Until The Real One Shows Up

“Aww!”

Scarlett’s painful moan shook the entire street. Even people passing by were startled by the strange sound and stopped their steps.

“What’s going on?”

“Well, she tried to steal the ring of the maid who served her nobleman. The owner is punishing her.”

“Oh my God, what a large oversight.”

Just amazed by Scarlett’s boldness, no one sympathized with her. 

Eventually, Scarlett was beaten for a long time surrounded by all kinds of tongue clicks and surprised sounds, and was really released just before she died. To be exact, she was badly beaten and dumped in the middle of the street.

‘… I have to live.’

In the meantime, her desire for survival was so strong that Scarlett dragged her numb leg to her clinic. Sure enough, all she had to do was apply her ointment to the torn wounds.

“Oh, Scarlett!”

When she returned to her inn with her bandages wrapped around her body, Avelin asked, of course, astonished.

“How the hell did this happen…”

“Don’t ask.”

Scarlett nodded sharply and went straight to her bed. But Avelin cried unyieldingly.

“You have to go to the doctor! You’re in trouble!”

“I have already been there. My head hurts, so be quiet.”

“Who did this to you?”

Avelin said in a voice trembling with anger.

“I won’t let it go. I have to tell the guards…!”

“A guard?”

Hearing Avelin’s words, Scarlett laughed as if it was ridiculous. She looked at her with eyes as if she were seeing Avelin strangely.

“There is no need for that, Avelin. What guard would dare to punish a noble beating a commoner who has nowhere to go?”

When Scarlett left out the fact that she ended up like this while trying to steal from her, Avelin’s complexion grew pale.

“Scarlett…”

“I don’t need any consolation or sympathy. Just let me rest quietly.”

Avelin eventually licked her lips and moved away quietly.

Left alone with her, Scarlett closed her ferocious eyes and silenced her former anger inside her.

‘… I need strength.’

She needed the strength to not be treated like this by anyone.

‘To threaten the High Priest to become the adopted daughter of a high-ranking nobleman. Then no one can mistreat me.’

To do that, she had to first remove the obstacles. When Scarlett had healed some of her wounds, she secretly bought rodenticide and added it to Avelin’s meal.

“Uh…!”

Scarlett looked a little startled as Avelin vomited blood and twisted her body inr anguish. Avelin was dying in even more pain than she had expected. 

“Oh, my God, was this too cruel?” 

Avelin looked at Scarlett with an expression of what it meant, and soon realized the whole story.

“I feel a little sorry. But I didn’t know, so it can’t be helped. It’s not something that can be reversed now.”

“Scarlet, how can you…”

“Avelin, my good friend.”

Scarlett looked at Avelin, whose white top was stained with hideous dark red blood, with pitiful eyes. 

“I’ll borrow your name. You can lend it to me, right?”

Avelin looked at Scarlett with betrayed eyes, but it was only a moment. She soon fell forward, throwing up a dark red blood clot.

After a short time, Scarlett took the locket that was hanging around Avelin’s neck.

Then, she took the body to the river, treated it secretly, and found another inn and stayed overnight.

Funny how the guilt of killing her childhood friend didn’t bother her too much. 

Rather, I was more thrilled to meet the High Priest tomorrow and realize my wish.   

However, the next day, Scarlett quickly changed her mind when she saw Empress Anastasia visiting the Great Temple at the same time as herself.

“Pretty…”

Empress Anastasia, who got off a large carriage the size of a house, was beautiful like a princess in a fairy tale, with her hair half tied with a blue ribbon in a white frill dress made of a fabric that was easy to see.

Above all, the various jewels she wore on her body, the shining tiara, and the dozens of priests who came out for the numerous attendants and hospitality around her ignited Avelin’s greed.

‘… That woman became an Empress because the Goddess chose her, didn’t she?’

Then, what if an oracle comes down that the true Empress chosen by the goddess was actually herself?

‘I killed my friend, and I can only feel sorry for her if I can be a princess.’

Eventually, Scarlett asked Lyell to make herself an Empress. Lyell initially expressed his displeasure with her, but he was terrified of her threats of exposing everything.

He adopted Scarlett as his adopted daughter by using the Hazel family’s corruption reported at a local temple a while ago, and used his divine power to make the sign of the Goddess appear on Avelin’s shoulder.

‘I, who was born with the lowest birth, will become the most noble woman of this empire… !’

But the fact that Wilhelm loved Anastasia very much put the brakes on her plans.

