I'm a Villainess, Can I Die?-Chapter 32

When I opened my eyes, all I saw was darkness.

A space so pitch-black that I couldn’t even see my own fingers.

It was as if my eyes were still closed, even though I was sure they were open.

This time... did I really fall into hell?

I felt no urge to get up.

If I just lay here, someone would come for me eventually. A reaper, a demon, the king of the underworld—whoever.

Ah... I really don’t want to do anything.

I didn’t know how long I remained like that, lost in my own emptiness.

Then, from the void, a single white butterfly fluttered toward me.

More followed. Dozens. Hundreds.

The air filled with their beating wings, and then—

A brilliant light burst forth.

And in that glow, their collective shape shifted.

I had seen this before.

The same dream.

The same human form, gradually becoming clearer, taking on a familiar face.

And as always—

Selina.

“You!”

But this time, something was different.

This time, Selina’s voice reached me.

She seemed startled, as if she hadn’t expected to speak. Her hands instinctively reached for her throat, pressing lightly against it as though confirming that the sound had truly come from her.

Then, slowly, her gaze turned toward me.

And before I could react—

She marched forward, grabbed my shoulders, and yanked me up.

Her hands trembled. Her lips quivered.

Her eyes, brimming with unshed tears, locked onto mine.

And then, without hesitation—

She slapped me.

Hard.

What the hell?

I blinked, stunned.

What kind of twisted logic was this?

She had dragged me up just to hit me?

Dumbfounded, I slowly turned my head back toward her—only to find her crying.

Not just shedding a few tears.

Selina was sobbing.

Crying so hard she couldn’t even speak properly.

"When... when did I ever tell you to die?! Who told you to die?!"

She choked out the words before finally collapsing onto the ground, curling in on herself as she wept.

I stared.

This entire sequence of events made no sense.

She had dragged me up, slapped me, and then promptly broken down into a full-on meltdown.

And yet—

The way she was sobbing, the sheer despair in her voice—

Even though I was the one who got hit, I found myself doing the only thing I could.

I sat beside her.

And just like in my dreams, I reached out and patted her back.

Fuck my life.

"When... when did I ever... tell you to die?" she hiccupped.

Her words were barely coherent between sobs.

"I never called you here to die! I—ugh, forget it! That’s not the point!"

"Then why did you call me?"

Selina flinched.

She opened her mouth, hesitated, then quickly snapped it shut again.

"I... I didn’t call you."

Her voice wavered.

"Yeah! I didn’t call you, so I don’t know! But either way, I never told you to die! I—I regretted my life at the end, okay?! That’s why I showed you my memories! I wanted you to see them so you wouldn’t end up like me!"

I let out a dry chuckle.

"Most people don’t end up like you, Selina."

"Oh, wow! You got me there!"

She threw her hands up.

"Well, guess what? Most people don’t end up like you either! Who the hell jumps off a tower just because a dead person shows them some memories?!"

Yeah... can’t argue with that.

"I mean... I didn’t really care either way," I muttered. "Living or dying. If that’s what you wanted, it wasn’t that big a deal for me."

Selina let out a short, incredulous laugh.

"Wow. Just... wow. Incredible. Truly astounding. But guess what? That wasn’t my wish! I wanted to live! If I had a choice, I would’ve lived a long time!"

"Then why didn’t you take back your own body?"

At my words, she froze.

Her jaw clenched.

Then, without another word, she turned away and buried her face against her knees.

"My soul is dead. I can’t go back."

"Oh."

"It’s punishment," she said bitterly. "For the way I lived. For being cruel. For hurting people. For hitting, yelling, stealing—"

She laughed hollowly.

"Yeah. Guess I really was a piece of shit."

Punishment, huh...

Did that mean my past life’s parents were punished, too?

I wanted them to be.

I didn’t want them to be.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

Was my brother’s death their punishment?

No, that had been my punishment, too.

"Are you even listening?"

"Yeah."

I nodded absentmindedly.

Selina sniffled.

"Anyway... I thought that since you were in my body, maybe you could live differently. Just... as yourself. Just accept love when people give it to you. Don’t take things you don’t need. Just live... just be happy."

Accept love.

Want nothing.

Live happily.

Those words were far heavier than any demand to die.

Much harder to fulfill.

Dying had been easy.

Living, though?

I had never put any effort into it.

My past life had been exhausting.

My brother had died.

I had killed myself.

Then I woke up in Selina’s body, and it was just... tiresome.

I wasn’t determined to live.

I wasn’t determined to die.

I was just killing time, waiting for twenty-three to roll around.

Then I misunderstood her wish.

And I figured, why not?

Life and death had never been weighty things to me. They were light enough to be swayed by someone else’s wishes.

But love, greed, happiness?

"How?"

"What?"

"How do I do that?"

Selina stared at me, wide-eyed.

She looked like I had just shattered something inside her.

