"Why...!"
As the blade pierced my stomach, red blood spilled across the floor.
'It hurts.'
Nevertheless, a question came to my mind long before the terrible and immense pain that didn't even allow me to scream.
"Why the hell...?"
The man who stabbed me was someone I knew well.
Emil Roncist Callixst.
My dear friend.
My only childhood friend; a poor child who was ostracized by people due to his birth as the son of a villainess.
A child who I trusted like my own family, had offered me death.
He sank to the floor as if his weak legs couldn't hold the weight of the situation.
'It hurts...'
As I wrapped my stomach with trembling hands, my arms quickly turned red.
"Answer me, Emil... why the hell...?"
"...I'm sorry."
'I'm really sorry, Vel.'
Like a knight making an oath, Emil, who was on his knees, stroked my cheek.
He, a child who didn't weep even when mistreated and ostracized, was crying as if he wasn't the man who had stabbed me.
The child with immense pride was now bowing and looking down at me.
"...If you and I are going to live as mere puppets, I'd rather do this."
Letting out a strange murmur, the eyes that lost all reason grew closer.
I couldn't help but notice as I looked into those eyes.
The madness of the villainess.
That was what had happened to Emil. It had been passed on to him.
Emil kindly took me in his arms as I slumped and placed me on his lap.
Tip, tip, tip.
Tears dripping down wet my cheeks.
'Ah, I' had been truly happy in this life...'
My stomach, pierced by the sword, hurt so much.
'Death, I hate it. I don't want to die...!'
But contrary to my will, my eyelids kept getting heavier.
"...I'm sorry."
And then...
I couldn't hear Emil's voice anymore.
That's how my second life ended.
* * *
My mother was the heroine.
Ismeralda Eprish.
She was a heroine who died in the hands of Robellin Kastone, the only princess with royal blood in the Kastone Empire, and the novel's villainess who suffered from madness.
If it had been an ordinary death, the novel would have been incredibly boring.
'But main characters aren't just main characters without any special reason, right?'
My mother was a regressor and came back to life after death.
"I wanted to get closer to you."
"...Your Highness, Robellin."
