At my words, Louis picked up the quill pen, his hand trembling violently.

“Maybe it’s because I’ve written so many novels in your place. I’ve gotten pretty good at making up this kind of fiction. Now, come on—sign here.”

I pointed out every line that required his signature. But Louis hesitated, quill still in hand. One look was enough to tell that he was reluctant to sign.

“Or is it that you want to be hit again?”

When I smiled brightly, Louis shook his head. Then, slowly, he signed the divorce papers.

At last, I had what I wanted.

“Well done, Louis. Now sign here too.”

I urged him to sign the document stating that he would not hold me responsible in the future.

“Uuugh!”

Louis sobbed as he scribbled his signature there as well. I waited until he had signed every single document, then gathered them all up and slipped them neatly into a paper envelope.

“Mm. Now then—only Miss Hursel is left.”

I smiled sweetly.

“Me…? Y-you mean me too?”

I had done nothing more than smile, yet Olivia began to tremble violently, stopping mid-bite as she ate her tea and cake.

“I don’t know what you’re planning, but please don’t do this, Mia. Please.”

She clasped her hands together and bowed repeatedly, begging. Perhaps she truly meant it. Or perhaps not.

“Mia, please—don’t do this to a friend. We got along so well, didn’t we? I’m begging you like this, see?”

Was she trying to make me laugh out loud?

“Miss Hursel, since when were we friends?”

“Mia, please. Please. I think there’s been some kind of misunderstanding—”

The moment that nonsense slipped from her throat, I grabbed her by the hair and yanked.

“Since when were you and I friends?”

I had intended to be gentle with her, but my mood soured instantly.

“Aaah! Mia! Please!”

All I’d done was grab her hair, yet Olivia burst into loud sobs. Such a small pair of eyes, and yet the tears poured out endlessly. Before long, they mixed with her runny nose until it was impossible to tell which was which.

“Miss Hursel, listen to me for a moment.”

At my words, Olivia nodded frantically, trembling all the while.

“Louis brought hundreds of women into this estate. And I got rid of them—one by one. Blinded by jealousy, you see.”

In that instant, Louis tried to lunge toward me.
It was as if he were demanding, How dare you kill my women?

“At first, I couldn’t sleep, wracked with guilt, wondering if I really had the right to do such a thing. But later on, it all started to feel perfectly natural.”

Everything I’d just said belonged to a past life. In this one, I hadn’t killed anyone. But there was no need to correct that misunderstanding. I simply smiled.

“Miaaaa!”

Perhaps because of that, Louis began to shake even harder, the whites of his eyes streaked red as he tried to lunge at me again. But Eric, who stood at my side, blocked him, preventing him from coming any closer.

“A-are you going to kill me too? M-me too?”

Olivia’s slender shoulders trembled nonstop, like leaves quivering in the wind.

“P-please spare me! Please! I beg you! I’ll do anything you tell me! Anything! Please!”

In the end, she begged for her life.

Watching her like that made me think of the Olivia who had tormented me so cruelly in a past life—and it made me laugh.

“Oh, no. Why would you say something so hurtful?”

What I’d learned from living countless lives was this: k*lling someone just because you’re annoyed is truly empty. It ends everything right there.

If you really hate someone, you should torment them slowly—over a long, long time.

Why else would nobles sentenced to beheading beg the executioner to finish it in one clean stroke—offering gold coins in exchange?

“Things with a green hue tend to be rare. Especially green dye—it’s a color humans have a hard time producing.”

For a split second, Olivia’s pupils shook violently.

“But every woman I killed ate green desserts.”

I leaned in close to her ear and whispered softly.

“Why do you think that is?”

My eyes curved into a pretty crescent as I smiled. At the same time, Olivia gagged violently, trying to vomit up everything she’d just eaten. Watching that, I burst into light, girlish laughter.

“Miss Hursel, just because you ate a little doesn’t mean you’ll die right away.”

What I’d mixed into the cake and tea was green dye.
People usually associate dye with bitterness, but this one was unusual—it had a sweet taste. About fifteen years from now, it would be banned as a toxic substance, lethal if consumed in excess.

So would Olivia die?

No.

“I adjusted the concentration so you won’t die, so don’t worry. You’ll go right up to the threshold of death—and then come back.”

