A World Where You All Are The Villains - Chapter 195

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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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195.

***

Given the circumstances, I couldn’t manage a long sleep.
The murmur of voices and the sound of bustling activity snapped my eyes open.
The man who had held me before I fell asleep was gone, and I found myself lying sprawled across six chairs lashed together.
As I carefully pushed myself up, a large jacket draped over me slipped away.
The black overcoat bore its owner’s unmistakable mark, and a strange sense of loss washed over me.
‘Where did he go?’
Fortunately, I spotted the jacket’s owner quickly enough.
When I saw his broad frame blocking the doorway of the White Room, relief flooded through me immediately.
My emotions had been careening wildly—one moment anxious, the next reassured—as if I’d transferred all my worry onto him.
“…dispatched personnel to the site. Fortunately, traces of the Monster’s passage remain…”
“…with the National Director’s passing, the immediate decision-maker is now…”
Several voices filtered through from beyond Serge, fragmented and distant.
Though hidden behind his frame, Dylan was there as well.
‘Has the entrance been breached?’
I was tilting my head in confusion, only half-listening to the grave conversation, when the man suddenly turned around.
Before I could react, our eyes met.
He narrowed his brow and scrutinized me thoroughly, as if assessing something.
After a moment, he gave some instruction to the people in front of him, then walked straight toward me.
“You’re awake?”
“Is the path clear?”
He gave a dismissive nod.
Then he wrapped me tightly in the jacket still draped across my lap and lifted me effortlessly into his arms.
I let out a short cry of surprise.
I thrashed instinctively, but the fabric bound me so snugly that I couldn’t move an inch.
“I’m fine now, really. No nosebleed, and I was just tired. I only needed a short rest!”
“So it seems. Congratulations.”
“I can walk on my own!”
“It’s dangerous. Stay still. What if debris falls on you as we leave? Do you want your head crushed?”
His threatening tone left me no choice but to surrender, and I went limp in his arms.
He had a point, honestly.
If I wandered out alone and unluckily got buried under rubble, I’d be crushed to death without question.
‘But that’s what walking close beside him would solve. There’s no need to carry me like this.’
While I was thinking this with frustration, Serge stepped out of the White Room.
“I’ll be back shortly.”
At his words, the five or six people gathered before the door hurriedly parted to clear a path.
Most of them were familiar faces who held positions within the Security Bureau.
Naturally, their gazes flooded toward me, brimming with curiosity.
The moment I hastily averted my eyes, they brushed past Dylan’s.
The instant was far too brief to discern his expression.
All I could see was that both his fists were clenched so tightly the blood had drained from them.
‘Well, I suppose he’d be irritated—the woman who confessed her feelings being carried away in another man’s arms.’
I was genuinely grateful Dylan wasn’t like Ethan or Vincent.
Had it been either of them, they would have blocked the Grand Duke’s path and caused a scene.
While I was relieved to have avoided such a mess, the relief felt hollow, and a sigh escaped me.
“…I’m ruined.”
Belatedly, I pulled Serge’s outer coat over my face and muttered miserably.
“What’s ruined?”
“What will people think seeing this? And there hasn’t even been a retraction yet…”
“That journalist reported accurately. What diligent and keen-eyed newspaper that must be, they’ll say.”
His oblivious, carefree words made my expression crumple.
But now I couldn’t even argue back.
I was the one who failed to push him away and gave him the opening…
Meanwhile, Serge was passing through the Bunker entrance.
Sensing that the flood of attention had subsided, I quietly lowered the coat I’d been holding up.
The entrance area, which had been completely devastated by his rampage, was now cleanly cleared and wide open.
There was no trace of the Monster’s venom or corpses.
More than that, the staircase passage leading outside was covered with a transparent, gelatinous membrane.
It appeared to have been done to prevent any additional collapse.
‘A material transmutation ability?’
As I looked around in fascination, I belatedly realized I’d been completely fooled.
Debris falling and cracking my skull—nonsense.
The path, transformed into a slope instead of stairs, was polished smooth.
I considered asking him to put me down now, but decided against it.
Everyone who needed to see had already seen, and besides, he didn’t seem inclined to let me down.
‘What excuse will I give the Duke.’
Contemplating my excuses, now doubled in number, I spoke with half-resigned acceptance.
“How long have I been asleep?”
“Not long. Two, three hours?”
It was impressive that he’d carved out a passage in such a short time.
But with all the Awakeners mobilized, it wasn’t particularly surprising.
“What about Ruellin?”
“She’s in pursuit. A dead Monster was discovered near the Capital Gate.”
“She must have gone to meet Sephiroth. Probably to the Caspian Gorge…”
“That would be it.”
He agreed without emotion.
If he knew that, he shouldn’t be standing here—he should be chasing after her immediately.
His indifferent attitude, as if it were none of his concern, frustrated me somewhat.
“I roughly understand what she’s trying to do, but I don’t understand why she wants to merge dimensions.”
“Probably to bring back her dead husband’s soul.”
“Her dead husband’s soul?”
“You saw the report, so you should know. What other motive would that bastard have to pull off something like this? If she wanted revenge, she would’ve overthrown the Imperial Palace from the start.”
He had a point. That was precisely what had been nagging at me all along.
I recalled the brief information about Sephiroth’s husband that appeared in the report.
Those few bureaucratic lines stating only the facts couldn’t convey how deeply they had loved each other.
Besides, I couldn’t imagine that mad Cult Leader—who didn’t seem like a living person—harboring such passionate emotions.
Yet there was no other clear reason to transfuse Awakener blood into the Erosion Infected.
The report stated that her husband became an Erosion Being and destroyed an entire village, after which she became a Dragon Slayer…
“…She told me she wanted to create a Paradise where power is distributed equally to everyone.”
“She’s out of her damn mind.”
Serge let out a scoff.
“If dimensions merge, how would the world function normally? Not just Monsters, but all sorts of grotesque creatures would run rampant.”
He clicked his tongue once and continued.
“When you enter a Gate, sometimes double Gates open. Inside them, it’s not Monsters that cross over—it’s bizarre lifeforms I’ve never seen before.”
“…”
“After experiencing it several times, I naturally caught on. Those are things swept up from that world that fuse into one mass as they cross the Gate.”
“…”
“Have you ever seen a body with all sorts of flora and fauna mixed together, with human limbs attached? Absolutely nauseating. I couldn’t even bring myself to touch it to kill it.”
Whether sincere or not, Serge’s expression was overtaken by revulsion.
I hadn’t seen it myself, but I knew something similar all too well.
Such creatures had poured out from the Gates in the modern era where I lived.

