Chapter 8

A sudden deep voice echoed from the audience.

Pellio, with his silver eyes sharply shining, was glaring at Ermedillin, though it was unclear when he had arrived.

"That's right. Through saliva or blood… diseases can be transmitted…"

Ermedillin almost inadvertently blurted out the words "virus" and "bacteria" but quickly changed her statement.

However, the suddenly chilled atmosphere made her feel as though she had said something wrong, and she began to look around for clues from those nearby.

But Pellio left reality without a word or a glance back.

'What, what's that?'

Her puzzlement was brief, and as she turned her head, she saw Velia's serious face.

No, more than serious, her expression seemed to sink somewhere infinitely deep.

Her two grayish- blue eyes were getting darker and darker, sinking like a deep and dark abyss.

'What, what's that? Did I really say something strange?'

Unlike the murmuring people, Velia persistently stared at Ermedillin with an expressionless face to the end.

Finally, the local nobles' turn ended, and the people began to enter reality.

Fortunately, Ermedillin did not see the hate- filled eyes she had feared, nor did she hear any words of curse.

Nobody even dared to look at the empress or wanted to talk to her.

They just treated her as if she didn't exist.

However, Ermedillin could feel it clearly.

The vortex of fear and hatred that enveloped this vast reality.

'This feels bad in its own way.'

It might have been better if they cursed or poured abuse.

Being perfectly isolated in a crowd is no more pleasant than being hated.

'It's all the same noise.'

It was slowly getting boring.

The well- known epidemics and the tragic stories tangled with unrest at the border, which were not detailed in the novel, and the drought.

Joy does not easily wear off, but tragedy does.

Unfortunately, the emotional limit is much more quickly reached when faced with tragedy.

A bored heart is slightly overtaken by boredom, and Pellio appeared as if he had just returned.

'Ah, should I ask why he ran out earlier? I have to meet him at least once more for the trial anyway.'

However, contrary to her thoughts, Ermedillin did not feel very comfortable looking at Pellio.

His cold appearance matched his cold attitude.

Moreover, wasn't he a supporting character who hated her enough to burn her to death in the original work?

It's no wonder that she felt a chill down her spine whenever she saw him.

"Aaaaah!!"

While she was lost in thought, a sudden scream made Ermedillin turn her head.

A young baby in its parent's arms was vomiting bloody red puke.

"It's, it's the plague!! Aaaaaaaaaa!!"

The parent holding the child was too bewildered to know what to do, and the rest of the people were hastily leaving reality for fear of catching the disease. The interior soon became chaotic.

"Call the priest, call the priest!!"

The soldiers escorting Anri blocked the front and shouted for a priest.

The guards were surrounding only Anri and Velia, very naturally excluding Ermedillin.

'Even so, this is too much!'

Although she was the wicked villainess, she was still the reigning empress, and this discrimination was too much for Ermedillin to handle.

As she was about to protest, she noticed the baby, who had been vomiting, was turning increasingly blue.

"Ah, if left like that, she'll suffocate!"

Ermedillin's body moved almost reflexively at the thought that the baby might die.

The baby's parents were terrified and stepped back as Ermedillin approached, but Ermedillin was faster and picked up the baby.

The baby's body in her arms was so small and frail.

Ermedillin laid the baby on the floor and scraped the dark red vomit filling the mouth with her hand.

"Baby! Hang in there! You can't die! You can't!!"

She put her hand into the baby's throat to scrape out the vomit, and she could feel the baby's breathing stabilizing little by little.

"Breathe! Baby!! Breathe!! Please!!"

As soon as the airway was cleared, Ermedillin hesitated no longer and started artificial respiration on the baby's mouth, covered with vomit.

She wanted to perform CPR as she once learned, but she was afraid the fragile body would break, and hesitated. In the meantime, Priest Luiz arrived.

Luiz looked more surprised at Ermedillin, sitting on the floor in tears, than the baby on the floor.

But, like a veteran priest, he soon collected his emotions and started examining the baby.

"She almost choked to death. Thankfully, Your Majesty the Empress seemed to have taken proper action."

"Is the baby… is the baby okay?"

Luiz nodded quietly to Ermedillin, who was trembling with fear.

"It is an initial symptom of the plague, but it is treatable."

"Ah, I see."

Relief washed over her, and all the tension in her body relaxed.

Ermedillin sat down on the floor in a daze, looking at the baby who had regained regular breathing, and gave a complicated smile.

"I'm glad I could save you this time."

The people remaining in the reality, especially those who personally knew Ermedillin, were surprised at the situation with various expressions.

Anri kept his face calm like a sovereign, hiding his trembling heart, Valierre clenched his fist so hard that the nails drew blood, shaking all over.

Pellio also maintained a relatively calm attitude, but his eyelids were twitching and he could not stop them.

Even Priest Luiz showed a compassionate face when looking at the child, but when he looked at Ermedillin sitting on the floor, he sent an inscrutable expressionless gaze and approached her.