In the past, I’d poured it in almost undiluted, baking cakes that killed Louis’s mistresses on the spot.

I think I kept that up until around my fortieth regression.
Or was it after I gave up on counting that I stopped? My memory’s a bit hazy.

“I really hope you live a long, long life, Miss Hursel.”

In any case, Olivia was the first person I’d fed this to in this lifetime. It had been a while since I last used it, so I couldn’t quite remember how strong the effect would be—but as long as it didn’t kill her, that was enough, wasn’t it?

“So that you can understand—even a little—how much I suffered, how much blood and tears I shed.”

I finished speaking with a bright, pleasant smile.

A moment later, Olivia vomited blood.

“Aaaah! I don’t want to die! Aaaah! I don’t want to die!”

The instant she saw the blood spilling from her mouth, Olivia began screaming hysterically. Honestly—what a fuss. Her shrill cries made my ears ache, but there weren’t any houses nearby anyway. Just the occasional people who came around to throw eggs, that was all.

“Alright, Olivia. I’ll give you the antidote now.”

After watching Olivia cough up blood for a few minutes, I shot Shasha a look. At once, Shasha fed her the antidote we’d prepared in advance.

Only after taking it did Olivia seem to calm down—before promptly losing consciousness.
It looked like the shock from what had just happened had finally overwhelmed her.

“Back when you were tormenting others, you didn’t even blink. But the moment it becomes your problem, you turn weak.”

I tapped my cheek lightly with my index finger as I looked down at the unconscious Olivia. Just in case she was pretending, I nudged her with the tip of my foot. She was still breathing.

Lastly, I walked over to Louis and ground my foot down between his legs, as if crushing what remained. Louis let out a soundless scream.

“If you’d just agreed when I asked for a divorce, you wouldn’t be in this state.”

***

Troublesome as it was, I spent the next few days making sure their wounds healed properly, administering appropriate treatment. I didn’t starve them either. Having already secured their signatures on the divorce papers, I could have left immediately if I wanted to.

But I wanted to watch them suffer—for the rest of their lives.

To be honest, right up until the moment Louis nearly became a eunuch, I’d considered simply starving them both to death. Then it suddenly occurred to me that eternal rest was a luxury they didn’t deserve.

Especially Louis—who had exploited me his entire life.

I hadn’t realized I was such a fickle person. It felt oddly enlightening to learn that about myself—thanks to them. From now on, I should refrain from making judgments before seeing things through.

In any case, thanks to the meticulous care I lavished on them, they were doing relatively well.

“Just kill me instead.”

“Just kill me instead.”

Olivia begged me like that every single day, each time more of her hair fell out. Then, at some point, she truly broke—lost her mind completely. She would giggle while staring at empty walls, suck on her fingers like a child, things like that. By then, she couldn’t even speak properly anymore.

I had taken care to manage things in my own way, yet I’d never imagined she would devolve into something so animalistic.

Meanwhile, Louis was living quite well in the solitary cell where I had once been confined.
Inside a cage—the kind used to trap wolves.

Until his wounds healed, I fed him the same old barley porridge he had forced me to eat for years. I made sure to select batches mixed with rat droppings, ones that reeked horribly. Sometimes, as a special treat, I even mixed in some dirt.

Some people might call that a vile taste.

But everything I gave him was something I had eaten countless times in my previous lives—simply because I had displeased Louis.

After a few days passed, I released vicious dogs around the cage where Louis was kept. True to their nature as attack dogs, they were fed nothing but raw meat.

That said, the dogs didn’t actually eat people.
They were simply excessively sensitive to the smell of blood. Even if Louis were somehow lucky enough to escape the solitary cell, there was no way he’d be able to walk around in one piece.

“Ughhh—!”

Today again, I could hear Louis scrambling upstairs, trying to avoid the dogs. Because the gap between them was so wide, if he didn’t stay exactly in the center, he’d get bitten. At first, he was bitten several times, so I treated his wounds with care. These days, though, he didn’t seem to get bitten anymore.

Probably because he’d grown so terribly emaciated.

For a few days, the constant thudding and crashing noises were loud enough to irritate me—but I got used to it soon enough. Watching this happen day after day, it seemed unlikely he’d ever get out.

Poor thing.