A Runaway Villainess, Now Healing In An Enemy Country - Chapter 76

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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 76】

Now, at last, I acknowledge who I truly was.

I affirm it with my soul filled with conviction.

If everything wasn’t something my past self had done in the first place, I wouldn’t have any reason to be standing here right now.

“Ugh…!”

The more I tried to recall my memories, the more severe my headache became. A rough, sharp pain like glass shards stirring through my brain.

Despite the agony, what made me feel strangely pleased in the end was this:

The razor-sharp pain that seemed to warn me not to transgress taboos was becoming the basis for my conviction about the past I had lost.

As I accepted the previous life I couldn’t remember as my own, somehow a fulfilling sensation that I could do anything captivated me.

Having gained enlightenment, it was time to put it into practice.

And so I asked the contract dragon.

“…Dragon. You’re still alive, right?”

It’s presumed that the Vermin’s infiltration into the egg was relatively recent. The magi must have invaded once more when the dragon had finished preparing for a new beginning.

The fact that such an egg had cracked meant that what was sealed inside had gone berserk. This dragon that had been sleeping within would be in a state of dying, buried under Vermin.

To put it differently, it was still alive.

If I purify the Vermin, I can save the dragon.

“I’ll keep my promise.”

【Hmph. You say that now?】

“Even if it’s now.”

Though its tone was blunt, its tail swished gently.

I gazed into those golden eyes that seemed to pour forth radiance and stroked the dragon’s head once more.

“Let’s meet again soon.”

【…Contractor. If you’re late again this time, I will curse you for all eternity.】

The dragon’s retort, having a history of waiting a hundred years, was quite menacing. I just smiled reassuringly.

And then I used Sanctum on my own heart.

* * *

“…!”

I opened my eyes with a brief headache.

My vision was strangely gloomy as if night had fallen.

Furious magi pierced every nerve in my body like needles. The stench mixed with Vermin bodily fluids stung my nose.

I naturally turned my head toward the place that was particularly dark and where the strongest magi could be felt.

Davuer was there. At the same time, my mouth fell open.

“Cra…”

Magic circles written in magi floated around him like black smoke as he stood with his eyes closed.

Even without completely deciphering it, I immediately recognized what kind of magic he had deployed.

That was mental domination magic that had set this entire area as its domain. He was forcibly subjugating ‘everything with magi’ in this place.

“Cra, zy bastard…”

I was on the verge of letting out a hollow laugh at that absurd scale. Questions like ‘how’ or ‘why’ didn’t even occur to me.

At this moment, I was simply intensely overwhelmed.

The darkly tinted sky. The snow-capped mountains of winter with withered branches hanging down. The horde of Vermin spread out blackly over the white snowfield.

Their numbers were enormous, as if all the Vermin inhabiting the mountain range had concentrated here, but they were all frozen in unison like in a still frame.

Swish!

“Irene! You’re awake!”

In an instant, Ally appeared without any sign among the Vermin, slicing through a Vermin’s vital point as she called to me.

Her maid uniform torn below the knees and the swords in both hands that she was busily wielding even at this moment.

She wasn’t someone who had been in the original operation unit. But the fact that she was here now meant…

I quickly came to my senses and stood up.

“How much time has passed?”

“Well, roughly two hours!”

It was Nishe who answered as if shouting.

Like Ally, he was in a completely disheveled state, and his movements in dispatching Vermin were very rough.

Then he suddenly ran over to me and shouted like this.

“Hey, sorry to bother you right after you woke up! Can’t you do something about that thing first? It looks like it’s going to die at this rate!”

In the direction Nishe pointed, there was a black mass writhing very faintly. It looked like tentacles or slime formed from a mixture of smoke and mucus.

And Marisa was buried in that mud.

“Ah…”

That was the Vermin that had gone berserk and poured out from the egg.

Marisa was in that state because she had been in contact when the egg cracked. Fortunately, she had only lost consciousness and was still alive.

“…I’ll save her right away.”

I looked toward where Davuer was for a moment, then quickly finished my judgment and ran straight to Marisa.

‘Purifying that thing comes first.’

I had no choice but to believe that he, that his heart would hold out. If the domain control was released in the current situation, this place would become a scene of carnage in an instant.

So stopping him would come after the purification.

I sharpened my nerves and concentrated on the sensation of drawing life force from the well called the soul. However, no Sanctum emerged from my fingertips.

A few seconds, a few dozen seconds.

