Chapter 223

Chapter 223

I sat in front of Eris as she started her story. She held her hands for a while.

“What is that you have to confess?”

I felt a chill down my spine. Eris hesitated for a moment before she started talking.

“To be honest, the first time I met you wasn’t at the masked ball.”

“Ah, you said you met me at the central temple…”

“No, it was way, way before. It was around 100 years ago.”

“What?”

How absurd. Was Eris like 120 years old? Eris blushed as she noticed the way I was looking at her.

“Don’t look at me like that. I’m the same age as you.”

“Then what are you talking about? You remember your past life or something?”

Did Eris live in Korea her past life like me? But my guess was wrong.

“It wasn’t like that, but it might be similar. When I first met you, it was in His Majesty’s room. You were dying from his sword.”

I froze. What she was referring to was clear.

‘Is she talking about the original novel?’

Eris seemed to have misunderstood why I froze.

“I’m sorry. I know this isn’t the best story. It didn’t happen this time.”

This time? Eris kept saying something that didn’t make sense.

She rolled her eyes as she pondered and then sighed.

“I’ve returned over 50 times from the desolated world.”

“… Returned?”

“It meant that I’ve come back in time.”

Eris smiled bitterly and started her story. I held my clothes tightly as I focused on the story.

Her story was astonishing.

The original novel was Eris’s ‘first’ story. Surprisingly, her beginning was the same as the novel I know, ‘ The Destroyer of the World.’ Eris and Ridrian fell in love, and Ridrian ended the world after losing her.

Unfortunately, the novel ended like that, but Eris’s life didn’t. She returned about three years earlier and lived the same life. The problem was that those returns happened about 50 times, and she finally arrived at the current situation.

“Every time the world ended, I came back to that day three years earlier. Even though the reason for my death and when I died was different, I always returned.”

There was deep remorse on Eris’s face. Her life was like a tragedy, living a life with the same time over and over again with no end. What would it feel like to live a life that never ends and always repeats?

By the time her story ended, she had covered her face with her hands. Her shoulders were trembling a little.

“I’ve tried my best to change it. To make it so that His Majesty wouldn’t go berserk, that I wouldn’t die, so many different attempts to trying to stop the world’s end.”

She sighed.

“But I’ve failed every time.”

Eris looked up slowly. There weee no tears in her eyes as if she cried it all out during all those years.

“So that’s how we got here. But I suddenly realized after I returned this time. There was one method I haven’t attempted.”

I flinched at her voice which was full of grudge. What was the method Eris realized after a hundred years of failure? People that are cornered tend to think of something drastic.

“… What is it?”

I asked carefully. Then I flinched at the way Eris was looking at me. How did I not notice this until now? The way she looked at me was always the same.

One could call it madness.

“If we kill His Majesty, the world won’t end. It’s Ridrian that ends the world.”

***

“I see you’re having an interesting conversation.”

I could hear Recaldo’s voice over the door. As I stood up in surprise, the table with food was knocked over. No, it almost did.

“My, you should be careful. The food here is scarce.”

The table and food were floating as he used magic. I stared blankly as it all slowly landed.

“I came thinking you would be eating, but I see you’re storytelling. Allow me to join.”

Recaldo looked at Eris coldly for a moment. But then he smiled softly as if nothing happened. His smile was beautiful, but it was fake.

“You must be curious as to why I’m calling her a liar, Miss Iona.”

“I am, but don’t say my name.”

I didn’t want this demon to use a name that my precious acquaintances called.

He chuckled.

“Then, Theres’s arrangement… Hm, how about the daughter of the Goddess?”

“Just call me Lesprey.”

“Saintess it is.”

This demon! It was clear he was trying to provoke me.

“A few months ago, this woman randomly appeared at my place. She somehow knew I was a demon, lied, and asked me to kill His Majesty.”

My shoulders flinched. To think that Eris, who loved Ridrian for almost a hundred years, really wanted to kill him. At that moment, I suddenly remembered how she was treating Ridrian at the masked ball.

“Oh my, if you don’t like His Majesty, how do you want me to call you? Perhaps Rian?”

Does she hate him now that she has had to return so many times?

Eris responded.

“I never lied.”

“But you did hide something.”

“That’s…!”

Eris couldn’t refute it and just bit her lips. Recaldo smiled threateningly.

“To say that if I kill him when the moons overlap. I almost destroyed the key myself if I didn’t find that old book.”

He called Ridrian “the key.” His smile deepened.