Her lips parted, as if she had something to say—then she bit them shut again.

Her eyes turned red.

And once again, tears spilled onto the ground.

She really did cry a lot.

Pressing her palms against her eyes, she shook her head furiously before looking at me again.

"Why do you think you’re not real?" she whispered. "You are real. You are Selina. You’re in my body. We’re one person now. You... you deserve to be loved."

One person?

I couldn’t understand it.

We had lived such different lives.

How could I pretend to be Selina, just because I was in her body?

How could I claim her life, steal her family’s love, and let them think she was still alive?

"It doesn’t matter," I muttered. "I’m going to die soon anyway. I already jumped."

The past two months had been like a fleeting dream.

Beautiful.

Terrible.

And utterly unattainable.

To ask me to hold onto that? To claim it as my own?

To introduce myself as Selina?

To call myself Selina, as if it were natural?

As if it belonged to me?

That was harder than anything else.

"...You said you’d grant my wish," Selina whispered. "So grant this one. Live. Be happy."

"There are wishes that can’t be granted."

"What does it even mean to ‘live happily’? Do you mean I should lie to your family, pretend to be you, let them love me, and then die from an illness in a few years?"

"Or should I pretend to be you and enjoy the privilege of being a noble lady, living in your place?"

I didn’t raise my voice.

I spoke as I always did—flat, even.

But even so, Selina bit her lip, flinching slightly every time I opened my mouth.

"I stopped being useful a long time ago."

"My life belonged to my parents. Then it belonged to my brother. But now I have no purpose. They controlled me, decided everything for me, and then, when they were done, they told me I was useless. That they didn’t want to interfere in my life anymore. That they wouldn’t tell me what to do anymore. But I don’t know how to live on my own."

"So how the hell am I supposed to live happily? I don’t even know how to live. How do I add happiness on top of that? I don’t know anything."

"I don’t know who I am."

"I’m tired. I don’t care anymore. I already died. That’s it. It’s over."

It was a strange feeling.

These words kept spilling from my mouth, as if they had been buried deep inside me for years, clawing their way to the surface.

And yet, my voice was completely calm.

Selina took another step back, her face blank with shock.

Then—

She moved.

She strode forward, grabbed my arms, and clenched them tightly.

Her eyes burned with something—anger, grief, desperation.

"Why the hell does a person need to be useful to live?! Does only ‘useful’ people get to exist?! Does someone else have to decide whether you deserve to be here?!"

Her voice cracked as she screamed at me, her whole body trembling.

Then suddenly, she covered her face with both hands.

Her shoulders shook.

She wiped her eyes roughly with her sleeve before lifting her gaze, now eerily calm.

"Why did you jump?"

"Was it because you thought I wanted you to?"

I hesitated.

"...I was already dead in my past life."

"But you're alive now."

Selina’s hands curled into fists.

She wasn’t going to back down.

"You’re just trying to die out of obligation. You don’t know how to live without someone deciding your path for you. And I happened to look like I wanted you to avoid a tragic death. So you thought—oh, great. Here’s a mission I can complete. Let me die in her place. That’s it, isn’t it? You think that’s your purpose. You think you need a purpose to exist."

She spat the words out, staring at me like she was challenging me to deny it.

I didn’t.

Because she was right.

Her words hit hard—harder than the slap earlier.

Like a fighter throwing punch after punch, leaving me standing there, unable to respond.

She had pointed out something I had ignored.

Something I hadn’t even realized about myself.

I did need someone to decide my worth.

My whole life, I had only moved when I was told to.

One year later.

One month later.

One week later.

One day later.

One hour later.

One minute later.

No matter what, I had followed the path set for me.

And when I had tried to live, my brother had died.

And they had told me—

"You’re not needed anymore."

If I wasn’t needed, then what was my life?

What did it even mean to exist without purpose?

A life without purpose.

Visit frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓ for the b𝘦st novel reading experience.

A life without direction.

A life where even I didn’t know who I was anymore.

So I climbed to the top of an abandoned building.

The rusted metal screeched under my feet, but I wasn’t scared.

With each step up the staircase, my mind emptied.

All that remained was exhaustion.

I stopped at the edge.

Looked down at the darkness below.

It was too deep to see anything.

It reminded me of an endless black sea.

At the very end of my life—

The only face that came to mind was my brother’s.

The one person who had been my purpose, even if it wasn’t by choice.

His pale, sickly face.

That was all I could remember.

I had lived my entire life for him.

I had given up everything for him.

So shouldn’t he, at the very least—

Shouldn’t he have left me with a face full of warmth?

Shouldn’t he have given me a single moment—just one—of happiness?

But he hadn’t.

There was nothing.

Just exhaustion.

I closed my eyes.

The cold wind wrapped around me.

My long hair brushed against my neck.

I’m tired.

I don’t care anymore.

It’s over.

I stepped forward.

There was nothing beneath my feet.

And so—

I died.