After preparing the breakfast and eating it, she decided to take a walk.
The food sat heavy and warm in her stomach. Not the bloated, toxic heaviness from corrupted meals. A clean, solid weight. It made her feel almost human again. She needed to move, to burn off the restlessness before it turned into something sharp and destructive.
She didn't want to look like a tourist when she went to the banquet.
The system seemed to have vanished.
But the good news was that she could still access her things in the truck. The storage link was open. Weapons, seeds, the old burner phone, the first-aid kit she'd hoarded from three lifetimes ago. All there. If the system stayed gone, she'd manage.
She stood in the garden and looked at the two-story building with roses surrounding it like a protective umbrella.
The roses were wild. Not the manicured, court-perfect kind. Thorns everywhere, petals a deep red that bordered on black in the shade. They'd grown unchecked, clawing over the stone walls, over the iron railings, as if trying to swallow the house whole and keep it safe.
She inhaled the scent that assaulted her nose. It was strong, almost cloying, with an undertone of damp earth and old wood. For a second, everything went quiet.
She felt all her worries gone. She felt like home.
It was a dangerous feeling. Home meant attachment. Attachment meant leverage. She filed it away and moved on.
She looked at the men who were following behind her, like protective shields.
Six paces back. Always. Not crowding, not demanding attention, but present. Cassen in front of them, shoulders relaxed but eyes sharp. Dylan to the left, head tilted like he was listening to something she couldn't hear. Nathaniel at the back, hands in pockets, lazily scanning the tree line. The other two fanned out without being told.
She didn't know why, but sometimes they seemed different.
Her house was in the middle of the garden, with a farmland behind the house and the trees welcoming its owners with a comfortable glow.
She walked to the land, felt the soil texture between her fingers, and nodded in approval.
It was loose, dark, rich.
If she used vertical bags to plant vegetables with onions at the top to prevent diseases, that would be better.
The idea came automatically. Old habit. In her first life, she'd survived two winters on a rooftop farm like this.
The vertical bag should have a space of fifteen centimeters and the holes should be in a zigzag position. That way the water wouldn't pool, and the roots wouldn't rot.
Cabbages or corn, she would plant them in a corn garden. Corn for windbreak, cabbage for yield. Simple. Efficient.
She looked at the lake which had rhizoids and water lilies.
The lilies were half-dead, leaves brown at the edges, but the rhizoids were spreading. Nature always found a way. The water was still, reflecting the sky like a cracked mirror.
It seemed to have been neglected for a long time. Leaves and branches cluttered the edges. Mosquitoes would breed there soon if she didn't clear it.
But its water could be used as irrigation. And if it was salty or soapy, she would use coal to purify it.
Charcoal filtration. Slow, but it worked.
Since she would be alone, she would use drip irrigation to prevent manpower.
No point wasting people on something a length of tubing and gravity could handle. She'd set it up herself. No one needed to know how much she could do alone.
As she walked around the farm, she planned everything silently.
Crop rotation. Pest control. Storage. Winter prep.
A squeak stopped her in her tracks.
The sound was small, high, desperate. It cut through her planning like a knife.
There in the corner of the land stood a mango tree. Its bark was scarred, branches low and twisted. And at its base, an injured rabbit lay there, bathed in blood.
The blood was dark, almost black. One hind leg was twisted at an unnatural angle. Its breathing was shallow, wet.
She walked towards it.
Her steps were careful, automatic. No hesitation.
She pulled her pants up slightly and crouched in a sitting position, with one hand touching the injured rabbit. She felt it.
The vibration.
The power that pulsed in her hand before it transmitted to the rabbit. It was warm, like holding a live wire, and it sank into the animal with a soft glow under her palm. Fur knit back together. Bone reset with a quiet crack. Blood stopped.
Its injuries healed. Her eyes cooled.
The drain on her was minimal. Almost nothing. But the rabbit's body was trembling, overwhelmed.
The rabbit opened its eyes. They were red. Just like hers. An omen.
Her hand was still placed on the rabbit's body. It started emitting a painful whimper.
Chloe's eyes were focused on the rabbit's painful expression. Then she smiled.
Her eyes curved. Two of her canine teeth could be seen. Her red lips curved, not seductively but innocently.
