A Runaway Villainess, Now Healing In An Enemy Country - Chapter 10

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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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【Chapter 10】

‘Gambling? This kid’s got no future.’

A man who looked to be in his late teens was intimidating a girl who was about a span shorter than me.

Even though it was a secluded alley, it was quite noisy, yet no one was paying attention to that side.

Meanwhile, I immediately recognized that girl.

“Please! C-could I give you double next time?”

“Ha! It’s money you got from our dad anyway, isn’t it? Hand it over. I need this money right now!”

The thug who was shouting raised his right hand high.

Smack!

“Agh! What, what was that!?”

“What do you think? You just got hit in the head with money, which you love so much.”

Ting—

Having thrown a gold coin at the man’s head, I pulled out another gold coin from within my robe and flicked it up with my finger. The gold glinted in the sunset light.

The scoundrel who had been staring at me with a dumbfounded expression stammered in bewilderment.

“Real gold coins…? Wh-who are you…?”

“Bite it and check if you want. I’m just a rich person passing by.”

As if to prove my words, I threw dozens of gold coins in front of him and smiled like a villain.

“I’ll give you all of this, so don’t touch that child and get out of my sight right now.”

“Gasp! Of, of course! Th-thank you! Thank you so much, noble sir!”

The man who bit the gold coin that had fallen at his feet hastily stuffed them into his clothes as if someone would snatch them away, then disappeared walking backwards.

Then the alley became quiet in an instant.

‘Tsk tsk. In an hour, those gold coins will turn into stones.’

If you slightly ‘mess up’ the mana calculation, the transformation will unravel after a while and return to its original form. The amount of mana isn’t everything that determines a mage, after all.

“Ah… Um…”

The girl who had shrunk back looked up at me with deer-like eyes.

The skinny girl who looked to be about fifteen was the same waitress who had warmed up the stew for me at the restaurant earlier.

“Why did you help me? Spending such a large amount of money because of me.”

“Just because. The meat stew I ate earlier was delicious.”

“What? But that’s the most shabby food in our restaurant…”

“I thought it was delicious enough though?”

Come to think of it, when I ordered, I had asked for the worst dish. I was trying to compare it to the potato bread from Winter Castle.

But the food that came out was delicious enough to be comparable to all the high-class cuisine I’d experienced, so I had forgotten about it.

The girl said in confusion.

“That was… made with leftover meat and vegetables… Actually, I’m sorry. It was food made by me, who’s not even a proper cook…”

“What?”

“It’s a recipe my mother taught me! I absolutely wasn’t trying to deceive the customer… The head chef said it was a humiliating request… and told me to make it…”

“Wait. So you’re saying you made the stew?”

“Y-yes.”

Wow.

At this moment, lightning struck in my head.

I pulled back the hood of my robe and carefully placed my hand on the girl’s flushed cheek.

A red light like a heat haze melted into the wound with a flash. Of course it wasn’t healing, which was the exclusive domain of saints, but magic that dulled the sense of pain.

“You said it was for your mother’s medicine money? You seem to need quite a bit of money. Right?”

“Ah… Yes, my mother is suffering from a rare disease.”

“I’ll give it to you.”

The girl’s dark brown pupils shook greatly.

“…What?”

“Money? I’ll give you as much as you need, no, more than that. And I’ll do anything else you ask me to do.”

‘They say good deeds bring good fortune.’

A street casting opportunity that rolled right to me just when I was about to give up. I couldn’t just let it pass.

Right now I was more desperate than when I was requesting asylum from the Duke.

“You just stay at our house and cook three meals a day for us.”

Actually it’s not really our house, and not just any house either, but that infamous Winter Castle.

* * *

Coco.

A seventeen-year-old girl who had been doing odd jobs at an inn and restaurant in Nostellan 3rd Street Commercial District.

Coco was now riding in the carriage of a guest presumed to be both an angel and a demon.

‘Really Winter Castle…? Could this be right?’

The eerie atmosphere emanating from the man sitting in front, that is, the one wearing a black robe, made the timid Coco shrink back.

As if seeing through such psychology, Irene, who had introduced herself as a guest of the castle, patted her back from beside her.

“It’s okay. Don’t be scared. He’s incredibly handsome.”

If that was meant to be comforting, it was inappropriate.

Whether he was devastatingly handsome or ugly, she didn’t even want to properly look at his face, which was heavily shadowed.

