A World Where You All Are The Villains - Chapter 169

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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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169.

All I’d honed in this world was the sword I held between my teeth.
Perhaps I should thank those four useless brothers I’d mistaken for the male lead.
Sephirot flinched at my caustic words, which made no attempt to conceal my contempt.
I watched as something unidentifiable flickered rapidly across her pupils.
Whatever it was, I’d clearly struck a nerve.
I laughed like the vicious villainess everyone whispered I was.
After staring at me for a long moment, Sephirot replied in an uncharacteristically timid voice.
“I never expected you to think that way.”
…
“I’ve never been an Awakener my entire life.”
“Sorry, but I can’t listen to any more of your delusional rambling.”
This conversation had been absurd from the start. I felt ashamed for wavering even momentarily at her persuasion.
If it didn’t offer a way to return to my body, there was no reason to continue speaking with her.
“Anyway, I understand your dream now, so do your best. I won’t support you, but I won’t interfere either. I’ll make my own wishes and see how it goes.”
…
“I hope we never meet again.”
Just dealing with her clones is burden enough.
I gave Sephirot a clean, final look and turned to leave.
I didn’t think she would turn me into an enemy simply because I refused to participate in her grand scheme.
After all, I was the one who failed to uphold the deal’s conditions.
If anything, shouldn’t I be the one throwing a fit here?
She never said I’d have to sacrifice my life to return—it was practically fraud.
And if I fail within forty-one days, I have to pay a new price.
‘Damn it, am I just a pushover who gives everything away?’
Still, I had no desire to argue further.
Of course not. After all, this lunatic’s goal was to create an equal society across all dimensions.
And I certainly couldn’t stop the Magi barrier reading at ‘999%’.
‘Tch, communist or whatever.’
I clicked my tongue and had just taken a step toward the corridor.
“I suspected persuasion through words alone would be difficult. You seem quite idealistic.”
…
“Then how about this? The story of a certain servant who never got to bloom their abilities and became an Erosion Being while trying to save their beloved master?”
The cult leader said something quite strange.
Strange words were already sufficient with the world unification.
So I should just ignore whatever she said and go my own way.
“Ugh, kh…!”
At the sound of a death rattle that seemed to escape at any moment, I instinctively whipped my head around.
Sephirot, who had been sitting at the table, now stood silently beside the bed.
With an outstretched arm, slender fingers lightly gripping the Awakener’s throat.
Yet for a human who had lost so much blood, even that proved fatal—the Awakener convulsed and trembled.
In the process, hair concealed by darkness became disheveled and exposed to the moonlight.
It blazed a brilliant crimson, like roaring flames.
“The human brain is such a curious thing. Even the slightest touch leaves a deep imprint on the subconscious.”
“Gack….”
“With merely a word that you would come here, they ran like a dog without even verifying the truth, drawing their own blood to offer it to you.”
The moment my gaze caught on the familiar red hair, Sephirot released his grip without hesitation.
In that hand lay the mask that had concealed the Awakener’s face all along.
“Cough!”
The man’s upper body convulsed as he desperately gasped for air through his blocked throat.
He had nearly died, yet he made no attempt to resist—his body hung limp and his eyes remained tightly shut, which struck me as strange.
“…Dylan?”
So when I spoke that name aloud, I could scarcely believe it.
Dylan Frederick. An S-rank Awakener. Why here, so utterly helpless.

94%

Whether from the blood loss or from the influence of the ‘999%’ Magi, the number above his head flickered ominously.
‘…This shouldn’t be happening.’
This had happened before—he had spiraled into a rampage in an instant.
Wandering alone through his subconscious, without any warning.
In a place not far from Volner, just like now.
As I stood there in a daze, Dylan’s heaving chest gradually grew still.
Finally, when his breathing had become fairly steady, Sephirot spoke.
“This child doesn’t even remember why he came to hate his master. He simply cannot bear for you to experience the horrors he endured, so he endlessly reminds himself to keep his distance.”
“….”
“Not knowing that his master switched long ago, the poor thing….”
“What do you mean? What are you talking about?”
Why Dylan was here.
What this talk about becoming an Erosion Being while trying to save his master meant.
My mind wouldn’t work.
“He said it was because of the name Edith Blake gave him, and because the Frederick Family was blackmailing him.”
I fumbled through an explanation.

― I was being 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.

