I Reject the villain’s ending.

Chapter 56

Sierra quietly held her sword over Freehi’s heart and whispered.

‘Now that I’ve stripped you of your tenacious knights, die.’

‘Was this your purpose in approaching me in the first place?’

‘What other reason could there be? My entire encounter with you was my plan, down to that night you witnessed my relationship with Eros through the door.’

‘……!’

‘That made it easy to sway you, you’d do anything I asked, even if it meant getting yourself killed.’

At Sierra’s sneer, Freehi looked as dumbfounded as if he’d been hit in the head.

Then his expression twisted into anguish, and hot tears welled in his eyes.

‘Sierra!!!’

‘Don’t grieve, though. Your death will go down in history as a very honorable one, for saving me from a carriage accident.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

‘History, which I will destroy in the next ten years.’

Muttering softly, Sierra plunged her sword straight into his heart.

Her golden eyes widened.

‘Ugh……!’

‘Shhhh. Good boy, it’s time to go to sleep.’

‘Big, huh? Black!’

Sierra clamped her hand over Freehi’s mouth and cooed quietly.

She was like a mother singing a peaceful lullaby, soothing his heart.

‘Maybe it’s the imperial blood, but he doesn’t die quickly. Maybe you should have just cut his throat, it would have hurt less.’

Freehi’s lips parted as he listened to Sierra’s relaxed words.

‘Did you ever love me, even for a moment…….’

‘Have you ever loved anyone? No.’

‘…….’

‘You’re just prey, and prey don’t usually love prey.’

‘Ha, hahahaha. Ahahaha!’

He laughed like a maniac.

I realized now that the times I thought I loved him, the pretty memories, the happy days I thought I had, were my illusion.

The way she smiled at him, the way she looked at him, the cookies she baked for him, were all lies.

He couldn’t believe those days of whispering happiness and dreaming of the future were all fake.

The price of love was death.

‘Destruction of evidence is…….’

Sierra glanced at the cliff on the side of the hill.

‘The explosion was powerful, so I guess you could say it bounced off and flew over the cliff. Right?’

Smiling, Sierra gently picked him up and stood him on the cliff.

Freehi sagged in her arms, too weak to protest. His eyes were already glassy and dead.

‘Any last words?’

‘…I loved you.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that. It was a lot of fun, though. Goodbye.’

Without hesitation, Sierra threw Freeh off the cliff, then turned, set the carriage on fire, and disappeared.

The shock of the fall knocked him unconscious for a moment, and he struggled to open his eyes when he felt someone tapping on his shoulder.

‘Are you alive?’

‘…Ah.’

Freehi stared, dazed, at the pink hair reddened by the sunset.

‘That’s why I told you not to marry a saint.’

‘…….’

‘Because she’s the kind of person who has to have what she wants, and she’s not afraid to destroy it.’

Iros looked at Freehi, bleeding but not dead, doggedly alive, and drew his sword.

‘I’ll send you straight away so you don’t get sick.’

‘…….’

‘Saint, don’t blame Sierra too much. It is I who will kill you.’

And so, finally, after a long agony, Freeh was allowed to die.

But somehow, as it was meant to be, he slipped out of his body and remained in the netherworld as a spirit.

‘I remember hearing a loud bang, and Freehi hugging me tightly, and then I opened my eyes and the carriage was on fire and he was……. Hmmm, black. I can’t find where he is, no matter how much I call out!’

‘Your Imperial Highness, calm down. Your Highness is a strong man, he must be alive somewhere.’

‘Damn it, we should have gone with you, even if it meant disobeying orders!’

‘We found His Highness the Crown Prince’s body!’

I watched the smoke of Sierra sobbing and collapsing, the sobbing maids, and the screaming knights.

– That was the smoke…….

I could tell from a distance.

The way her facial expressions were when she was acting, the way she spoke, the way her voice sounded.

After that, she dismissed all the knights and destroyed the Order. Once they were scattered, she became bolder.

She killed the empress, the emperor, and the emperor’s wife, and made Rivier emperor, whispering her love to him as she had done to him.

‘Saint, please……. Let’s stop now and return to the temple, put it all down, and return to the old days.’

‘No. I’m not going back. This is it, I must see the end.’

Marley banished Iros from the palace and brought down the Geary Empire.

Her karma came back to her as an arrow.

‘Kill! Find the saint and kill her!’

‘Kaaaah!’

The imperial palace burned. A thousand and twelve hundred years of history is consumed by the roaring flames, reduced to ashes.

And that’s where Sierra and Iros met.

‘It’s been a long time, Iros.’

‘Saint.’