"I remember… I remember it all…"

"Your Majesty the Empress?"

"Yes… That's what happened…"

"Your Majesty the Empress!!"

At Luiz's urging, consciousness returned to Ermedillin's eyes.

"Since you have been in contact with a patient who may have the plague, you must be purified."

"Purified?"

"Yes."

'Is it something like disinfection? Then do it, why the grave face?'

"If necessary, I must."

"Are you serious?"

"Eh?"

"If you purify with divine power, you won't be able to use the power of blood for about two days."

"Ah...."

'Curses and blessings are opposite, so this is it. But I don't want to die of disease after coming to this world…'

"It doesn't matter. The Empress cannot fall ill in such a turbulent political situation, can she?"

"Understood. I will purify you right away."

A dazzling but somehow gentle light enveloped Ermedillin's body for a moment and then disappeared.

"Is it done?"

"Yes. You will be safe from the plague for the time being."

"Thank you."

Glancing at the reaction, Luiz still seemed to find it awkward to hear the word thank you from the Empress's mouth.

'Ha… I still have a long way to go. Why does my life keep going like this?'

The almost astonished eyes of the people, and even Henri's praise, did not give Ermedillin any particular excitement.

It was because the memories of being possessed at the time, which had just been hovering like a fog, came to mind.

Her lover of 7 years spoke to her like this and left her.

"I've been really grateful all this time. But now, I want to quit living hand to mouth. I want to enjoy the virtues of family too."

The lover, with whom she grew up in the orphanage and dated as soon as they became adults, handed her an envelope.

"I've put it in earnestly. It's not to belittle you or anything. Just because I'm grateful… so that's why."

She wanted to throw the envelope back, refusing such money, but obediently, she accepted the money envelope.

In the face of reality, her pride was helpless against the money she had poured out for her lover's college and civil service exams.

With a calm face, she opened the envelope and looked inside.

At a glance, it was a much larger amount than what she had squeezed out of his salary without her knowing.

"A bit much?"

"It's not for repaying debt. It's your heart, so just take it."

"Okay. Thank you."

Although a 7- year relationship was ending like this, she put the money envelope in her pocket with a composed face.

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah."

His father was a judge, his mother was a prosecutor, and his brother was a lawyer.

Such a family would make a good background for him, who had no connections.

She didn't really resent him.

She knew better than anyone how lonely and desperate it is to stand alone in a world without anyone.

She had also contributed to her boyfriend's savings and helped him, but her boyfriend had run 4 private lessons at the same time and slept only two hours a day for several years.

His always sallow eyes and pale, slender wrists without vitality come to mind.

He who would meet her with a tired face as if he was about to die but always showed her a bright smile.

He who managed to get surgery money when she had emergency surgery because of her appendix.

He who studied for his exams under the dim light of the waiting room as he spent the night outside her hospital room full of women.

Thanks to him, she felt like she could accomplish anything.

She thought it was really fortunate that she was not alone.

But now all those memories are about to become a meaningless past and disappear.

"Yeah. You've struggled to seize the opportunity. Go up as far as you can."

Rather than resenting him, she wanted to cheer him on.

But separately from that, she didn't want to live any longer. In an instant, her reason to live disappeared.

So she went to the Han River.

The Han River at night looked more like a dark, profound creature than a river.

When she tried to jump in, resentment and disgust came rushing at her.

"Yeah. Is that kind of breakup a big deal? Have I been living all this trouble just because of him until now? No!"

When she felt her chest, she could feel the thick money envelope she had just received.

"With this money, I can even pay my college tuition and have some left over! If I combine it with the money I've saved, I can even graduate from college! Why die now? I can study too! I'll succeed completely, climb higher than him, and appear with a bang!!"

Once she had a goal, suddenly her zest for life sprang up.

"What should I major in? I haven't thought about it."

"I have to go to Noryangjin, right? Will my brain work at this point?"

'I only need to sleep for two hours, too! What can that kid do that I can't?'

Various thoughts in mind, Hyeyoung was returning to her rented room with excitement when a sight that should not have been seen caught her eye.

A small child, wearing clothes that were undoubtedly dirty and ragged, was wandering the road.

And a car, not seeing the small child, speeding up.

'No!!'

The orphanage was a reasonable place, but it was not affluent.

Sick children could receive medical support, but it could never be the same as having a mother to tend to them all day long.

Once she grew up, Hyeyoung always took it upon herself to comfort and console her sick siblings whenever they would whimper.

If she had a mother, wouldn't she have done this for her? Imagining such, she soothed her siblings.

Most of the siblings got up and brushed themselves off if their illness was not serious, but during her time in the facility, Hyeyoung lost three siblings to disease and accidents.

She hated the children dying.

That small body, which was bursting with the vitality of life just a while ago, the sight of it limply stretching out, lifeless, was something she truly did not want to see again.

'No!! I said no!!'

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This novel has been translated up to chapter 96.

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