Artifact Report

Chapter 451 Brianna: Just an Ordinary Romance
She didn't understand what had happened.

Life after death, life before death... No matter what Brianna's wishes were, no matter how hard she struggled, it seemed as if there was always a pair of eyes watching her, ensuring that in the end she would only get some unrecognizable, bloody, sharp mockery.

Isn't tonight the first time she's taken back her destiny?

“I don’t believe it,” Brianna said. “You simply can’t accept me like this. You can’t even accept Green’s appearance, let alone me? At least Green looks like a human being. You’re just saying nice things to get me to spare your life.”

“I don’t believe it,” Brianna said. “Even if I was wearing a man’s body back then, wasn’t I still myself inside? When you said my personality had changed, that was just your excuse, wasn’t it?”

“If I had a likable personality and appearance like Kim Seol-ri, wouldn’t I be able to solve all our problems?” Brianna said. “When you’re with her, aren’t you happy? You don’t avoid her at all times, do you?”

"...I'm afraid she won't please you enough, and I'm also afraid she'll please you too much. So I thought, if you die, I won't be in pain anymore."

"...You are still so beautiful, so gentle, so... lovely. I am so terrifying, so disgusting, so twisted, like a nightmare."

Brianna waited for a while, then suddenly remembered that she had forced Morandall to kill Chess—and Morandall did go after all.

She lay blankly beside Morando, the steam rising from the wound on his lower abdomen no longer present.

"...Why did you say I've never really understood you?"

This sentence hangs in the thick darkness of the night, unable to dissipate.

Brianna looked up, and for a moment, she was absolutely certain that Morandau was dead—the thought flashed through her mind like a stun gun, leaving her blank and without a place to land.

She nudged Morandall's shoulder blankly.

“Hey,” Brianna whispered, a growing, overwhelming fear and panic unlike anything she had felt before. “…Hey.”

She grabbed Morandall's hand tightly and pushed her away twice. "Morando!"

Morandall's eyelashes trembled slightly, finally opening up a little space again; her blue eyes, in the darkness, looked like a dark, lifeless pool.

“…Don’t die,” Brianna said. “I’m sorry, please don’t die, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have… It’s okay, even if you don’t accept me like this, even if you like Kim Seolli, even if you never see me again, it’s okay, I’m sorry, just don’t die—”

Morando chuckled softly—or rather, his breath escaped his lips.

"Don't make me a resident." Her voice was weak, as if she could no longer see Brianna, but was only making a wish into the night. "A resident... can't be born from within me."

"If they survive, there will be no residents—"

Brianna stopped abruptly before she could finish her sentence.

Her gaze shifted from Morandall to the sidewalk beyond the garden railings; amidst the clumps of weeds, a round, swollen, pockmarked, yellowish-white face was slowly rising like the moon.

Brianna raised herself up and met the gaze of the moon-faced figure.

“Get out,” she whispered.

“Don’t be so stingy,” the lunar face laughed, revealing a long chin. “It’s not easy to find a hunter on the verge of death.”

Brianna glanced at Morando—she was still leaning against the railing, her eyes slightly closed, seemingly unaware of the resident who had come behind her.

"Anyone who comes near her, I will tear them to shreds."

Brianna stared at the lunar face and said, "I will let you be torn to pieces alive, and I will make sure you can't be put back together. Countless pieces of you will live until the inhabitants' lifespan ends. If you understand, then get out of here."

The lunar face scrutinized her for a while.

"Don't you want to kill her? Isn't this what you did? Honestly, you didn't kill her at the last minute. What kind of delayed gratification is this? The younger generation of residents these days really knows how to play. Sigh, I'm unlucky to have met someone with such a strong possessive streak."

It mumbled something under its breath, but finally realized that Brianna wasn't joking. It crouched back down in the grass and, with a rustling sound, gradually retreated into the shadows far beyond the sidewalk.

“It’s alright,” Brianna said softly.

After a few seconds, Morando responded weakly, "Hmm?"

She seemed to have briefly lost consciousness and was unaware that a resident had followed her scent and come up behind her.

But as long as they're not dead, that's fine. As long as they're alive, there's a hospital in the nest that can treat them.

