I'm Stuck on a Remote Island With the Male Leads - Chapter 144

I put on a puzzled face as she hugged me.

Arthdal lay on his side, glaring at us. “Does anyone know what the hell this is about?”

Of course, neither Enoch nor Kayden answered him; they’d heard about the situation from me, but had to hear from Yuanna as well for more details.

Arthdal glanced over them, pretending to be pitiful. “I’m the only one who doesn’t know anything again. Saintess, I didn’t expect you to be like that, how could you not tell me anything?”

Of course, no one answered him.

“I know you two have a lot to talk about after seeing each other for the first time in a while, but let’s get some sleep first and do it tomorrow.”

Kayden, who had been silent, stepped in and separated Yuanna from me. Then he tucked me in bed, studying my complexion as carefully as he would his own daughter.

“Margaret needs to rest.”

I don’t know what everyone else’s reaction was, but I was a little weirded out by the silence of Ruzef, who was usually always chiming in.

“Actually, I became a priest because I hate people.”

“To be precise, I don’t want deep relationships. There’s no need to maintain annoying human relationships after becoming a priest. But priests are in doctrine to love humans.”

“Actually, I feel a little comfortable on this island, because I don’t have to pretend like that.”

It’s obvious that he sacrifices himself for everyone. Though he denies it, he is a man who fits the title of priest better than anyone.

‘I hope both Ruzef and Diego wake up soon.’

I blinked as I heard the others ordering their vigils. It felt like a heavy weight had been placed on my eyelids.

I still have a lot of questions to ask Yuanna……

I fell asleep, probably because I used too much mana.

***

A savory smell tickled my nose. The sweet scent reminded me of raspberries……

“There, Prince, you are such a bad cook, you’d better sit there.”

“Bad… what? Come on, Saintess, I’m trying to do something to help, and it would be nice if you could at least recognize my sincerity.”

“Damn, guys, will you shut up or Margaret will wake up.”

“I’ve had enough. Would you all please step aside, you’re a nuisance.”

I slowly opened my eyes to see three men and a woman huddled together in front of the fireplace in the cabin, arguing.

It reminded me of my days on the South Island. A sense of peace came over me. I’m glad everyone is safe.

‘No, no, no. What about Diego and Ruzef?!’

Just as I was lost in thought, I heard a friendly voice beside me.

“Are you okay?”

I turned my head in a daze and saw Diego’s face.

I jumped out of bed. “Sir Diego?! Are you okay?!”

At my shout, everyone in front of the fireplace turned to look at me.

“Margaret, did you sleep well?”

“Good morning, young lady.”

I stared blankly at the people sitting in front of the fireplace saying good morning to me, then back at Diego, who was sitting next to me.

-hiss.

Eunji called out to me from his perch on Diego’s lap. The tip of his tail wagged gently like a puppy.

No, why is he over there?

Diego stroked Eunji’s scales with a proud look on his face.

Eunji soon slipped out of Diego’s arms and circled around me as if welcoming me. I gently stroked his scales and asked Diego, “Are you okay? Your wound……”

I gently lowered my head to stare at Diego’s abdomen. The abdominal side of his knight uniform was completely torn open, revealing his toned abs. It was where the wound had been. I took a moment to examine his stomach for scars, worried.

“It’s okay. I heard Lord Kayden healed me with your mana.”

Diego’s complexion was indeed good, then he bowed his head in gratitude.

“Thank you, young lady. From the bottom of my heart, most sincerely.”

And then I saw him biting hard on his lower lip.

I don’t know, but I suspect he’s been through a lot since his capture by the mother of monsters, considering the state he was in when I first met him in the cave.

“Everyone let’s eat, we need to start planning our escape.”

Yuanna said to us. I walked up to them in front of the fireplace with Diego.

Kayden and Enoch seated me between them, and Arthdal chuckled at the sight. “One would think they were mother birds and their baby.”

“Don’t be jealous,” Kayden said to Arthdal, handing me a bowl of raspberry stew in a coconut bowl.

“What do you mean jealous……”

Arthdal scratched his cheek in embarrassment and glanced at me.

I tilted the coconut bowl to my lips and sipped the stew, then looked at him questioningly. As our eyes met, Arthdal was startled and turned his head away.

What the hell? Why are you like that?

I tore my gaze away from Arthdal and looked at Yuanna.

“I, uh, have a question for you, Saintess.”

“You must have a lot to say. I understand.”

There were many things I wanted to ask her.

Is it true that she really did the regression? What happened between us before the regression, if she knew everything after the regression, what Jenas and Anata’s purpose was, if they really wanted to kidnap us so they could kill us and extort our mana, what did the dimensional door mean?

In truth, the question I wanted to ask her the most was if she really couldn’t get off the island.

But if I asked her that here and now, she might get in trouble. So, putting aside all those questions, the first thing I asked her was,

“Do you think we can escape?”

“We can, and I’m going to make sure we do,” Yuanna replied so firmly, as if making a promise.

“I wonder how you’re going to do that,” said Kayden as he turned to face Yuanna.

Yuanna put down the bowl of coconut she was holding and fumbled in her pocket, pulling out a familiar key.

