Even with her incredibly powerful regenerative abilities, Diana died after receiving so much damage and having her head severed.
The emotions she had been emitting ceased. Until the very end, those emotions felt warm to Renée.
Her severed head rolled away from her body and onto the snow. Her gentle smile, as if she were peacefully asleep, resembled a holy mother from a religious painting somewhere on Earth, or perhaps a statue of an angel.
Suddenly, that head, and Diana’s body with a hole in its abdomen, burst into flames.
Pale, brilliant blue flames licked over Diana’s body, consuming it like a burning candle melting away, leaving not even ashes behind. All that remained was her blood-soaked habit, completely unscorched, and the remnants of the silver whip.
“She… disappeared…?”
For some reason, Renée thought at that moment, ‘I’m glad she disappeared.’ She didn’t even understand the thought process behind it herself.
It wasn’t just Diana. The corpses of Benedict and Hugh also vanished in the same brilliant light. They had been lying on the snow, yet the flames hadn’t melted the snow at all.
“Was that… holy energy? What…”
『Oh, can you not hear Diana’s voice?』
A young girl’s voice came from nearby. It wasn’t something Renée heard with her ears, but a voice her soul heard.
When she looked up, the girl Renée had been using as a vessel was floating there.
『Of course. This magic is for protecting the soul from undead and evil gods.
The undead can’t hear the voice of someone embraced by God’s arms.』
“Iris…?”
Wavy blonde hair and violet eyes. A young female magician wearing a robe that was a little too big.
Iris looked down at Renée with a gaze of pity and contempt.
『“The final secret technique of the Moon Eater. Offer your body as a sacrifice to God and return to heaven with your soul. A guardian to prevent the body and soul from being handed over to an evil god. 【Coffin Stigma】”… That’s what she said. So Diana was a member of the Moon Eater. Diana isn’t here anymore. She had to go over there to pull us up.』
Confused and with her mind racing, Renée tried to understand the situation.
After death, it was to be avoided that one’s body would be turned into an undead soldier of an evil god, or that one’s soul would be captured and twisted into something evil. Therefore, high-ranking priests and royalty, who made it their business to fight the undead, would perform special rituals to protect their souls from being taken by evil beings after death.
Diana seemed to have prepared something similar.
“Diana…? Diana did?”
Without thinking, Renée looked up at the dark night sky, searching for Diana. Only darkness existed there.
No voice, no form.
The undead are those who have stopped time in the space between life and death.
They are not alive, but they cannot look into the world after death.
With this, Renée and Diana’s worlds were separated.
『Diana is kind, so I’ll say it for her. …You have no right to call her name.』
Iris’s words were sharp and cold.
Renée had killed everyone in the “Dragon’s Throat.” She had taken away what was important to Diana, and had even taken Diana’s life. To hope for pity after all this was simply asking too much.
The simple, obvious truth of it all struck Renée with unbelievable force.
—There was nothing else she could have done. Once the battle started, the option of not killing Diana disappeared. There was nothing else she could have done. Nothing else, nothing else…
『Serves you right. That’s your punishment. If you kill indiscriminately for revenge, you’ll eventually kill someone precious to you. The poor princess will suffer alone, for every life she’s taken.』
Her violet eyes narrowed sadistically, as if seeing through Renée’s anguish, even the parts she herself wasn’t aware of.
No matter how much of a genius magician she was, Iris was still just a child in terms of life experience.
And yet, even Iris could see through her, so much so that Renée…
Suddenly, Iris looked up at somewhere high above.
Then she made a troubled face.
『…I’m sorry, Diana. Even if it’s Diana’s request, I can’t convey that message. I have no intention of forgiving this child.』
Diana.
Diana, who was in a place out of Renée’s reach, seemed to have said something.
And she had asked Iris to relay a message, which Iris had refused.
Renée wanted to know what Diana had said.
There was no way she could.
She couldn’t speak.
『Goodbye.』
Iris waved her hand lightly, and her soul vanished.
Abruptly. As if nothing had been there from the beginning.
Embraced by the arms of God, she was separated from Renée, the unclean undead.
The cursed red blade slipped from Renée’s hand and stabbed into the snow.
Literally holding her head, Renée fell to her knees.
“Ah, aah, aaaaaaaah!!”
—“You’ve become a monster, even in your heart”…? If that’s the case, what is this feeling of loss and… despair!
That emotion was not guilt. Just as with Benedict and Hugh, Renée felt absolutely no remorse for killing Diana.
However, she could no longer meet Diana, who had thought of Renée until her last moments.
The emotion Renée felt was very similar to the feeling of a child who had lost their mother, longing for and grieving for her.
And this time, it wasn’t a knight of the royal prince’s faction. Renée herself had cut her head off.
The regret of ruining something irreplaceable and precious with her own hands drove its fangs into Renée’s heart, threatening to swallow her whole.
Renée had only ever interacted with Diana as Iris.
The words Diana had spoken to Renée were originally meant for Iris. It couldn’t be called proper communication.
But even in that situation, Renée was fulfilled. Renée had sought Diana’s maternal affection, seeking a replacement for the mother she had lost.
To a traveler parched in the desert, even a few drops of water would be a heavenly nectar. It was the same.
A broken vessel cannot hold water, but it receives moisture while it is being poured.
And in the end… she had prayed for Renée’s salvation, not as Iris, but as Renée.
‘There’s nothing left but revenge’? Surely that’s true. But that didn’t mean that ‘everything other than revenge is meaningless.’
Renée was not a machine for revenge.
