Thought It Was ‘The End’, Only to Return to a Changed Genre - Chapter 175

Her neck was grabbed, and her feet lifted off the ground.

Adeline lost her grip on Kaitlyn and was helplessly thrown against the wall. Her whole body ached as if it were breaking apart.

It was Harrison.

He had tossed Adeline aside and was now checking on Kaitlyn, who was lying on the floor, coughing up blood with eyes blazing red like a vengeful spirit.

“Kill that woman, Harrison!”

“No. Calm down.”

“How am I supposed to calm down?! That woman tried to kill me!”

Harrison assessed the situation with a composed expression.

Genevieve was being restrained by a sailor behind her. She looked like she’d taken a beating, but she wasn’t in as bad shape as Adeline. After checking on Adeline, who was curled up and panting on the floor, Harrison returned his attention to Kaitlyn.

Her forehead was bleeding, but she was otherwise unharmed.

“You’re not dead.”

“Are you saying I should have been?”

“Get a hold of yourself, Kaitlyn. If those two stay alive, you can survive, too.”

“Look at me, Harrison. Do you think I’m doing this because I want to live?”

Kaitlyn bit her lip.

To her, life had lost all meaning. She had been stripped of everything. It had all slipped away, leaving nothing.

Everything she’d thought she held in her hands had been nothing but grains of sand.

Grains of sand that Keith had placed in her hands.

In truth, from the moment Keith had disappeared, Kaitlyn had been like a bird with one wing. A single wing couldn’t fly. She hadn’t known that.

Realizing that her pride in having accomplished everything on her own was merely an illusion was a bitter pill to swallow.

Harrison and Mia had made her confront the fact that she possessed nothing of her own.

Only her beloved half held everything.

She screamed.

“Does it look like I want to live?”

“Your desires don’t matter.”

“Harrison…”

“I can’t lose you, too.”

“Now, of all times?”

“……”

“If you wanted to save me, you shouldn’t have cooperated with me in the first place.”

Kaitlyn sneered coldly.

“When I tried to poison that woman, you helped without a word. But killing the Saintess is out of the question?”

She shook off Harrison’s grip on her arm and gritted her teeth. The Saintess, kneeling, looked only at Adeline lying on the ground, ignoring Harrison entirely. Harrison, in turn, didn’t spare a glance at the Saintess either.

The way he acted as if devoid of emotion told the truth.

“What, did living with her make you feel something for her?”

“……”

“A traitor’s blood runs true. You don’t understand, Harrison. You have no idea what it’s like for me, having lost my other half.”

“I understand the pain of losing Keith, Kaitlyn. But—”

“Understand?”

Kaitlyn laughed mockingly, bending over as if she’d heard a hilarious joke.

Then she abruptly stopped laughing and stared daggers at Harrison.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You don’t understand anything. Keith died because of that woman. Do you even know what that means?”

“……”

“That Keith—your benefactor—was killed by that woman!”

Adeline couldn’t hold back a derisive laugh.

To anyone listening, it would sound as if Genevieve had stabbed Keith in cold blood. Adeline didn’t know if Genevieve had ever even met this Keith, but as far as she knew, Genevieve wasn’t the kind of person to kill someone without cause. And even if she did, she lacked the passion to provoke such hatred.

Here she was, in unbearable pain, forced to listen to this nonsense, and it was driving her insane.

Adeline tried to catch Genevieve’s eye. But Genevieve only kept her head down, staring at the ground.

Harrison silently listened to Kaitlyn’s hateful accusations.

“It’s because of that woman that Keith is dead. And you… how did you respond?”

“……”

“You stood by her side, smiling as if nothing had happened. Did you think I wouldn’t know?”

“……”

“When I came all this way to avenge Keith, all I saw was you clinging to that woman, treating her like some kind of deity. Do you still claim to understand?”