But her eyes remained cold and emotionless.
The morning light filtered through her hair, giving her a morning glow. She looked dangerous but beautiful.
-[You can't kill it!] The system's high-pitched and tired voice was heard in her head.
Tired.
The word stuck. The system never sounded tired. Annoyed, angry, smug—yes. Tired meant it had been fighting something.
"—What have you been doing?" She asked mindlessly while ignoring its command.
Her voice was flat. Not angry.
She wanted to know whether too much of something was harmful. The results didn't make her happy at all.
The rabbit was healed, but when it continued taking in too much of her power, its organs started expanding on the verge of explosion.
The belly swelled. Veins turned black under the skin. The whimper turned into a choked gurgle.
Explosion was the only way things or people in this world could die.
When people were searching for immortality pills in other worlds, in this world they were searching for a dying pill.
Something that wouldn't give you an inhuman death. That was their curse.
They weren't supposed to die. And if they died, they resurrected and became evil. The worst thing was, they retained their feelings but couldn't control them for the first three hours.
They would try to fight their consciousness, from attacking their loved ones and making them their own kind, but they couldn't.
That was this world's fate. To fight their loved ones even in death.
As she removed her hand from the almost-dying rabbit, she asked the system, "What is the price?"
Her voice was calm. Too calm. The kind of calm that came before breaking something.
[What price?] It asked in a frightened voice.
The system was scared of her.
"I hate a person who acts stupidly, so system, what is the price?" she asked again while standing up and dusting her clothes. Dirt clung to her palms. She brushed it off like it was nothing.
[It is your compensation from your different lifetimes as a villain.] It replied mildly, avoiding the main question.
Compensation? That word rang in her mind like a mantra.
For what? For being accused wrongly? No one knew better than she did.
The one who suffered in Arc Two was not the soul that committed the wrongs, but her.
The one who wanted to change everything.
The one who was hopeless in being controlled.
The one who sought forgiveness for what she never committed.
Then what made them brand her as a villain?
Was it because of her red eyes and hair?
That was why her mother had avoided her since she was young.
Without even thinking, the queen removed her status as a princess.
Denying her rights, of being the queen's child.
"Heh!" She scoffed sarcastically. The sound was ugly in the quiet garden.
"The price, system?" She looked at her hands, then clenched them slowly. Nails bit into skin.
[To save everything.] The system replied timidly.
"You want a villain to save humanity?" Now it really challenged her bottom line.
Why should she?
She wanted to break free, but that didn't mean she'd save others.
She wasn't anyone's momma.
Why should she fight for others when no one fought for her?
She'd fought to stop being controlled mindlessly, but now the system wanted to control her righteously?
With a click, one of her nails broke. It had pierced her skin. Blood started flowing, but she didn't mind.
The pain was distant.
She looked at her husbands, who were not far away from her.
They'd gone still. Even Dylan wasn't breathing.
"Why should I save humanity?" she asked calmly while her smile became wider.
[At the end, Cassen became part of her harem.] The system's voice sounded submissive.
She laughed heartily. The sound startled birds from the trees.
She looked at the blue sky, and she felt like the two suns were mocking her.
What right did Ava have to get everything from her?
Her title as the next queen.
Her men, whom she had saved.
When she'd longingly wished to call the queen 'mother', which she never did, but Ava did it.
Even what she'd been proud of—being free from the world's fate—got snatched away in the end.
With another click, the remaining nails broke.
She unclenched her hand. It looked horrible. Torn, bloody, flesh exposed.
Didn't she feel the pain? She felt it. But when you were immune to something, you became broken.
Broken to the point of self-harm.
Cassen and Dylan looked at her maddened state and in a terrifying speed, they had removed the other husbands who looked shocked.
The rabbit had already moved to the place where they were.
With a loud boom, everything fifteen meters near her exploded.
Her red eyes looked more sinister.
Was it because Ava was the heroine?
But now she got it.
Chloe looked at her trembling hands and how the place she was standing was destroyed.
Because of her powers. They destroyed completely. The heavens deemed her dangerous.
Things were controlled by humans' rules while humans were controlled by the soil they dwelled in. The soil was in what the heavens created, and it ruled everything in it.
So the heavens chose to eliminate her in what it had rules on.