The Villain's Sister - Chapter 79

The world where time had stopped was more unreal than anything else.

“Ah.”

The supernatural ability coursed through her body.

When she unwrapped the bandage, a smooth hand without a wound was revealed.

Freed from all restraints, her ability restored her memory and repaired the tangled time within her.

Realizing the secret buried in her consciousness, Giselle lifted her head and let out a heavy breath.

“Ha. Haha…”

At last, Giselle could see the torn world.

The truth of the world she had never seen before flowed into her through her ability.

The cracked universe and the crossroads of time and dimension revealed between the fissures.

Fire and ice, strength and nothingness, destruction and regeneration. Chance and fate flowing like a river.

‘It wasn’t the original.’

The original was a past she didn’t and wouldn’t remember.

Someone had turned back time, and in that reverted time, Oscar was erased.

‘Oscar, even if you disappeared, what had to happen still happened.’

Though Oscar’s disappearance led her to live a life different from the first, being beaten by Andrew and falling into a coma was the same.

Yet somehow, her soul flowed into another world, and there she saw Mist Island.

This dream was not a comic book but was created based on the lost time in her memory.

Since a new present was written as time was turned back, it was natural that she couldn’t remember her first life.

And yet, the reason she could pull out the erased time in her dream was…

‘Because of my ability.’

Originally, Giselle’s ability was a very powerful force that could heal all the pain in the world.

Poison, disease, trauma, incurable conditions.

None of them was a problem.

When her clock hands turned backward due to regression, the ability considered that situation a wound to be healed.

Thus, the ability used most of its power resisting the ‘reverted time’ to heal itself.

The method was to sink the memories of the past into her consciousness.

Thanks to that, even if time was turned back, the time of the past remained in Giselle’s subconscious.

The problem was that because of Giselle, the present world and the vanished world collided.

The present world tried to annihilate the traces of the erased time left inside Giselle.

The ability attacked destruction, destruction attacked the ability. Consuming and being consumed, swallowing and spitting out, destroyed and regenerated.

Endless death and regeneration repeated, and since the ability was constantly active, it could only produce weak effects.

As a result, Giselle’s ability was reduced to healing only external wounds.

“This place is inside my ability.”

The past sank within Giselle and merely existed.

This dream was a place where even she didn’t remember; secrets and reality were mixed.

It was a space of the subconscious created by her ability.

“I’m glad. That you’re alive…”

The author of “Mist Island” was Oscar Jackniper.

In the comic, the origins of the heroes were never revealed, and their private lives were almost absent.

Especially for Red Shadow, there was virtually nothing.

It was natural.

Oscar could never have encountered them during the day.

Oscar only discovered Red Shadow’s identity because, in the final battle, Red Shadow’s mask broke.

It was only a brief glimpse of the face, but with his sharp eyes, he must have recognized who it was immediately.

‘The reason no body could be found was because Oscar had crossed into another world.’

Even if time flowed backward, it couldn’t create a soul that did not exist.

“How could an ordinary man protect the sister of Death Adder?”

Through the rift in the torn world, Raphael’s voice flowed.

Giselle smiled brightly, like a child left alone at a playground finding her mother coming to pick her up.

As long as they were alive, it was enough. Then they could start again.

Oscar and Raphael… just being alive carried countless possibilities.

“It’s time to go home.”

***

Giselle’s consciousness shook.

Then the ability that had built the subconscious world began to whirl, trying to return to its original place.

Though no wind blew, Giselle’s hair scattered in every direction.

“Johan.”

“Yes.”

“That’s what I wanted to say. Every time I look at you, I feel like crying… I was so glad to meet you.”

“I don’t know whether to be glad or sad.”

Johan smiled bitterly.

He tried not to sigh, but the ache inside was unavoidable.

“Smile more often. I was happy to see you smile a lot here.”

“…Giselle. If we had met in another relationship, would something have been different?”

The moment of waiting for an answer felt like eternity.

The thick tension spread from fingertips to toes.

Whether that tension would turn into a thrill or despair depended solely on Giselle.

Giselle stared at Johan for a long time.

