A Strange But Effective Villainess Life - Chapter 136

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

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Chapter 136
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My father had spent seventeen years living among the savages, people so removed from civilization that they could hardly be called citizens of the Empire.
‘Though, seventeen years isn’t exactly a short span of time….’
The father in the portrait had been tall but lean, yet now his frame had grown considerably larger, giving him an impressive build much like Julius.
“Kiki! My Kiki has grown so much!”
It was a cry so loud my ears nearly fell off.
“Kiki! Kiki!”
My father, freed from Grandfather sooner than expected, lifted me up and spun me around in circles. I found myself hoisted into the air like I was five years old again, flailing helplessly.
“Father! Stop!”
“What are you doing, Hyde!”
Joshua and Grandfather were horrified. Father bellowed loudly.
“My youngest has grown this much and I haven’t even gotten to hold her!”
My father tossed me up into the air and caught me again, as if playing with a five-year-old. Joshua cried out urgently.
“She gets motion sickness! She’s as delicate as paper!”
“What? Kiki is that fragile? That’s strange! There’s never been a weak one in our family! Let me see! Kiki! Kiki!”
Of course, my eyes had been spinning from the moment Father started twirling me around. Being tossed and caught left me in no state to respond.
“Kikiiii! Wait, why is she like this! Didn’t she love this before! She used to giggle so much whenever I played with her like this!”
And so, the beautiful memory of my childhood was buried beneath the memory of nausea.
“No one plays with a twenty-two-year-old like this, Hyde….”
Grandfather hurriedly caught me as I swayed unsteadily. Then he muttered carefully.
“…Something… well, he’s become quite the physical type.”
“Living among monsters, it was unavoidable. We had to fight constantly. It became a habit to draw my sword first and throw my fists first.”
At that answer, Grandfather flinched and muttered, ‘…Alex? Surely not?’
Meanwhile, Father hovered uncertainly around my limp form. When I couldn’t help but wrinkle my nose at the stench, he looked embarrassed and pointed to his monster-hide clothing, speaking as if making an excuse.
“This blocks the wind really well! You’ll get used to the smell eventually.”
【That’s a lie. You absolutely won’t get used to it.】
In any case, after returning to the Duke’s Castle, Father was pushed by Grandfather’s insistence to bathe first. Of course, there was a touching reunion, but it had to be brief. The stench from the monster hide was so overwhelming that everyone immediately ordered the bathwater prepared.
At that, Father cried out excitedly.
“Warm water! A bathhouse! Do you have quality soap? Maybe even a razor!”
Father, in his excitement, threw off the hat made of monster hide. He then rushed to the bathhouse ahead of even the Northern knights who had returned with him and Julius himself.
“You lot! I go first! I’m the next Duke! Me first!”
Watching his shameless behavior, both Joshua and I were left speechless.
After some time had passed, we met again in the Drawing Room.
Father was freshly shaved, and his hair, which had been cut messily, was now trimmed properly. He wore the fine indoor clothes that Julius had prepared. After washing and changing into fresh clothes, my father was….
“I’m truly so happy to see you all.”
He no longer had the refined elegance of before—he was simply like a civilized savage. His massive, bulging muscles themselves… honestly, he looked more like Julius’s son than Grandfather’s. Spreading his legs wide, Father patted Joshua’s shoulder repeatedly.
“You really do look just like me in my youth. Hahaha, you’ll age like me.”
Joshua stared at Father’s rough skin with a look of despair. Father turned to me and continued with concern in his voice.
“But why is our Kiki so thin? Is this what twenty-two looks like? Good heavens…. Why hasn’t she grown more? Hmm?”
There were no short members in the Prelai Family, and looking at old family portraits, my mother was tall as well. In other words, I alone had a small frame—a consequence of not eating or sleeping properly during my growth years.
“Who made our Kiki suffer like this? The moment we return, I should drive a blade straight through their belly….”
Grandfather squeezed his eyes shut and muttered, “Why does Alex keep overlapping with this….” In that instant, Joshua blurted everything out.
“Those guys all went to be dealt with by Alex!”
“Ah, is that so? Then I suppose I’ll have to deal with the others. Kiki, do you perhaps have a lover?”
