Chapter 41
Chapter 41
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 40
Chapter Title: Funeral Without Mourners
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“What?”
Deus thought he’d misheard and asked again.
I opened my mouth to repeat it if he wanted, but he urgently grabbed me by the collar.
“Regrets? You said regrets? You bastard! Why? You trying to end it too? Put me to sleep? Huh?! You fucking dog!”
“…….”
“You lunatic! You’re the evil spirit! I’m the real Deus! How dare you turn the tables on me, you shit!”
Bam!
He twisted his waist and swung his fist wildly, landing it squarely on my face.
I staggered back, but caught my breath and looked at him calmly.
“So that’s why you tried to kill me?”
“Yeah! If I can’t exist as myself, then I have to kill you! How dare you take over someone else’s body!”
Watching Deus, who looked ready to charge at me again with rage boiling over, I could kind of see why people called him a wastrel.
Anyway.
There was one reason I asked this.
“Then why didn’t the Verdi Family try to kill me?”
“…….”
Deus hesitated, staring at me as if he wanted to shout something, but pride kept his mouth shut.
“You only tried to kill me at the Academy. You couldn’t act freely in the Verdi Family.”
Deus slowly lowered his head. It was pathetic, the way he clammed up about what he saw as his weakness.
“I’m not asking because I don’t know the reason. Don’t think you can hide it by staying silent.”
“You……!”
“First, you were scared of the other evil spirits. The Verdi Family is crawling with ones that toyed with you.”
The original Deus must have seen the same things inside his body that I did. Countless evil spirits rampaging through the mansion, mocking him.
Deus couldn’t endure that environment.
At least in Northsweden, the Verdi name justified all his actions and kept people from pointing fingers openly.
But after death, none of that mattered—everyone was equal as the departed.
So he’d only hidden deeper inside me.
He didn’t want to lose his identity and pride to the swarm of evil spirits.
“But that wasn’t all. Even after I cleared out the evil spirits, you still didn’t come out.”
“…….”
“And then, when I returned to the Academy and night fell, you came out right away to kill me.”
“Sh, shut up.”
Deus clenched his fist to swing again, but this time I slipped back and dodged.
Do you know how many times I got beaten as a kid for talking to ghosts in thin air?
Truth be told, dodging a junkie slacker’s punches was always easy.
Thud!
He swung at empty air and pitched forward, sprawling awkwardly on the ground.
I looked down at him and shoved the truth in his face—the one he never wanted to admit.
“There was a possibility.”
“Stop!”
“Just like what I did with your body, you realized you might have a chance to turn everything back too.”
“Shut up! Shut up! I said shut the fuck up!”
Deus pounded the floor in fury, tears streaming hot again.
“You thought you couldn’t change anymore. That your life’s turning point had already passed.”
“Don’t say it! Don’t fucking say it!”
“So you regretted it. You didn’t want to admit that things could’ve gone this way.”
I knelt on one knee beside the sobbing, limp Deus and placed a hand on his back.
“You wanted me to fall apart too. So you always tried to kill me while I was at the Academy, but after expulsion, you didn’t need to bother.”
Because he thought I was going through the same ruinous process as him.
But I returned to the Academy. As a professor, under far better conditions.
If things kept going like this, he’d have to watch with his own eyes that he’d had other possibilities.
In the end, Deus moved again to kill me, and this time he thought he’d succeeded.
“I needed this once to talk to you. And luckily, there were capable professors below treating the injured guards, so I trusted and jumped.”
With them right there for emergency aid, I took the leap.
In the end, I saw it as a success.
“Deus, I’ve thought hard about what your regrets are, in my own way.”
Sincerely.
To understand the man Deus, I’d racked my brains countless times.
“You wanted to kill me. That must be one of your regrets.”
“…….”
He didn’t answer, just curled up tighter, trembling and sobbing as if stripped bare by our talk.
“Another is wanting to see the person you loved. I think that’s it.”
Drip.
He slowly raised his head. Confusion flickered across his wrecked face.
“Iluania. The one woman you truly loved, among all the countless ones.”
“N-no. I……!”
“It was the first time. The first time someone else’s emotions—not mine—hit me so deep.”