And Iros slit her throat. Transparent tears streamed down his face, and he gripped his sword and sobbed.

‘Why didn’t you ask me to save you, to protect you, then I would have protected you, even if it meant breaking my body.’

‘Kuluk.’

After what seemed like an eternity, the great villainess who had brought an empire to its knees finally died.

‘I loved you.’

With those words, Iros stabbed me in the heart and took his own life.

– …….

Freehi was silent as he stood facing the fallen Sierra, clutching her hand and watching her grow cold.

He had killed so many people just to see this, just to have this end.

He couldn’t understand Sierra.

But what came next was even more incomprehensible.

‘The sky is falling! Everyone, get out of here!’

‘Blood, there’s nowhere to run, the whole world is under the sky!’

The sky was falling, the earth was rising, and the world was disappearing.

‘Tsk, tsk, tsk. I’m not going to make it. That’s why I told my sister she’s a saint and not to give me too many trials.’

– ……?

‘And now she’s gonna croak till she croaks, and then she’s gonna eat me, and then she’s gonna die, and now she’s gonna destroy the world.’

A dark-haired woman descended from nowhere, clicking her tongue.

Behind her, shimmering black butterflies fluttered and fluttered like footsteps.

– A wizard?

‘No wizard. Just a passing god, my dear.’

– How did he hear me?!

‘There’s nothing in this world I can’t hear, and I’m the Mother of the Gods.’

The woman’s amber eyes twinkled and her lips parted in a smile.

‘So you don’t want to live again, do you?’

* * *

‘And so the goddess turned back the hands of the world’s clocks.’

‘…….’

‘She told me that you were the pendulum that kept the world in balance and that if I turned back the clock, I would protect you and save the world.’

‘…….’

‘I refused, because you would still be you, and you would never change.’

The crown prince smirked and muttered, his eyes devoid of laughter.

‘The gods said he’d sort it out, and he did, to see you cry and laugh and freak out like a man like me.’

The crown prince tilted his head sarcastically.

‘I can tell it’s real and not an act. I’m amazed that you’ve become human.’

‘…….’

‘What in the world did the gods do to you that you laughed as you killed me, and then you went on to do poverty work and save the poisoned imperial family?’

The crown prince’s question made me tremble, but I couldn’t get the words out.

In his story, I was a wicked woman who had nothing to say even if I were stoned to death in the street.

Being called a wicked woman was so terrible that it was almost cute.

‘The stories that weren’t told in The Crazy Saint. No, the stories that couldn’t be said poured out of the crown prince’s mouth.

I was… heartbroken.

He slipped his fingers through my hair and wrapped them around the back of my head like a lover.

‘I’ve been wandering for a long time, as a ghost, sometimes as rain, sometimes as wind.’

‘…….’

‘I watched you kill my parents and use my brother as a puppet because there was nothing I could do.’

And back to the past.

‘At first, I thought you were still the same evil woman, but I was surprised to see you acting differently. I didn’t think you’d ever change.’

‘…….’

‘Are you crying now?’

The crown prince growled and grabbed my shoulders.

My shoulder ached from the force of his grip, but I didn’t even think to pull away.

Right now, my head was filled with the story he’d told me.

‘It’s impossible. You went through all that.’

It can’t be true. It can’t be. It can’t be.

Then it’s too…….

‘I feel sorry for the crown prince.

I felt pitiful, heartbreakingly pitiful. Tears fell from her eyes again.

This is the compassion I feel for the crown prince as a reader of The Crazy Saint.

It is Kim So-won’s sympathy for the crown prince who loved Sierra so much but was unable to fulfill that love and fell victim to her desire to bring down the empire.

My tears stirred the crown prince.

‘Why do you look at me with such eyes?’

‘…….’

‘Why do you weep.’

‘Because I’m sorry.’

‘I’m dead, why do you cry when you come back to the past and see me alive and well, you who killed me!’

‘…….’

‘Why are you saying you’re sorry now?’

The crown prince’s breathing grew a little more ragged, his grip on my neck tightening.

His hands were shaking as much as his voice, which was trembling and cracking.

His grip on my throat loosened, and his hand fell away.

‘I won’t let you die, not for you, not because I have any feelings left.’

‘…….’

‘Just to protect the world for my family, for my people.’

The golden eyes and black pupils flickered aimlessly.

His body stiffened, and the crown prince viciously bit his lip.

‘So I need to know more about you, so I can make my judgement.’

His red hair flicked away. Rising from the couch, the crown prince looked down at me and whispered.

‘What to do with you… what to do with you.’

‘…….’

‘If you want to hear the next part, you will come to me this time. The doors of the crown prince’s palace are always open.