A World Where You All Are The Villains - Chapter 184

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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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184.

How could I possibly say I liked someone who had done such things to me?
As I recited his misdeeds one after another, he finally fell silent.
The twisted smile that had lingered on his face vanished as though wiped clean.
Each time an indescribable emotion shook me, each time my heart trembled.
I replayed the humiliation, the insults, the shame he had inflicted upon me again and again.
I had sworn that I would never forget, that one day I would repay him in kind.
Yet now, faced with something resembling that very moment, I felt no satisfaction.
Was it because he hadn’t stammered and made excuses like the others, hadn’t groveled pathetically for forgiveness?
Serge merely gazed at me with quiet, contemplative eyes as he listened to my words.
“….”
A chilling silence descended between us across the desk.
There was no possibility that he felt remorse now.
If he had possessed a conscience capable of such feeling, he would never have committed such insane acts in the first place, or rather—
He would never have dared utter such ridiculous words as liking me, not now.
The audacity.
“Don’t you remember?”
That was when it happened.
The man who had been deep in thought for quite some time suddenly opened his mouth without warning.
“When the Young Lady hit my head with an iron chair back then.”
“….”
“Blood poured out, and I even got a scar. Don’t you see it?”
He suddenly swept his bangs aside and pointed at his forehead as though stabbing it.
At his sudden talk of a scar, I was momentarily dumbfounded.
I hadn’t expected him to meekly accept my words about how liking each other was impossible between us.
But to turn the tables and bring up the past like this!
Moreover, contrary to what he claimed, his smooth forehead showed not a single trace of a scar.
“I don’t see anything.”
“Damn snake, that bastard.”
As I replied curtly, vulgar curses spilled out absurdly.
“I never deceived you by claiming it wasn’t a snake. I caught it with my own hands for your health and carefully prepared a decoction for you to consume.”
“….”
“But you mixed a demon’s testicles—something even a dog wouldn’t eat—into soup, boiled and dissolved until nothing remained. You gave the original decoction to the Duke.”
“….”
“And I actually ate that filth, calling it a gift and praising it.”
At those words, my eyes widened.
I hadn’t known he had actually consumed it.
He also knew that I was aware he’d given me the dregs left over from brewing medicinal decoction.
He’d come rushing over spouting nonsense about “attempted poisoning of the Imperial Family,” so naturally I assumed he’d discarded it the moment he saw it.
Of course he would have.
It was obviously sent as a mockery, so there was no way the esteemed Grand Duke would have accepted such garbage as a gift.
“Now that I think about it, this irritates me. We exchanged the same things, so why am I the only one cast as the villain?”
As I stood there slack-jawed, unable to process this unexpected revelation from the past, his brow furrowed just as mine had moments before.
“Blackmail?”
“….”
“If you hated it that much, let’s say the Young Lady did it. Please, just allow me to help. I’m begging you.”
Before I could respond, he moved with sudden urgency.
In the blink of an eye, the man rounded the desk and approached, then with a heavy thud—
He dropped to his knees directly before me.
“What are you—”
Faced with a scene I couldn’t believe even as I witnessed it, I instinctively stepped backward.
But his hand, grasping my skirt hem, prevented me from retreating further.
“Listen carefully.”
Holding me in place as I stood frozen, he prostrated himself at my feet and pleaded.
“Will you permit me to help ensure peace and tranquility in your life here?”
“….”
“Please.”
His expression contradicted every word he spoke.
His brow was deeply furrowed as if enduring an unpleasant task, his voice emerged strained and reluctant, and his eyes held a contemptuous gleam that looked down upon his counterpart.
Despite kneeling and begging, there was nothing pathetic about him whatsoever.
He was simply Serge Belnak in his truest form—perpetually arrogant and ruthless.
Nothing about this moment—neither his posture of supplication nor its content—matched what I’d imagined earlier….
Yet I found myself utterly unable to look away.
As I stared at him in bewilderment, his voice returned with a sardonic edge.
“What. Do I need to use formal speech too?”
“…That’s enough.”
I forced myself to tear my gaze from him.
My stomach churned inexplicably, and I suppressed the sensation as I spoke.
“Stand up. I never asked for this….”
Snap—
In that instant, his limp hand suddenly seized mine with force.
