Resetting Lady

“Ha, haa…”

Dullan exhaled roughly. As he was breathing heavily underneath her, Carynne thrusted her face against his.

“Dullan… Dullan, darling?”

“…Crazy.”

Furtively, she drove the dagger deeper into his hand. At this, she narrowed his eyes and glared at him.

“I’ve married you before, and I’ve also broken my engagement with you before, you know?”

Their bodies were so closely pressed together. While he was gasping and bleeding beneath her, it was as if she had taken advantage of him here. What an interesting sight.

“Ha.”

“And yet you did nothing at all.”

Then, she wrenched the dagger out. Dullan flinched badly. However, Carynne pressed him down with her whole body.

“Until I started killing people.”

“……”

“Mmh, you think it isn’t like that? In any case, last time you told me this and that.”

“…C-Carynne Hare. You’re crazy. L-Let… me go…”

Thwack.

Carynne stabbed him again. This time, she covered his mouth with a pillow because he might scream. She watched as the man between her legs writhed.

Even in this situation, he still wouldn’t speak. Carynne twisted the embedded dagger. She enjoyed the man’s convulsions beneath her. As she thought about the past him, she felt refreshed by this.

But still, until the end, he wouldn’t divulge anything.

“Dullan. From now on, instead of just stabbing you, I’m going to cut your body to pieces little by little.”

Instead of mere groans, something else might slip through your lips sooner or later.

“Will you still keep your mouth shut even when you’d just have one or two fingers left?”

“……”

“I guess we’ll find out once they’re chopped off.”

In her previous life, this man knew about Carynne’s repeated lives. Also the coin. Carynne brought the dagger to Dullan’s fourth finger. He struggled even harder.

“…Kgh, ah—”

“Don’t be too loud.”

Carynne prodded the gun against his neck. The tremors of his throat passed through the gun. He writhed violently.

“……”

Dullan’s eyes were fixed upon Carynne. She pulled out the pillow that was covering his mouth.

“Y-You’re sick.”

Thwack.

There was an inaudible scream.

“Do you really think I’m an idiot?”

“……”

The fleeting thought passed through her mind right then. It would be so funny if someone saw them in this position. She’d look downright crazy in their eyes. She’d look like a madwoman torturing a poor doctor, her pitiful fiancé.

Dullan still admitted to nothing. All he said was that Carynne’s crazy. He seemed like a normal priest who truly didn’t believe anything she’s saying.

“Answer… You have to answer me. Why aren’t you telling the truth properly? Why?”

Carynne rammed the gun further under Dullan’s chin. But that did not work either. He continued to deny it.

“Dullan.”

She clutched his hair tightly and forcefully brought his head up. His expression became distorted and his mouth opened naturally.

Wow.

Seriously.

Carynne was genuinely furious.

She knew what she looked like right now. She knew how this situation would turn out. She’s going crazy with anger because she knew damn well just how she looked right now.

This guy wasn’t like Nancy. No matter how scraggly he was, Dullan was a young man in his prime.

It’s different from how she had handled Crown Prince Gueuze. Donna had been holding him down, so that lech’s focus was elsewhere when Carynne had dealt with him.

It was difficult for her to subdue Dullan. She realized several times that she had made mistakes.

At the door. When she was tying him up. While she was above him.

Dullan had several chances to overpower Carynne. But he did not.

“You…”

Carynne knew well enough. What he’s doing right now was no better than playing with her right now. Anything she did to him was not a real threat to him. So, he’s allowing her to act like this. It’s as if she’s his toy.

And now, here, he looked like the victim. Like a good doctor.

For a hundred years.

Her eyes were about to turn white from rage.

“I’ve lived for a hundred years now. You think I can’t shoot you?”

“…T-This isn’t… good… for you.”

That was the end of her patience. It felt as if something in her mind broke right then and there.

BANG!

A roar echoed. Carynne had put the gun in Dullan’s mouth and pulled the trigger. Blood splattered inside the room. She looked down at the fallen Dullan.

“…You son of a bitch.”

Dullan was still not dead. His eyes had overturned. There was a hole in the roof of his mouth where blood was flowing out constantly. She tapped his lips.

“What? What did you say?”

She leaned down and brought one ear near his lips urgently. Dullan’s mouth was opening and closing. She had to hear it.