It was what Dylan had said, suddenly dropping to his knees and begging for forgiveness.
He was someone I had despised enough to turn away from, whether he died miserably or not—I couldn’t fathom how he could suddenly crave affection in an instant.
Yet I reasoned that this too was merely the aftermath of Ruellin’s brainwashing wearing off.
I dismissed the assumption that they might have genuinely loved Edith Blake from the start.
Through the Book of Prophecy, I remembered vividly how despicably and cruelly they had treated Edith Blake.
How they had conducted themselves toward me after I possessed her body.
Such shallow emotions—swayed by a few cunning whispers to the point of driving someone to death—could never be love.
“How troublesome. Ruellin’s ability merely fans the flames of humanity’s secret, sordid desires.”
“….”
“Whether love transforms into hatred ultimately depends on one’s own choice.”
Yet Sephiroth said that not all of it was Ruellin’s fault.
Dylan had his own tragic circumstances, he claimed.
“Of course it would be that way. If you died in place of the master you loved, then were resurrected by draining your own father’s blood entirely, wouldn’t anyone be the same?”
“….”
“You look like you don’t understand. Shall I put it more simply? Dylan is my perfect masterpiece—for example, like Ayla, whom you saw at Acarna Castle.”
Cryptic words continued to pour forth.
Dizziness washed over me, and I squeezed my eyes shut.
From beyond the darkness, a phantom-like scene surfaced in my mind.

―How can you say such things after suffering like this?

A lucid dream I had shortly after first meeting Dylan in Tollen.
Edith Blake’s legs wrapped tightly in bandages, and a young servant before her, his face contorted with self-reproach.

―Despite awakening, I’m a fool who cannot properly wield even a single ability, unable to properly protect my master. I am worthless.
―If I were to harm you… I could never forgive myself, not even in death, Edith Blake.

Back then, I simply assumed something had happened during Dylan’s awakening and let it go.
But hearing the full story indirectly through Sephiroth’s words, it wasn’t difficult to grasp the general situation.
Apparently, young Dylan had become an Erosion Being while trying to save Edith Blake, and unfortunately caught Sephiroth’s attention, becoming a forced test subject.
In that state of jumbled memories and emotions, it would have been remarkably easy for Ruellin to manipulate him into despising Edith Blake.
‘Admittedly, hating someone just because they shared a name with some male prostitute did seem rather forced.’
His sudden confession about being blackmailed as a test subject at the Imperial Palace was equally suspicious.
Perhaps Ethan and Vincent harbored similar circumstances as well.
My righteous anger, born from mourning Edith Blake, had lost its way.
But even if they each had heartbreaking reasons why they had no choice but to despise Edith Blake—
Could I truly say they were completely innocent of wrongdoing?
Then what of the scorn and persecution I endured even after Ruellin disappeared?
With nowhere to flee, those days when I gritted my teeth and endured every time those bastards prodded me with their venomous tongues…
Were they all meaningless?
I opened my eyes that I had kept shut.
“…So?”
“….”
“So what? Did you think if you threatened me with this kid, I’d cry and beg you not to kill me, promising to do whatever you want?”
“….”
“Haven’t you long since passed the age of being that naive?”
I returned his own words to him, tinged with bitter mockery.
Sephiroth’s expression stiffened slightly, apparently displeased.
“Blackmail, you say.”
“….”
“Shall we call it a minor sacrifice for the greater good?”
“Then kill her.”
I spoke without hesitation.
“It happened before I came here anyway. What does it have to do with me?”
“Perhaps we should see Vincent and Ethan together next?”
But he no longer played along so easily.
“Ah, I wonder if those children are the same.”
“….”
“Then what of Duke Blake? Nancy, Eston, and who else was there? Would the blood of Serge Belnak suffice?”
The names of those who had shown me some kindness since arriving here spilled from his lips one by one.
Seeing me visibly shaken, he smiled back at me.
“Most people who’ve ever touched Ruellin’s ability can easily be ensnared by illusion magic using you as a medium. Like this child.”
“You….”
I stared at him with a stunned expression.
I had been mistaken—he didn’t merely resemble Ruellin.
Shrouded in that fathomless magical barrier, he was far more tenacious, cunning, and vicious.
“…You really know how to wear on a person.”
My two clenched fists trembled violently.
Not from fear, but from rage.
In an instant, my entire body burned hot, and my blood boiled.
“Fine… actually, this works out better. I’ve been wanting to try this anyway…”
“…”
“Creatures like you need to be crushed from the very root, or you’ll keep crawling back up.”
“What are you—”
Green eyes widened in confusion.
I released the tension from my clenched fists.
And I could no longer contain the condensed power, heat, and fury—I unleashed it all.
“Purification.”

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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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