful body, with its statuesque muscles flexing, were just my kind of thing, or more accurately, Sierra’s kind of thing, and I couldn’t leave him alone.

Taking advantage of Iros’s righteous nature, which favored the underdog over the overpowered, Sierra tormented him many times.

When the maid made a mistake, she asked Iros, who stood stiff and rigid, playfully weighing whether to punish or forgive her.

‘What can I do to make you forgive her and let it go?’

Sierra was amused by Iros’s tight-lipped, pride-bending behavior and gave him a series of humiliating orders.

‘Take off your shirt, kiss my feet, listen to me tonight.

Iros was frozen in place and obeyed every single one of Sierra’s orders.

‘Ah. So this was a 19th-century novel.

After that, sometimes Iros was forced by Sierra to enter her bedroom.

It was described in the novel as

[A face as pretty as a single trembling peony, a body with bursting muscles and a firmness that belied its stoic nature, and a huge…….]

Get out of my head, you lewd fiend!

I shake my head vigorously, but I can already see the face of Iros in Sierra’s memory, carrying all the shame in the world.

I could remember the feel of her fingertips on his reddened eyes, where tears had pooled slightly.

“I’m sorry, I’m rubbish, the rare kind of rubbish that can’t be recycled, can’t be burned, can’t be buried, can’t rot!”

I screamed, picking at the cabbage on my sandwich. At this point, I hate vegetables again. I screamed again at my body’s honesty.

“They’re rubbish, how can you say that?”

“Black, pink…….”

“Excuse me, rubbish.”

“…….”

Oh, yeah, right, I think so, too.

I nodded sombrely at the seriousness of Iros’s words and swallowed back tears. I guess I’m not even worthy of trash.

As I remained silent, Iros lowered his gaze to my face and asked.

“Why are you apologizing to me all of a sudden? You’re not the kind of saint to feel guilty.”

Well, normally Sierra would because she was a bipolar person who thought she was going to destroy the world.

But it wasn’t the same anymore, because I already knew all of Sierra’s life, including her tragic ending, and I read the novel from a third-person perspective.

Was I Sierra or Sowon Kim?

Maybe both.

“Anyway, since I came back from the dead, God must have given me a conscience. I’m human, so I can’t be guiltless.”

I muttered this as an excuse, but then I wondered. In the novel, Sierra doesn’t die at the beginning or come back from the dead.

So why did I die and come back to life in a coffin?

I try to remember when I died, but that’s the only part I can’t remember.

“Pink.”

“Yes.”

“Do you remember when I died?”

“What?”

Iros’s eyes widened slightly as if he didn’t know what this meant, but then he realized and nodded slowly.

“I remember. Because I was right next to you.”

“Tell me more about that.”

“Why do you have to relive something so bad…….”

“Come on.”

At my stuttering and impatience, Iros rummaged through his memories, his expression familiar, as if he hadn’t experienced my whims for a day or two.

I straightened my posture to listen, waiting for his mouth to open. After a moment, the memory setting complete, Iros spoke.

“That was probably when she said she wanted some strawberry cake, so she skipped morning prayers and was having a snack in the garden. After eating the cake and drinking tea, she died suddenly.”

“…….”

“I checked, just in case, but there was no poison. Not in the cake, not in the tea.”

The look in Iros’s eyes told me he was telling the truth, without a hint of falsehood.

His personality would not allow him to skimp on a poison test, so I believed him.

“So it was a simple heart attack, then? Was there anything else? Was my condition out of the ordinary?”

“Not at all. You were fine as usual, ah.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Well, come to think of it, the saint did say something a little strange.”

“I did? What did I say?”

Iros paused for a moment, tilted his head to the side, and muttered.

“That there was a god.”

“God?”

Why would I say that? Even though I was a saint, a so-called Chosen One, I didn’t believe in the existence of God.

I was more of an atheist.

“What did I do the day before? Anything special?”

“Well. You prayed at the Great Hall until close to midnight.”

“The Great Hall is where the gods are enshrined, and it’s only open once a year, on New Year’s Day, and you prayed there on a non-New Year’s Day?”

The original me never went there. I didn’t like the white, heavy atmosphere and thought it was dreary.

But there I was, praying late into the night. I don’t think that’s possible unless you have a sword in your head.

Well, this smells fishy.

“Pink, when did you see me praying?”

“I first saw it that day.”

“So, you’ve never prayed except once, when you first came to the shrine.”

Prayers, I might as well have asked for the destruction of this empire, but I doubted I’d ever pray for anything good.

Iros nodded in agreement.

“Certainly suspicious. He died the day after he prayed.”

“You say that as if it were someone else’s story.”

“Because I don’t remember.”

“Here’s the story: …….”

I popped the rest of my sandwich into my mouth, leaving Iros a little frozen in surprise at my words.

“Let’s go apologize to him later today.”

“I’ve got a carriage ready for you.”

“Okay, thanks.”

“…….”

“Why?”

I shook my head, looking at Iros, who had stiffened again.

He often flinched in my presence like this, looking at me as if I was a strange creature.

“Because you keep thanking me.”

“Why is that?”

“I’m not used to it, such kind words.”

“…….”

Come to think of it, the original Sierra would have been more likely to thank him and tell him to take it off.

There’s no way you can say thank you to someone who thinks they’re going to end the world.

I never thought to thank him, I always took him for granted.

I tugged on Iros’s sleeve, locked eyes with him, and said.

“I’m grateful for you. Thank you for listening to me, thank you for being there for me, thank you for helping me through so many things. I haven’t shown it much, but I’m going to show it a lot.”

“That’s what’s awkward for me.”

“I’m serious, Pink, no, Iros.”

Her violet-purple eyes widened in surprise at being called by her first name, almost for the first time.

The light reflecting off the table filled them, making them sparkle with five colors.

Iros lowered his long lashes and smiled ever so slightly and softly, cupping my cheek and stealing the corner of my mouth with his thumb.

“You know, it’s not very cool to talk like that, with a piece of bread in your mouth.”

“Ugh. I didn’t mean to be cool.”

I grumbled, my face flushing with embarrassment at the thought of what I must have sounded like to a child, alone, with something on my face.

Iros looked down at me and whispered.

“I like it, though. The way you calls me Pink.”

“Oh?”

I froze at the unexpected comment.

“Because it means she’s closer to me than anyone else to call me that.”

He whispered, and I had to stare up at him for a long moment, his face so pretty with the thin smile that fell across it.