A Runaway Villainess, Now Healing In An Enemy Country - Chapter 90

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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 90】

…Yes, what if.

Just a hypothetical scenario.

If it hadn’t been brainwashing or fate, would I have never been betrayed? Would someone have truly cared for me?

It’s something I’ll never know now. In fact, I don’t even want to know. That’s why I’ve consciously avoided considering hypotheticals until now.

But facing it head-on like this, really…

“…I don’t like it.”

I shook off his hand and sat up.

Surprisingly, he didn’t try to hold me down. Only his gaze following me was persistent.

“If you want to die that badly, do it yourself. Don’t use my hands, and do it somewhere I can’t see.”

“…Irene, please.”

“I’m the one who wants to say please.”

The attitude he was showing me now seemed to suggest that if it hadn’t been for the brainwashing, I would have had a fairly smooth unrequited love, which made my stomach churn.

I barely managed to control the emotions surging up and took a deep breath while roughly running my hands through my hair.

There’s no point in venting my frustration here. Let me think about what needs to be resolved first.

“…Your Majesty. Don’t you find it strange that your feelings suddenly changed? I know the answer to that.”

“…”

I had a feeling that if I stayed alone with Chessier, who seemed to have gone mad in an ungraceful way, the situation would flow like this again.

In that case, I’d rather…

“Let’s call Noaren too… and finish this conversation.”

From the beginning, step by step.

* * *

A suffocating combination had gathered in the desolate base.

I organized the situation without meeting the gazes of those two people fixed on me.

I don’t know how much they’ll believe, but starting from the fact that God is actually the source of the Magi, to the brainwashing he did, the fact that I awakened a new sanctity, and what I heard from the High Priest today.

They listened to my words without interruption until the end. I added in the uncomfortable silence.

“…Whether you believe it or not, this is the truth. There’s no time to debate whether to break the ceasefire or not.”

“I believe it.”

Noaren immediately affirmed and emphasized.

“All of it.”

I thought he would persistently question everything given his suspicious nature. But he says he believes it all without even properly asking anything.

The words “that’s not like you” rose to my throat, but I didn’t voice them. After all, his change would also be due to the brainwashing being lifted.

I couldn’t help but know that fact the moment our eyes met. The hypothesis that he might have been brainwashed again had long since faded away.

He muttered incoherently with a choked voice.

“Brainwashing… Yes. So that sound back then was…”

“…Do you have some idea about it?”

When our eyes met, he turned pale instantly and only moved his lips. While not knowing what to do with himself from guilt.

Since the discomfort I had been trying to suppress was creeping up, I quickly waved my hand.

“No, never mind. Just don’t say it.”

“…”

“So… the conclusion is that the real enemy is elsewhere, so get out of Belmayer. It’ll be hard for either side to see anything good if we clash.”

Ezekiel’s moves this time are strange.

No matter how much it was to lure me to the Empire, I couldn’t understand why he deliberately caused the verminfication here and guided me to purify it.

Because of that, many people saw my sanctity. Then his position with his ‘sanctity’ would diminish accordingly, so why?

The fact that he acted suspiciously and then suddenly disappeared also seems fishy.

If it wasn’t a self-defeating move, there must be some reason. I had a feeling that if I could uncover that, I could approach the core of the corrupted sanctity.

So in the end, I have no choice but to go to the Citadel as he intended.

I continued speaking while turning my gaze to Chessier, who had been frozen motionless throughout the conversation.

“And Belmayer is… a sanctuary I’ve designated. You won’t be able to invade it without killing me.”

He said the Emperor might try to invade if he judges Belmayer to be safe from the Magi.

Since it’s come to this, I plan to nail it down as a sanctuary and make it an unattainable prize. As a sacred inviolable territory that everyone acknowledges.

I had already decided to reveal myself and my sanctity by coming here anyway. Since God has started moving again, I can’t just stay still either.

I swore to burn down all of God’s will.

“…Are you going back to the Empire?”

After a long while, Chessier opened his mouth.

His gaze, like someone who had gone completely wrong somewhere, and his terribly cracked voice made me guess his emotions.

