How a Villain Defies Destiny Chapter 108

‘Selene?’  

 

She was crouched in a shabby room, weeping pitifully.  

 

‘This doesn’t seem like Selene’s memories… More like watching CCTV on a large monitor.’  

 

Since I could see both the room’s scenery and Selene at once, I realized this wasn’t a first-person perspective. Carefully, I reached out my hand.  

 

But perhaps because I was in a ghost-like state, my hand didn’t touch the screen—it just passed through.  

 

Still, just in case, I waved my hand around, but nothing changed. I felt just as frustrated as Selene, who was lamenting her fate in tears.  

 

‘Where is this, and why am I even here?!’  

 

For a moment, I looked away from the screen and scanned my surroundings, but nothing stood out.  

 

Everything was pitch-black, making it nearly impossible to tell if anything was even there.  

 

“Sniff… Sob… If it’s not that…”  

 

While I was trying to make sense of the situation, the footage kept playing.  

 

“Just kill me already…”  

 

Her muttering was hollow, devoid of any will to live—as if she had given up entirely.  

 

‘So, she really was suffering from endless regression.’  

 

I had suspected as much, but seeing her so broken from the cycles stirred pity in me.  

 

‘But doesn’t she look a bit different now?’  

 

The current her was more like a clear-eyed madwoman, obsessively fixated on a single goal.  

 

In contrast, judging by Selene’s words in the footage, she seemed lost, unsure of what to do.  

 

‘Maybe something happened between the regression I’m seeing now and the current one…’  

 

Lost in thought, the scene suddenly changed, and a fountain appeared.  

 

The sight was so familiar that I recognized it instantly. It was the game’s introduction—the first episode.  

 

“Oh my, someone said they smelled poverty. So it was coming from here.”  

 

Sure enough, Laura Laurus approached Selene, who was standing still, and started picking a fight.  

 

‘Why does it feel like the dialogue is exactly the same as in the game, down to the last word?’  

 

I had skipped through the early episodes after watching them once or twice, so I couldn’t remember precisely.  

 

“…”  

 

“Hey! Are you ignoring me? Do you know who I am?”

 

Selene, having endlessly repeated the cycle of regression, didn’t even blink at Laura’s provocation, as if she had grown weary of it.  

 

“…”  

 

“Tsk! How dare you, a nobody, act so high and mighty!”  

 

A sharp, crisp sound echoed through the garden.  

 

Originally, the scene should have played out with Selene being pushed into the fountain, but Laura, unable to bear being treated like an invisible bystander, ended up slapping Selene across the face instead.  

 

At that moment, the lifeless, wax-doll-like expression on Selene’s face flickered with the first hint of genuine emotion.  

 

It seemed she was surprised—Laura, who had always repeated the same actions, had reacted differently for the first time.  

 

“Ah—”  

 

“Laura Laurus! What on earth are you doing?”  

 

Selene tried to say something to Laura, but Yves Leblanc arrived a step faster.  

 

From there, events followed the original storyline. Despite Selene insisting on Laura’s innocence, Laura was poisoned and died before the trial.  

 

“Laura Laurus has died again this time.”  

 

Selene, seemingly lost in thought in the prayer room, muttered to herself.  

 

‘I wish I could understand what she’s thinking.’

  

Unfortunately, her inner thoughts remained inaudible. All I could do was watch.  

 

‘Honestly, I still don’t get why I’m even seeing this.’  

 

Still, by observing the screen, I could make two guesses:  

 

Either this situation was related to my unique ability, or someone was deliberately showing me Selene’s past.  

 

‘Well, either way, it’s not bad for me.’  

 

Even after seeing only a fragment of Selene’s past, I had already learned that she was 100% human and couldn’t even communicate directly with Nanna.  

 

‘I don’t know how things are unfolding, but for now, I’ll just keep watching.’  

 

As I shook off my wandering thoughts and tried to focus on the screen for more information—  

 

“My name is Selene Seynt.”  

 

The scene had already changed. Selene was now at a party hosted by the O’annes family.  

 

‘The screen went black for a moment just now… Did someone edit it on purpose to limit the information?’  

 

While puzzling over the abrupt shift, the footage moved forward into an unexpected development—one that had never appeared in the game.  

