WTRM 10

Chapter 10

As time passed, she would no longer be able to act out the expressions and gaze in her eyes.

From the middle of hearing those words, Elisha could no longer hear anything Sohee was saying. Even before checking her life record, this manager had already seen through the sensitivity and anxiety revealed in her expression.

‘If even someone who just met me can tell….’

Then when had the people around her noticed?

Had they all been laughing at her?

Then what had all her efforts been for? What about all the effort she had made to hide the burning turmoil inside her, smiling and enduring it? Had all of it been nothing but a useless struggle? Had it all just been foolish behavior that only she was unaware of?

Her head began to spin.

That couldn’t be.

It couldn’t be like that.

“What do you know? How much could you possibly know about me!”

Elisha suddenly shot to her feet as though she could no longer stand it.

Anxiety, nervousness… So what?!

“You ugly thing!”

Elisha squeezed her eyes shut and shouted.

Her voice reverberated throughout the consultation room.

“…….”

Silence descended over the room.

With her eyes still closed, Elisha lowered her head.

She was the one who had shouted, yet for some reason, she felt as though tears were about to spill.

The humiliation, shame, and frustration of feeling as though everything had been exposed.

It felt as if the life she had lived had become a laughingstock, and she couldn’t bring herself to raise her head.

When she finally opened her trembling eyes, Sohee in front of her was completely frozen.

But that was only Elisha’s misunderstanding.

‘She’s supposed to be a villainess… and all she can say is “ugly thing”?’

Sohee looked at Elisha, who was trembling and barely managing to remain standing.

In the real world, Sohee had heard all kinds of things, including “damn beggar,” “orphan,” “freeloader,” and words too vile to even repeat.

Compared to those, honestly, wasn’t calling someone ugly something you could even say to someone you loved?

‘As expected, she’s much more emotionally weak and easily swayed than a typical villainess character.’

How could someone like this steal someone else’s body and live a long, peaceful life?

Absolutely not.

Sohee unconsciously shook her head lightly.

“…What are you thinking about right now?”

“What?”

When Sohee asked back, genuinely confused, Elisha’s face crumpled.

“You thought I was pathetic just now, didn’t you?”

“What are you talking about…?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know!”

You clearly shook your head as if you thought I was pathetic, so why are you pretending otherwise?!

“I’m perfectly fine with everything. Elisha, you haven’t done anything wrong.”

“I’m simply grateful that you took my place for me.”

“Everyone, Saintess Elisha has divine power too. Please don’t keep trying to distinguish between the real and the fake.”

The face of the real Saintess, who had turned her insides upside down while pretending to be benevolent, kind, and compassionate, suddenly overlapped with her vision.

Elisha’s expression turned cold.

“Looks like being called ugly doesn’t bother you anymore since you’ve heard it so often.”

Elisha no longer bothered hiding her contemptuous expression toward Sohee.

“Then you should at least have some ability. But apparently even that is terrible? You couldn’t even hire proper employees, so you only have two of them, and on top of that, they’re villagers who don’t even have real names? The rumors around here are everywhere.”

“…….”

“There are more than five people just guiding guests at the entrance of that hotel over there. And they’re even from novel extras, so they’re on an entirely different level from these villagers, aren’t they?”

For the first time, Sohee quietly lowered her eyes.

Elisha looked down at her with satisfaction, as though she had gained the upper hand.

“I think it’s only a matter of time before this motel goes under.”

As Sohee’s silent expression visibly darkened, Elisha felt somewhat relieved.

‘She’s nothing special.’

She had been the same.

Just like Sohee was doing now, she had often lowered her head, avoided the situation, or pretended not to know while swallowing her humiliation.

Because this had gone beyond a battle of pride.

It was outright insulting.

‘…Was that a little too much?’

As the uneasy silence dragged on, Elisha cautiously watched Sohee.

In truth, it was the first time in her life that she had actually said such vicious things out loud.

She wondered if she had gone too far and began to feel slightly nervous.

Just then, Sohee raised her head.

Elisha flinched and looked away, but Sohee smiled instead.

“Hotels are nice, aren’t they?”

“……?”

“To match someone of Elisha’s status, I suppose I should send you somewhere like that.”

Sohee stood up and tucked the file under her arm.

“As you can see, our circumstances here are rather poor, so I think you’d be better off going to a luxurious hotel instead of this shabby motel.”

“…What?”

She could tolerate being insulted herself to some extent.

This was a service job, and as someone who needed to attract customers and send them through 회빙환, she was completely in the subordinate position.

But she had no intention of tolerating anyone insulting her precious employees.

