A Runaway Villainess, Now Healing In An Enemy Country - Chapter 82

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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 82】

“…Dragon, think about it positively. You’ll be able to surpass the limits of your body even without a heart, right?”

I flopped down with a sigh and reached out to poke the dragon’s side. The dragon shrugged its wings and surprisingly agreed readily.

【The probability isn’t entirely zero. If you become a transcendent, you might even obtain a divine throne.】

“A divine throne?”

【Did I not tell you? Your soul has a high rank. This means you have the possibility of reaching even that supreme position.】

…I don’t know what to do with myself when you praise me like that.

Though I was bewildered, I had actually been roughly guessing this.

When Lishie regarded me as a god, I denied it, but that was because the child saw me that way ‘right now.’

But even if not right now, someday.

I thought the theory of a new god’s birth might mean that I would become a divine being. Since the divinity I possess is my life force.

“So how does one become a transcendent?”

The dragon looked at me as if I were pathetic.

【Contractor, that’s something you need to figure out yourself. No matter how much of a genius this body is, how could I know that far!】

“Don’t scold me.”

Well. Whatever the identity of divinity was or whatever about souls, what I had to do remained the same. Build up strength, purify Davuer’s magi…

‘I just wish this damn fever would break.’

Still, it was better than when I could barely open my eyes, so I thought by tomorrow I’d at least be able to move without trouble.

Please. With that thought, I went to sleep.

* * *

Whether it was because I fell asleep feeling unsettled by what the dragon said, or because of the high fever that seemed to melt my body.

I was having a nightmare for the first time in a while.

“You have a fever, so let’s rest at an inn before continuing.”

The sound of carriage wheels rolling in rhythm with hoofbeats and Emma’s gentle voice worrying about me.

Peaceful afternoon sunlight streamed through the carriage window. The young princess, leaning her whole body against her nanny, smiled while catching her excited breath.

“Why bother when I’m just sitting anyway? I’m fine.”

“Still… you’re feeling dizzy. At this rate, you’ll collapse in front of His Grace.”

The me back then had pushed myself unusually hard preparing new magic to show Father, and was suffering from the resulting high fever in the moving carriage.

Though it was stuffy, the journey wasn’t arduous.

Some kind of hope or excitement was driving me forward, making the pain my body felt seem insignificant.

Was I looking forward to seeing Father after so long? Or to being acknowledged by him? Well. Now it’s all meaningless things.

What’s important is the fact that I made the wrong choice.

“Princess, please rest even a little. Please? I’m worried your health will suffer.”

“…If you insist that much.”

Unable to resist Emma’s persuasion, I followed her advice. Never dreaming that the result would return as betrayal.

When I woke up again after falling asleep in the borrowed inn room under Emma’s caresses, I was in a dark and musty underground prison.

A kidnapper wrapped entirely in white robes, not showing even a fingertip, spoke with feigned kindness.

“Are you afraid? It will hurt a little, but physical pain is meaningless. You may think of it joyfully.”

The source of all the bizarre rumors floating around the Empire in those days, the heresy declared by the Temple, the mad cult ‘Sephirot’ that the Imperial Court was tracking.

That person was the cult leader who led the place.

“Princess, you have been chosen as nourishment for the birth of a great being. There could be no greater honor than this.”

This organization, born from the psychotic idea that if God had abandoned the world, they would create a god with human hands, naturally had no normal people.

Thus, it was only after three days of being trapped in iron bars like an animal cage that I finally admitted it.

Emma had handed me over to this place.

…It probably wasn’t on purpose. There must have been some unavoidable circumstances. She had no choice. I think I endured with such thoughts.

Then, around the time I started planning my own escape, the Duke launched a surprise attack.

The Duke, who had found the missing princess through cooperation with the Imperial Court, was particularly fierce, and I cowered while watching his mood. When our eyes met, he asked without any emotion.

“Why did you stop the carriage, Irene. Tell me the reason you stayed at an unverified inn after dismissing your escort.”

“Uh, Emma suggested we should…”

“You trusted your nanny too much.”

After that, he never spoke to me again.

Neither did I show him magic again, nor burn with such high fever again, nor easily believe pleasant words someone said to me.