That’s why I was shocked when I first saw Iluania on Northsweden’s streets.
The moment I saw her, I knew instantly: this was the woman Deus truly loved.
Deus had genuinely wanted to be with Iluania.
“Spending nights together, consoling each other in drugged haze, making love again the next day.”
Socially, they were worlds apart—a whore and a count’s son. But in bed, they were equals, lovers, confidants.
“Bit by bit, your feelings for her grew, but you never said it.”
Each warm word from the whore must have given Deus feelings he’d never known.
But sadly.
“Iluania got pregnant.”
“Urk!”
Deus knew too. He must have seen it through me.
“What she needed was someone to shower her with absolute, unchanging love. And that wasn’t you. It couldn’t be you—or anyone.”
She wanted a child of her own blood. She might have loved him during their time together.
But Iluania was a pro—she could neatly pack away emotions when time was up, scarred enough not to fall easily for anyone.
“That bitch! She promised to love me! Said we’d be together! Fucking whore carrying another man’s kid……!”
Bam! Bam! Bam!
Each floor-pounding blow carried Deus’s despair.
“Why! Why does this shit only happen to me! Why do I only find out after everything’s fucked!”
Watching him scream, despair, pounding his chest to pieces, I declared coldly.
“You’re still selfish as ever.”
“……What?”
“You think you’re the only victim, still blaming others.”
“I, I……!”
“There’s Deia right now. And all the maids you toyed with. I can say this because I’m bearing the weight of your evils more it piles up.”
“…….”
To Deus, gaping at me, I clicked my tongue and replied.
“You’re the worst trash, Deus.”
“Ah.”
“And there are no second chances for you. You know that.”
Deus twisted away in panic, desperate not to hear those final words, and bolted.
But after a few steps, he slipped and pitifully scraped the floor.
“You’re already dead.”
What was the cause?
Overdose on drugs?
Brain pickled in booze?
Sudden cardiac arrest called judgment?
I don’t know.
Not even me.
He just slipped into sleep too peacefully compared to his evils, closed his eyes, and I woke up.
That’s why Deus tried to kill me too.
He knew he had no chance to live again, so he could throw away his body without hesitation.
“I don’t judge good or evil. I just listen to souls’ stories and help their wishes if I deem them worthy.”
I walked toward his sprawled form. He screamed at me not to come closer, then exhausted himself into a spread-eagle, tears flowing.
“You’re the one soul I don’t understand, don’t deem worthy, but still try to help.”
Because I’m using your body.
I planned to pay the price for that.
“To Deia and Darius, whom you hurt, and countless others, I’ll show a new Deus. One so proud and honorable your old memories won’t surface.”
“…….”
“The Iluania you alone truly loved will never wander dirty brothels again. She’ll raise her child in a stable job, live a happy life with it. I’ll even get her off drugs, of course.”
“…….”
“Deus Verdi, this is the only gift I can give you.”
He didn’t meet my eyes.
“Damn it.”
He just wept, reflecting on his life.
“Keep your promise, you bastard.”
His curt toss-out.
Hearing it, I recited the eulogy for the departed.
“You were viciously selfish, leaving wounds on countless people. No words can excuse that.”
No tears flowed, no wails sounded.
Deus Verdi’s silent funeral, with no attendees.
Deus began turning to light from his toes, but offered no resistance.
“So no one regrets your death, no one misses you. This is your karma, the result of sins piled high.”
He still wept. Endless regrets, bitter sorrow filled him.
“But at the very end.”
I closed my eyes calmly, clasping my hands neatly.
“You, who never thought of others even once, finally gave one person a chance at the last moment.”
I bowed my head slowly, pretending not to see his wretched end.
“As someone who received that chance, if I offer you some small comfort.”
Would this ease his passing, even a little?
It didn’t matter.
“At the very last moment, you chose for another, shed tears of regret—you were a person who could change.”
The comfort I could offer, having received a new life from you.
“Rest content with that, and close your eyes in peace.”
When I opened my eyes again, Deus Verdi was gone.
Whether he wept until his very end, or found some small solace, I don’t know.
But.
Confirming I had become Deus Verdi myself, I turned without hesitation.
“Just fall into a deep sleep where you can forget yourself.”