With a bright smile, she gently pressed Elisha’s trigger button.

“But do they accept a mere supporting character like a fake Saintess there?”

At the nearby front desk, Dal Hangari swallowed a deep sigh to himself.

He could hear screams of fury and the sound of things being smashed to pieces coming from inside the consultation room.

‘So Sohee. She absolutely refuses to lose.’

She had always done her best to prepare for 회빙환.

She never treated anyone carelessly and listened carefully to every story.

Of course, only as long as that person respected the line.

Treating the strong strongly, and the weak weakly.

That was what Dal Hangari had come to realize after watching Sohee for roughly three months.

Chairs and tables had been knocked over.

The back of Elisha’s neck had been scratched by her fingernails until blood seeped out, and her hair was a tangled mess.

The lace of her beautiful dress had been torn in several places.

Inside that room, only Sohee remained perfectly fine, sitting in her chair.

She quietly watched Elisha, who had collapsed onto the floor and was sobbing.

Sohee let her have her wild outburst without interference.

There was no emotion in her vacant eyes, but deep inside her chest, a profound resentment and anger had taken root.

Elisha shed tears one after another with an empty expression, like ashes after everything had burned away.

Sohee clicked her tongue inwardly.

Through the slightly torn sleeve, numerous scars of varying shades could be seen.

Far too many.

It probably wasn’t just her arms.

Her entire body beneath that dress was probably covered in scars like these.

Sohee let out a low sigh.

‘Has she been suppressing everything inside like this all along?’

She had worn the perfect Saintess’s mask while anxiety slowly consumed and corroded everything underneath.

The fear of becoming someone useless.

Elisha Brown had desperately endured because she didn’t want to be abandoned by the people she loved.

But as was always the case with the life of a villainess, it ended in betrayal and death.

That was necessary so that the Saintess, the protagonist, could shine even more brightly.

‘What’s so important about being loved? Why cling so desperately to some formless emotion?’

Sohee sighed in frustration.

Was it really right to crave affection from someone who didn’t like you?

Even if she succeeded, affection that was tilted toward one side from the very beginning carried a different weight.

Most likely, one side would spend their entire life yearning for more.

Was it really so impossible to give that up?

‘This isn’t something that can be understood through reason. There’s no way she’ll be persuaded.’

Sohee hardened her gaze.

“Get up.”

Elisha raised her tear-filled eyes and looked at Sohee.

Her black eyes held nothing.

Only unintentional tears continued streaming down her cheeks.

“I can’t grant what you want. So please leave now.”

Every soul undergoing 회빙환 was precious to Sohee, and filling the gourd with water was her only way to return to her own world.

But she couldn’t ignore her own standards for 회빙환 just to help Elisha possess someone else.

“I….”

A hoarse voice barely escaped Elisha.

After calming her emotions, she had come to her senses, yet she couldn’t bring herself to raise her head.

She felt as though Sohee had seen the absolute bottom of her, and even the excuse she managed to force out trembled.

“I-I… I’m not normally like this.”

Sohee gave a bitter smile at those words.

“I see. You’re not normally like this, but now that you’re dead, did you decide to just let yourself go?”

Elisha suddenly realized just how wrong everything had gone, and her mind went blank.

Sohee was right.

Before her death, she had been despised by the entire nation and ultimately beheaded, yet she hadn’t even been able to put up a proper struggle until the very end.

What had hurt the most was the contemptuous look in Cedric’s eyes, the man she loved.

Her feelings for him had been genuine, but after being branded a fake who had sought power, nothing she said had been believed.

Perhaps Sohee was right.

Maybe the reins had simply come loose.

She had always been forced to smile obediently while feeling as though her insides were burning, and yet a single word from Sohee had been enough to make her lose all reason and completely let herself go.

“You, you called me a fake Saintess, so I got so angry that….”

“Yes, that can happen. But I wonder if the things you said were very kind.”

Sohee’s voice was gentle, but her gaze had turned cold as ice.

Elisha bit her lip.

It had only been a few minutes ago that she had insulted the employees while comparing them to the hotel.

She hurriedly poured out her words.

“You, you think you know? Do you know how painfully I lived? Do you know how much being called a fake Saintess tormented me? It’s on an entirely different level from living comfortably here like you!”

“…….”

“I don’t know how much about me could possibly be written on that piece of paper, but you don’t know unless you’ve experienced it yourself. You can’t just say things like that so carelessly!”

Sohee remained silent for a moment.

Then, without hesitation, she opened the file and violently crumpled the paper.

The sheet of paper containing the condensed record of Elisha’s life was being mercilessly destroyed.