 

“I’d like to be friends with you.”

 

Selene was the first to approach Laura in a friendly manner.  

 

Watching that scene, I suddenly recalled the stories she had rambled about like a madwoman when she first visited the Laurus household. She had repeatedly insisted on becoming friends.  

 

‘But if what Selene said back then was true, Laura would keep refusing.’

  

The situation on the screen unfolded exactly as she had described.  

 

Despite Selene’s kindness, Laura Laurus acted coldly, and as always, the result was the same—Laura ended up poisoned or assassinated.  

 

Since I had vaguely expected this, I wasn’t surprised, but there was one thing that caught me off guard.  

 

“Failed again.”  

 

After confirming Laura’s death, Selene calmly drank the poison.  

 

Then, the screen flickered briefly. The repeated blackouts over a short period made it easy to dismiss any suspicion that someone had deliberately edited the footage.  

 

It became clear that the screen fading to darkness before each scene transition signified Selene’s death.  

 

‘That aside…’

  

I clicked my tongue as I watched her die for what felt like the umpteenth time.  

 

‘Selene’s persistence is truly something else.’  

 

At first, I found it hard to understand why Selene would repeatedly face death just to befriend Laura—a mere extra villain, not even one of the main target characters.  

 

But soon, I realized that from her perspective as someone living in this world, there was no distinction between extras and main characters.  

 

Even though one’s influence on the world was determined by status, Selene—once a poor noble—had awakened as a saintess. 

 

Perhaps she held onto hope that Laura, too, might have some hidden significance. She likely assumed that saving Laura would provide a clue to stop the regression.  

 

‘Of course, Laura had nothing to do with the regression, so it was a complete dead end.’  

 

I watched with pity as Selene struggled desperately to save Laura, but then the screen changed strangely.  

 

Normally, after drinking the poison, there would be a brief blackout before the scene reset to the first day of the regression. But this time, the screen only crackled with noise, as if the video had been corrupted.  

 

‘Is it already over?’

 

With a translucent hand, Yves Leblanc swiped at the cracked screen, but there was no noticeable reaction.  

 

‘The Xenon route hasn’t fully started yet… Was this just meant to show me that Selene tried her best to save me?’  

 

The moment that thought crossed his mind, a monotonous yet eerily mechanical voice sent chills down his spine.  

 

[That is not what I desire. Still, your method is not bad.]

  

With those words, the noise faded away.  

 

‘Wow, just the voice alone is enough to make me recoil. That’s impressive.’  

 

Her body trembled at the horrifyingly creepy tone—one so unsettling it could haunt her dreams—yet Selene remained perfectly composed.  

 

“Another failure… But it wasn’t completely without gain.”  

 

For a second, she wondered if she hadn’t heard it, but from her following words, it was clear she had.  

 

“I heard Nanna’s divine proclamation.”  

 

Her calm demeanor was a stark contrast to her own reaction, as she twisted uncomfortably, goosebumps rising all over.  

 

Not only that, she was utterly convinced—without hesitation—that the spine-chilling voice belonged to Nanna.  

 

‘Maybe this isn’t the first time she’s heard Nanna’s voice.’

  

Organizing his thoughts, he glanced back at the screen. She had a habit of muttering to herself a lot on the first day of each regression.  

 

“Does saving Laura Laurus hold no meaning? Still, Nanna said the method wasn’t bad, so I’ll keep trying.”  

 

Selene sniffled quietly, hugging her knees as she continued murmuring.  

 

“It’s not like anything else changes anymore, anyway.”  

 

‘Hmm, now I’m starting to see the bigger picture.’  

 

Based on the information gathered so far, Selene seemed to be trapped in an endless regression by Nanna’s doing, and to break free, she had to fulfill whatever Nanna desired.  

 

The problem was—Selene herself didn’t know exactly what that was.  

 

‘So she’s essentially fumbling in the dark, repeating deaths through trial and error to figure out Nanna’s goal.’

  

Having roughly grasped Selene’s situation, Yves Leblanc found himself tangled in another question.  

 

It was about the communication between Nanna and Selene.  

 

‘Wasn’t there some divine pact preventing gods from directly speaking to mortals on the surface?’