・・・・・
"You will pay for your sins someday. Bitterly regretting that you denied your entire life and survived without dying."
He saw a vision of someone glaring with bloodshot eyes, wide open to their limit, spitting out curses as if vomiting blood.
Benjamin didn’t know who the figure in the vision was — man or woman, child or elderly.
He had heard so many voices warning about paying for sins, it was impossible to count.
One thing was certain: his reaction to those words was always the same.
Though he barely remembered it, he was sure he didn’t even scoff — they were so dull they could make him yawn.
If there was even the tiniest thing left to squeeze out, he would torture and kill anyone, regardless of age or gender.
And if they still didn’t confess, he would shamelessly bring in their family or acquaintances to threaten them.
It was the surest method.
Even high-ranking nobles crumbled instantly once caught in Benjamin’s snare.
After manipulating even the emperor like a puppet, he naturally became intoxicated with a sense of superiority — as if he were a god.
Or at least, if not a god, he believed the world was on his side, revolving around him, and that he could rule even devils beneath him.
He thought he was the protagonist of this world, and that anything he did would be forgiven.
His whole life testified to this: no matter how many devils were involved, it was a scheme that, while risky, could never fail.
He had been cautious, but he believed himself to be the centre of the world.
However, the play ended, and a new act began.
In the script of Act 2, Benjamin was completely excluded from the role of protagonist.
To be precise, he was more like the villain.
‘I feel as if I have been rejected by God.’
Benjamin woke up to a throbbing heat that felt as if his entire body were being trampled.
Perhaps due to a fever, fragments of his past kept flashing through his mind like a revolving lantern.
‘Why...?’
The perpetrator never remembered each victim individually.
Yet, no matter how far he had fallen, why was he tormented by these visions and hallucinations?
Benjamin sifted through his completely jumbled memories and suddenly realised: Cedric had been secretly coming here, forcibly feeding him drugs.
Cedric was repaying him in kind — making Benjamin addicted and dependent, just as he himself had suffered.
He didn’t have a single so-called ‘good memory’ that people often talk about.
It was always insults or curses.
Those who flattered him were hollow inside, while those who approached him sincerely eventually left, despising him.
Or, before anyone could see Benjamin’s true nature, they were stripped of everything and killed.
Benjamin slowly lowered his head.
The wounds were so severe that it was a relief his intestines hadn’t spilled out.
Wrapped around them was a bandage so shoddily applied that calling it first aid was almost embarrassing.
It was nothing short of a miracle that he was still alive in such a state.
"Hello?"
At that moment, someone greeted him lightly.
“This scene looks quite familiar, doesn’t it?”
Irene tilted her head in puzzlement, pointing at the bars, Benjamin, and herself.
They faced each other once again — separated by the bars as before.
Although the situation had completely reversed: Benjamin was inside the bars, and Irene was outside.
‘Serves you right.’
Everyone would say that in unison.
Of course, Benjamin was aware of this truth, yet he honestly felt wronged.
He was someone who deserved to enjoy everything, a chosen being forgiven for any unethical act.
Benjamin moved his lips slightly but soon frowned, as a tight gag muffled him, allowing only suppressed groans to escape.
“Ah, I couldn’t help it. Every time you open your mouth, you say things even harder to understand than a dog barking. Listening to it just raises my blood pressure.”
“Just for having listened to all those words and responded, I must be a saint without a doubt.”
When Irene added that sincerely, a soft chuckle was heard from beside her.
His vision kept blurring and distorting intermittently, and only then did he realise the Chamberlain siblings were standing on either side of her, almost like bodyguards.
There was no way he could retaliate in his powerless, trapped state — it was nothing but overprotection.
Irene shyly blushed and giggled softly as Claudia gently patted her head, as if praising her for doing well.
“At first, I secretly thought this: maybe you all were just victims played by the will of God. I didn’t want to believe it, but maybe, like Chloe, the situation forced you into it. Could your true nature have been different all along?”
As she spoke, Irene tightly clasped Claudia’s hand.
“It was such a ridiculous thought that I felt sorry for Chloe.”
The emotion in her slightly downcast eyes was guilt, and the downward curve of her lips made her look quite gloomy.
Felix gently brushed Irene’s cheek with his fingers and spoke softly.
“No, it could be. Is it wrong to expect the good nature of humans? The fault lies with those who dismiss even such kindness as naive and foolish and try to exploit it.”
“Yeah, that’s right. Because of people like you, our Rin is starting to distrust others. How are you going to take responsibility for that, you damn bastard?”
Irene and Felix both turned their gazes to Claudia at the bluntness of her tone — something hard to believe coming from the future emperor.
“Well, it’s not like anyone’s listening anyway, right?”
She shrugged as if it didn’t really matter to her.
Felix, who had repeatedly stressed that she should at least fix her tone, let out a small sigh, and Irene burst into giggles.
She continued speaking in a voice tinged with laughter.
“Someone once said, if you want to test a person’s character, give them power. You had everything from the very start, and look at you now. This is just who you truly are by nature.”
‘If you want to test a person’s character, give them power.’
As Irene calmly murmured those words, Benjamin felt even more suffocated and uneasy.
After hearing them, he couldn’t shake the thought — had God been testing him all along?
Maybe everything had gone so smoothly for him, to the point where it felt like the world revolved around him, not because he was the hero, but simply because some higher power handed him petty authority, just to see what would happen to this insignificant human.
That was what Irene was saying.
“How many chances did you have to get here? You’re the one who threw them all away.”
