A Runaway Villainess, Now Healing In An Enemy Country - Chapter 72

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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 72】

Now I understand. Magi in this world has only ever been absorbed, never properly purified even once.

To ‘properly’ purify magi means to cut it out. To erase it from the world.

In other words, the purified Griffin evaporated because it was completely annihilated along with the magi that formed its existence.

‘Wait. Then…’

I reflexively turned my body with such strong movement that it made a whooshing sound as I looked back at Davuer.

Our eyes met immediately, as if he had been watching me the whole time.

“…”

The man with the world’s worst magi.

He became an immortal who could live without eating or sleeping due to the magi sealed in his body. But if I were to eliminate his magi.

Would he still be able to live then?

I had vaguely, or perhaps naturally, thought that purifying magi with sanctity would return him to normal.

To his appearance before sealing the source of magi in his body. To his complete human form.

However, his entire body was filled with evil magi to the extent that I had jokingly suspected months ago whether he might be a pretty Vermin.

If magi were to disappear from such a person…

“…The purification you just performed is closer to annihilation. This is what you wanted to talk about, right?”

“H-how… did you notice?”

Then Davuer looked at me with eyes that seemed to grope at distant places and answered slowly.

“I couldn’t not know. You… have that alien aura similar to when you drew your last breath.”

Ah.

The ‘you’ he’s talking about now was the Countess from a hundred years ago.

I fumbled through the gaps in my memory, searching for something I couldn’t even remember, and moved my lips.

“…That is.”

‘It might not be me’?

I don’t know how to answer.

Lately, his certainty sometimes felt like faith. I can’t be certain of anything, yet he keeps talking about me that I don’t know.

“At that end, you…”

What if it’s someone very similar but different? There’s no proof. Soul color? He only gained that ability after she died, so he wouldn’t have seen hers.

If this belief is just a delusion, won’t you be disappointed in me? Aren’t you afraid of being wrong?

The questions swirling in my head seemed like questions I was asking myself rather than him.

Then Davuer muttered like someone who had realized the truth. With a quietly distorted expression.

“I had always wondered why you said only you could kill God… I see.”

“…”

“That moment back then was also purification done with your great soul. Just like now.”

His tone was quite sharp, but it didn’t sound sarcastic. Unable to affirm or deny, I slowly called his name.

“…Davuer.”

And asked back.

“Would purifying you be the same as killing you?”

“…We won’t know without trying.”

“What do you mean try!”

He gave such a careless answer, whether he knew my feelings or not.

If I purify him, he might disappear from the world without even leaving a corpse. Along with the magi, like that Countess of old.

The sanctity I possess is a double-edged sword.

It can make him live, and at the same time, it might kill him.

“I’m glad the purification… failed before.”

“Irene.”

“If you’re going to tell me not to worry, be quiet.”

I shouldn’t rashly try to purify him. At least not until I’m certain he won’t die.

‘…It’s okay. I just need to find it.’

While growing the sanctity I have as planned, I just need to find a way to eliminate only the magi without killing him.

So let’s think about getting stronger first.

I turned my gaze away from Davuer, who seemed half-lost in memories only he remembered. Instead, I looked at the Griffin flock whose spirits were crushed by his magi.

“I need to deal with those bird-brains first…”

I could feel that my sanctity had grown considerably from the act of purifying one just now. It was a much more noticeable result than when I healed Marisa’s illness.

In other words, I gain more experience when purifying magi.

“What’s with this serious atmosphere… Hey, hey! So you’re going to continue purifying?”

Nishe stopped me as I was filled with determination to purify all the Vermin living in this mountain range.

“Yeah.”

“Then just stay here. I’ll deal with them and call you. Do they have to be alive?”

“…For now. But why are you acting like this? Before, you just crossed your arms and watched while I caught Vermin.”

You didn’t swing your sword once until my mana was depleted. When I glared at him suspiciously, he frowned and confessed.

“I’m being mindful of my lord.”

“…”

“And back then it was justified. This idiot touched the eggs and we got into a fight, but it was too much to handle so we ran. I thought the Vermin were breeding. Still gives me chills thinking about it.”

“I was hungry.”

Jepi suddenly interjected.

“And those eggs really looked delicious.”

“This is why I call him an idiot.”

“It’s true though. The mad dog doesn’t know because he didn’t see.”

