A World Where You All Are The Villains - Chapter 13

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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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13.

Vincent stared blankly at Ethan as though he’d suddenly grasped something profound.
“I’m not sure.”
Yet Ethan regarded him with an enigmatic expression and gave an evasive answer.
“…It’s as though you’ve become someone entirely different.”
He murmured these cryptic words while gazing down at his own palm, which still hung suspended in the air.

— Are you Lord Douglas’s son? Your name was… Eren, wasn’t it?

From that first meeting a decade ago until just recently.
Throughout all those long years, Edith Blake had never once spoken to me with casual familiarity.
Not even when I became the Duke’s adopted son and was formally registered in the household register.

— Pardon me, but who are you?
— Figure it out yourself, as best you can.

Yet strangely, ever since she awoke from her coma, she has never once dropped her formal speech with me.
Despite the fact that the Servants must have surely informed her of our relationship in full.
‘And that reaction…’
For just a moment, I saw it clearly—the frightened expression that crossed her face as she squeezed her eyes shut.
I had merely tried to brush away a flower petal caught in her hair.
Yet she recoiled as though confronting something filthy that would bring her harm…
It was then. A faint crackling sound.
“…!”
Ethan snapped back from his reverie at the subtle noise.
Had unconscious chill seeped out from within him?
The flower petal resting on his palm had frozen solid, coated in a thin layer of white frost.
Ethan stared at it with a rigid expression, then slowly clenched his fist.
Crunch—
The small, delicate petal crumbled easily without any real force applied.
Opening his hand again, he brushed the fragments away onto the floor without hesitation.
He did not realize how irritably the gesture resembled someone discarding filth.

***

― I didn’t see her.
― My purpose in going to Ezennia today wasn’t to meet her.

Back in my room, I turned over the conversation I’d had with Ethan in my mind.
“Ruellin has vanished without a trace, then…”
I’d always thought that as long as the male leads did whatever they pleased with the female lead without causing me any harm, it was fine.
But if she had suddenly disappeared, that was a different story entirely.
The novel’s progression had been disrupted, hadn’t it?
‘Edith Blake, who vanished when I possessed her body. And Ruellin.’
Wasn’t that rather significant?
“I’ll need to verify this for certain.”
Until now, I’d been thinking vaguely about going out to confirm my abilities and search for the cause of my possession, but now I had a definite reason to investigate.
“Tollen.”
Recalling the place where Edith Blake had died, I collapsed onto the bed.
“I should wash up…”
I needed to completely remove any stray pollen for the sake of my allergies.
But everything felt tedious, and drowsiness was overwhelming me.
It seemed that confronting the male leads with a body that hadn’t fully recovered had consumed quite a bit of my mental energy.
“…Just as I thought, they’re utterly useless.”
Not a single one of them had appealed to me while I was reading the novel.
Since I hadn’t expected much, I wasn’t disappointed either.
But around that point in my thoughts, something from earlier suddenly came to mind.

― Have you been exposed to flowers?
― You have pollen allergies.

Ethan suddenly reached out and brushed a petal from my hair.
I reflexively froze, squeezing my eyes shut at the gesture.
“Ugh, why did you flinch like that!”
The embarrassment I’d momentarily forgotten came rushing back, and I thrashed against the pillow for a while.
“Still doing this…?”
Trauma was truly terrifying.
Even though it had been over a decade since those days when I suffered violence at the hands of my so-called brothers by registration.
Seeing how I flinched at the slightest movement from someone larger than me suggested I still hadn’t escaped it.
“Sigh…”
Overwhelmed by self-loathing and reality, I exhaled deeply.
Then I glared at the ceiling as if Ethan were right in front of me.
“…Why are you suddenly acting so friendly? How irritating.”
Brushing a petal from my hair.
It was such a trivial gesture, barely worthy of being called kindness.
Yet I found it unpleasant—perhaps because I’d become too invested in Edith Blake’s position.
Or was it a twinge of conscience?
“Don’t you dare change. Just keep doing what you’ve always done.”
Unlike the novel’s narrative, I hoped the male leads wouldn’t feel even a shred of guilt seeing Edith Blake resurrected.
Because.
“…that way, I won’t feel guilty when I abandon you all later.”

