Chapter 31: Domination and Submission

Happy was a girl who always kept her word.

Even as my trembling hands accidentally pressed the blade harder against Joy’s neck, drawing blood, she only let out a quiet chuckle.

She didn’t stop moving.

From start to finish, she approached me at a steady pace—slowly, but without hesitation.

The moment I witnessed that, I no longer saw Happy as human.

She was a monster.

The funny thing was, I had once been a monster too.

I had lived a life where I didn’t fear death as long as I could accomplish my goal.

That didn’t mean I had regressed into being human just because I was now overwhelmed by Happy.

A person who had already planned her own suicide as soon as she completed the mission given by the Quest Jewel could never be called normal.

But what worried me…

I didn’t even know why I was worried.

It must have been because of the punishment the Quest Jewel had placed upon me.

Ever since I faced Happy, I had lost the will to cut my palm again.

Blood still dripped freely, unchecked by healing or even a simple attempt at stopping the bleeding.

Yet the pain that had once accompanied it had already expired.

And so, once again, I loved Happy.

And I feared that she would be lost to her inhumanity forever.

“…Happy.”

“Yes, Yeres unnie?”

“Stop this.”

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘this.'”

That was when I realized—

I wasn’t despairing at the things I should be despairing over.

And I was despairing at things that didn’t warrant despair at all.

That wasn’t normal.

I felt nothing as I watched the Darkmoon Organization—the empire I had built with my own hands—crumble before me.

My mind dismissed it indifferently, assuming that in the next life, I would just rebuild it again.

I stopped even looking at the sky.

Instead, I focused on Happy’s eyes, overflowing with love and madness.

For a fleeting moment, I felt relief that our relationship had returned to what it once was.

But only for a moment.

When I realized that madness had begun to outweigh love, I tightened my grip on Joy.

I didn’t want to receive pain-filled punishment from her.

I wanted love.

I didn’t want to be a villain battling a magical girl who had become a monster.

I wanted to be a woman in love with another.

Even if that love was artificially created by the Quest Jewel’s punishment.

Even if it was a survival mechanism born from two days of unrelenting torment.

I didn’t care anymore.

I had already crossed the point of no return.

I needed to see this through.

“She’s just like you—a magical girl!”

“You should be stopping me from killing Joy, not—!”

It was pointless, and I knew it.

Maybe that’s why my voice, though raised, still came out pathetically weak.

Still, Happy listened intently, as if not wanting to miss a single word.

I wasn’t sure if anything I said even mattered to her anymore.

But in this moment, I was grateful for her attention.

Though it didn’t mean the conversation became peaceful because of it.

This was not a situation where peace was even an option.

SPLASH.

Just beside us, a magical girl and several Darkmoon soldiers fell into the water with a loud crash.

They didn’t resurface.

Their souls had already left them, their bodies reduced to nothing more than floating corpses.

As I watched life become so meaninglessly weightless, I let out a hollow, bitter chuckle.

“…Yeres unnie. I’m sorry, but isn’t that something a magical girl shouldn’t be saying?”

Happy looked genuinely flustered.

She hadn’t expected to hear those words from me.

And she was right.

I was the Queen of the Darkmoon Organization, a woman who had always wanted the world to burn.

Saying something like this made no sense.

“I know. But you—!”

I still had to say it.

Because I was the only one who truly wanted this world to end.

She only wanted to live with me forever.

She was still a magical girl who—

“…longs for love and peace.”

“And you are the Queen of Darkmoon—the one I love.”

That wasn’t the point.

I wasn’t trying to have a philosophical debate with her.

Couldn’t she understand?

I was pretending to be human for her sake.

So she could at least pretend to be human too.

Please.

No—this is an order.

Listen, Happy.

I want to—

“Don’t say you want to make a deal with me.”

She knelt before me, gazing directly into my eyes.

Her fingertips brushed my cheek, her touch as gentle as it was cruel.

Then, in an instant—

Joy was gone.

Vanished into thin air.

“I’ve let you off the hook many times already, unnie.”

She shook her head violently, rejecting even the idea of regaining her humanity.

“I forgave you for showing me your ugly side. I forgave you for lying about loving me.”

“…That wasn’t a lie.”

But Happy had already made up her mind.

“Put your hand over your heart and tell me the truth.”

“You’ve never truly loved me, have you?”

“That’s not—!”

“But I didn’t mind.** I let you have your way.**”

“I let you deceive me, I let you hurt me—because for a while, I was happy.”

“But I can’t take it anymore.”

SLAP.

Her once gentle touch became painfully sharp.

SLAP.