“Hey, the eggs you were trying to eat were born as those bird-brains, so look again. Don’t they look really unappetizing?”

Nishe mercilessly smacked Jepi’s head and dragged him among the Griffin flock, swinging his sword.

While constantly grumbling about how the practical training failed and when these misfits would pull their weight.

Marisa, who had been getting the cold shoulder from her superior’s scolding, grabbed her sword and ran over quickly.

“I-I’ll help too…!”

Perhaps due to her monstrous strength, her movements were truly like a real knight’s, not like a squire who had only trained for a few days.

After Davuer released his magi, the Griffins in a state of terror began to be cut down pathetically for mutant named monsters.

They only resisted but couldn’t properly display their aggressiveness. At this rate, it wouldn’t have mattered if they had a hundred heads instead of two.

‘Debuffs are really convenient.’

Actually, in that state, it looked like I could go and purify them directly, but since it would look bad to the master if a knight just watched.

I obediently stood in the rear, waiting for them.

It was where the squires holding swords were waiting in full tension. Nishe’s reckless practical training didn’t seem helpful in many ways.

“Hii, hiiek…!”

“Be careful.”

Bang!

A lower Vermin attracted by the fight sneakily approached through the towering trees. It’s the most common wolf-dog Vermin in this area.

When I blew off its head with simple attack magic, it crumbled quickly with a balloon-popping sound.

So Vermin of that level can be easily purified with just basic explosion magic mixed with a bit of sanctity. Good to know.

I calculated in a bullet-loading format so magic could activate continuously and said.

“Step back. More seem likely to appear.”

Then somehow an emotionally charged question came back.

“Are you pr-protecting us?”

“…You could see it that way.”

Though I want to experiment with sanctity magic.

The wolf-dogs that sneakily emerged exploded and died the moment they caught my eye, just like before. As this repeated and they gradually relaxed, they whispered among themselves.

“I definitely thought you were one of the monsters living in the castle… Are you really the Countess?”

“Wasn’t the Countess in the Empire?”

“We must have our own monster Countess. She might be stronger than the Empire’s Countess. No, of course she would be!”

…I can hear everything.

Isn’t the title ‘monster Countess’ a bit much?

Even if policies had changed and perceptions of Winter Castle had improved, the fear learned over long years wouldn’t subside all at once.

It seemed the principality’s citizens had come to view us as ‘scary but friendly monsters.’ Their antipathy toward the Empire had only grown stronger.

So I was about to share the uncomfortable truth that I was neither the castle monster they spoke of, nor even from the Empire, but stopped myself.

‘More than that, those earlier actions were really bothering me…’

The griffins whose egos had split and were fighting among themselves.

Fundamentally, vermin are beings driven primarily by hostility toward life and murderous instincts. So why hadn’t they shown any interest in us?

It seemed like… there was something more important.

Or as if they were entranced by something.

Perhaps the problem was that I’d thought the subjugation process was going surprisingly smoothly and without crisis, despite feeling uneasy.

Screech!

“Ah!”

Along with the death cry of a griffin whose neck had been severed, Marisa suddenly let out an exclamation.

She stopped swinging her sword enthusiastically and picked up some kind of egg from the ground.

The spot where the griffin she’d just killed had been sitting like it was nesting. From there emerged a black egg the size of a child’s head.

Marisa stared at it as if ‘entranced’ and asked.

“Can I… take this?”

What?

“…That’s the egg.”

Jepi, who had turned his head that way, muttered as if pleased. His gaze was also blankly fixed on it.

The context was bizarre.

The surface of the egg with thin cracks gleamed like obsidian, and I could feel something ominous writhing inside it in a spine-chilling way.

An unpleasant sensation like bugs crawling all over my body.

Had it been there from the beginning? If so, it was so revolting that I wondered why I hadn’t noticed it sooner.

In the blink of an eye. My judgment was swift.

Instinctively drawing up divine power from my entire body, I ran toward her and shouted.

“Marisa! Drop that right now!”

“No, uh…”

Marisa’s chocolate-colored eyes became so clouded they looked black, I rushed at her trying to snatch the egg away,

“No… no!”

She pushed me away, and unable to resist that monstrous strength, my fingertips only grazed the egg,

[…Finally, you’ve come.]

A voice from who knows where echoed in my head, and finally Davuer—

“Everyone hold your breath!”

Rarely shouting as he pulled me back from behind, all of this happened simultaneously.

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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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