A Runaway Villainess, Now Healing In An Enemy Country - Chapter 35

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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 35】

 

“…!”

 

A painfully bright light flooded my retinas.

 

When I opened my eyes again after several seconds had passed.

 

A massive, pure white sword blade that seemed to be made entirely of light was piercing through the World Tree’s trunk.

 

Its size was so enormous that it looked like an anchor that had dropped from the sky. Contrasted against the black World Tree, it resembled light and shadow.

 

And the light scattered in the blink of an eye.

 

The entire world was quiet as if time had stopped.

 

The disgusting pulsing of the tree, the unpleasant and eerie voice, and the black sky overhead all vanished without a trace.

 

There’s a saying that the best defense is offense.

 

The World Tree wasn’t cut down or felled, and it was still seething with magi, but despite that, I was convinced with near-instinctive certainty.

 

It was dead.

 

Whatever that obsession or evil spirit was had perished.

 

As soon as I realized this, my tension released and I collapsed with a thud. The texture of snow piled on the mountain path felt strangely unfamiliar against my palms.

 

“Ugh.”

 

I realized somewhat belatedly that my right index finger hurt as if it had been burned.

 

‘Wait, the ring….’

 

The heated ring seemed to painfully tighten around my finger, then soon split cleanly in half and fell off.

 

This ring I had received from Davuer clearly showed traces of having ‘been’ some kind of magical tool. In other words, the magic carved within it had already served its purpose.

 

‘But how… such magic just now.’

 

No, wait. Was it even magic to begin with? I don’t think I felt any magical power.

 

Was I mistaken? Was there something else I didn’t notice?

 

Right, there probably was.

 

I don’t know what kind of magic was contained in this small ring, or how such a thing was possible, but this is just like.

 

“…’Deus Ex Machina’.”

 

Like Deus Ex Machina, huh?

 

I quickly turned my head up.

 

A word that Davuer could never have known had flowed from his lips.

 

It wasn’t a term used ‘here’, but a word that was only common in my previous life. Unless he was a reincarnator or possessor, there was no way he could know it.

 

“How… do you know that word?”

 

“I heard it before.”

 

“From whom? Did you also know that this ring contained such magic?”

 

“No. That ring… long ago already.”

 

I waited calmly, but he didn’t continue his words.

 

Instead, he knelt on the ground and lifted my right hand that had been carelessly sprawled out.

 

His face was hidden by his hair as he lowered his head.

 

He murmured in a voice so excessively calm it sounded awkward instead.

 

“You’re burned.”

 

On my index finger was a bright red mark in the shape of the ring. It would probably become a scar if not healed with divine power.

 

‘Divine power….’

 

Even that pronunciation sounded more uncomfortable than ever before. Was it because I had heard stories about corrupted divine power and the source of magi?

 

Let me think based on the premise that what he said was correct.

 

Anyway, that evil god died a hundred years ago. It died rather messily and left behind magi.

 

So Lishie must be the Countess of a newly born god. Just newly born and not yet capable of driving out the magi.

 

Right. The identity of the magi that didn’t even appear in the original work was shocking, but the big picture hadn’t changed.

 

Pushing away my anxiety, I spoke in a bright voice.

 

“That’s pretty cheap for the price of a life, don’t you think?”

 

“It will scar.”

 

“Is that important? Whatever it was, I survived thanks to the ring, so it’s fine. Right now….”

 

I brushed off the snow and stood up, glanced at the World Tree, then picked up the scattered remains of the ring from the snow.

 

And I extended my hand to Davuer.

 

“Let’s hurry back to the castle.”

 

On the way back to Winter Castle, carrying newly learned facts and unresolved questions.

 

We didn’t say a word to each other as if we had made a promise, and I resolved with each step I took.

 

Never to see that crazy tree again.

 

* * *

 

[Lishie, Lishie, Lishie!]

 

The sleeping Prince’s chambers.

 

Lishie, who had been sitting in a makeshift chair with only her upper body leaning on the bed, suddenly came to her senses at the shouting voice.

 

She had unknowingly dozed off. Her eyelids were heavy due to the fatigue that grew worse each day.

 

[You must wake the Prince immediately, Lishie!]

 

The ‘Voice’ was sharper than usual today.

 

“Huk, heok…!”

 

Kiiiii―

 

Lishie clutched her head and groaned at the nerve-tearing agony. It was the first time it had hurt this much since the day she first awakened her divine power.

 

[Lishie!]

 

“No, I can’t….”

 

It wasn’t that she couldn’t wake him, but that she mustn’t wake him.

 

Lishie had visited the Imperial Capital every day even after returning to the Duke’s mansion. She devoted all her attention to ensuring he wouldn’t wake up.

