A Runaway Villainess, Now Healing In An Enemy Country - Chapter 1

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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【Episode 1】

Prologue. Passion and Flight

My life was generally perfect.

The head of the western nobility and a proud mage family, the princess of Baltres and the Empire’s prospective crown princess.

A woman who had everything – a dazzlingly brilliant background, unparalleled talent in magical alchemy, and beauty so stunning it might appear once in a thousand years.

That was me. Named Irene Baltres.

But in some book, it said about ‘me’:

Greedy, authoritative, and arrogant personality. Specialty was causing trouble, hobbies were stalking and extravagance. A pitiful and wicked woman loved by no one… apparently.

‘My life being perfect, my ass.’

I finally realized.

That I had been reincarnated into some romance fantasy world I’d read in my previous life.

I, Irene Baltres, was a villain character who would obsess over unrequited love and ultimately meet her doom.

Romance fantasy possession? Villainess reincarnation? Fine, whatever.

But why did my past life memories have to return now of all times?

“I-Irene Baltres…! Kugh, you… *cough*!”

I’d already done it.

Clang!

I threw down the sword I’d been gripping and looked down at the man collapsed before me. Blood gushed from his pierced left chest, but I felt no particular sympathy.

“How… *gasp*, how could… ugh, you do this to me…”

Cesier Vladis Hilbarsia.

Disheveled golden hair and bloodshot blue eyes.

This man, still handsome even while dying, was the sole Empire’s crown prince, my fiancé, and also the male protagonist of this damned world.

And just moments ago, he had announced our engagement’s annulment to this tiresome villainess, only to receive a blade in return.

“Damn it, *gasp*, Irene…!”

Oh dear.

“I already have a headache, so please be quiet, Your Highness.”

Though he seemed about to breathe his last, Chessier wouldn’t die.

‘Probably? There’s no way the male lead would die so anticlimactically.’

I thought calmly with my mind reeling from the world-turning shock.

How did it come to this?

So, the beginning of this incident was like this.

Chessier betrayed me. In an excessively insulting manner.

Recently, he had been passionately courting someone like a man with nothing to lose.

When it was revealed that the object of his affections wasn’t his fiancée—me—but my stepsister and the saint who had descended after a hundred years, both the system and high society were thrown into uproar.

Naturally, my honor became utterly laughable.

The moment I saw even cheap gossip rags mentioning the princess of Baltres, I became so furious for the first time in my life that I could barely control my body.

The rage was so immense that I even did the crazy thing of mounting a horse while dressed in indoor attire.

“Let’s just break off the engagement, Princess.”

Chessier, whom I’d chased all the way to the distant northern villa to finally meet, spouted such words the moment he entered the reception room.

I held back once.

“This is an engagement that has lasted a full ten years. To unilaterally break Baltres’s promise like this—”

“Ah, don’t worry about Baltres. I’ll marry Lishie Baltres instead.”

It was bullshit I couldn’t believe even hearing with my own ears.

‘Trample my honor and marry that girl?’

I was well aware that Chessier was floundering in his late first love.

This cold and irritable man only showed hot, sweet eyes that seemed ready to melt when looking at that girl.

I wasn’t dull enough to be newly hurt by that fact. I was just angry at his attitude that seemed to completely disregard my fallen honor and future.

Still, since he was the crown prince, I held back twice.

“Did that girl agree to marry Your Highness?”

“Ha! Are you thinking of harming Lishie using the engagement annulment as an excuse?”

“…”

“I heard you already caused a disturbance at Lishie’s Inauguration Ceremony? Your troublemaking can’t even distinguish time and place anymore, it seems.”

In Chessier’s frost-like gaze, I could clearly see contempt he didn’t even try to hide.

I held back three times. Fortunately, my voice came out smoothly without wavering.

“I asked whether that girl had accepted this marriage proposal herself.”

“She’ll consent soon. If you accept this annulment obediently.”

Nowhere in Chessier’s cold face as he spoke like a judge could I find the face of the boy I had loved.

“I love Your Highness. Perhaps even more than Your Highness loves Lishie.”

Was it really love?