In the end, even after summoning the demon, she failed to fulfill her wish, and after her tragic death, she returned.

“Scarlett, if it’s okay with you, would you like to live with me at my house?”

Returning shortly after her mother’s death, when Scarlett saw Avelin alive and intact before her eyes, her heart almost stopped.

“… No, I appreciate her suggestion, but I’ll try to figure out how to live on my own.”

There’s no way Scarlett knows what she’s done to her in her last life, but the sight of innocent Avelin in her eyes choked Scarlett strangely.

‘In order not to fail in this life, I have to move quickly.’

“Avelin, I made soup for dinner, but it was too much. Why don’t you go home and eat with your mother?”

“Oh! Thanks, Scarlett. It looks delicious.”

Looking at Avelin, who was happy to receive a mushroom soup with sleeping pills, Scarlett decided to set the house on fire after the mother and daughter ate the soup and fell into a deep sleep.

Eventually, in the deep night, Scarlett checked the appearance of her neighbor’s house, which had extinguished their candles early, and then piled up a stack of greased hay in Avelin’s house and lit it. 

The fire spread so quickly that it was difficult to rescue either of them when people finally discovered the fire. Scarlett was sure that both women burned to death.

Shortly after the fire, Scarlett sneaked out of town and went to see Lyell. But Lyell was suddenly struck by lightning and was in a coma.

Scarlett was in despair, but soon decided to do everything she could. She took advantage of Count Hazel’s corruption, which he heard from Lyell in her last life, to obtain a position as a foster daughter.

‘I need something to keep the Empress in check until the High Priest wakes up.’

Anastasia and Wilhelm falling in love was her biggest cause of defeat. 

Somehow, in this life, the two had not yet fallen in love, but she did not know when the relationship between the two would develop.

It was Melina who Scarlett first targeted. Although she had been Anastasia’s loyal servant in her last life, when Scarlett saw her, she was only hiding her deep-seated feelings of inferiority towards Anastasia.

Knowing that she was similar to her, Scarlett immediately approached Melina and further developed her hostility to Anastasia by using manipulative magic. 

Originally, mind manipulation magic could only be used by high-ranking warlocks. No matter what kind of contract she made with the devil, there was a limit to how she could fully control the mind of a healthy person.

However, Melina already had a long sense of inferiority and entitlement to Anastasia, so she could easily bring her to the state she wanted with just a little bit of manipulation.

Even after Melina’s absurd failure, Scarlett was not deterred. She decided this time to target Prince Louis, who died prematurely of a fever before her return. More exactly his nanny.

‘She was the woman who even killed her half-sister because she wanted to be the Empress.’

Scarlett, who was watching Olivia, somehow managed to save Lewis from drowning in an icy lake. It happened while she looked away for a moment on an outing with her.

‘Before the return, around now was the time when the prince will die… Did this cause him to catch a bad cold and die?’

Before her return, it was known that he had died of a fever from a chronic illness, but Scarlett was convinced that Olivia’s negligence had created his tragedy.

“Thank you very much. How should I repay this favor…?”

Controlling Olivia was much easier than Melina, thanks to her deepening her trust in her by saving Louis.

Scarlett was convinced that Olivia would be a sure match to keep Anastasia in check. But in the end, she failed even there, and that’s when Lyell woke up from a coma.

In order to create a clear cause for her to dethrone Anastasia, Scarlett not only removed the marks on Anastasia’s wings, but also used the Goddess’ pearls to use divine power in her life. 

At this point, she thought it would be easier than in her last life. However, Wilhelm was still a strong man, and in the end she even killed the High Priest who was about to turn on her.

‘How did this happen?’

Scarlett was embarrassed. She had nothing but a pure desire to be a noble woman.

She of course she did some harm in the process, but was she that bad? Avelin’s mother was the one who would die of an illness anyway, and Anastasia was a princess, so even after she became a queen, she would have lived happily ever after.

Scarlett thought the world was too harsh to her. Tears streamed down from her eyes again. 

However, the expression on the real Avelin’s expression as she looked at her pathetic face was so cold.

“I was ill that day, so I ate less of my dinner, so I barely managed to escape. You would never even imagine how miserable I was until I fell into a river half asleep, lost my memory, and met Her Majesty.”

“Uhh!”

“Bye, Scarlett. I hope you will repent painfully in hell for the sins you have committed.”

With those words, Selene left the prison without any regrets.

“Ahhhh!”

Scarlett screamed and grabbed her, but Selene completely ignored her and moved away from her old friend.