― If you recklessly shift dimensions, you won’t just fail to return to your body—you’ll end up grotesquely mangled, your body mixed with other lifeforms just like the Monsters that appear in your Gates!

Suddenly, I recalled the words I’d heard when first meeting Sephiroth.
“So that’s why the appearance differs here.”
Unlike the Monsters that supposedly roamed this world frequently, the modern era had no such concept—perhaps that’s why the creatures there took on such a different form.
I was making rough guesses when Serge cut in with biting sarcasm.
“Hundreds, thousands of those things will spawn in hordes. And with those, you’re going to create Paradise?”
Hearing those words, the gravity and peril of merging dimensions struck me far more acutely than before.
I’d already accepted to some degree that returning to the modern era in Yu Sol’s body had become impossible.
But remaining here offered no safety either.
I had no desire to be swept up in that madman’s insane schemes and become some grotesque creature mingled with other humans.
And the people I’d come to know here as well….
This man was naturally no exception.
I glanced up at Serge when suddenly a brilliant light seared my eyes.
We were outside before I knew it.
Though I’d undergone purification, the fresh air against my skin felt revitalizing—so different from the depths below.
“G-Grand Duke! Are you unharmed?”
The area before the Security Bureau was packed with throngs of people.
The crowds gathered to transport the wounded and clear away buildings destroyed by Monsters created a scene reminiscent of a disaster.
“Grand Duke! His Majesty the Emperor summons you!”
“The Crown Prince….”
“But where is the Purifier? Are you injured?”
In the midst of it all, those who recognized the Grand Duke rushed over frantically to inquire after him.
As Serge indifferently pushed through them, I hastily pulled his outer coat up over my face.
Though there was nothing to be done about it underground, I wanted to prevent attention from turning toward me even slightly on the surface….
“Edith―!”
It was already too late.
A familiar voice bellowed my name loudly as its owner came rushing toward me.
I didn’t need to look to know who it was.
It was that damned Vincent Leandro—utterly useless since I arrived here.

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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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