I Thought I Was the Monster Duke's Fake Tranquilizer - Chapter 6
‘…As if there’s any way he’d be doing well!’
A beat later, Lucy realized what position she was in and swallowed a scream.
She was cradled in the arms of a man radiating a terrifying aura, held like a princess.
The hard, scorching heat her hand had touched—she now saw it was the man’s chest.
‘His chest plate, to be precise.’
His chest was so impossibly broad, his breastplate spanned a vast expanse.
‘Would you be doing well if you were him, Lucy?’
A woman had fallen from the sky and was busy groping his chest!
No wonder the glare he was directing at her, red eyes blazing, was spine-chilling.
Lucy discreetly withdrew her hand and studied the man carefully.
Was it something to be thankful for, at least?
She didn’t sense any immediate intent to harm her from him.
But such a massive frame. That murderous aura. And on top of that…
‘If he’s outfitted with armor of this caliber…’
Could he be a holy knight guarding the temple?
‘This is bad.’
Cold sweat slid down her skin, making her lashes flutter.
‘Calm down.’
She couldn’t let her fear show.
If she gave any sign she had something to hide, she’d be dragged right back.
‘…I refuse.’
She would not be locked in that freezing cell again, waiting endlessly for the day she died.
‘I refuse that.’
…It had been no different in the life she’d lived before.
“Stay hidden here, all right? You understand?”
“Big sister! Little sister! Don’t go!”
“It’s all right. We’ll be back soon!”
As it happened, in the life she had lived before transmigrating, there had been beings similar to the demonic beasts of this world.
No sooner had the hellish college entrance exams ended and she’d become a free university student, dungeons and monsters had appeared.
If only hunters or awakened beings had emerged to fight them, like in the novels…
No such miracle occurred in Lucy’s world.
The survivors formed a volunteer militia.
Lucy’s older sisters, who had been physical education majors, joined the ranks and went off to fight.
Lucy, who had no power, remained behind at the shelter…
“Hey! Parasite! Be grateful we even took you in!”
“We occupied this place first! Keep your head down and live like a mouse!”
The shelter was rife with bullying, and her sisters never returned.
If she didn’t want to be cast out, she had to lower herself, grovel, and crush every last desire.
Life in the shelter that followed was no different from prison.
Her only solace was the web novels saved offline on her smartphone.
‘I re-read 〈The Last Dragon’s Bride〉 over and over back then too.’
Then, one day.
The monsters finally attacked the shelter.
The crumbling debris of the shelter came crashing down on top of Lucy…
That was the last memory of her past life.
‘…And now, after all that.’
They wanted her to go back to a prison no different from that one?
She refused. She was utterly sick of cold walls and stale, rank air.
‘This time, I’ve been given a chance to start over.’
And that wasn’t all.
“Lucy. They say there’s a place called the sea outside. And fields full of purple flowers.”
“We’ll get to see them someday, right?”
In this life.
As the memories of her possessed body resurfaced, the voices of the other expendable children who had died before her in the prison rose up.
The reason those voices felt so painfully familiar and ached in her chest…
“Monsters… I hate them now…”
“Big sis, we’ll get out someday, won’t we?”
…was because they overlapped with the voices of the children from her past life’s shelter, whose circumstances had been the same.
‘In both my past life and this one, I made a promise.’
That someone would make it out, and see the world.
Deep within her heart, her will blazed up fiercely.
‘Yes. This time will be different.’
Across both her past life and this one, she would survive on behalf of all those who had gone before her…
She would build them a proper grave.
‘And I’ll destroy them all.’
Destroy them all and become the boss—no, become the master of her own life.
Of course, to gather momentum, she also had to know when to flatten herself to the ground.
‘That’s easy.’
Sucking up to others was something she’d done on a daily basis in her past life.
Powerless people like her had to stay in the good graces of the shelter’s top dogs to survive.
So, this time as well…
“Haha. Lovely weather, isn’t it?”
It was a cloudy night.
“Just the right temperature, too…”
It was a sweltering midsummer.
“And my, our dear knight… you are truly beautiful…”
The man’s face was concealed by his helm.
The more she talked, the more wretched she felt, but she had to divert his attention somehow.
