jdhmnovel Chapter 269 Except for Her - S01E07
Chapter 269 Except for Her - S01E07
You begin to be able to sense the emotions, intentions, and even the remnants of "good and evil" in others.
Your brain and judgment are starting to malfunction.
The stench of hell and the fragrance of strange flowers assault your senses at the same time, and every perceptible scent, accompanied by a certain imagination, floods your brain.
You can taste the flavor of every molecule in the air, and then see from those molecules everything that has happened in this region, going back countless years and into the future.
You can even taste a person's emotions and use that to your stomach.
The movement of air and the wind are like sharp blades; you are so sensitive that you can feel the changes in your surroundings through every pore.
Because you can feel the edge of the wind, the different thicknesses of space, the touch of others hiding secrets, and whether a person's happiness is scalding or soft when you touch it.
……
And so your old world died in this seemingly eternal pain.
Even if you didn't understand what "death" really meant at that time, the force that forcibly intervened in your body completely broke you down.
When everything exceeds your capacity to bear it, when your five senses go from the initial 1 to infinity, all that's left for your soul and body is the primal sensation of instinctive "intense pain".
To be honest, she's been waiting for someone to ask her what it feels like to have her worldview shattered. She feels her answer will be unparalleled, and she'll definitely get a score of over 90.
……
what……
What was I like before?
What do you look like?
Do you have a good personality?
How did your family members see you?
Ironically, after experiencing hell herself, all she had left were her family, her hometown, some vaguely remembered friends, and the knowledge and logic she had learned…
■■■Actually, I can't remember anything about myself anymore.
The only thing she remembers most vividly is that she must have vomited a lot back then.
She didn't know how many times she vomited; she even felt that she must have vomited up her insides.
Although only humans and human souls can kill ■■■, and logically speaking, ■■■ should be immortal... but she still experiences death.
Just like when she was attacked by seawater in front of the Shirley Inn, she didn't simply turn into a black dragon, but rather—
What we experienced was death.
Because the time her true form burst through her original skin was already a death.
...Death was a cheap experience for her.
She is able to stand before Rosie and talk to her now entirely because she herself constantly uses the power of her soul to reshape her body.
When she first entered hell, while experiencing excruciating pain, ■■■ had actually died quite a few times, including but not limited to suicide, falling from somewhere, or doing something even more horrific…
But at least one thing is certain.
The weight of Shirley Morningstar, who restored some of her sanity and was able to purify her soul, is beyond question.
■■■ She would fly into a rage every time someone questioned Shirley.
Because Shirley Morningstar is not only a kind little princess of hell, but also because she freed her from eternal torment.
The pain of tearing one's soul apart, the agony of having only half one's rationality left every second, the agonizing pain from the wound, the agony of tearing one's skin apart, or the crushed bones in one's wrist...
These childish pains are nothing compared to the inhuman torture that [the person] endured when falling into hell.
—Now, let's really get back to the beginning.
As everyone already knows, ■■■ is Chinese.
Chinese people always understand the principle of repaying a small kindness with a great one.
So, in response to Shirley Morningstar's wish, Shirley Morningstar proposed... whether it was "saving sinners" or "redeeming sinners so that they are qualified to go to heaven."
Because Shirley had no ill intentions, and because Shirley was the princess of hell who saved her from endless suffering—
You can truly experience the whole world starting from [■■■].
It started when she was finally able to sort out her thoughts.
From the moment she was finally able to study magic in Hell and set foot on her homeland.
No matter what Shirley says, as long as the battlefield is only this boring land in the west, unrelated to her homeland...
■■■ would all regard it as sacred decree.
Yes.
So what?
Because she can do it.
Is it to destroy Heaven and kill everyone?
Is it about reshuffling the power structure of the entire hell?
Is Shirley trying to build her own invincible army?
Is it to bring all the people offended by the arrogant ring to her inn to atone for their sins?
To become her sword?
Give her a rainbow?
Help her find her mother, Lilith?
What are you leveling?
Have you found a priceless treasure?
Who would you fall out with for her?
All of this posed no difficulty for her at all.
Shirley Morningstar's desire to save sinners is not arrogant, but she is fully capable of making Shirley Morningstar the most arrogant princess in all of Hell, simply because she can.
Anyone who suffers is not her compatriot from her homeland, anyone who stands against Shirley, anyone who wants what Shirley desires…
All the difficulty and value of all this are nothing to ■■■.
Clearly, apart from Shirley Morningstar and the things Shirley Morningstar cared about, the person she pulled out of that chaos didn't care about anything for a long time.
Yes, her instincts should have led her to kill every demon in the entire hell; and during the period when she was delirious, she probably did indeed do so.
During the initial period when she was with Shirley, that was probably when she most vividly demonstrated that "everything is worthless except for Shirley Morningstar and everything she cares about".
Unfortunately, after killing all the demons who disrespected her and slaughtering everyone around them, the person who thought she had already restrained herself ended up receiving only a re-education from Shirley and Vicky, who said, "You seem to be going a bit too far."
You think this might be related to the fact that your worldview and values have been reshaped too many times, but you don't think there's anything wrong with it—however, since Shirley doesn't like it, you should try a different approach.
(For example, the All Things in the World Dice is a pretty good choice. Although you roll the All Things in the World Dice out of pure boredom, it has to be said that it is definitely very useful as a torture device.)
■■■She always knew that from the moment she was willing to do most things for Shirley, suppressing her instincts was no big deal to her compared to the things she was willing to do for Shirley; it was just a different method.
It's not exactly lying.
But she would tell others that she stayed in Shirley's Inn and refused to go out entirely because she hated those vulgar, rude, and stupid sinners from the Pride Ring...
But in reality, she stayed in Xia Li's inn and didn't go out because she was thinking of those sinners outside.
■■■'s position, from the very beginning and most fundamentally, is on the opposite side of hell.
In other words, it was only because ■■■ sided with Shirley that she became an enemy of Paradise.
—So, let's clarify things first.
Before everything changed, ■■■ was just an "ordinary person" tormented to the point of collapse by divinity.
The nature of "military power" and "killing" may have nearly turned her into a bomb in the entire hell.
If she hadn't met the imp Cynthia, her future might have been that of becoming the greatest enemy of all of Hell.
If she were to truly embark on this path, she would not care about the so-called human life, nor would she have time to pay attention to it; because suffering would have drowned out the voices of humanity and the last vestiges of her own humanity.
And now, the person who can hear human voices, is willing to think about humanity, wants to fight for humanity, and can see real injustice is entirely because Shirley gave her time to breathe and think.
...Perhaps ■■■ would have been an existence no different from heaven.
Perhaps she would have become a more decisive and terrifying person.
Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.
I wrote this late at night, and the more I revised it, the more incoherent I became. Please bear with it; isn't this a kind of Cthulhu mythos? (closes eyes)