TMLHGCFTV 01

Chapter 1

Kael covered his mouth.

Every time he breathed, the nauseating, fishy stench of monster blood assaulted his nose.

Could Rosana really still be alive in this hell?

Even after returning to this place in search of her, he couldn’t bring himself to believe for certain that Rosana had survived.

The ground, soaked with a mixture of blood and rainwater, had turned into a muddy quagmire. Every time he stepped forward, foul, bloody water splashed around his boots. Meanwhile, the rain continued to grow heavier.

“Rosana!”

Kael shouted her name in a sharp voice.

He didn’t even know what he was doing anymore.

He should have left the stragglers behind and continued on. More importantly, as the commander leading the expedition, he had no business abandoning the formation and going off on his own.

Even now, reason was screaming at him to return to the expedition immediately.

Kael’s jaw tightened.

“Answer me, Rosana!”

What hope was there in continuing like this?

Even though he had watched a horde of monsters rush toward her beyond the collapsing bridge, he wanted to believe that she was still alive.

Kael couldn’t understand Rosana.

Since when had she become so selfless?

The woman who had thrown herself into danger for someone else felt strangely unfamiliar to him.

Kael muttered a curse through clenched teeth.

The rain was coming down so hard that his vision was beginning to blur.

His clothes were soaked through and clung heavily to his body, making every step feel even more burdensome.

“Rosana!”

His voice was gradually being swallowed by the roar of the rain.

By now, he should have given up.

That was what he told himself, yet Kael took another step forward.

He felt as though if he searched just a little longer, he would find Rosana.

He could almost picture her greeting him with that characteristically clear, innocent smile.

‘What? Why did you come back? To save me? Wow, if that’s really true, then I’ve actually succeeded in reforming myself. You were worried about me too, weren’t you, Kael?’

He could almost hear her chattering away as she followed closely behind him.

‘There has to be an end to this. Our expedition will succeed, and we’ll be able to go home. Believe in me. Or, if you can’t do that, then believe in Kael’s sword.’

That voice, endlessly speaking of hope, kept resurfacing in his mind.

Even in this hell, she had never once surrendered to despair. Her stubborn resilience and fierce will to live had burrowed deep into his heart.

There was no way someone like Rosana could have broken.

‘I’m never going to die. Want to hear my life plan? I’m going to make a ton of money. Then I’ll use it to live independently. Oh, and I need to date someone, too. So cheer up, Kael! Let’s be happy together.’

There was no way the Rosana who had said those things would simply abandon everything she had been so attached to.

Perhaps even Kael’s usually cold, rational mind had gradually been softened by Rosana’s warmth.

The hope that she was still alive simply wouldn’t let his feet stop.

Kael wiped the rain from his face.

That was when he spotted a cave.

Taking shelter from the rain for a while wouldn’t hurt.

He headed toward it.

Perhaps because it was quite far from the bridge, there were no monster corpses or traces of battle anywhere around the cave.

Kael placed a hand against the entrance and paused as he sensed something from within.

“Hic… It’s okay, Rosana. You’ve done well this far. We can make it back alive. We just have to catch up.”

The moment he heard that waterlogged, exhausted voice, the strength seemed to drain from his body.

She was really alive.

Rosana had actually survived that hell.

Kael closed his eyes and released a deep sigh of relief.

The nerves that had been stretched taut finally began to relax.

He shook the rain from himself and stepped inside.

There she was.

Rosana was crouched on the floor, her head bowed deeply between her knees.

“…Lady Rosana.”

Kael called out to her in a hoarse voice.

Rosana lifted her head from between her knees.

Her blue eyes, visible through strands of disheveled black hair, trembled violently.

Those were the eyes he had once despised more than anything.

Moisture quickly gathered in them before they began to tremble.

“K-Kael…! It’s really Kael…”

Rosana seemed barely aware of what she was saying.

Her face was utterly exhausted, with dark shadows beneath her eyes.

Kael let out a hollow laugh.

“You said you’d be fine. You said we could leave, trusting you.”

“…Of course. Look at me. I-I’m alive, aren’t I? See? You can trust me, right?”

Even with her face deathly pale, she somehow managed to keep talking.

Rosana barely managed to get to her feet. Her legs trembled beneath her, and she struggled just to keep herself upright.

“What about Lilia? Is she okay? She isn’t badly hurt, is she?”

She looked like that, and she was still asking about someone else?

Kael slowly looked her over again.

She was drenched and filthy, a complete mess. Her once-clear face was streaked with tears and snot.

The traces of fear and trembling were unmistakable. She must have cried for hours.

And yet her blue eyes were still filled with light.

“Ha.”

Apparently, things had gotten so bad that he must have lost his mind too.

Because even seeing her sniffle and wipe away her tears, his first instinct was simply to hold her.

I only realized that I had been possessed by the world of Salvation from the End after I opened my eyes again following my death.

“You will join the expedition on behalf of House Ardena. Consider it an honor to have been chosen to represent Ardena.”

I was in an elegant room furnished with heavy ebony furniture that gave the entire place a solemn atmosphere.

An oppressive weight pressed down on me so heavily that I could barely breathe.

A middle-aged man sat behind the desk, while several other men stood in formation beside him.

Every one of them was staring at me as though I were a monkey in a cage.

Ardena.

Rosana Ardena.

The memories belonging to the body came crashing over me like a wave, slowly overwhelming me.

Rosana Ardena’s memories gradually settled into my mind.

Rosana was the troublesome villainess in Salvation from the End.

She was a woman with a cursed mouth and the bizarre ability to bring danger upon herself wherever she went. The novel portrayed countless innocent people as having been sacrificed because of her.

You know those characters in movies who act selfishly, get everyone else killed, and then whine about how they’re the most miserable person in the world?

Yeah.

That was me.

In the end, she met a miserable fate, becoming food for the monsters.

No, it was bad enough that I’d possessed the body of a troublesome villainess.

But the bigger problem was that, of all places, I’d ended up in the world of Salvation from the End.

Are you kidding me?

Why couldn’t I have possessed some fluffy romantic comedy where everything was as sweet and soft as cotton candy?

Why did I have to wake up in an apocalypse story that was already making me want to cry from the very beginning…?

And now that I was sorting through these ragged, fragmented memories, I was beginning to understand that there had been a reason Rosana had become a villainess.

She had been someone who had never been given another way to live.

As the daughter of the Duke of Ardena, she should have grown up surrounded by love.

But reality had been very different.

She had always been the family’s unwanted burden, the first person to be pushed aside whenever something went wrong.

A promising heir for an older brother.

And an adorable youngest daughter.

Caught between the two of them, Rosana had always been the scapegoat.

Because she was prickly, sensitive, and rebellious by nature, she had long since fallen out of her father’s favor.

So no one ever tried to defend Rosana.

Whenever something went wrong, the blame always landed on her.

Every mistake was hers.

The memories that the novel had never been able to fully portray were slowly filling my mind.

And in the end, joining an expedition where she would have to risk her life had become Rosana’s burden too.

Damn…

The Duke of Ardena clearly valued his own daughter’s life less than a fly’s.

According to the novel, Rosana couldn’t even wield a sword.

Hell, could she even run properly?

There wasn’t a trace of muscle on her body. The only things holding that thin frame together seemed to be spite and sheer stubbornness.

And with a body like this, I was supposed to join an expedition that fought monsters and retrieved sacred relics?

If this wasn’t a death sentence, then what was?