I Reject The Villainess’s Ending - Chapter 3

With Iros’ help, I went to meet the people I had harassed with the intent of apologising.

When I first arrived, everyone stared at me and started to tremble in fear.

It was expected, but it still brought a bitter taste in my mouth.

If it hadn’t been for the memories of my previous life, I don’t know how many more people I would have tortured as the villain who was blackening.

If that had been the case, my end would undoubtedly be a death penalty.

Thinking so, I felt fortunate to have gained the memories of ‘Kim So-won’, who had a normal mentality in the previous life.

“I’m sorry. For insulting, whipping and firing you from your job as I pleased.”

“S-Saintess, why are you doing this? Are you going to drag us somewhere and kill us off…..”

“No. I’m sincerely reflecting on my actions. So I’m here to apologise. You don’t have to forgive me. Because I know best what I have done.”

Staring into their terror-filled eyes, I bowed my head and apologised for my mistakes.

I never intended to seek forgiveness in the first place.

After that, I used my overflowing divine power to heal the wounds and scars I caused.

While healing a girl who had a severe burn on her face from the hot tea I had splashed onto her, I became dejected as I couldn’t even remember the name of the crying girl.

‘I was really a piece of trash.’

Although I had visited dozens of people to apologise the entire day, I couldn’t eat properly and only went around apologising for the whole week.

Yet, there still seem to be more than half of the people I needed to ask forgiveness from.

“Sigh. Once I was healed, she apologised again. She even gave me a lot of money as compensation. Though, I hope I won’t have to go back to work.”

“Why is that?”

“Obviously……because I don’t want to.”

To be honest, if it was me, even I wouldn’t want to go back to work.

It was because I had violently tortured everyone around me; the maid, servant, young priest, coachman, gardener– everyone.

I could see why the temple often suffered from a lack of manpower. Everyone was fired because of me and now there is no one around to work.

The more that I think about it, my actions appear to be endless.

Sitting at a table outside, Iros comforted me as I nibbled on my sandwich sadly.

“They may not like you, but you apologised and said that it would never happen again, so they won’t hate or despise you as much as they used to.”

“Pink, I think I just heard the word ‘hate’.”

“You’re mistaken.”

“Really?”

“……”

He couldn’t even lie. Even if he tried hiding his expression or worked hard to keep his pupils from trembling.

It was clearly a lie, but it was cute that he was attempting to comfort me.

“Ah, I guess I should apologise to you too.”

“Are you talking to me, saintess?”

He stared at me with his lavender eyes wide open and an expression that seemed to say ‘you meant me?’. At that innocent gaze, I felt a stab in my conscience.

“You were the one who stayed by my side the longest and listened to my madness the most.”

Iros Elijah was the one who accepted my filthy personality the most. Apart from sleeping and washing up, we were together all the time.

I couldn’t leave him alone when I saw that stoic yet pretty face and sculptured-like muscles which were accustomed to my taste. Well, Sierra’s to be exact.

Sierra tormented him a lot, taking advantage of Iros’ righteous personality, who deeply cared about the weak more than anyone else.

When a maid had made a mistake, she asked the stiffened Iros playfully, whether she should punish her or let her be.

‘Tell me how I should forgive her and let her go.’

Sierra was delighted to see Iros shut his mouth and cast away his pride. She gave him all sorts of shameful commands.

Take off his shirt, kiss her feet and pamper her all night.

Afterwards, not being able to refute, Iros heeded Sierra’s commands one by one.

‘Ah, this was a Rated-19 novel.’

Since then, Iros occasionally entered Sierra’s bedroom under her demands.

This was how it was described in the novel.

[ A face as pretty as a swaying peony, a firm body with bulging muscles as though they were about to burst, contrasting his stoic personality. And that incredible size…–]

Get out of my head, you lewd devil!

I shook my head hard, but the image of Iros, who was experiencing all kinds of shame in this world, appeared from Sierra’s memory.

This body vividly remembers the feeling of sweeping her fingertips against the reddened eyes that were nearly brimming in tears.

“I’m sorry. I’m trash. A rare piece of garbage that can’t be recycled, burnt or rot even if it’s buried!”

I shouted while removing the cabbage from my sandwich. I didn’t like vegetables so I removed them before exclaiming once again from the bottom of my heart.

“What do you mean trash? How can you say that?”

“Aw, pink…”

“That’s rude to the trash.”

“…..”

Oh, yeah. I guess that’s true? I think so as well.

In response to Iros’ dry statement, I nodded my head pitifully and swallowed my tears. I guess I’m not even worthy of being called trash.

When I became gloomy, Iros calmly lowered his gaze and asked.

“Why are you apologising to me all of a sudden? You’re not one to feel guilty.”