Joshua answered promptly at those words.
“There was one, but fortunately they broke up!”
“What? Broke up? Did Kiki dump them? How dare they not meet Kiki’s standards—they deserve to be dealt with.”
“Ah, Father, that’s not quite it.”
I hastily waved my hand in response, and Father muttered even more seriously.
“Could it be that bastard had the audacity to dump our Kiki? They deserve to be dealt with.”
No matter what, the conclusion remained the same. Grandfather pressed his forehead and said, “Ah, I can see Alex now….” And I noticed that Father was holding back from telling me that I resembled my mother. So I spoke quickly.
“Mother didn’t have an affair, apparently.”
It didn’t quite fit the context, but it seemed I needed to speak as fast as possible.
“It was all made to look that way, but she had actually been poisoned long ago. I uncovered it all.”
And Father didn’t seem particularly surprised. Rather, his voice carried relief.
“…So that’s been revealed. How fortunate. I always thought it would be something like that.”
Yet he spoke with a gloomy expression.
“I kept insisting on it, but everyone painted me as a pitiful husband unable to accept reality.”
“Ah, well.”
Grandfather cleared his throat.
“You did make your claims rather indecorously back then. I thought you needed to be sent somewhere to become more composed.”
Even so, Grandfather’s nose twitched slightly. His eyes held a certain frustration that even bathing couldn’t rid him of the stench. Joshua too whispered to Lea, “What if that stench doesn’t disappear before we reach the Capital?” Of course, Lea was offering entirely unhelpful responses like “It’ll probably fade in seventeen years.”
Father downed his tea in one gulp, then made a sound like “Ahhhhh!” startling us once more.
“In any case, it turned out well.”
Father wiped his mouth with his sleeve and spoke quietly.
“We discovered there was a problem with Kiki’s summoning.”
“It didn’t turn out well.”
Joshua answered in a trembling voice, looking at the tea stains soaked into his sleeve.
“It took seventeen years for you to return.”
“Still… even if time could be turned back to the past, I would go again.”
Father’s eyes gleamed as he spoke.
“Something seems wrong with our Kiki’s summoning—how could I simply turn back?”
After that, Father’s story continued. It was roughly similar to what we had anticipated.
Father had come to the Northern Region following Roki, and as the tunnel seemed about to collapse, he couldn’t inform anyone and hastily entered Arun. Then, receiving testimony from a few barbarians, he learned that Roki had approached Otrson’s corpse.
By that point, Joshua and Alex had already summoned their summons. Therefore, only I could have a problem, so he said he desperately went to Otrson’s Sealing Site to confirm.
“And I found this.”
Father pulled out something that looked like a stone tablet from his breast. We immediately held our breath. In that instant, the acrid stench of a demon rose up again.
Father spoke proudly.
“Just in case, I’ve always carried it with me.”
“…I see. That would make sense.”
Joshua subtly leaned back as he answered. The fact that he refrained from making the unfilial remark—’So that’s why the smell is so dreadfully foul’—was remarkable in itself. I held my breath and gazed at the stone tablet my father had produced.
“This is….”
Three smooth pebble-like objects were embedded in the tablet.
“These are fragments of Otrson’s heart. The ones that Eli Prelai and Edmund Tailyes sealed by dividing into three pieces.”
“Huh? You know about this? How did you recognize it at first glance?”
Joshua asked in surprise, and Julius likewise widened his eyes in astonishment.
“Our Kiki, have you seen this somewhere before?”
【How could I have? Kiana is visiting this place for the first time.】
Daram pointed out sulkily and crossed his arms.
【But I feel terribly uncomfortable. Is it because it’s the opposite of Prelai’s power…?】
【Indeed.】
Piyak likewise fluttered and nodded in agreement.
【Just being near it is unpleasant. And one of these fragments has the Prelai crest drawn on it? But why are they all in such different conditions?】
Just as Piyak said, all three heart fragments were in different states.
The heart fragment bearing the Prelai crest was intact. However, the heart fragment with the Tailies crest was already about eighty percent damaged. And the remaining one….
“This is rather strange.”
The remaining heart fragment, which bore no crest at all, was semi-transparent, allowing even my fingers to pass through it.

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

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