How to Live as the Mad Duke’s Fake Daughter - CH 111

“Don’t be too angry. I guess it’s because I’ve poisoned your delicious tea…”

Garou’s swollen cheeks slowly regenerated. He smiled with a clean face.

“Anyway, poison… it doesn’t work on ‘us’.”

Garou was a demon like me.

The crown prince and a demon. Two words that didn’t go together like water and oil ran through my head in a dizziness. Without getting out of his arms, I spit out the following:

“You. Are you really Garou?”

Garou smiled leisurely and tilted his head.His thin eyes were like a cat acting cute to its owner. It was a strange look.

“Maybe I should wear two masks?”

“I mean…”

I bit my lips.

I knew it was a stupid question. However, if Garou was born the way I was, there was something I wanted to confirm.

“Your soul… Is it ‘Garou’?”

“……”

Garou, who had been playing around nonstop, rarely shut his mouth.

I lowered my head deeply. I felt a sense of shame at myself holding on to a glimmer of hope, and my face became hot.

The answer I heard was unexpected.

“…That’s right. I’m Garou.”

The moment Garou said that, my heart was overwhelmed. But he soon mercilessly trampled on my last hope.

“I entered the Crown Prince Garou’s body when he was five years old. It took me a while to swallow it completely, but… does the process matter if the results are good?”

Golden eyes that glistened like a carnivore’s were also as innocent as a child’s.

“I have taken over the host, so I am the owner.”

He seemed very happy with this situation.

I clenched my fists so that my trembling hands wouldn’t show.

“The person who put you in this body and resurrected you… Is that the evil spirit I just saw?”

Natalia begged, saying that she did not want to become the crown princess. If inheriting the throne meant becoming a monster, it was understandable why she was shuddering.

“That’s right.”

Garou simply nodded and gestured to the crying evil spirits from afar.

“Oh, don’t get me wrong. Not all evil spirits can fit into a human body. If all of them were as smart as us, the empire would have fallen in no time.”

“…Then what the hell are those monsters?”

“Corpses.”

It was a crude explanation, but Garou shrugged as if he had nothing else to say.

“And not all evil spirits are familiar with black magic. Look at the spirits. There are talented wizards like your brother, but there are also idiots who can’t even properly use white magic, right?”

Garou laughed cheekily as he said ‘Are there more of such people?’

“Just as each spirit has different talents, there are also differences in the power of evil spirits. There are very few individuals who can resurrect like you and me. Well, although we got help from an incredible demon…”

It reminded me of the blue well.

Garou nodded as if my thoughts were right.

“The first magic tower of the Imperial Palace. An evil spirit that my mother had imprisoned for thousands of years.”

Whoo, whoo.

The same cry I heard from the tower echoed vividly in my ears.

“It was able to create demons.”

Creating demons? I couldn’t even imagine how powerful it was.

“The demons it created are the relatives, brothers, and me, who have been nominated as heirs to the throne.”

Garou tapped his temple, then turned his index finger toward me.

“Oh, one more. You too.”

The mouth of the handsome boy drew a refreshing arc.

“Can you guess now? My mother, the noble emperor. Out of the many evil spirits, why did she keep it locked up in the magic tower?”

“That guy… is it the ‘Demon King’?”

“Well. Did you know that it died a long time ago?”

After letting go of my waist, Garou stretched out, showing off his tall body.

‘Dead?’

Although its personality had changed from the past, the demon was still tied under the well. I saw the demon directly four years ago.

Without giving me even a moment to dig, Garou continued.

“It is clear that at least it was superior among the evil spirits. Until now, no one has been able to summon evil spirits trapped under the ground and resurrect them in a human body. There is a reason why my mother loves it so much.”

The rough ground of the wilderness swelled before my eyes.

‘Under the ground…’

For some reason, I imagined what was beyond the tightly piled soil.

Wouldn’t it be very dark? Just like the place where I died in my previous life…

“What’s the matter? You don’t look so happy.”

Garou grabbed my chin.

‘Ah. Damn it. Shit. I let my guard down. I can’t raise my head right now.’

The tears that had been barely held back welled up and fell down on Garou’s fingers.

Garou widened his eyes in surprise.

“What’s wrong? Ah, maybe… did you want to be real?”

Garou let out a laugh. Thanks to that, my eyes got hotter and hotter.

“Did you expect someone who died 14 years ago to have literally ‘resurrected’? Like, maybe since black magic was used, something like that could be done?”

Every time the boy pounced, the rain of words fell and pierced my skin. My face was burning with shame, but I couldn’t frown even just once because I was overwhelmed with sadness.