It might be obsession, as he had once disparaged.

However, for the sake of what I had to give up to stand by his side, for the sake of my honor, it was certain I couldn’t back down like this.

“So I cannot accept it.”

“I’m sick of your love prattling, Irene Baltres.”

Chessier snapped, revealing his murderous intent without restraint.

“Are you that unconvinced about the annulment? Why don’t you look at yourself? Even Baltres seems tired of covering for your misdeeds.”

“I have done nothing to disgrace my name.”

“How shameless. Lishie is worried about you.”

Ah, truly angelic Lishie.

Ever since that girl was adopted into Baltres, everything around me became twisted.

Chessier, who had shown me courtesy even in our loveless political marriage, transformed into an arrogant person who refused even to enter ballrooms as partners.

My older brother, who while not affectionate had shown respect as family, at some point developed impure feelings for his stepsister and began treating me like vermin.

‘Why? Because that girl is a saint who receives God’s love?’

Whether I did something or not, I was readily assumed to be tormenting the saint out of jealousy.

“His Majesty the Emperor has approved the engagement between Lishie and me.”

Chessier spoke like pronouncing a sentence.

“…So I never had the right to refuse from the beginning.”

“Lishie just wanted to respect your position. The engagement with you is annulled.”

Though it was an excessively unfair treatment, it was no longer surprising. Biting my lips to barely suppress the trembling, I exhaled the breath I’d been holding.

“…Baltres won’t just stand by and watch this.”

“It seems you haven’t heard yet. Duke Baltres has also accepted it.”

Thud.

The annulment document Chessier threw before me bore Baltres’s official seal clearly stamped on it.

Red ink imbued with magical power.

The crest of twin serpents embracing a tree.

“That’s why I told you not to worry about Baltres.”

‘…Father chose to cut me off.’

If Lishie the saint formed a new marriage with the imperial family, it would efficiently resolve the messy imperial scandal involving Baltres’s two princesses and the young duke’s impure feelings for his stepsister.

What had Father gained from the imperial family in exchange for abandoning me?

Territory? Mines? No. Permission to rebuild the magic tower?

Whatever it was, this was a death sentence. I could no longer endure it.

“You broke your promise… not to betray me.”

“Are you threatening me now?”

Chessier sneered coldly.

I absently touched the corner of the table with my cold fingertips. He hadn’t even offered me a cup of tea.

The northern villa in white snowfields, created for Lishie who had never seen snow in her life. An intimate space and time for just the two of them.

In this place, I was nothing but an unwelcome guest.

“It seems the only person who can protect my honor is myself. So I’m sorry, but Your Highness, I will…”

Even at this moment, I still love Chessier.

So even more…

“I have to kill you.”

I felt torrential magic power surging as excruciating heat rushed to my heart.

Crash!

It happened in the blink of an eye.

The table crumbled and disappeared, and instead a white rapier made of magic appeared in my hand.

I had once learned swordsmanship superficially, wanting to share something in common with Chessier. The sword in my hand now had the exact same form as that sword from back then.

A sensation like a typhoon raging through the magic circuits in my heart. Sharp pain followed, as if gouging out my heart.

Chessier seemed to be shouting something in shock, but I couldn’t hear it. Even the pain gradually became distant.

There was no hesitation.

“Farewell, Your Highness. I’ll follow you, so please don’t feel too wronged.”

Thunk!

Having completed the magic calculation, I thrust the white blade straight in. Though he was a well-trained knight, once his aura core was paralyzed, he accepted the attack without resistance.

And at that moment.

“Wow, am I really reading this trashy novel again?”

The memories of ‘another me’ poured out like a flood.

* * *

【The Saint Doesn’t Want to Be Loved】.

A trashy romance novel tagged as 19+, angst, and reverse harem, where the saintess heroine suffers among crazy male leads, just as the title suggests.

As expected, that heroine is Lishie, and among the many male leads, the one who proudly claimed the main position is none other than Chessier…

What good does remembering at this timing do?

Looking at the unconscious, blood-covered crown prince, a deep sigh naturally escaped me.

“Hah… This is driving me crazy.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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