A World Where You All Are The Villains - Chapter 103

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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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103.

Leaving Boradoli behind, weeping as he gathered the shattered horn fragments, I returned to my room.
“Quite the popular one, aren’t you?”
Serge followed behind me as I trudged toward the table, speaking with evident amusement.
“If things had gone wrong, I would’ve left without even seeing the Princess.”
“…Precisely. Perhaps you could have come more slowly?”
I collapsed into the chair with wholehearted agreement.
Ignoring my words entirely, he sat down across from me.
“Steel yourself, Princess. There will be many more incidents like this ahead.”
At his unexpected counsel, I glanced at him with a look of surprise.

50%

I could see his stat had already risen just from using his ability.
Staring blankly at it, I suddenly asked him a question.
“Won’t you return to your quarters?”
“…Where to?”
“To His Highness’s chamber.”
From the moment I opened my eyes, I’d been tormented by snake soup and various other people, and I was exhausted.
I couldn’t fathom why he kept following me inside when I wished he would finally leave.
At my words, Serge laughed like a ghost.
“So once I’ve squeezed every last use out of you, I should just disappear?”
“That’s not what I meant…”
“I’ve been out gathering medicinal herbs under the blazing sun since morning, and you won’t even offer me a cup of tea? Isn’t that a bit much?”
I grimaced at his mention of “medicinal herbs.”
“Anyone listening would think I’d begged Your Highness to fetch them for me.”
“Moreover, after failing to conduct yourself properly and nearly being kidnapped by the Crown Prince, you can’t even show gratitude? Won’t you leave?”
“…”
“I’m curious how the Duke raised you. Or did the Princess teach herself? Either way, your temperament is truly vile.”
A single question about leaving returned nearly ten words in response.

― Tsk, this is why those without proper upbringing are insufferable…

Moreover, the way he made crude jokes as though he’d been waiting for the opportunity—it was identical to the Duke’s manner, which left me utterly exasperated.
Before I could help myself, I let out a soft chuckle, and Serge narrowed his eyes at me. “What’s so funny?”
A moment of silence fell between us.
After hesitating, I finally voiced the question that had been gnawing at me ever since I first laid eyes on him.
“…Why haven’t you asked me anything?”
“About what?”
“About my purification ability.”
“…”
“I deceived the Grand Duke about my power, didn’t I?”
At this rather abrupt change of subject, Serge raised one eyebrow slightly.
Tap, tap.
He drummed his fingers against the table as though pondering something for a moment.
Then, with a soft exhale, he answered.
“Hmm… I didn’t want to bring it up because I was afraid you’d be angry.”
“…”
“Besides, the one who deceived was me.”
“What do you…”
“That you awakened after the Tollen Gate, and that your ability might be purification—I’d already figured both out, more or less.”
My lips parted involuntarily at those words.
“When did you…?”
“From the beginning.”
“From the beginning?!”
My mind went blank in an instant.
I had no idea what “beginning” he meant.
When our eyes met at the Imperial Palace banquet?
Or right after I purified him in Ruellin’s Room, just before he lost control?
What was certain was this:
‘…I never suspected a thing.’
A chill ran down my spine.
As I stumbled over my words, unable to continue, he spoke with perfect composure.
“When I suspected you of being the kidnapper of The Purifier and ordered an investigation into your background. Quite interesting news reached me.”
“…”
“A certain Healer who was on the verge of losing control suddenly became perfectly fine overnight?”
I couldn’t hide my shock at what he meant by “beginning.”
He was speaking of a time before we’d even met.
“It’s far easier to dig into the background of a mere Healer employed by the Duke’s Household than a princess of a nation. Why would a Healer who had no reason to enter the Gate end up on the verge of losing control?”
“…”
“From Tollen, with a younger brother who became a Corrupted One. One day, that Healer went to Tollen with a certain princess, and returned with the younger brother perfectly fine. Doesn’t the outline become clear just from hearing this much?”
“…No.”
I denied it with something like a sigh.
“A normal person wouldn’t have figured out I was The Purifier from that alone.”
“True.”
To my surprise, he readily acknowledged my point.
“Until then, I was genuinely uncertain. A full-grown adult awakens overnight and reverses an Incursor? And the woman in question is supposedly the Empire’s greatest villainess? Even a stray dog wouldn’t laugh at something so absurd.”
That remark stung a little.
People can change. Why did he have to invoke stray dogs?
My furrowed brow must have amused him, because he chuckled and continued.
“What really made me suspicious was when you smashed my head in.”
“Smashed….”
“No matter how I thought about it, I couldn’t make sense of it. Fine, you fled with the cravat as evidence of your rampage, but why on earth did you have to bash my skull with a stool?”
“That, well….”
Truth be told, I’d acted half out of sheer vengeance.
‘I nearly strangled to death, and you expect me to just let that slide?!’
But I couldn’t very well say that outright, so I fumbled through the other half of my reasoning.
“In case someone discovered the unconscious Grand Duke. And I hoped the Grand Duke himself would be confused about what happened….”
“So.”
Fortunately, he didn’t grow angry again at the mention of that incident.
Instead.
“If you were truly a Lightning-type ability user, there’d be no reason to manipulate the situation and create such confusion.”
“…Why is that?”
“You simply used your ability to survive, but since I have evidence of your rampage, you tell me to keep quiet. End of story.”
“….”
“Isn’t that right?”
His words suddenly kindled a sense of injustice within me.
“Then who was it that threatened to kill everyone?!”
“No, Princess. If someone’s hand was completely exposed, they’d typically call your bluff—’Go ahead and kill me if you want,’ that sort of thing.”
He admonished me as though teaching a child.
“But you didn’t do that. Instead, you rather readily agreed to my absurd proposal. As if….”
“….”
“You had even more secrets to hide.”
His observation struck a nerve, even as exasperation washed over me.
‘Readily agreed, my foot!’

