A World Where You All Are The Villains - Chapter 117

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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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117.

‘Kneel here? Why?’
I couldn’t believe how absurd this was.
Dylan’s sudden action left me reeling.
I stared at him in stunned silence before finally managing to speak.
“Are you… asking for forgiveness?”
“For all my actions that hurt your feelings.”
There were so many I wouldn’t even know where to begin listing them.
‘But just because I was upset, he kneels?’
Once my shock faded and I could think rationally, something about Dylan’s behavior seemed deeply suspicious.
I took a step back, regarding him with cautious eyes.
“What’s the real reason for this sudden change?”
My sharp tone made him flinch.
His face crumbled as though I’d wounded him.
‘I was right about my suspicions.’
Yet I observed him coldly without wavering.
He steadied his expression with effort before answering in a subdued voice.
“There is no hidden reason.”
“Is that so?”
“I simply wish to return to how things were before.”
“…Before?”
“To when I was your only refuge and servant, and you were my salvation and master.”
Seeing my furrowed brow, he suddenly fell silent.
Then his face twisted in anguish.
“Please don’t look at me that way.”
“…”
“Not with eyes that regard me as a stranger.”
“I’m not looking at you as though you’re a stranger—you are a stranger to me.”
I spoke quietly, my gaze remaining distant and unfamiliar.
“I don’t understand. Didn’t you find that time abhorrent?”
“That is…”
Dylan’s lips moved as if to make an excuse, but I cut him off.
“Right after we discussed how it was I who purified you in Volner, you do this? It doesn’t look good.”
“…Edith Blake.”
“Ruellin is dead. Now it just looks like you’re afraid I won’t purify you anymore.”
Dylan’s eyes widened at my words, then he vehemently denied it.
“That’s… that’s not it!”
“Then what is it?”
“I just….”
“….”
“What I mean is….”
Uncertain how to explain his own contradictory behavior, confusion clouded his features.
I waited patiently for Dylan to gather his thoughts.
After stammering for a while, he finally released the words he’d been holding back.
“…At some point, you kept appearing in my dreams.”
“…!”
At those words, my shoulders tensed involuntarily.
‘Dreams…?’
It aligned with what Vincent had said before.
My suspicion had been correct.
“You weeping as you looked at me, whispering to me not to suffer.”
“….”
“You gazing at me with such sorrow, purifying me….”
“….”
“But it felt so vivid, so real….”
The memories of the male leads that the heroine had manipulated were gradually returning.
“Dreams are merely dreams, Sir Frederick.”
Watching Dylan as if reliving the dream’s contents, I hastily cut short his reminiscence.
At my resolute tone, Dylan raised both hands and roughly splashed his face with dry hands.
It was clear he thought his own words were absurd.
After a moment, he lowered his hands, his eyes bloodshot and darkened as he gazed at me, changing the subject.
“I think I regret it.”
“….”
“Coming to the Frederick Estate.”
It was a more practical excuse than the dream, but no less incomprehensible.
“Why is that?”
I furrowed my brow and asked in return.
“You rejected me as I clung to you begging you not to go. You grew angry at the name I gave you, and told me never to come and go as I pleased again.”
“….”
“Wasn’t that your own will?”
Like Vincent, I didn’t believe all of this was Ruellin’s doing.
Even if she had distorted memories regarding Edith Blake, it was unlikely she had reversed the true feelings of the male leads that she never spoke of.
‘What. So he originally liked Edith Blake, but suddenly came to dislike her because of the heroine’s memory manipulation?’
That was ridiculous.
The attitude of the man I saw in the dream was nothing but sincere.
He had rejected Edith Blake, who clung to him and wailed like a child who had lost her mother, with evident disgust.
Unlike me, whose heart grew colder the more excuses I heard, Dylan’s face brightened as he hastened to ask again.
“Your memories… have returned?”
Was that really what mattered right now?
I let out a sharp scoff and replied.
“At least I remember that the last conversation you had with Sir Douglas was about proposing to Ruellin.”
His expression, which had been brimming with anticipation, stiffened as though doused with cold water.
It was a predictable reaction.
I regarded him with indifference and added flatly.
“I understand and respect your choice, Sir Douglas.”
“What do you—”
“I may not remember everything, but when a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity arrives, anyone must stand at a crossroads of choice, don’t they?”
“…”
“If I were in your position, I too would choose the heir to the Frederick Family over a mere servant.”
“That’s not it at all!”
That was when he, who had been listening quietly to my words, suddenly cried out.
“It’s not that… I was being blackmailed! I was being blackmailed!”
At this fresher revelation, far more surprising than regret, I blinked blankly.
“Blackmailed?”
“They said if I didn’t return to the Frederick Family, they would hand me over to the Imperial Palace as an experimental subject.”
“The Imperial Palace…?”
A sudden sense of déjà vu washed over me. I had heard this somewhere before.