However, it seems that my previous blow was too heavy.

Brianna can only walk on her hands and cannot carry Morandau in her arms—it would be too dangerous to secure Morandau to her back.

First, Brianna couldn't see behind her, so if a resident attacked Morandall, it might be too late by the time she realized it; second, Morandall's abdomen was pierced, and any carelessness during movement could directly lead to her death—"fixed to her back" seems like a naive fantasy.

What to do, what to do, what to do, what to do... "As a hunter, dying in the lair is... the ending I should have accepted from the start."

Morandall's thoughts were fragmented; but she seemed determined to use her last bit of strength to speak to Brianna. "But I still can't accept it... especially yours."

When she speaks, the screams in Brianna's head quiet down.

Brianna held her breath and moved closer to her, afraid that her movements would drown out Morandau's voice, afraid that she would miss a few words.

“It’s so unfair,” Morando sighed softly.

A glossy black stain slowly flowed down the sidewalk bricks, like a finger tentatively reaching out to her.

Brianna reached out and pressed it down hard; the stain struggled on the ground for a few moments but couldn't get out—Brianna straightened her fingers into claws and scratched it hard a few times, and the small piece of stain that had slipped in became black ash that fell from under her fingernails.

“Yes,” she replied, “it’s so unfair.”

“I’ve thought about it… Back then, it wasn’t some kind of passionate, life-or-death love,” Morando said softly, his eyes half-closed. “We just… met and got to know each other in an ordinary way, chatted, went on dates, took walks… watched movies… just like many couples in the world.”

Brianna didn't understand why she would say that—she didn't understand why she would say it.

"After you disappeared... I thought about it many times. If neither of us were hunters, and you hadn't perished... we might have been together for a few years, argued over trivial matters, our feelings would have faded, and we would have parted amicably... we might have met other people and entered into new relationships."

She struggled to take a breath.

From the other side of the sidewalk, a dark, human-shaped figure was peeking out and sneaking towards us.

...The weakened and wounded hunters in the lair are like a bakery that starts baking at dawn, their aroma wafting far and wide to the residents.

The number of residents attracted will only increase.

Morandall, once such a keen and agile hunter, is now oblivious to it all.

"Aren't most people in the world like this? We're nothing special. We could have just been an ordinary, boring couple."

Morandall seemed about to cry. "And then you suddenly died in the nest in that way... and came back to me. From then on, we had no way to have a normal love affair."

"what do you want to say in the end?"

Brianna had to scramble a few steps away from her, blocking where the garden gate had been; she had just found Morandall's gun and was gripping it tightly. Although she herself was no less lethal than the gun, at least pistol bullets could keep the residents at bay from a distance.

“Bri... we met when I said I wanted to take you to a place that served authentic Armenian food. It was such an ordinary... even corny reason.”

Brianna raised her arm and slammed it into the lamppost; the outer shell suddenly disintegrated and fell cleanly to the ground—the lamppost instantly became thinner.

The layer of residents, resembling soft, grayish-yellow flesh, lingered, unwilling to leave.

Several shadowy figures had already gathered nearby.

"Brie..."

Morando called out softly.

“I’m here,” Brianna said in a hoarse voice. “I won’t leave. And you won’t die.”

Morandau turned a deaf ear.

“Brie… our time together wasn’t the kind of dramatic, intense love you see in TV dramas… originally, it wasn’t anything special. It was the nest… it was fate that led us this way.”

What nonsense is she spouting?
"that is you!"

Brianna roared and lunged forward—she had formed a protective wall with her infinitely elongated body, blocking Morandau behind her; as soon as she landed, she slapped away a large cluster of dense, swollen, red bumps.

"When I died, my only thought was to go back; all I wanted was to see you one last time—"

“It wasn’t me, Brie.”

Morando said softly, “After I die… perhaps you will understand. What you crave, what you suffer for, what you despair for… is not me. It’s not just me.”

Brianna just wanted to scream and vent the most nasty words.

Morando had no idea how much torment she had endured; all of it was for—

"What you yearn for... is the life that has been cut off and taken away from you."

(End of this chapter)