As she drew closer to him, he grabbed her by the neck. For a moment, she thought that he was going to strangle her.

But that’s not it.

Dullan grabbed Carynne by the neck and pulled her close to his lips. Blood flowed constantly. He spoke through his mouth.

‘…See you next time.’

Then, Dullan collapsed. The corners of his lips were eerily raised.

Carynne shoved off his hand and stood up.

“…Hah!”

The man’s body, now lifeless, rolled back. As he was now, he really wouldn’t be able to give her any information.

“…Fuck.”

Ah, fuck. I should have tortured him more before killing him.

Carynne tied her loose hair.

I’m going out of my mind. I need to sort this out.

“Fuck…”

What is it about this iteration? I thought I’d hear an answer from Dullan this time because he mentioned ‘solace’ to me. But then 「 the current Dullan 」 was different from the last Dullan.

Nothing about this gave her any solace at all. This iteration’s Dullan just played her like a fiddle through and through. He didn’t even say any of what he knew or didn’t know.

Was Dullan the culprit behind all of this? Starting when? Why? And besides that, what’s the right thing to do in this situation? How could she find any hope in this? What’s she going to do with this man who ran away through death?

“…Let me vent my anger first.”

Carynne picked up the dagger on the floor. She didn’t know what to do with her anger. But anger was not good for one’s health.

Before I die, I should vent my anger on Dullan’s corpse.

But then, at that moment.

“Reverend!”

Carynne felt something hitting her head—hard.

Her vision went black. Something warm flowed down her face profusely.

* * *

The beginning was always the same. The gray sky, the drizzling rain. As she was in the muddy, barren garden, Carynne blinked.

What the hell.

“……”

Carynne died.

It’s rather fortunate that she could start right away after dying. Carynne knew that she had been killed by someone right after she had killed Dullan. She couldn’t believe how futile it was.

“…Haha…”

Out of nowhere, laughter leaked from her lips.

To the point of absurdity, she was rendered absolutely speechless by her rapid death.

She killed Dullan this time. But soon after, another man killed her.

“Reverend!”

It was a familiar voice.

How heavily entangled was the connection between those two when she had no idea about it?

“What’s the relationship between Borwen and Dullan?”

Nancy answered calmly as she looked at Carynne, who was pointing a gun at her.

“Reverend Dullan healed Borwen’s mother, so I heard that guy’s loyal to the priest.”

Carynne thought that he was just a normal attendant. Had she been too complacent?

Sighing, she asked something else.

“What’s his occupation before?”

“A butcher.”

“…Birds of a feather, huh.”

Somehow, that would explain why he wasn’t surprised when he found out Carynne had killed Missus Deere. She was focused on having fun at that time, but in hindsight, she realized that his behavior back then was not so normal either.

“If you’re going to be like this, Milady, we’re the only ones who’d get exhausted.”

She wondered, would an ordinary servant grumble in the way that he did? Would an ordinary servant clean up dead bodies and make up lies?

If he had been normal in the first place, he would have yelled, he would have been at a loss, or he would have reported her to the officials. Carynne was just a daughter of a fief lord, not a princess of the kingdom.

But then, Borwen took it all in stride. As if he had expected Carynne to do something like that.

If Donna was the one who saw her that time, or even Nancy, they wouldn’t have taken it in such a stride.

“How far does Dullan know?”

“I-I’m not sure…?”

Regardless of whether that man was hired and ordered to clean up whatever action she took, it shouldn’t have been in the scope of his expectations that Carynne would commit murder.

“Have I been too kind all this time, more than I thought?”

“……”

“I’m being serious here. I’ve put up with this for much too long.”

Didn’t she put up with it for an entire century? Carynne prided herself on surviving all those one hundred years.

It was not the same one hundred years of an old woman. It’s one hundred years for a seventeen-year-old girl.

“What the hell should I believe. Just how far has that guy predicted that he knew I’d act like that?”

It became difficult for Carynne to sense just how deeply entrenched Dullan was in this. But what she had to do was clear to her.

She had a goal in mind.

Maybe, it’s the same goal from the start.

“As expected, I’m gonna have to kill Dullan.”

She could try and then die. She torture him all she wanted, and she’d eventually get an answer one day.

Carynne did not lose hope.

* * *

Subsequently, Carynne killed Dullan three times.

And, thereafter, she died by Borwen’s hand three times as well.