It was a key with the word “Return” on it. On it were the words “Exit Key” in the language of the Langridge Empire.

“There’s a wizard brother and sister who designed this island, and there’s a ‘door’ in the bunker of their cabin. That’s the way out of the time and space of Alea Island, and this key will open it.”

At her words, Arthdal launched into a barrage of questions about wizard siblings and Alea Island.

I looked at Yuanna, who was slowly answering him, and thought to myself.

There was a reason the words Return and Exit Key were written together. Because the key Jenas had given her was a master key.

But why did Jenas give Yuanna such a master key when she might be the one to open the way out?

“Only Jenas can open the dimensional door. It can’t just be opened… After all the experiments are over, it’s possible to gather the mana of the dead. It’s not a door that opens with one or two people’s mana though.”

“That doesn’t mean there aren’t other ways to open the dimensional door. If you open the Return Gate with that key, the dimensional door will also open. I’ll bring Margaret then. Jenas doesn’t know about our plan yet, so we need to move fast.”

I remembered what Anata had said to Yuanna before the regression. I hastily pulled Yuanna’s diary out of my crossbody bag. The rain-soaked and torn pages were hard to read, but I had a general idea of what it said.

Jenas told me how to rest, and I received a key from him, a master key that opens all doors.

I’m going to leave today to find the place Jenas told me about. I will rest there. I think I can probably finish the book I’m writing for my records there.

The way to rest that Jenas had told Yuanna about must have been to open the dimensional door.

Anata had made it clear that only Jenas could open the dimensional door.

After the experiment was over, the door would be opened by the mana of the dead, and once Yuanna was at rest in the bunker, that is, took her own life, the experiment would be complete.

But why did Jenas not go and open the dimensional door himself and let Yuanna do it?

If the rule was that the experimenter should not interfere in the death of the test subject, it was likely that he could not directly kill Yuanna, but instead, he caused her death.

‘Then if Yuanna took her own life, he might have appeared then and tried to open the dimensional door.’

Looking at the diary I was holding, Yuanna calmly spoke up.

“Let me tell you a little bit of the story before the regression: after everyone died, I was just waiting for my own death, and then I was taken in by Jena’s cabin, and during my time there, I grew very close to Anata.”

Yuanna glanced at Kayden, who sat down next to me. “Anata was obviously devastated by the death of her descendant, so we found a way to open the return gate.”

As she spoke, everyone, including me, looked over at Kayden. He quietly listened to our conversation and shrugged his shoulders, showing no interest in the gaze directed at him.

Yuanna looked back at me and said, “If I died, the final experiment would be complete, and Jenas’ purpose was to make me take my own life and open the dimensional door, so I asked him how I could rest, and I pretended to be depressed and wanted to die.”

It was an interesting story. I wonder if this is the reason the wizard siblings brought Yuanna to their cabin before the regression.

Just like Jenas brought me to his cabin.

“Jenas told me where the bunker was, that it was a good place to rest, and at the time, he was a firm believer in Anata, so he believed her when she said she would take me there herself. He didn’t realize that we would conspire to open the return gate.”

Enoch and Kayden, who had already heard the explanation from me once, nodded and looked thoughtful.

“So that’s what happened,” Enoch murmured.

I tilted my head in question. “What the hell is the point of the master key, he wouldn’t have given you that to open all the doors just to open the bunker.”

“Could he have used a trick in case the plan went awry?” asked Kayden, narrowing his brows in annoyance.

Either that, or he was predicting that Yuanna and Anata might open the return gate……

“Then maybe using the key to open ‘something’ is a trap.”

Or maybe he wanted to play some kind of death game where you had to guess if the key was real or not, and if you got it right, you escaped, and if you didn’t, you died.

I tried to puzzle out Jenas’ intentions, but there was no way I could ever know the insane thoughts of a madman.

Damn Jenas.

Anata claimed to have betrayed him, but she’d killed many people in her time, and I wasn’t sure if I could trust her easily.

But at this point, she was the only one I could turn to for help.

I looked at Yuanna, who was explaining things to Arthdal and Diego slowly.

“First, let’s go to Jenas’ cabin and get Anata, she might know another way to escape.”

[T/N]
Phew, this chapter was so hard TT
Some lines in this chapter are different from the previous chapters, I double-checked on the official Korean platform to see if the Author had revised it or if I had translated it wrong, but apparently not.

In this chapter, Yuanna wrote this in her diary:

제나스가 (Jenas) 안식을 취할 (take a rest) 수 있는 방법을 알려 줬다. 그리고 그에게서 열쇠를 받았다. 모든 문을 열 수 있는 만능열쇠라고했다.
Jenas told me how to rest, and I received a key from him, a master key that opens all doors.

And this is very different from chapter 99:

그녀가 (she) 모든 걸 되돌릴 (undo everything) 수 있는 방법을 알려 줬다. 그리고 그녀에게서 열쇠를 받았다. 모든 문을 열 수 있는 열쇠라고 했다.
She told me how to undo everything. And I got the key from her. She said it is the key to open all the doors.

I’ve also read the comments on the official platform, but no one seems to have noticed this difference. So I translated it as it is. If any of you also know Korean, feel free to correct me if I made any mistakes.