She wasn’t even curious about who he was in the first place.

“Y-yes.”

Contrary to her inner voice saying she was scared, Coco nodded. Her body was trembling slightly too, but since the carriage was rattling, it seemed like it would be hidden.

‘I need to make a good impression.’

That was because as soon as she impulsively accepted the sudden job offer as a cook, Irene had pressed hundreds of gold as advance payment for her mother’s treatment.

Then she even personally sent her mother to a physician for hospitalization, saying ‘if you go yourself, you’ll probably get cheated out of the money.’

After the mother and daughter hugged each other and cried their hearts out.

When she came to her senses, Coco found herself on a carriage heading to Irene’s ‘house’ with her belongings neatly packed.

She had been so out of it that when asked if it was okay that the house was actually Winter Castle, she had nodded in a trance.

However, even if she had definitely been in her right mind, Coco would have been too shocked to faint but wouldn’t have been able to refuse Irene’s proposal.

‘I received a favor, so I’ll do whatever work there is.’

…As long as it’s not killing people.

While the little cook was making resolutions completely unrelated to cooking, suppressing even the physiological fear caused by the magi.

The very owner of that magi, Davuer, was recalling the daytime conversation while watching Irene, who kept humming.

“Master. Aren’t you curious about outside the castle?”

“Don’t beat around the bush and get straight to the point.”

“Let’s test whether you can stay awake outside the castle too if Irene is with you!”

It was well-founded nonsense, so he had agreed.

And the result of that experiment was.

‘…Nothing happened the entire time I was outside.’

If it had been like before, he would have immediately lost consciousness.

He would have fallen into deep sleep as always, wandering somewhere in nightmares and fighting the magi that had invaded his body. Just as it had always been since ‘that day’ a hundred years ago.

That day, Davuer had sealed malevolent magi in his own body—

Ironically, that magi had made him a demigod.

‘Giselle would say it’s as expected.’

The Witch trusted in Irene’s existence. It was like the intuition of one who had glimpsed fragments of the future, sometimes appearing even blind.

However, Davuer thought the opposite of Giselle.

He had expected to fall asleep the moment he left the castle gates, and had estimated how long it would take to wake up again.

In fact, for him, it was a natural judgment.

“Why do you keep looking at me with a face that has a lot to say?”

Black hair draped like ebony and vivid blood-red eyes.

Irene Baltres asked with her eyes half-closed.

Instead of kindly answering her question, Davuer shared his impression of her.

“As expected, I don’t feel any divinity from you.”

“What kind of obvious statement is that.”

“It would make sense if I could feel it from you.”

“…Are you talking in your sleep or something?”

Only divinity ‘could’ suppress magi.

Pure divinity, like what dwelled in Winter Castle.

Even this was a relic from a hundred years ago, gradually weakening with time, but still, the difference between inside and outside the castle was like heaven and earth.

The reason they had originally wanted to kidnap the saint and bring her to Belmayer was precisely because of this.

But then.

“I’ll use magic for you.”

An unprecedented exception had appeared.

A woman who possessed no divinity whatsoever, yet allowed him to maintain consciousness even outside the castle simply by being nearby.

The moment Irene had said those words at some point, Davuer unconsciously overlapped two people.

“Let me use magic for you.”

His own appearance from long ago,

And the one with golden dawn-colored eyes…

“Live long, Davuer. I’ll be reborn and come to meet you.”

“What. Don’t tell me you’re sleeping? You can’t sleep.”

At the sound that broke his reverie, Davuer opened the eyes he had closed while dwelling on memories.

He immediately met ruby-like eyes.

“I’m not sleeping.”

“You startled me. Give me some warning next time.”

“You want me to give warning before opening my eyes?”

“I’m saying that’s how surprised I was.”

Whether she had adapted to the instinctive fear of magi, Irene became more brazen with each passing day rather than being intimidated.

What he had learned about her wasn’t much.

That she was a mage with pitifully little magical power compared to his former self, that watching her was irritating and brought up phantoms from the past.

That she was similar yet different to someone who now lived only in his memories. And.

“…How noisy.”

“I’ll shut up. I feel like I can’t breathe and it’s so wonderful.”

Irene grumbled and clamped her mouth shut. In truth, what was noisy was her very existence itself.

Ever since Irene Baltres appeared, she had been drifting noisily through his mind.

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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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