“I have to go because there’s work to do there. That doesn’t mean I’m returning though. Your Majesty knows it too, right? Already, to turn back…”

It’s too late. It’s impossible to gather spilled water. I trailed off for a moment, then continued while looking directly at him.

“There’s nothing that can be undone. I can’t act like nothing happened either.”

“…Irene.”

“You can consider my words absurd, and you don’t particularly need to help me. Just please don’t interfere.”

Because then we’ll inevitably become enemies.

It was a long and arduous process, but I had finished what I needed to say, and they seemed to understand well enough, so there was no reason to stay here any longer.

I headed straight outside. I felt persistent gazes but didn’t look back or add anything.

As soon as I stepped out to feel the cold wind, a pale man’s silhouette greeted me. Nishe, standing behind his master, pointed at me and moved his mouth.

You’re crazy, I told you you were crazy, so you’re completely insane now, aren’t you?

He put his index finger to his head and spun it around, then frowned and said two more things.

You’re really going to the Empire in the end? That High Priest or whatever will be thinking of killing you there!

‘…Did he hear the entire conversation from inside?’

The culprit would be either Giselle or Juansi. Unless they had heard remotely and transmitted it telepathically, there was no way such a reaction could occur.

The reason for speaking without making sound is…

“You know it’s a trap, Irene.”

Davuer’s face as he looked at me was more fiercely hardened than ever, looking like a statue carved precisely with a blade.

I briefly held my breath at that sharp reaction.

“…Sometimes there are traps you have to fall into even knowing they’re traps. This is one of those times.”

A large-scale verminfication incident might occur, and he might cause more trouble using contaminated regions or vermin.

There are many things I haven’t grasped, and if I just stay still like this, I’ll only realize things after being hit.

“Don’t worry, I—”

“Because you’re amazing?”

A rough voice like sandpaper cut off my words. He recited in a tone so excessively calm it sounded irrational instead.

“Even if you were reborn, your speech habit remains the same. You always crawl into death traps like that.”

“Speech habit… you say.”

“I, whenever you do this…”

Then he closed his mouth as if swallowing a groan.

I couldn’t say anything and just quietly looked up at his face. The rustling sound of the wind seemed to speak to me in his place.

Are you really going? Even though you don’t want to go.

To that place you ran away from, once again. Even knowing it’s a trap. Won’t you avoid it?

“Instead, tell me to solve it, Irene.”

Davuer pulled my hand and brought it to his face. His cold body temperature seemed to steal warmth from me.

“If I absorb it this time, I might be able to trap God in my body. So send me.”

“…Davuer.”

“If you don’t want that, at least go with me.”

No. I alone am enough to go to the Empire.

More variables wouldn’t be good, and he, who had sealed the world’s greatest Magi, was the biggest variable I knew.

Moreover, if he left, Belmayer would be no different from an empty house. To make matters worse, it was while Giselle’s ability was weakening.

It was when I was choosing words to stop him.

Suddenly his lips touched my palm ticklishly. He whispered as if he had read all my thoughts.

“Don’t go.”

It was a voice that felt strangely desperate despite being calm. His eyes searched every part of my face as if gauging my reaction.

Feeling awkward under that gaze, I slightly lowered my eyelids, confused about what expression I was even making.

Davuer spoke again.

“Don’t go, Irene.”

It seemed more like a plea than a command, and more like a confession than a request. I couldn’t just brush it off or reject it outright.

When I finally met his eyes again, he muttered with a sunken expression.

“I don’t care if you still can’t forget that bastard from Hilbarsia, so stay by my side. I can keep pretending not to know.”

“…”

“Hmm?”

As he said this, he tilted his face slightly to the side. I could even feel vividly the sensation of his fingers gripping my hand.

I was at a loss for words and fumbled around, then suddenly stopped breathing at a question that came to mind a beat too late.

‘…But what is there to pretend not to know about?’

With an ominous premonition, the area around my heart turned cold as if hit by a blizzard. My question came out in fragments.

“What, what are you pretending not to know about…?”

No way, surely not that crazy misunderstanding still?

Does he think the reason I want to go to the Empire is because I still have lingering feelings for Chessier? No, right? Please no.

While I was thinking almost pleadingly, Davuer answered.

“Your heart.”

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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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