None of that happened after that.

I thought I should try a little harder not to make mistakes from now on.

Then even if I wasn’t happy, I could live a perfect life. Even if truly only I myself cared for me in this world, it didn’t matter.

“…”

The night was deep.

When I emerged from the dream, my vision was blurred and hazy from the heat. I felt severe thirst in my parched throat.

‘Water… I need to drink water first.’

I got up from bed, holding my throbbing head. The moment I stood on the floor, dizzying vertigo struck.

My body was too unwell to use magic, so I relied on my senses to leave the room. My body swayed like a jellyfish the entire walk toward the kitchen.

And just before going down the stairs, I was caught.

“Do you want to fall?”

From the body temperature of the hand holding mine and that voice, I guessed who it was and turned around, and sure enough.

“…Davuer.”

The face illuminated by the orange lamplight softly lighting the corridor was familiar. Even the slightly furrowed brow that seemed displeased.

For some reason, I replied like making an excuse.

“No, I was trying to drink water…”

Then Davuer, who had swept me up in his arms, went up the stairs. It wasn’t toward the kitchen on the lower floor, but the path to the top floor.

Where was he going? I flailed my legs meaninglessly a few times before stopping. I was already too drained to have the energy to protest.

He remained quiet until we reached the bedroom on the top floor and he sat me on the cool bed that looked like it had never been slept in.

“Drink.”

That heavy mouth opened as he handed me a water glass conjured with magic. As I took it reflexively and had a sip, Davuer pressed one hand to my forehead.

“It seems worse. The medicine isn’t working.”

I could read the worry showing on his face, darkened and barely visible in the darkness. Upon recognizing that, a very belated realization followed.

To think I could so easily infer emotions from that wax-like face that I once thought was utterly unreadable.

It was such a moving change that I couldn’t help but smile.

“I’m getting better, probably… Please include me in work starting tomorrow. You’re busy cleaning up, right?”

“No. It’s over forty degrees.”

“Don’t exaggerate.”

“You’re the one downplaying it.”

Of course my body was no joke either, but it wasn’t criticism I wanted to hear from a madman who cast insane magic with that body. That day, one wrong move could have caused a rampage.

The more I thought about it, the more irritated I became, so I ended up pouring out all the nagging I’d been holding back at once.

“Speaking of which, Davuer, you’re the one who doesn’t think about your own body. If possible, don’t use magic even if it goes through your heart. It’s dangerous. Whose heart do you think it is… Ah.”

…Oops.

“…Whose heart, you ask?”

“Ah, no, that’s…”

It wasn’t a topic I’d expected to bring up this way. I had planned to discuss it more seriously at a better timing, with proper preparation.

“You…”

Then Davuer pushed me backward and laid me down on the bed. As he climbed halfway over me and lowered his face, his hair tickled my nose.

Contrary to my hot body’s heat, his body temperature touching my skin was cold like raindrops, making my eyelids flutter slightly.

How long were we in that precarious position? Breaking the tense silence, he spoke with certainty.

“…Ah. Right. So your memories haven’t returned.”

…Why? How did he judge that?

All sorts of question marks floated on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t bring myself to voice them. How should I put it, I had an intuition that once I asked, there would be no going back, which made me clamp my mouth shut.

Davuer neither straightened his posture nor kindly resolved my questions, but simply asked this.

“How did you know that my heart is yours?”

The same monotonous tone as always. I knew that wasn’t what he meant, but somehow the sentence sounded strange, so I was filled with bewilderment.

“Well, I still can’t remember… but I think I really am that person…”

My current conviction about my past self came from my soul rather than memory, so there were no shared memories I could offer him.

Perhaps that’s why. The longer I spent facing him, the deeper I felt a pain like my heart being pricked by needles.

Unable to bear that strange guilt, I added:

“I’ll try my best to recover my memories.”

When the whole world has forgotten but only one person remembers, wouldn’t that be terribly lonely? I was rather shocked that he hadn’t gone insane long ago.

So if it were me…

“I remember, so you’re fine as you are.”

“…”

“I mean you don’t need to force yourself to remember.”

If it were me, I could never say such words.

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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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