“Remember what I told you?”

“You should apologize first when you do something wrong.”

Slap!

When I didn’t respond, Happy’s blows became more painful.

“Is it that hard? You could’ve just kept acting like before!”

Slap!

It wasn’t the burning pain on my reddened cheek that hurt the most.

“You could’ve just kept pretending forever, Yeres! Was that really so difficult?!”

For some reason, I felt like she would never love me again. That thought alone made it hard to breathe.

“…I’m sorry.”

In the end, I surrendered again.

At least for this lifetime, I wanted her to love me.

I convinced myself that it was okay to give in this much.

Blood from my split lip mixed with tears, running down my chin.

At first, I thought it was a coincidence.

Then, I thought maybe the streak of misfortune had finally ended, and luck had found me.

Or perhaps it was just another thread in the fate woven by the Quest Jewel.

Whatever the reason, it didn’t matter.

Compared to the pain of cutting my own palm with a blade, the sting of a slap was nothing.

Yet, somehow, more than half of my love for Happy fell away with each strike.

“I’m sorry for escaping. But…”

“But what?”

“It wasn’t because I hated you.”

“Then why? Don’t tell me that bastard Lunt told you to run away?”

Maybe it was because I apologized.

Or maybe it was because she had put so much force into those slaps that she was finally out of breath.

But Happy’s anger cooled, and she stopped using informal speech.

I shook my head, causing the unmixed blood and tears to smear across my face.

Had she not used magic to splash water on my cheeks, I would’ve looked absolutely pitiful.

Even now, she could heal me with just a wave of her hand.

“Lunt… no, your mascot…”

“It’s fine. I know everything, so call him whatever you want.”

“…What?”

“Congratulations, unnie. If you had lied again, you would’ve ended up like this too.”

Thud.

Happy tossed a bloodied, unconscious Lunt beside me.

“If he had just stayed by my side, none of this would’ve happened. Unnie too. Lunt too. I just don’t get it.”

Do I seem that weak?

Happy pouted, puffing out her cheeks in frustration.

“What do you think, unnie?”

What the hell was I supposed to say?

Should I just tell her the truth—that this was all because of the Quest Jewel’s punishment?

No. That would be insanity.

“Unnie, answer me.”

“I don’t hate you. But…”

“But?”

I remembered that this wasn’t the end.

This was just a step toward uncovering the information I had never obtained in 131 lifetimes.

That meant I still had to lie.

A lie so perfect it wouldn’t even sound like one.

“I couldn’t just live my life constantly pleasing someone else.”

The truth was simple.

I only loved you because of the Quest Jewel.

I didn’t want to be controlled by an artificial love anymore.

“Oh, I see.”

Happy nodded in understanding, then slowly stood up.

“That means unnie must love something else more than me.”

I didn’t argue.

I already knew exactly what she was about to do next.

“Then, I’ll just start erasing the things unnie loves.”

Instead of protesting, I put on the best performance of my life.

“I’ll erase them one by one. Until the only thing left for unnie to love… is me.”

Even if it means I have to kill for it.

Even if it means I have to destroy everything.

“I’ll start with… hmm. That should be good.”

Happy smiled sweetly as she looked down at me.

“Yeres unnie, how much do you love the Darkmoon Organization?”

“…What?”

“And among them, how much do you treasure your first subordinate, Alpha?”

“You… don’t tell me—!”

Her words were so monstrous, I had to act fast.

I threw myself to my knees, grabbing onto her leg as if to stop her from leaving.

But Happy simply laughed—a quiet, mocking sound—before tilting my chin up with her foot.

“It’s too late.”

“Please don’t! I was wrong!”

“Let’s start by wiping Darkmoon off the map.”

“And tomorrow… I’ll kill Alpha.”

“I’m sorry! I’ll never do this again! I’ll stay by your side, I swear! Just please—”

“Unnie. You didn’t throw away your resident ID, did you?”

My plan had worked.

She ignored everything I said.

Instead, she rummaged through my pockets, pulling out my smartphone and extracting the ID card tucked inside the case.

After checking it, she nodded in satisfaction.

“Come to the address written here tomorrow.”

Then, she used light magic to lift herself into the air.

“If you don’t show up… it’ll be boring.”

Within an hour,

Darkmoon was completely wiped off the face of the earth.

Except for Alpha and me, everyone was gone.

Even though I had seen this 132 times before, it never got any easier.

But this time, something was different.

“…There’s still plenty of time before tomorrow.”

In all the previous cycles, I had always been filled with rage by this point.

But today—

Today, all I felt was an eerie, disgusting sense of peace.