“Lilietta…”

Garou patted my cheek and sighed.

“Certainly, black magic has the power to touch forbidden territory. It is the privilege of the demons that the God who created us has passed on to us.”

Garou stroked me as if I was a poor little animal. To me now, it was ridiculous that even his annoying warmth felt warm.

“But… But, Lilietta. This is just too obvious.”

Garou clasped my cheeks with both warm hands and uttered very normal words.

“The dead cannot come back alive.”

I know.

“The newborn baby who died without seeing a proper life…”

I know.

“Now it is nowhere to be found.”

I know everything. That I was the only one who could prove Lily’s death to Alan.

I was scared because I didn’t know how sad Alan would be if I just told him the truth. Because I would be that sad too.

I was more afraid to suffocate in sorrow than to be strangled.

It felt like my chest was clogged. It was the most painful feeling I had in a long time.

As I groaned and caught my breath, Garou hugged me and patted me on the back.

“I didn’t know you didn’t know anything. Judging from the looks of it, you seem to have a better ability to prophesy than me.”

“…Prophecy?”

“Yeah. I told you I could see the past.”

Garou nodded his head softly.

“It is also a kind of prophecy. The ability to peek into events that occurred at a time other than the present.”

“…….”

“Well, I never foresaw the future. If I had that much power, I would have already accomplished my purpose.”

I held on to what was in my hand. I realized later that it was Garou’s collar.

“Huh?”

Garou was looking at me with his narrowed eyes, and without warning, he hit the nail on the head.

“You must have? You have seen the future.”

“I…”

I was reincarnated into the novel <No Dreams and Hopes>.

…That was what I thought.

“I thought I was living in another world… I thought I was reincarnated into a novel…”

With a variety of races, a villain who lost his daughter, a protagonist who vowed revenge.

The pieces I had been putting together over the years had now taken shape.

But the most important memory was hazy like a foggy mist.

‘What kind of world did I originally live in?’

There was always a sense of dread.

Oddly enough, the novel’s content was vivid, but I couldn’t remember where or how I lived before my reincarnation. Whenever I thought of my past life, all I could think of was endless darkness.

“Haha, really? That’s understandable.”

Garou laughed as if my story was very interesting.

“I told you, for me it’s like I’m reading a book. In my case, I even got a title depending on how I felt at that time. It’s a force that is difficult to deal with.”

All the clues were connected. Alan never killed me.

Four years ago, feeling the crisis of death, I used my prophetic powers to see the future of death under Alan’s hand. And so far, I mistook all those prophecies to be the contents of a novel.

“…This is…”

The sky without sun and moon, the trees that showed false visions, the monsters that roamed the parched land.

All these sights were by no means made up of imagination.

“This is reality.”

The world I lived in was not a novel.

I was born on this land. I was a demon created in this world.

There was no place to return to in the first place.

Tears constantly flowed down my cheeks. Garou, who was patting my back, twisted my red hair around a single finger.

“Do you want me to comfort you?”

Garou’s face gradually drew closer. I just stared at it with blurred vision.

The moment the warm hand touched my cheek, I suddenly recalled Alan’s hand.

The touch of family that was infinitely tender.

Just before Garou’s lips touched mine, I pushed him on the chest. Whether he had fallen or not, I jumped up.

“I have to wake up.”

I couldn’t take Alan’s chance to mourn his dead daughter. I couldn’t possibly do that.

I couldn’t run away.

‘I won’t run away. I must return Lily’s body home.’

“Let me out. Hurry.”

“Don’t you still have a lot of questions?”

Garou sat on the ground and looked up at me, who was frantically looking around like a madman.

“Get some rest. Would you like some sweets?”

“No need…”

“If you get a good rest here, it will be easier to move in reality.”

Garou raised his index finger and spun it in the air. And he winked towards the huge World Tree.

“I was trying to take you to a deeper dream… I didn’t know that my identity would be discovered.”

Truly, he couldn’t possibly be here to save me. As expected, he had an evil plan. Come to think of it, I didn’t find out about Garou’s purpose at all because I kept inquiring about the demons.

“If you’re going to wake up, do it yourself. Because this dream was created by black magic.”

Garou shrugged and chuckled. It seemed that he had already figured out that I couldn’t use black magic properly.

“…….”

Instead of being annoyed with him, I turned my back to the World Tree and looked into the darkness.

The deep darkness was terrifying. When I looked in there, I felt lonely. That was why I had been running away from darkness all my life.

But this time it was different. I closed my eyes and held out my hands toward the darkness.

One thing was certain.

The power of the demons always grew by feeding on pain.

And now, I was experiencing the deepest despair of my life.