The Impact Of The Villainess’ Fake Marriage On The Ending - Chapter 63

Chapter 63

“… What did you say?”

Adeline doubted her ears. Her mind, which had been filled with thoughts of Kael, became empty for the first time.

“I just received a message from the Military Police. It is said that she is presumed to have died at dawn today.”

“What was the cause of death?”

“No cause of death has been reported. Among the details, only the time of death was known.”

“Call the Commander of the Military Police right away. Tell him to come to the mansion.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

Vero moved busily as soon as he heard the order, and Kael and Adeline were left alone in the bedroom.

Adeline stood blankly at the door. She couldn’t believe the current situation, and the sensations all over her body felt distant.

[It is said that Lady Felix, who was in custody, has passed away.]

Only this one sentence that Vero had spoken continued to linger in her ears.

“Adeline.”

As Adeline remained frozen in place, unable to come to her senses, Kael approached her. Adeline was in such a bad condition that he couldn’t just ignore it.

Adeline didn’t know it, but her hands were visibly trembling.

“I’ll be with you when the commander comes. I need to hear what’s going on.”

Even if he refused, she was going to be with him somehow. Adeline’s eyes were filled with such determination.

After thinking about it for a moment, Kael nodded in understanding, and Adeline’s steps turned towards her room.

“Your Grace!”

“Sally. Let’s hurry. I need to get ready quickly. As soon as possible.”

There was no time to waste. She didn’t know when the commander of the military police would come to visit, so she had to get ready quickly and wait for him.

After reading Adeline’s urgency, the maids moved faster than ever and finished with the preparations.

While the several hands were busy moving, Adeline stared blankly at the mirror.

‘Vanessa died? That can’t be.’

No matter how much she thought about it, she could hardly accept it.

The shock was so great that the trembling of her hands had still not subsided.

Until just a moment ago, Adeline had only thought of Kael.

She barely fell asleep all night, thinking that only she could save Kael, and when she woke up, she was heartbroken by Kael trying to push her away, and kissed him again, making excuses that there was no helping it in order to ease his pain.

She thought that was all. She believed that being swayed by Kael would be all she had to deal with today.

But Vanessa was dead.

Vanessa, who had to connect with Kael, take back the position of the grand duchess, which now belonged to Adeline, and become the original heroine, had died.

‘At this rate, I won’t be able to keep the ending. That’s ridiculous. How could this happen… How…’

No matter what Adeline did, if Vanessa died, she couldn’t follow the ending of the original story.

The future in which Kael raises his sword against Adeline to protect Vanessa could never be fulfilled.

“Your Grace. The Commander of the Military Police has arrived.”

Just when she was ready, the commander of the military police arrived at the mansion.

Adeline ran out of the room without hesitation.

She had to know. She had to know what happened to Vanessa, and whether she was really dead.

***

“Your Grace is also…”

When Adeline entered the office with Kael, the commander of the military police moved his eyes from place to place, visibly bewildered.

“It’s alright, so tell us. The Grand Duchess is a direct victim, so I think she deserves to hear.”

“Yes, Your Grace. Absolutely. Excuse me for my rudeness, Your Grace.”

As Kael resolutely defended Adeline, the commander of the military police immediately drew back. Worried that he might offend the two, he immediately apologized to Adeline.

“Did Lady Felix really pass away?”

The usual Adeline would have accepted the apology with ease and grace, but there was no reason to do so now.

Adeline asked straightforwardly, and the commander of the military police replied with a confused face.

“We were also surprised and checked again and again. She is dead.”

Adeline covered her mouth with both hands.

“What was the cause of death?”

“She committed suicide. It looks like she had poison with her. Poison was detected in her mouth, and there was a vial on the floor of the cell.”

The commander of the military police answered Kael’s question with a long sigh.

“As the lady of a noble family, we couldn’t conduct a physical search. You also know this. She probably calculated everything before this happened.”

“Is there any chance of having been killed?”

“None at all. His Majesty said he was going to interrogate her personally and ordered us to stop her from ever escaping, so we locked her in the deepest part of the dungeon and heavily guarded her. It’s an environment where no one can sneak inside and kill her.”

A very resolute voice erased the possibility of her having been killed.