 

For the first time, she felt like she was being helpful to Irene, so she couldn’t help but cling to it. Her will was so strong that even a god couldn’t break it.

 

[Aah! This one and that one both…!]

 

The Voice, which would normally try to coax with sweet words or whip her by picking at her wounds, was as illogical as a whining child.

 

[I shouldn’t have chosen something like you! A damn orphan, I made you into a Countess!]

 

But regret couldn’t turn back time.

 

It was also the voice within her that had taught her that divine power wasn’t simply the power to heal or purify.

 

Divine power was life force itself.

 

A power that could kill as well as save.

 

And ‘its’ Countess was cunningly applying that principle to cast a sleeping spell on the Prince.

 

[Don’t ruin my story!]

 

Shrill screams poured into Lishie’s mind.

 

Even in her pain, she covered her mouth and buried herself in the bedding so that people who heard the commotion wouldn’t come running.

 

The voice within her let out a sticky sigh.

 

[I didn’t want to break you yet. But now it’s time.]

 

“Wa, wait… sto, urgh!”

 

[Lishie, you go to sleep.]

 

In an instant. Lishie lost consciousness along with the phantom pain of a hole being drilled in her head.

 

And ‘that thing’ that had been parasitizing Lishie opened its eyes.

 

“….”

 

It slowly raised its body, arranged its disheveled clothes, and only then checked its appearance in the mirror across from it.

 

The outward appearance was unmistakably Lishie, but because of the eerily expressionless face, it looked like something completely different from her.

 

“Ah, ah.”

 

It made sounds and touched its lips with its fingers, then soon smiled with the corners of its eyes crinkling.

 

Then it turned its gaze to the vase decorating the nightstand beside the sleeping Prince’s bed, to be precise.

 

Crack!

 

The thing that unhesitatingly caught and killed the butterfly sitting on the red flower brushed off its hands and muttered.

 

“Almost there, but there are so many interferers….”

 

The past hundred years.

 

Even after losing all its past glory and becoming not just incomplete but hideous, it had desperately survived.

 

After greedily draining life, it had finally succeeded in regaining some of its power. It was on the verge of achieving its great long-cherished wish.

 

“That foolish thing too.”

 

Its thought-form that had been sleeping within the World Tree had completely perished just moments ago.

 

To it, the thought-form was like a fingernail that had fallen off, so it didn’t care about its death.

 

The problem was the manner of death.

 

The divine blade that pierced through the World Tree was certainly made of a divinity ‘it did not know.’ It could be certain even from such a great distance, even through memories received from the thought-form.

 

It was a divinity that was not ‘its’ own.

 

It was a new divinity!

 

“Ah, no, this won’t do, this won’t do…”

 

It became impatient.

 

At this rate, all the carefully laid plans might crumble like a sandcastle meeting waves.

 

It was no longer, or still, or differently yet, neither omniscient nor omnipotent.

 

The eyes that once looked down upon all creation, the ears that heard the sounds of insignificant creatures, the legs that once leaped across the world in a single bound, the arms that shaped all things, the body that embraced the entire earth.

 

All of its ‘authority’ had been torn apart and stolen by that day’s death. Now all it had was its mouth.

 

“Your Highness, you must wake up now.”

 

Thus it whispered softly and stroked the sleeping Prince’s hair.

 

Soon, as brilliant golden light seeped into his body, Chessier’s eyelids trembled finely.

 

“…Ugh.”

 

“Your Highness!”

 

It drooped its moisture-laden eyes downward and called out to Chessier like an exclamation. With Lishie’s face appropriately mixed with sobbing and joy.

 

“…Li, shie?”

 

Chessier, who staggered but forced himself to sit up, looked at ‘Lishie’ with hazy eyes.

 

It embraced his nape.

 

“I knew you would wake up safely…!”

 

“Li… shie. What, happened…”

 

“Your Highness, don’t you remember? Back then at the villa, Older Sister… Ah! Thank goodness!”

 

“…Irene. Irene did to me.”

 

Chessier buried his forehead against Lishie’s nape and groaned. It waited patiently.

 

For him to trace back his memories and ask this.

 

“Where is Irene, no… is she… alive.”

 

The story had gone slightly off track, but that was fine.

 

It would put it back on its original course.

 

In this story, ‘Irene’ needed to die a little more miserably, very unhappily, without anyone’s mourning, in the way she would least want.

 

It intended to give her a perfect end befitting her—a demon who dared betray God.

 

“…Older Sister is alive. Will you look for her?”

 

How fortunate that she was in Belmayer.

 

It would send her to hell along with those cursed Plunderers.

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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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