― What other choice did I have? If the Duke didn’t protect me, I’d be dragged to the Imperial Palace and subjected to bizarre pseudo-experiments until I died.
― Surely it’s wasteful to dispose of an S-rank Awakener like that, even if she is just a commoner orphan with no parents?

Through Edith Blake’s dream, I learned the reason the Duke had adopted Ethan.
‘But… she said it was a pseudo-experiment, not the Imperial Palace.’
As I reeled from hearing a different story than what appeared in the dream, Dylan continued.
“At that time, the Imperial Palace was secretly conducting experiments using ancient relics to strip Awakeners of their abilities and transfer them to others.”
“….”
“A discarded bastard who manifested at a high grade would simply vanish one day, have their abilities stolen, and be killed without anyone caring.”
“….”
“I needed backing. And I wanted to properly learn how to control my abilities. So that….”
“….”
“So that I could truly protect you.”
He gazed up at me with such earnest longing as I remained silent, murmuring as though making a confession.
“Throughout my time as your attendant, I felt utterly powerless. It was a miserable and terrible feeling, Edith Blake.”
“….”
“I resented everything. The vast chasm of status between us, despite being the same age, that I could never bridge.”
“….”
“You effortlessly mingled with other men like Vincent Leandro and Ethan Douglas, yet casually gave me a slave’s name. I despised and resented you for that….”
Dylan’s expression grew increasingly clouded.
“But thinking back now, that emotion wasn’t hatred, it was….”
“Stop.”
I could bear it no longer and raised my hand sharply to cut off his confession.
“That’s enough. Don’t say another word.”
I didn’t want to hear it.
The pathetic confession of a man who had deceived even himself, unable to overcome his own inferiority complex.
‘Love, now? How absurd.’
It was bewildering and utterly ridiculous.
Then what of Edith Blake, who had died for such a fickle heart, as easily turned as a palm?
And what of me, who had possessed her body and endured every humiliation imaginable?
His words were no confession at all.
It was merely self-pity. Disgusting self-compassion.
I was furious.
Pitiful Edith Blake, who had withered away in the bloom of youth calling out for such a wretch.
And pathetic me, forced to clean up this garbage in her stead.
“I understand your difficult circumstances well enough. However.”
“….”
“Forgiveness seems unlikely, I’m afraid.”
No one could forgive him.
Unless Edith Blake were to return from the dead.
My refusal without the slightest hesitation seemed to shock him, for his ashen eyes dilated as though they might tear.
“Why….”
“By your own account, there’s nothing to forgive or not forgive, is there? You simply drifted apart naturally according to circumstance and emotion at the time.”
I shrugged lightly and waved my hand dismissively.
“Since Sir Douglas is of the Frederick Family’s blood, this was bound to happen eventually.”
“I will… I will do better. Incomparably better than before.”
Dylan seemed not to grasp the meaning behind my words, desperately attempting to mend what was already severed.
“If you would just turn a blind eye once, then everything can be restored.”
“No.”
I shook my head firmly.
“A cup once broken cannot be glued back together and used again.”
Edith Blake and the bond between them were precisely that.
“Perhaps you are mistaken. Consider whether Ruellin’s death has simply left you without a place to lean on.”
With that, I attempted to extricate myself from the situation.
“Edith Blake…!”
He then scrambled to his feet, reaching out to grab me.
Evading it by a single step, I fixed him with a cold, hardened gaze.
“Princess, or Miss Blake.”
“….”
“I hope there is nothing more to disappoint Sir Douglas.”
Though there may well be more disappointments ahead.
At my murmured aside, Dylan’s pupils dilated involuntarily.
Leaving him half-risen and frozen in place, I turned without hesitation.
That was the end of 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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