Startled by the warmth against my palms, I turned to see the man had wrapped both my hands around his own neck.
“Squeeze.”
He commanded without mercy.
“An Awakener’s body is unnecessarily resilient, so you need to target the cervical spine precisely and apply pressure.”
His thick fingers forcibly adjusted the position of my thumbs.
The knuckles of my fingers collided with the prominent cartilage of his throat.
Gradually, strength poured into both my hands. Of course, I wasn’t the one doing it.
“At this grip strength, it will take more than ten minutes. If I squeeze with all my might, I could manage asphyxiation.”
“Let go.”
I tried to brush away the hand pressing down on the back of mine, but I was no match for it.
As my breath grew gradually more constricted, the man’s breathing became ragged.
I struggled once more to wrench my hand free, crying out desperately.
“I said let go.”
“Harder.”
“Stop playing around.”
“Does this look like play to you?”
It didn’t.
With those words, he suddenly applied tremendous force, crushing my hand as though all his previous restraint had been mere jest.
“Let go!”
Thud!
Only after thrashing with my entire body did I barely manage to slip free from his grip.
He hadn’t released me so much as I’d slipped away, my palms slick with sweat.
As I gasped for breath, he spoke with his flushed face, utterly composed.
“You don’t like choking? Then stab. There’s a decent instrument right here.”
He stretched out his long arm, grasped the fountain pen I’d been using from the desk, and offered it to me without hesitation.
“The carotid artery is here. You won’t kill me anyway, so strike with all your strength.”
“I refuse.”
I snatched the fountain pen he offered and hurled it away.
Clatter!
The pen struck something and shattered, but I couldn’t have cared less.
“Why are you doing this now?”
“You said you wanted revenge because I choked you?”
“When did I ever say that!”
I’d said I couldn’t like him because of it—when had I said anything like that?
As I glared at him for so brazenly twisting my words, he laughed dismissively.
“If you want to hit me, then hit me. Vent whenever you please.”
“….”
“Eventually your anger will fade, and you’ll forget the past.”
“I could never forget, and even if I did, nothing would change.”
“Then how long will you cling to the past? You said yourself you can’t go back.”
“….”
“You need to compromise and think about living for the future. Clinging only to meaningless revenge and hatred is what pathetic, foolish wretches do.”
Then what about him?
Was it wise and rational to repay past wrongs by letting me choke him in turn?
And then call it even, as though nothing happened?
I’d known long ago that he was mad, but I had no idea how to handle a madman when he truly lost himself.
‘I should never have gotten entangled with him from the start.’
Whether from the effort of pulling my hand away or from his outlandish reasoning, all strength drained from my legs.
“…Come to think of it, Your Highness, it’s not your past that’s the problem—it’s that mouth of yours.”
“…”
“Every chance you get, you belittle people, mock them, treat everything as a joke. I can’t possibly like you because of that wretched tongue of yours…”
I muttered the words without conviction.
Then the man who had never so much as blinked at anything I said flinched slightly at his shoulders.
“…So.”
“…”
“You hate me?”
The dark pupils gazing up at me trembled faintly.
What swam within them was not arrogance or insolence as before, but anxiety.
He grasped my hand hovering in the air once more.
“So much that you’d refuse even the help I’m offering.”
“…”
“So much that even this touch disgusts and repels you.”
The man’s expression as he drew my hand gently to his cheek was something I had never witnessed in all the time I’d known him.
More desperate and urgent than anything I could have imagined.
Like someone terrified his hand might be cast away.
‘Why are you doing this to me?’
His unfamiliar appearance brought a crushing wave of dread.
The problem was that I didn’t hate it.
I should have found it repulsive, abhorrent.
I should have reproached him, demanded he understand how frightened and anguished I was because of him, and coldly pushed him away.
But I couldn’t.
My lips trembled as my expression slowly crumbled.
Meanwhile, a smile bloomed at the corners of Serge’s mouth.
“That’s enough.”
It was a smile unlike any I had seen before—neither mockery nor genuine laughter.
Leaving only those words behind, the man slipped away through the window frame as he had come.
In the end, I said nothing about the sins that Ruellin and Sephiroth would commit.
Everything was in ruins.

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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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