A few minutes passed…

“Huff… Huk, urgh.”

No matter how desperately I tried.

My vision spun round and round, and gastric acid flowed back up. The taste of iron wafted from somewhere I couldn’t tell if it was my nose or mouth.

“Why, huk, isn’t it working…? It’s not working…”

I collapsed smoothly without even realizing I was sitting down.

The mass before my eyes, as if to show it was different from other Vermin, was pulsating small but clearly, unlike the others that couldn’t move at all.

I had the illusion that it was speaking to me.

You cannot purify me.

‘Unless you shatter your soul once again.’

I know. This is because the Sanctum I can currently handle is very limited. In other words, it means my body can only endure exactly that much.

“…Just, huk, here?”

Am I supposed to sacrifice my life to purify just this—not the World Tree, not Davuer, and certainly not an evil god, but one incomplete contaminated mass?

Don’t be ridiculous. I refuse.

If I’m to prepare for death, it should be on a much grander battlefield. The fate of the world should at least be at stake.

…So another method.

A way to resolve this safely, without damaging my soul.

The current problem is that my body—that is, the vessel—is far too small to operate Sanctum as I desire.

Actually, I already know how to develop this. Sanctum grows honestly, as much as you use it.

Which means.

“…Starting with small things, step by step…”

I staggered to my feet and approached the horde of Vermin. My vision was particularly hazy, and I couldn’t hear Ally or Nishe’s voices well.

However, only my voice rang out very loudly.

“I’m going to purify them all.”

So get out of the way.

All of these are my experience points.

Whoosh!

Fortunately, enough Sanctum to purify one Vermin safely bloomed from my fingertips.

The moment I faced that light, I sublimated even my physical limitations into mental strength.

A sensation close to prophecy that I would succeed if I repeated this process moved me.

And faith sometimes demonstrates superhuman power.

One, one, two.

Three, five, seven, ten.

With each purification, my external senses gradually dimmed as my head, heart, and lungs began moving violently.

Thirteen, twenty, thirty.

The ever-growing sanctum pierced my blood vessels sharply. As that pain intensified, I could purify greater numbers at once.

My sense of time grew hazy. Every joint in my body ached as if experiencing growing pains. A floating sensation enveloped me as if my body was drifting in mid-air.

Soon, when I could no longer count the number of Vermin I had purified.

White clusters of light emanated from me, falling like sleet. The Vermin they touched melted away, turned to ash, or crumbled like sparks.

They vanished without leaving anything behind.

Suddenly, I recalled the failed research journal of a certain mage I had been studying intently until recently.

[1,875th failure.

Having clearly realized the cause of failure, I am ceasing all related research as of today.

Magi cannot be annihilated by any magic whatsoever.

This is because Magi is a power that belongs to our world, a force of a higher dimension than magic power.

Damn you, God.]

…Is that really so?

I will directly refute that conclusion.

I might not know if I can cast magic that annihilates Magi, but I can do it, and it’s entirely possible.

My body, which had grown by explosively breaking through limits, was hot as if submerged in a furnace, while my head was cold as if trapped in a glacier.

I slowly drew in a breath.

Each blood vessel writhed with chilling vividness. My heart—whether mine or someone else’s—seemed to be beating while split down to the cellular level.

Thump, thump…

In this moment, I saw the essence of this variant.

Saw it? No, it was more like some supersensory something. This sensation might be what we Castle humans experience when we see soul colors.

“…Aha.”

The Griffin’s consistently bizarre behavior.

I suspect it’s the same thing Jepi wanted to eat in the past. The reason Marisa wanted to possess it after seeing that.

That thing bewitches those who see it.

It uses that ability to quietly lure prey and devour them. After growing stronger that way, it even consumes its host before going berserk.

What the dragon sealed inside the egg wasn’t so much Magi as the Vermin itself. It’s a parasitic Vermin.

How was it born? Or was it created?

I don’t know that much. However.

I instinctively felt what, how, and when I needed to purify that terrible Vermin before my eyes.

Now I can do it. Even without risking my life.

Whoooosh—

A wind of unknown origin began to blow.

The darkness that had descended upon the sky was swept away by it and retreated. The increasingly fierce wind covered the snow-capped mountains.

No tremendous magic power, no grand formulas, no complex calculations were needed. I simply wished, using my soul as fuel.

For this land to become clean.

Soon, a brilliantly white blizzard came sweeping through.

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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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