68%

Ethan’s runaway index had risen slightly from yesterday.
‘It was definitely 64% yesterday.’
The whereabouts of the female lead who had suddenly vanished.
The longer the days without seeing her, the more the male leads’ physical condition would deteriorate.
And I had no intention of worrying about that.

***

The next day.
The opportunity to test my original ability came sooner than expected.
“Good morning, Miss.”
Seeing Eston enter casually behind the Butler, my eyes widened.

96%

“You…!”
In just a single day, the rampage gauge had skyrocketed dramatically.
High enough that she could lose control at any moment.
The moment I bolted upright from the bed and pointed at her, the Butler’s eyes went wide.
“Oh, Miss. What’s the matter?”
Only then did I catch myself and speak with deliberate composure.
“…Butler, Nancy. Could you both step out for a moment?”
“But Miss, Ethan instructed me to check whether your allergies have improved…”
“…”
“I-I will wait right outside the door!”
Without another word, I picked up the decorative vase sitting on the nightstand, and the Butler fled the room like an arrow, terrified.
Nancy needed no further prompting.
Click.
The door closed, leaving only Eston and me in the chamber.
“…”
As the situation unfolded much like yesterday, Eston stared at me with an expression of utter bewilderment.
Yet her complexion was ashen, befitting an Awakener on the brink of rampage.
I walked toward her.
“You.”
“…”
“I warned you clearly, and yet you used your ability anyway?”
At my words, Eston’s brow furrowed.
“Then are you saying I, the dedicated healer of the Duke’s Household, shouldn’t use my ability?”
“You’re about to rampage.”
“W-what…!”
In that instant, Eston’s brown pupils trembled violently.
Her already pallid complexion turned white as a sheet.
She looked as though she might collapse at any second.
‘Or perhaps she’ll soon vomit black mana and try to bite me.’
Yet her nature wouldn’t be denied—even now, Eston held her head high and glared at me defiantly.
“…Don’t you think it’s rather harsh to speak such words to a hired servant who came to heal you this early in the morning?”
“By the numbers, I’d say you have 4% left.”
“How could you possibly know that―!”
Abandoning her pretense, she quickly changed her expression and cried out sharply.
She likely understood all too well that something had gone terribly wrong.
“Starting from your toes.”
I traced my index finger upward through the air from Eston’s feet.
And finally, I tapped lightly near her forehead.
“To here.”
“…Hah.”
“Your body is saturated with black mana and reeks of it so pungently—how could you possibly not know?”
“I, well….”
Unlike yesterday when she’d been sharp-tongued and cutting, Eston’s face was now painted entirely with confusion.
She seemed unable to comprehend how I, an unawakened person, could possibly know about mana erosion—or perhaps she simply didn’t understand my words at all.
It was a natural reaction, yet even that struck me as the arrogance of the awakened, and I felt a twinge of disillusionment.
“Why? Did you think abilities were some privilege only you could possess?”
I twisted one corner of my mouth upward mockingly.
“Y-you’ve… you’ve awakened?”
Eston’s brown eyes dilated enormously.
“B-but Miss, your secondary awakening has already completed. How could it possibly happen so late…!”
“Shh. Your voice is too loud.”
I narrowed my brow and cautioned her in her excitement.
“Whether I’ve awakened or not—that’s not what matters right now, Eston.”
“….”
“Look at yourself.”
I spoke coldly and pointed toward the full-length mirror on her right side.
Eston, who had been pressing me with questions, turned her head away with visible displeasure.
And in that same moment.
Drip, patter—.
“Ah….”
Just as yesterday, blood began dripping steadily from the tip of her nose.
But unlike yesterday, there was no trace of red in the fluid.
A thick, viscous secretion—dark as stagnant oil and cloyingly sticky.
It was the classic symptom that appeared when a body was completely consumed by mana erosion.
“Ugh, uhhh…!”

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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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