Johan thought that gaze was like the blade of a butcher’s knife weighing his worth.

It was heavy and frightening, yet it made him look forward to it.

If he could become someone of value to Giselle… he thought it would satisfy him.

Quite a lot, perhaps immensely so.

“I would have asked for the first place to shine by your side,” she said with a trembling breath, hot as tears.

Johan turned his head to the side to hide his expression and swallowed dryly.

Then he laughed as if about to cry. Overwhelmingly radiant.

“It was worth risking my life to come here.”

The usual coldness sank away as if it had been a lie, leaving him dazzling.

He looked as if he might vanish like dew, and Giselle bit her lip hard.

She thought of the man she had once loved long ago without knowing anything.

Regardless of what that man’s true feelings had been, Giselle had loved him sincerely.

And then, Giselle’s body began to disappear.

Johan quickly apologized.

“Giselle. I’m sorry for being violent.”

“What about you?”

“You must leave first. That’s the only way a path will open.”

“No. Together—”

“You first.”

When Giselle reached out to grab him, Johan was faster.

From below the shoulders, her body scattered like mist. Magic pushed her away.

Once her consciousness began returning to her body, Giselle could not stop it.

“Johan. Out there—”

The moment she opened her mouth, the world pushed her out and her form vanished completely.

Johan confirmed that Giselle had left this place and returned to her rightful place.

‘My turn.’

Since this was Giselle’s consciousness, as soon as she acknowledged this world as false, she could escape easily. But Johan’s case was different.

Her ability had judged Johan, who had entered her consciousness, as a wound to be healed and decided to erase him.

The vortex devoured the world from the edges and rushed toward Johan.

And Johan…

“Damn it.”

He couldn’t use magic.

The moment he tried to cast it, the powerful ability swallowed and erased it.

The ability whirled and digested what it devoured.

At the end of the world lay nothingness.

It was the trace of erased time, a dead universe, complete darkness.

And at the same time, it was a germinating seed, a rippling future, a completed hope.

Johan checked the nearest rift between worlds.

And concluded.

“There’s no way.”

The ability was too strong for him to use magic.

This was not a physical world, so no matter how he struggled, no path would appear.

Resistance was meaningless.

Johan watched the end approach.

Since his life had begun thanks to Giselle, dying to save her was not so bad.

The seven years he had been granted were the most meaningful of his life.

He closed his eyes and prepared for the end.

The voice came as he was letting go of everything.

“Ma, Maria. You said… if anything happened, come to your home…”

“You did well. Now it’s okay. Everything’s okay.”

It was the voice of Maria, who had opened her door to Giselle when she fled domestic violence.

Opening his eyes, he found himself not in a city but in the universe.

A black hole approached, devouring the cosmos.

Behind it, Maria’s apartment door stood.

The house was gone, only the door remained, but Johan instinctively knew it was the exit.

Without thinking further, he turned and ran toward it.

The vortex swelled, dragging in the universe beside him.

The black hole devoured greedily.

“Just a little more…”

The door was not far.

He ran as if charging trenches on the battlefield.

He felt the vortex closing in right behind him.

An immense force pulled at him.

The door was about five meters away.

Only a few seconds.

Step by step.

With each stride, the door grew closer.

Just as Johan reached for the knob, the ability brushed his hem.

Crash!

His body collapsed helplessly.

Darkness closed in. He couldn’t see.

His legs lost all feeling.

He had returned to the body he had before Giselle healed him.

Darkness descended. A fear darker than the dark surged.

“I would have asked for the first place to shine by your side.”

You had long been my one and only light.

Amid fear, light descended.

Giselle illuminated the darkness.

If there was light, there should be peace, but… she couldn’t be peace.

Long ago, in the hospital, she had shaken his life. Now she shook his heart.

Regret piled into lingering attachment, into obsession with survival.

“Damn.”

He groped blindly for the unseen door.

Resisting the force dragging him, he clawed his way forward.

Thud.

His hand touched the door. The moment he turned the knob—

‘I wanted to sing an ensemble with you…’

Nothingness swallowed Johan.