“We also checked if the Felix household used any tricks to pretend to be the young lady and take the body back, but that’s also impossible. After checking, it is definitely Lady Felix.”

The commander of the military police said that he had left a lot of possibilities open while examining Vanessa’s body. However, several clues proved that she was Vanessa Felix.

“Wasn’t she still not married? But yesterday, she dared to aim a knife at Your Grace, so she would not be able to appear in the social world ever again.”

“…”

“Now that she had become an attempted murderer who tried to kill an aristocrat, it would have been tremendous for the Felix family. She knew this well, so her motive for suicide is sufficient.”

Kael quietly nodded.

The commander was right. The probability of Vanessa taking her own life was extremely high.

“You must have been very surprised, Your Grace.”

Adeline couldn’t say anything. Nothing came out because her head was too complicated.

The story was infinitely twisted ever since the masquerade ball, but she had never thought that Vanessa would die.

There was a belief that even if the relationship between Kael and Adeline deepened and Kael showed hostility towards Vanessa, the ending would follow the original.

But now, unless she resurrected Vanessa, she could not follow the predetermined outcome.

“If you see anything strange or have any other information, please contact me right away. Even the smallest things are fine.”

“Yes, absolutely. Your Grace.”

While Adeline was dazed in thought, Kael exchanged a few words with the military police commander before sending him away.

“Adeline. Are you alright?”

He had been trying hard to push Adeline away, but he couldn’t just leave alone a woman who was so dazed like this.

Kael approached Adeline with a worried face. It was the first time Adeline looked so out of it.

“…”

As Kael approached, Adeline quietly looked at Kael.

‘With Vanessa gone, you and I…’

Only for Vanessa’s sake, to paint the picture where Kael killed Adeline in order to protect her, she thought that she shouldn’t give Kael her heart.

She believed that she had to let go of her feelings because she had to follow the predetermined outcome.

But now that Vanessa was gone, Adeline was extremely confused. She had never thought about what would happen to Kael and Adeline if Vanessa disappeared.

‘Is there a different ending? No. It’s impossible. Vanessa shouted why I had taken it all. She knew the ending as I knew it.’

Vanessa knew the contents of the original story Adeline knew. That was why she felt more wronged, and in the end, tried to kill Adeline.

So, there was definitely only one ending to the book that possessed her.

‘But why did this happen? Can the possessed person escape from the ending and die? I thought Vanessa was possessed too… That’s why I believed that she knew everything.’

There was no piece that fit together. She couldn’t figure out what was going on.

The time Adeline was possessed by the book was when she was celebrating her fifteenth birthday, and it had been eight years since she had been in the frame of the story.

It had never been different from the original until the masquerade ball.

‘The possession. Has the possession become strange? Maybe there were more people like me and Vanessa, and because of that, something went wrong?’

She thought about the countless families.

But only the question marks piled up, and no questions were answered.

‘… Wait.’

However, thinking about the possession and pondering various questions, she came to a fundamental question that she had never asked before.

‘If I was possessed… I had a life other than this.’

It was something she had never really thought about before.

‘How was I living before the possession?’

Life before possession.

Her life before being possessed by Adeline Tien in ‘Beyond Orange’. She had never once wondered about that life.

She had never thought back to her original life after eight long years of being trapped in this story, groaning at the fact that she had to live like this when it wasn’t even her life, and thinking that she wanted to end the possession quickly and die.

She wanted to end this possession, but she never thought about the life she would return to after it was over.

“Adeline?”

Adeline’s light green eyes shook like crazy.

It was strange. Now that she realized it, it was extremely strange.

She couldn’t think of anything. She had no memory of who the ‘real her’ was or how she lived her life before entering this story.

‘… Who am I?’

The moment she asked herself who she was if this life wasn’t hers, Adeline suddenly sat down with her hands around her head.

“Ahhhhh!”

“Adeline! Adeline!”

It happened in an instant. The pain that felt like someone was hitting her head with an axe rushed in and tears flowed one after another. She couldn’t stand the pain, so she had no choice but to scream like crazy.

Surprised, Kael ordered the doctor to be called, hugged Adeline, and tried to calm her down, but Adeline lost consciousness as she cried.