A Runaway Villainess, Now Healing In An Enemy Country - Chapter 89

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

【Chapter 89】

“I’ll leave the cleanup here to you. I’m going to have a… conversation with that captain over there.”

If I had been in the Empire, something like today probably wouldn’t have happened. It seems Ezekiel incited the search party to cause this situation.

Then I have to take responsibility and resolve it.

Davuer didn’t answer, but I know he’ll ultimately follow my words. I let go of his hand and immediately turned around to walk away.

And now I finally faced Chessier directly.

“You don’t… look well, Your Highness.”

Disheveled blonde hair that looked brittle, darkly shadowed eyes, and pupils that had lost their light. His clothes looked more thrown on than properly worn.

Chessier stared at me frozen like someone who had seen a ghost. His gaze that traced every part of my face was trembling frantically.

He pronounced my name like a groan.

“…Irene.”

Chessier called me by my name, not ‘Princess.’

Rather than called, it would be more fitting to say it burst out. The sound was so unfamiliarly resonant that I couldn’t help but flinch greatly.

The temperature of the gaze reaching me, the voice, everything that made up the person called Chessier felt strange.

Of course, I have ears and had made guesses, so I expected he would be different from ‘before.’ But I never thought a person could change this much…

I cut off the lengthening idle thoughts and spoke.

“…We need to talk first.”

* * *

The inside of Drens’ outpost was quite desolate.

The interior lighting was strangely murky like broken fluorescent lights, and all that was in the space were tables and chairs.

Since this was a hastily arranged conversation, we didn’t prepare tea or anything. Anyway, any tea drunk in this setting would go down the windpipe rather than the esophagus.

While the two forces were on guard outside the base, currently only Chessier and I were inside.

“Well…”

I deliberately didn’t sit in a chair and chose my words.

Where should I start? About pretending to be dead in the Empire? About awakening new sanctity? About the brainwashing? No…

“…Just quietly return to the Empire. You’re not really looking for Lishie anyway, are you? Especially now that the Daesingwan has become a saint.”

“…”

“You probably knew, didn’t you? Or not? I don’t know what you hoped for by following the Daesingwan’s words, but Belmayer is…”

Then Chessier, who had been standing still like he was frozen, suddenly moved and grabbed my wrist.

A careful touch as if handling something that would disappear if touched. My hair stood on end from the chilling bewilderment.

With a completely distorted face, he uttered.

“Really, you’re… alive.”

The hand gripping me was trembling terribly.

This was truly the first time in over ten years that I had seen Chessier in such a disheveled state.

He muttered again in a voice mixed with joy, regret, and all other emotions too difficult to read.

“You’re alive…”

When I shook off his arm, feeling uncomfortable as if chewing sand, he trembled but easily let go and asked this.

“…That power. It’s not dangerous, is it?”

I was speechless at the unexpected question.

If he was going to ask about ‘that power,’ he should ask what it was. Or what I was doing in Belmayer, or how I was alive.

But why…

“You were bleeding. How badly were you hurt?”

“…”

“Please, Irene. Even curses are fine, just answer me.”

…Who is this man exactly?

There was a man before me who didn’t know what to do with anxiety. Someone I knew well, yet didn’t know at all.

Yes, I understood intellectually that treating me like a detestable pest and breaking our promise by saying he’d marry Lishie was all because of that damn brainwashing or fate.

If the brainwashing was lifted, he probably wouldn’t hate me so much now. He could have doubts and regrets about his past actions.

But the emotions he was showing now were too…

“I’m afraid you might disappear again…”

Chessier pleaded while putting strength into both hands. It looked like a sign of desperately restraining himself from wanting to reach out.

The back of his hands with bulging veins trembled mercilessly, and his nails dug painfully into his skin. It was a grip strength that would make you believe his fingers might break.

“…You still treat your hands roughly.”

“Ha.”

When I unconsciously let out that observation, he crumbled his rigid expression in an instant. It looked like both laughing and crying.

“Irene. Don’t… forgive me.”

“Are you doing this because you’re sorry? You don’t need to.”