Though, that was originally Sierra because she was hell-bent on the idea of destroying the entire world.

But now I already know Sierra’s entire life and her tragic ending, as it was narrated in a third-person point of view in the novel.

After reading that, nothing felt the same as before.

Was I actually Sierra or Kim So-won?

Maybe I was both.

“Anyway, I guess God had given me consciences when I died and came back to life. I’m a human being too, so I can’t be free from guilt.”

While muttering an excuse, I suddenly became curious. In the novel, Sierra never died this early, or died and came back to life.

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

I tried to remember if she died, but I couldn’t recall such an event.

“Pink.”

“Yes.”

“Do you remember when I died?”

“Huh?”

Iros widened his eyes slightly, wondering what I meant by that before realising it and slowly nodded his head.

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

“Tell me about it in detail.”

“Are you up to something bad again….”

“Hurry up.”

As he had not experienced my whims for a day or two, Iros made a familiar expression when I cut off his words and urged him. Then, he started tracing back his memories.

I stood straight to listen, waiting for him to open his mouth. After a while, Iros, who possessed a great memory, opened his mouth.

“At that time, Saintess had said that you wanted to eat a strawberry cake, so you skipped the morning ritual and went to have a snack in the garden. While you were having tea and eating the cake, you suddenly died.”

“I checked the cake and tea, just to be sure, but there was no poison in either of them.”

When I stared into Iros’ eyes, it held no secret and appeared to be telling the truth.

Due to his personality, it was reliable since there was no way he would skim over the poison test lightly.

“Then, was it just a heart attack? Something else? Maybe the situation was somewhat unusual than before.”

“Not at all. It was just like usual.”

“Then, what’s the problem?”

“Come to think of it, the saintess did say something strange.”

“Me? What do you mean?”

After pausing for a while, Iros tilted his head and muttered.

“‘There really is God.’ was what you said.”

“God?”

Why did I say that? Although I was called God’s chosen saintess, I never actually believed in the existence of God.

Instead, I was more of an atheist.

“What did I do on the previous day? Was there anything special?”

“Well, you had prayed in the Great Temple until it almost reached midnight.”

“If it’s the Great Temple, then it’s the place where the deities are enshrined. Did I pray in a place where one only prays once a year on New Year, on a day that was not even the new year?”

Usually, I would never go there. I disliked it since it was entirely white and the atmosphere was dense, making it humid.

So praying there until late at night was not something I would do unless a sword was pointed at my head.

This clearly smells very suspicious.

“Pink, have you ever seen me pray?”

“Actually, that day was the first time I’ve seen you pray.”

“I see. I’ve never done it before except once when I first came to the temple.”

Prayers. It didn’t seem like I would ever pray for the good. If I had, it would rather be a prayer for the destruction of the empire.

Iros nodded his head as if he agreed.

“It’s definitely suspicious. I can’t believe I died the day after I prayed.”

“You always talk as if it was someone else.”

“Because I don’t remember.”

“……”

I ignored the frozen Iros who was stunned by my words and stuffed the rest of the sandwich into my mouth.

“Let’s go and apologise today.”

“I have the carriage ready.”

“Yes, thank you.”

“……”

“What’s wrong?”

I titled my head, staring at Iros whose body had stiffened again.

Lately, he kept flinching and staring at me with a strange look.

“You keep saying thank you to me.”

“So?”

“I’m not used to…such kind words.”

“……”

Now thinking about it, the original Sierra would rather order him to strip than say thank you.

It’s impossible for her to say thank you with that twisted personality which only dreams of destroying the world.

It wasn’t because she wasn’t grateful, but rather because she always felt it was normal.

I tugged Iros’ sleeve and met his gaze.

“I want to thank you. Thank you for listening to my demands and thank you for being by my side and helping me in many ways. I wasn’t able to express myself well in the past, but I’ll express myself a lot in the future.”

“That’s what I feel awkward about.”

“I’m serious, Pink. No, Iros.”

When I called his name for the first time, his purple eyes that resembled violets, widened in surprise.

The light reflected from the table filled those pupils and shone in different colours[1].

Iros lowered his long lashes and smiled very gently. He removed a crumb and wiped the corner of my mouth with his thumb.

“Things like that doesn’t sound very cool when a piece of bread is stuck in your mouth like this.”

“Ah. Well, I didn’t mean to act cool.”

I wasn’t even a child. At the thought that there was something on my face while claiming I was being serious made my face flush in embarrassment. I grumbled heedlessly.

Iros looked down at me as I grumbled and whispered softly.

“But, I still like it. When saintess calls me pink.”

“Huh?”

I froze at those unexpected words.

“Because it means that I’m closer to you than others when you call me by that nickname.”

His face, which held a faint smile after whispering that, was so pretty that I was left staring at him blankly for a long time.