― My answer is no.
― I don’t wish to make a deal with someone as unreasonable and violent as the Grand Duke.

I knew full well that his proposed deal was utterly unreasonable.
So I’d refused with every ounce of strength I could muster.
And yet.

― This is such a hassle… Should I just kill them all?
― There’s no helping it. I’ll just have to spread the rumor that the Princess confessed to me on the day of the banquet.

And who was it that used every conceivable threat to make sure I couldn’t refuse?!
‘Should I have just told him back then to do whatever he wanted—kill me, expose my awakening, whatever—and walked out?!’
But my courage was far too small for that.
Honestly, even up until then, I’d been trembling in fear, never knowing when he might strangle me again.
Perhaps it truly was my blunder, just as he said.
At the time, I’d been too preoccupied with figuring out how much he remembered and whether he’d noticed I was the Purifier to hide the truth.
I shouldn’t have relied solely on the original story—I should have examined what kind of person he truly was with far greater depth.
‘I thought he could act reasonably human, but I never imagined he’d think so sharply and rationally….’
Those days when I’d dismissed him as nothing but a fool now felt strangely hollow.
“…You became certain I was the Purifier based on merely those things?”
“No.”
“…?”
“Of course I could be certain that this body is a magnificent S-rank Awakener. I can sense the magical barrier accumulated in my own body to some degree.”
As if to suggest that my desperate attempts to conceal and manipulate the situation hadn’t been entirely in vain, he added his next words.
“If that hadn’t been the case, I would have merely remained uncertain… But when I was already suspicious, and the magical barrier that used to rage whenever I met the Princess suddenly became perfectly stable, how could I not notice?”
“….”
“In that sense, the purification on Legion Street was truly moving. To cleanly purify not just the magical barrier but even the Hexis as well.”
At his words, I furrowed my brow.
‘If that’s the case, why speak so grandly about it?! You should have just said from the start that you felt the magical barrier being purified!’
I thought with displeasure.
Through Dylan, I’d already learned that S-rank Awakeners could vaguely sense purification. Would I be shocked by what Serge revealed?
His confessions weren’t particularly shocking at all.
The real problem was his purification.
‘I should have purified him just enough that he wouldn’t notice, just enough to prevent his rampage….’
As I let out a quiet sigh, Serge raised one eyebrow askew.
“Why that expression?”
“…I’m regretting it.”
“What?”
“I wish I’d purified you moderately instead of so thoroughly.”
“Can’t even control your own abilities, and you dare complain.”
He scoffed mockingly, looking down at me.
“Regardless, you would have been exposed eventually, Princess. S-rank Awakeners are far more sensitive to their own body’s condition than you’d think.”
“….”
“Especially me—I know my limits very well.”
“….”
“I know exactly how far I can push my abilities before entering the initial stages of rampage, and exactly how much I can control them to barely hold on. I have it all figured out.”
At those words, I stiffened slightly.
‘Is that… even possible?’
Even as I watched the rampage meter, I couldn’t pinpoint at what threshold an Awakener would snap, or what trigger would push them toward complete runaway.
I could only make rough guesses through physical signs like nosebleeds.
Yet there were exceptions like Vincent—those who held onto reason even at ‘99%’.
‘…Now that I think about it. He must have known his own condition, yet he was squandering his abilities so carelessly.’
Suddenly, I recalled the moment I first saw the Crown Prince at the Imperial Palace.
Even at that staggering ‘95%’ threshold, he wielded his powers with meticulous control.
‘Was all of that… because he knew exactly where his limits lay? How is that even possible?’
I still didn’t even know how to stop my own abilities.
It was as I stared at Serge with an unsettling feeling that he spoke.
“Since the Princess’s secrets are already laid bare anyway, shall I share a secret of my own?”
Suddenly, he leaned toward me and lowered his voice.
“See, not all Awakeners who rampage necessarily destroy themselves.”
“What? What do you mean…?”
I stared at Serge with bewildered eyes.
Aside from being exponentially more dangerous, Awakener rampages weren’t fundamentally different from ordinary Erosion.
Consumed by irrational fury and madness, they destroyed and killed everything around them.
Without someone intervening to stop them, they couldn’t cease.
They’d rage in that state until their lifespan ended, their bodies rotting away into Magi before finally destroying themselves.
Yet as if denying this basic knowledge we all shared, Serge whispered covertly.
“Even if you rampage, if you never let go of that single resolve to survive… there comes a moment when your scattered mind returns.”
He tapped his temple with the same finger that had been drumming the table.
“Of course, regaining sanity doesn’t mean you can stop the rampage. A body tainted by Magi transcends what human willpower can bear.”
“…”
“You simply kill and kill again with a clear mind—whatever living things surround you. Whether beasts or monsters.”
“…”
“Whether they’re brothers cast into the Gate together, or comrades…”
As if recalling some distant past, Serge’s words trailed off, his gaze fixed on empty space for a long moment.
But it didn’t last.
Soon he straightened, laughing like a madman with a twisted grin.
“If you go mad that way—eyes open, alive and conscious—you can survive without dying.”
“…”
“Well? Useful information, wouldn’t you say, Princess?”
I couldn’t form any response to that question.
Even knowing it couldn’t be true, his words felt like truth in my heart.
As if…
He’d experienced it himself.
Breaking my silence, I forced the words out with difficulty.
“…Your Highness, how do you know that?”
“Who knows.”
He tilted his head to one side, his tone playful and teasing.
“How do you suppose I knew that?”
This time, let the Princess take a guess.
A mysterious, innocent laugh brushed past my ears like a whisper.

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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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