“Did you never find it strange how well you adapted to Amelia’s body?”
I had never felt that way. I just thought I was highly adaptable. But looking back, there were many oddities. I adapted too well, as if I had always been her. And at the same time, I gradually lost my original memories.
“It’s understandable. You didn’t enter a book. There was no such book.”
“Then….”
“I made it so you wouldn’t be confused by your lost memories.”
So that book never existed from the start? Was all this created by the goddess? Then everything she remembered was fake. What was her previous life that she remembered? The realization that it wasn’t from a book shocked Amelia.
“Are you saying everything written there was a lie…?”
“Not entirely. Only some truths were hidden.”
“So I never even read that book….”
Everything she had believed in until now was a lie. She had merely been a pawn in the goddess’s game. She couldn’t understand why this had been done.
“Was my love for Leonel also… all fake?”
A hollow laugh escaped her. To think all of this was just the goddess’s amusement. She had been dancing in the palm of her hand.
“Your feelings are real. I only unlocked what was forcibly suppressed.”
She didn’t understand what the goddess was talking about. What had been unlocked, and why had she been killed once?
“So why have you appeared before me now?”
“I’ve come to bring you back to life.”
The Goddess of Peace. People called Elaina the Goddess of Peace, but Amelia doubted if the deity before her was truly a goddess of peace. Elaina’s actions were far from peaceful.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“What…?”
The sight of the goddess smiling like a benevolent mother was repulsive. Did she think Amelia would just go along with being brought back to life now? There was no explanation for anything. She was expected to do as told.
“Why should I do what you want?”
“…….”
“You erased my memories on purpose, didn’t you?”
She had forcibly overlaid other memories. She was manipulated to act according to the book’s settings. Now she didn’t know what was true anymore. Knowing that everything she knew was fake.
“What kind of memories are you going to implant this time?”
Elaina had said she had killed her once. From the start, her approach was wrong. She thought Amelia would be scared and obey her wishes.
“…I knew I shouldn’t have left you with Siegfried.”
The benevolent smile on the goddess’s face began to crack. Amelia was certain now. Despite being called the Goddess of Peace, the deity before her was anything but peaceful. She was selfish.
Would she really bring her back to life so easily? She hadn’t even explained why she was killed.
“It’s your fault for getting involved with Siegfried!”
The smile on Elaina’s face was gone, replaced by a fierce glare. This was the true face of the goddess. She wore the guise of peace, but she was anything but.
“How could you, born with my blood, love those monstrous Siegfrieds!”
“So you killed me?”
“No, I didn’t kill you. You died on your own.”
Why did she hate Siegfried so much? It was beyond mere dislike.
“You died trying to save Siegfried.”
It matched what Raphael had said. Evelyn had died trying to save him. Following the book’s content was meaningless now.
“Why do you hate Siegfried so much?”
It wasn’t fair. It was a one-sided hatred. Siegfried had been cursed by the goddess for 700 years.
“What did they do to deserve such a curse?”
According to the book she read in Raphael’s study, the goddess Elaina had cursed the demons and taken over the empire. It might seem right to drive out evil with the power of good. But the idea of a conqueror cursing the natives seemed hypocritical to her.
“Wrong? If you knew what those monstrous Siegfrieds did, you wouldn’t be able to love them. You shouldn’t!”
She wasn’t speaking to Amelia anymore. Elaina’s claims were irrational.
“Siegfried killed my man and child. So I decided to return the favor. To make them suffer in agony for eternity, clinging to their loved ones.”
The face of the peaceful, benevolent goddess that everyone knew was gone. Elaina, shouting like a ferocious beast, seemed possessed by anger.
“But then you appeared. Born with my blood, a being immune to the curse.”
***
Immune to the curse? It wasn’t limited to Siegfried?
“All my children born with my blood have hated those monstrous Siegfrieds. It was an instinct.”
That was why the imperial family hated Siegfried so much. Elaina had made it so.
“But something went wrong somewhere. My children killed each other, and no daughter was born to carry my will. Except for you, who defied everything.”
A saintess was said to be born once in a generation. The mention of children killing each other likely referred to the current emperor, Kendrick.
“At first, I was angry. I made sure no saintess was born to show I wouldn’t care for Kendrick.”
“But then I was born….”
“I thought Kendrick would come to his senses with your birth. I decided to give him another chance. I believed everything would return to how it was.”
But contrary to the goddess’s wishes, the current emperor was a greedy man. He completely hid Evelyn’s existence, even imprisoning her in a cell created by the goddess.
“That was where the problem started. You met Siegfried there, and even died in his place!”
Is a god like a human? Is it possible to become a god by being human?? Elaina’s anger was not the anger of a god she imagined.
“I can’t forgive that. Trying to save Siegfried? My child, of all people!”
Elaina’s bloodshot eyes were trapped in a bitter past.
“And I didn’t know my curse would return to my child. Who would have thought I would end up offering my child to Siegfried with my own hands?”
“The curse on Siegfried….”
“They will suffer for a lifetime from the monstrous power that killed my man and my child. And the only one who can free them from that pain will hate them!”
It was literally a curse. According to the goddess, Siegfried would live in pain and be shunned for life.
“The moment I knew you were Siegfried’s new mate, I thought I had to stop it at all costs. As time passed, the monsters became more cunning. Once they knew who their mate was, they would do anything to hold onto them. I revived you, erased your memory.”
She said she revived her?
“And at the same time, I killed you again. I removed part of your soul bound to the curse. That way, Siegfried would hate the imperial family just as much as the imperial family hated Siegfried.”
That was why Raphael hated Amelia. They were made to reject each other from the beginning. The goddess’s claim that she had killed her was true.
“I even changed your status to keep you from meeting Siegfried….”
“Raphael found me in the end….”
“Yes, but due to the inherent aversion, you two never truly united. Moreover, removing part of your soul hastened your death.”
So that’s why she couldn’t live without holy power even now? Because she didn’t have a complete soul?
“That was just recently. Amelia, you have died exactly twice.”
So Amelia’s death wasn’t something yet to happen, but something that had already happened once?
“I regretted it. I didn’t know where things went wrong. Kendrick’s children had many problems… and you, the only one who could convey my words, ended up with Siegfried.”
So all this tragedy started because of Elaina.
“Then, an unintended child called me out of despair.”
“An unintended child…?”
“Leonel Siegfried. A being who should never have been born, carrying the blood of both the monster and my child.”
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vulpixiels
Holy crap, wasn’t expecting that at all. The goddess is crazy, ruined her soul just so she hates Siegfried because she saved them. When the main mc has better morals than a God.
Thank you so much for the translation!!