Benjamin didn’t even know if he was standing on solid ground or at the edge of a cliff; he lost all composure and any hint of a smile as Irene clicked her tongue in disapproval and calmly continued to explain.
“Just in case you’re curious about what happened to everyone, I’ll kindly tell you.”
First, the Imperial faction that clung desperately to Lucas until the very end naturally destroyed itself.
Cedric, the only remaining royal, stepped forward to openly support Claudia.
And now, following the recently purged Benjamin faction, the most powerful faction left was the nobles — Depallacion and the Chamberlain.
“The dethroned emperor will be sent to the guillotine.”
It might seem like too easy a death, but since he was the emperor, they had to set an example in front of the people.
He would be bound in ropes and dragged from the palace to the public guillotine in the plaza.
There, he’d probably be pelted with stones.
“Then, after dying, he’ll go to hell, and Leraze will take good care of him.”
“Right?” Irene said, speaking to the mist floating beside Benjamin.
The swirling mist puffed out smoke as if chuckling softly.
“As for Constantine, I thought about burning him at the stake, but since he lost all his powers, I had him taken away as a slave instead. I expected the High Priest to protest and mention the honour of the temple, but maybe because he’d been through so much, he stayed silent. On the contrary, the Deputy High Priest seemed eager to support it.”
Of course, even as a slave, Constantine wouldn’t be able to atone for all his sins. He’d still end up in hell.
“Most of all, when you die, you’ll finally go to the hell you’ve always dreamed of. Leraze is supposedly waiting there, ready to personally torture you. Aren’t you excited?”
“...”
“Why? You don’t seem excited. It’s pretty similar to what you claimed was love, isn’t it?”
Benjamin glared at Irene as if he wanted to kill her.
Having lost everything in an instant and plummeted to the very bottom, he found it extremely hard to accept reality.
‘No, this can’t be.’
Completely restrained, he twisted and shook his head in frustration.
Honestly, he even entertained the foolish thought that maybe this was all just a dream — a nightmare.
Benjamin gasped for breath, belatedly realising that this terrible panic was a withdrawal symptom from the drugs.
Of course, becoming aware of it wouldn’t change a thing.
“Looks like you don’t like being on the receiving end.”
She snorted softly, then got up from her seat.
“I told you to atone with death. But the chance to do so has already passed.”
Irene took a key from her pocket and unlocked the prison door without hesitation.
Unlike when she had escaped before, this place was now completely sealed off using Chamberlain’s wealth and Felix’s magic, so no one could get in or out.
Unlike Lucas and Constantine, the reason Benjamin was locked up here was simple.
No one was willing to send him to hell so easily.
The beginning was marked by Claudia, wearing black leather gloves, landing a punch squarely on the sinner’s cheek without hesitation.
It was the very same cheek that Irene had once been struck on by Benjamin.
・・・・・
Felix had been insanely busy lately.
The damn fallen emperor had wreaked havoc and left, and the empire had countless things to reorganise.
The territory had been recklessly expanded without care, so management was a total mess.
All the cleanup was on us, and the one suffering the most was Felix, the most capable among us.
Having demonstrated the power of the dragon, he’d become indispensable to the empire — there was no way around it.
After all, as a protector of the empire, there were countless duties.
Claudia was in the same boat.
I understood, so even when I didn’t see him for a while, I didn’t really complain.
Sometimes I felt a bit lonely, but it couldn’t be helped.
After busy days, quiet days always came.
But then, last night, Felix suddenly barged into my room.
When I asked what was going on, he pulled me into a tight embrace and gently guided me straight to the bed.
Uh... and that’s how I found out what happens when a sleepless man is fully awake at night.
Let’s just say my last memory before I fell asleep… was morning. That says it all.
Meow—
"Please get up, you catnip human."
The cats came through the window at every mealtime, meowing beside Felix.
I still didn’t know how they managed to open the window. Honestly, I suspected those creatures might actually be reincarnations of humans.
I poked Felix lightly and mumbled to myself before burying my face in the pillow.
I had been thoroughly worn out.
Now that Felix was no longer Walter, he didn’t need to be careful anymore or afraid that he might hurt me.
That wasn’t to say his previous memories, the ones he inherited from Larry, had disappeared.
Yes, it had been ecstatic.
As soon as the embarrassing thoughts struck, my drowsiness disappeared instantly.
I cleared my throat and slowly opened my eyes — only to see three cats rubbing themselves all over Felix’s pure white naked body, curling their tails around him, kneading him with their paws.
It was total chaos.
Wait, what the hell...?
It was silly to be jealous of cats, but seriously — what on earth were they doing to a naked body that already belonged to someone else?
I grumbled under my breath.
“Cats — you give them everything, and all they do is toss you some cuteness. They really think being adorable is enough.”
At that, Felix, who had been lazily stroking a cat that came running to him for food, suddenly looked down at me, eyes fixed.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“No, it’s nothing.”
Felix smiled warmly and pressed a kiss to my forehead.
I let out a soft laugh and nuzzled into his chest, burrowing deeper into his embrace.
"But, Felix."
“Yes?”
“I'm hungry."
"Haha, let's go eat."
Felix hugged me tight and patted my back, saying he was sorry for tiring me out — that he did it because he missed me so much.
Well, it was just one of those lazy afternoons.
<I Have Become The Heroes’ Rival> — Main Story: The End
Translator's Corner:
It took a long while, but I've finally finished translating the main story~ Thank you so much for your patience, everyone! (I'll do my best to finish translating the side stories too now)
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If you notice any errors or broken links, please let me know and I will get that fixed~ Additionally, if you would like to support me, I have a Ko-fi ~ Thank you! 💖