I spoke in the most refined voice possible.

“Your Highness has done nothing wrong to me.”

After all, everything was because of brainwashing, wasn’t it? It’s absurd to blame humans for not being able to go against God’s will.

After learning that everyone around me was like that because of designed fate, I became unable to properly hate anyone.

Since none of it was truly their own will, resentment lost its place to go and only wounded people remained.

So I really wanted to never see him again for the rest of my life.

“More than that, I want to settle today’s matter first. Honestly, it’s hard to look at your face, so could you cooperate?”

“…Irene.”

“Your Highness, if it’s not for ‘this kind of thing,’ we won’t have any more reason to meet. I’d prefer if there were no such occasions at all.”

Then Chessier’s complexion turned pale. Even though I hadn’t said it was terrible or that I resented him, he looked like he’d heard the words he least wanted to hear.

“Anymore… Do I mean nothing to you?”

“Yes.”

He asked, and I answered immediately.

Every one of his glances, every word, every trivial action. There was definitely a time when everything that made him up held great meaning for me.

But not now. Not in the future either.

After a long silence, Chessier pronounced as if scraping his vocal cords. As if he couldn’t endure without doing so.

The moment he called my name, I had a premonition, and that’s why I wanted to avoid the name of that emotion.

“I love you.”

The moment I heard it, I inevitably tensed my hands.

What Chessier uttered with his terribly choked voice, what he ended up blurting out, was closer to a confession than a declaration of love.

Hot heat filled my head completely. I moved my lips without even knowing my voice was trembling.

“Now… now of all times…”

Actually, ‘now of all times’ is an expression I shouldn’t use.

Because the brainwashing was lifted ‘now of all times.’ So it’s meaningless to question why he’s acting like this to me now. I know well. I understand.

I know, but.

Chessier poured out as if he couldn’t control himself.

“…You loved me first. My love is what you cultivated for ten years.”

“…”

“I love you. Let me fulfill my promise with you.”

I finally let go of the thread of reason.

When I came to my senses again, I was already mounted on top of Chessier. I had punched him and he had fallen to the floor.

“It hurts, Irene…”

Chessier, with his right cheek flushed red, laughed “haha” as if delighted despite being hit.

“Your Highness, are you really crazy? The promise was broken long ago and everything went wrong, so what are you…!”

“Ah… that’s right, I’m sorry. Don’t forgive me. What should I do for you to stay by my side? I promised His Majesty I would welcome you as my wife.”

“What nonsense are you…”

It didn’t sound like something said with a sane mind at all.

Chessier took my limp hand and placed it on his left chest. The beating pulse of his heart thrashed beneath my palm.

He raised the corners of his mouth and declared.

“If you want to stop me, stab here again.”

“….”

“Don’t worry. This time I won’t open my eyes again.”

He tightened his grip on the hand that held mine.

A blind gaze, as if fearing that I would disappear completely if he blinked even once. Mixed emotions quietly surged within those eyes.

I was momentarily stunned and muttered in bewilderment.

“Right now, in my hands… you’re saying you’d die.”

Strange heat filled his eyes that showed no reason. The most utterly broken man I’d ever seen answered.

“Whether I live or die depends on you. Without you, I want to die…”

“…Listen here, Your Highness. You said you were sorry? Do you realize you’re practically threatening me right now?”

Someone who claims to be sorry is threatening me to either become the Crown Princess again or kill him if I refuse.

“That’s why I told you not to forgive me. I… Irene. I want you to think of me again.”

Chessier took my long hair that had fallen and kissed it. He looked as desperate as someone hanging from a cliff’s edge.

“If it’s difficult to change your heart, I’d like at least your body to stay by my side. If even that is difficult…”

“….”

“There’s no meaning in living, so kill me.”

Throughout my past life, I was always the one who struggled to maintain our engagement. Even after knowing him for ten years, he had never looked at me this way.

Of course, I never thought he would.

In that sense, this reunion with Chessier is worse than I could have imagined. It dredges up buried past, wastes unnecessary emotions, and makes me consider what-ifs.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————