I Became the Villainess, But My Beast Husbands Can Hear My Mind?!-Chapter 185: The Secret Passage (2)

There were moments when she truly wanted to give up, and sometimes she didn’t want to listen to the voice in her heart that kept begging her to hold on just a little longer.

[Well... at least I never used it in the end.] Roxanna let out a sigh of relief. [Maybe I wouldn’t have been reborn if I had chosen the easy way out.]

Her caregivers once told her that people who chose to cut their own lifeline would never be reborn and would never be able to smell the flowers in heaven.

But honestly... Roxanna never understood why people like that had to be punished so cruelly.

After all, everyone actually wants to survive.

But sometimes... when the mind becomes too tired and too broken, it pushes a person toward a path they never wanted to take. And unfortunately, not everyone has the will to keep going.

Maybe Calen was right.

In a strange way, it was fortunate that her ex-husband had killed her. At least... she hadn’t been the one to end her own life.

"Roxanna." Azul gently nudged her arm. "You should go down first."

Roxanna quickly came back to her senses. "Yes, of course." She turned toward the opening and slowly climbed down the ladder.

Even though the darkness was thick, she could still see Calen not far below her. It seemed he had waited there for a moment instead of climbing all the way down.

When Azul began climbing down as well, the three of them carefully continued descending together.

"Woof! Woof!"

Mr. Fenrir’s barking echoed through the darkness below. The sound gave Roxanna some comfort, making her feel certain they were still going the right way.

It took them at least fifteen minutes to climb down the long ladder. When she realized there were no more steps beneath her feet, she jumped down. But the moment she did, her feet touched nothing.

"I’M FALLING! I’M FALLING!"

Roxanna screamed in panic, thinking she was about to fall into a deep abyss. But surprisingly, strong arms caught her body.

"I got you," Calen said calmly.

Roxanna didn’t blink for a moment as she tried to process what had just happened. When she looked up, she no longer saw the ladder or the darkness they had just passed through.

The only thing she could see was a gray sky. When she looked around, she realized that she had returned to the maze.

"AAAA—!"

Azul suddenly fell from the sky, just like Roxanna had a moment ago. However, instead of catching him, Calen calmly stepped aside.

THUD.

Azul landed straight on the ground. He groaned in pain before glaring at Calen, who was still holding Roxanna in his arms.

"Azul, are you alright?!" Roxanna quickly climbed down from Calen’s arms and rushed toward him. "Are you hurt?"

She cupped Azul’s cheeks and carefully checked him, making sure he didn’t have any broken bones or injuries.

"I’m fine," Azul said at last.

As he looked at Roxanna’s worried face, the sharpness in his gaze slowly softened. "Did we return to the maze?"

Roxanna nodded. Before she could say anything else, she suddenly heard a sound she thought she might never hear again.

Tring! Tring! Tring!

The bell rang again and again until she lost count. Roxanna immediately realized that Aelin must be ringing the bell nonstop because she had suddenly lost contact with Roxanna and Azul.

But strangely, the bell sounded much closer now. It echoed through the maze as if the exit was only a few minutes away. As if they only needed to run a little farther before finally finding their way out.

Roxanna held her breath for a moment. Was the key to escaping this place really that simple? Was it just about letting Calen remember his past life and facing it?

After all, the maze felt like a physical form of anxiety, like fear that had turned into something real.

All the endless paths and confusing turns, not to mention the feeling of being trapped with no clear exit, reflected how Calen felt inside.

The maze had so many twisting roads because Calen himself had never found an easy way to escape the pain inside his chest.

And the uncertainty of everything happening in the maze slowly turned into anxiety, the same anxiety Calen had always carried inside him because he never understood what was hidden deep within his own mind.

But after facing those memories and after confronting those painful truths, he had finally found a way to leave this maze or at least, that was what it seemed.

But was it really that simple?

For some reason, Roxanna didn’t feel convinced because something still felt unfinished.

After all, she hadn’t completed her mission yet.

[Warning! Warning!]

Roxanna immediately straightened her back when the system suddenly issued a loud warning, something it almost never did.

[A dangerous hallucination creature is approaching!]

A cold feeling ran down her spine as she heard that warning. Then, the system message continued.

[Side Mission: Protect Your Husbands and eliminate the hallucination creature.]

[Reward:

Skill Unlocked: Fear Resistance – Reduces the effect of mental attacks, hallucinations, and fear-based illusions.

[Failure Consequence: Your husbands’ mind will collapse.]

Roxanna’s heart pounded wildly in her chest. [My husbands are the ones holding the weapons... So why is the system asking me to save them?!]

[This doesn’t make any sense!] she thought frantically. [I can’t even use an axe or a spear properly, so HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO PROTECT THEM?!]

And that wasn’t the only thing that confused her.

She had spent a lot of money buying those weapons for them. They were strong, skilled, and far more capable than she was, so why would they still need her help?

No matter how she thought about it, Roxanna couldn’t understand how her strength could possibly compare to theirs.

But then, something unexpected happened.

The maze trembled again, as if the walls were about to move once more. However, instead of seeing the walls shifting like before, Roxanna noticed something dark slowly creeping out from the cracks between them.

Black smoke began to leak from the narrow gaps. At first, it looked like a thin mist, but then it gathered together and slowly took shape.

The dark smoke crawled along the ground before rising higher and higher, forming a shadow monster that was at least three times taller than Roxanna.

Its body looked unstable, constantly shifting like living smoke. Long, claw-like arms stretched out from its sides, while its hollow eyes glowed faintly in the darkness.

"What... is that?" Roxanna whispered.