Even if she clad herself in the armor of transcendent power from the evil god’s cheat blessings and her life experience from her previous life, in the end, Renée was just a wounded girl who had become a vengeful spirit, holding onto her resentment and pain, simply wanting to be held by her mother again. Renée had forgotten that. Now she remembered.
『I don’t know much about politics. But I just can’t believe that people who make little kids make that kind of face are decent people.』 『You little! Saying such cuuute things!』 『If, hypothetically, the you who isn’t Iris wanted me to cherish you, I probably would.』 『Because you wanted me to cherish you, didn’t you…?』 『I don’t want you, or any other children, to have that kind of face. I want you to smile.』 『Anything… I hope you find happiness that makes you think, ‘I don’t need revenge anymore.’』 『But… those guys did something terrible to a young girl…』 『Especially a girl’s smile is like magic in itself…』 『Getting angry is bad for your body and mind…』 『It’s poison.』 『I can’t just leave a cute girl making that kind of face alone.』 『It’s none of my business, but I…』 『People shouldn’t use magic that shouldn’t be used…』 『Before I die, I want time to pray with my comrades… and for you…』 『I told you, didn’t I? You looked so sad that I wanted to stop you.』 『…I hope your soul finds peace. I’m not asking for much, just that…』 『It’s okay to cry, Princess.』 『It’s okay to be fashionable… and if you can, maybe even fall in love.』 『Haha… You’re such a lonely one.』 『…I hope my prayers can change your fate…』 『You’re pitiful, and I wanted to do what I could for you…』 『I… will resent the people who made you like this.』 『…Good luck. I’ll always be watching over you.』
『I wanted you… to live a normal life as a girl.』
“Uwaaaaaaaah!
Uwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!”
A blade was thrust into the depths of her chest.
Her heart twisted.
The same pain she felt in that living hell that stole all human dignity, the pain of her heart twisting.
Renée shook her head violently, still holding it.
But. Suddenly, an electronic sound rang out nearby, bringing her back to her senses.
A melody from the depths of her memory, something she’d heard somewhere before. Or rather, a sound effect.
The old-fashioned ringtone of “piriririririri.”
“Eh…? What? What’s that sound…?”
Something emitting the sound was in her robe pocket.
Renée stood up unsteadily and reached into her robe pocket. Her hand bumped into something hard.
When she pulled it out, it was a button-type mobile phone, something that was already becoming rare on Earth before her reincarnation. The kind they called a “flip phone.”
There’s no way something like this should exist in this world. And besides, there was nothing in her robe pocket just a moment ago.
When Renée picked up the phone, the ringtone stopped on its own, and an extremely inorganic synthesized voice began to play.
『This is the Evil God Network Cheat Service Support Bureau. The cooling-off period for the cheat you have received ends today at 24:00. If you wish to cancel, press 1. Otherwise, press 2. This is the Evil God Network Cheat Service Support Bureau…』
It was, obligingly, the voice of the evil god himself.
—Has it been… a month since then?
That cursed day when she was beheaded on the execution platform. The day she met the evil god. The beginning of Renée’s revenge.
The evil god who granted Renée power had set a one-month cooling-off period. If she didn’t like the cheat, she could return it within this period and sleep peacefully.
Renée looked up sharply (more accurately, she turned the face she held in her left hand upwards).
If she returned the cheat now and stopped being undead…
Would she be able to reunite with her mother, who was guillotined, in heaven? Would she be able to jump into her mother’s arms, cry about how much it hurt, how scared she was, cry until she was exhausted, and then sleep peacefully? Would her mother gently stroke her hair as she always did?
Would she be able to follow Diana? If she met her again… and apologized for everything, would she hold her, not as Iris, but as Renée? Of course, Iris would make a disgusted face. Would she be able to hear from her, what she was trying to convey?
According to the church, people are judged by God only for their sins in life (the doctrine probably exists because it would be unfair to count the sins after death for those who became/were made undead). If that were true, there should be no problem going to heaven. Renée’s sins in life were only things like accidentally stepping on a line of ants crossing the road.
No. Even if she could only meet her mother and Diana again, she wouldn’t mind if her destination afterward was hell. If discarding the cheat blessing bestowed by the evil god and receiving the judgment of the Great God would be atonement for what Renée had done since then…
Renée.
Renée gritted her teeth.
『…The cooling-off period for the cheat you have received ends today at 24:00. If you wish to cancel, press 1. Otherwise, press 2…』
The voice, which had entered its third loop, was cut off.
Because Renée had slashed the mobile phone with her red blade.
“Even so…”
Renée shouted, watching the mobile phone crumble and dissolve into the air.
“Even so… I have nothing left but revenge!
I am an avenger. The ‘Rose Princess of Resentful Prison.’ Renée ‘Rosy like a Rose’ Luvia Ciel-Terra.
The curtain of this revenge play will not fall until this resentment is cleared. I won’t let anyone pull it down!!”
Even if she was selfish. Even if she was an irredeemable evil. Even if she was alone.
Renée was too wounded to be saved, and too resentful to atone.
Therefore.
She would only fight.
She would only carry out her revenge!
Until she kills her enemies, destroys the country, and this blade reaches God…
—…Fight!!
Stepping on the snow, Renée stood up and wiped away the tears that had welled up without her noticing.
“Wash your necks and wait.
Traitorous Knight Captain Lawrence…! Usurper Hilbert…!!”
What resided in the girl’s chest was not righteous indignation. Not justice.
The girl who had everything taken from her, simply resented, and resented. And she began to walk again, driven by the black flames of resentment that were about to burst through her small body and burn like a prairie fire.