"The end..."
As she closed the book, she scowled.
"Oh dear, are you not feeling well?"
The nanny asks as she puts away the book from Agnette, who's tucked in bed with a soft blanket covering half of her body while staring at the wall, not even listening to her retell her favorite bedtime stories.
*Pats*
"Oh?!"
The nanny is startled as Agnette looks at her with eyes no different from her siblings.
'I must be one of them. I want to. I want to be as useful and worthy as my sisters.'
She thought while looking at the middle-aged woman beside her who kept checking her temperature worriedly.
"I'm sorry, nanny..."
As she stated it, mumbling in the air, the nanny paused and patted her head.
"Ow, my dear, you've never done anything wrong."
She gave a graceful smile.
"Cheer up."
"Come on, smile."
She added as she tucked Agnette to the bed, looking lost in thought that could be foreseen from her open book expression.
The night, which ticks away like time, turns the mansion upside down when a rumor of a servant stealing from one of the adoptive daughters of the king spreads in the entire mansion.
"Ahhhhh!!! I didn't do it!"
"I swear I didn't!"
She pleads, rubbing both of her hands.
But despite all of her pleading while kneeling on the floor covered in bruises and wounds, Agnette just stared, watching her nanny bear the pain from the wound she created.
"My lady, I swear I didn't steal anything from you!"
Her eyes began to water while blood dripped from her pump-wounded lip.
'Of course, you haven't done anything wrong; it's me who did it.'
Her expression darkened.
"I don't need you anymore."
Agnette whispered in her ears, leaving him weakened to her knees.
"W-.what? What are you talking about all of a sudden, my lady?!"
She was puzzled, but Agnette just formed a smile on her face, which gave chills to the spines of everyone witnessing the scene.
"What are you bawling your eyes for?"
Agnette's petrifying cold tone of voice had left her unrecognizable, making the other servants in the room glued to the floor, sweating immensely like they were in front of the burning furnace in the heat of summer.
"Don't be sad."
She then carved a smile on her lips with her fingers.
"Cheer up, Beth, come on, smile~"
"My lady I-
*Slap!*
The way her palms reached her face echoed inside the room, where it was being witnessed by the man covered in precious gold.
Seeing her father smile, Agnette's horn grows, and continuously does her horrendous act, slapping, kicking, and punching Beth, her nanny, with her own hands.
It was an unbearable sight for others to see, but to make the matter worse... The emperor gave him a sharp dagger for her to use, a deadly tool to either prove his loyalty or a tool that would take away her sanity.
"Finish her."
He whispered, waiting for her to shed blood as she reached the sharpened dagger with trembling hands.
'Wha-what?! Then that means I am going to kill her!'
"Father....I....-
"Don't tell me you can't..."
Her eyes widen as she sweats bullets, watching everyone's gaze that pierces her.
"No, my lady!"
'I...forgive me, Nanny.'
This time what Agnette thought and felt wasn't tainted with stain; it was pure and real.
She then reached for the dagger with her eyes covered in anxiety, guilt, or fear before she pierced it through her flesh, chopping off the nanny's head, and leaving it rolling down to the floor.
"I'm so proud of you, Agnette."
The king whispered, holding her shoulder and hearing it, her body shaken to the point where she couldn't even look properly into his eyes for how their plan didn't trick the demonic king.
"Nanny, I want to make Father proud, but how?"
Upon stating it, Beth was in silence for a minute before making up the plan, aware that she would sacrifice her life.
"You can use me, my lady..."
Present time...
'"Back then till now, I regretted being born as a human rather than to be a devil that will be rotting in hell."
As she opened her eyes, Agnette, who was just reminiscing from the past, came back from her senses, vividly watching how Khalid had slashed the sword at her hair, not even touching the flesh of her throat.
And what he had spoken after had made Agnette's eyes water...
"We can just fake her death!"
"Huh?!"
She was baffled, yet she felt her chest lighten as if God had given her a second chance to repent from her sin, the chaos and suffering she had caused by trusting the person who drowned her deep in the mud.