A World Where You All Are The Villains - Chapter 200

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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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200.

Fortunately, the light emanating from the crystal orb wasn’t particularly bright, so the guards hadn’t noticed anything yet.
As I reached out to them, gathered to shield themselves from the gale that would strike me, my heart grew heavy with reluctance.
Yet there was no immediate alternative.
They would never allow me to leave in search of Sephiroth.
‘Just enough to wake quickly—only a little.’
Lying motionless in the middle of such a battlefield was dangerous in itself.
Even without monsters or Gates, if Serge—who checked on this area periodically—discovered them, they would be marked for death.
So I carefully controlled my ability while monitoring the guards’ magical reserves.
‘Now…!’
At last, the moment had come to put them to sleep.
Rumble, rumble, rumble….
Boom―――――!
An unprecedented deafening explosion split the sky in two.
A new massive Gate had been generated.
A tremendous earthquake surged forward as if to overturn the earth itself.
“Ugh!”
I had no time to react before I was thrown flat against the ground.
Even then, as the earth heaved like a carnival ride, I couldn’t gather my wits.
“…My lady!”
“Danger…!”
Urgent voices called out to me in fragments.
Eeeee….
But the ringing in my ears was so intense that I couldn’t be certain I’d heard them correctly.
It wasn’t stress or psychological distress—my ears had gone numb from the blast.
Rumble!
Unable to withstand any longer, the boulder on my left toppled sideways.
Then the boulder on my right began to tilt as well.
It happened to be on the side where I lay.
‘…This is insane.’
I stared blankly at the massive boulder bearing down on me, unable even to think of dodging.
Even if I’d had the presence of mind to flee, I would have been knocked down again within moments.
Without my purification ability, my fragile body—weaker than an ordinary person—had no means to withstand this violent earthquake.
‘I’m going to be crushed…!’
As I squeezed my eyes shut and braced helplessly for the pain to come.
“…Edith!”
With someone’s clear cry, the earthquake that had been shaking my body came to an abrupt halt.
No matter how long I waited, I felt no pain of the boulder crushing down upon me.
Instead, someone grabbed my waist and lifted me clean off the earthen ground.
“…Edith, Edith!”
“….”
“Your Highness, are you alright?”
At the urgent voice, I slowly opened the eyes I had kept shut.
Serge’s face, twisted with savage fury, loomed directly before me.
“…Your Highness.”
“Are you hurt?”
The man who had lifted me kept one arm locked around my waist to secure me, while his other hand frantically swept across my face and body.
Fortunately, I had been rescued just before the boulder could pin me down—not a single bone broken.
As I shook my head in my dazed state, he spat out a curse through gritted teeth.
“Damn it. I told you to protect her like your own life, and you bastards can’t even keep yourselves together. Useless wretches.”
“What are you doing here? What about the battle….”
Hadn’t he been dismantling a couple of monsters just moments ago?
I couldn’t fathom when he had rushed over.
Now that I thought about it, the Gorge that had been shaking as though it might turn inside out had suddenly gone still.
I gathered my scattered wits and belatedly looked around.
The ground lay in complete ruin, split and fractured as though a terrible drought had struck.
Right beside where I had been standing, a crevasse of considerable width stretched out.
Above it, a boulder with a clean, blade-like fracture hung precariously at an angle.
It was unmistakably the rock that had been about to crush me.
“Did Your Highness do this?”
I asked with wide eyes, and Serge, confirming what I was looking at, suddenly twisted his expression into something menacing.
“…The earthquake.”
The earthquake?
Did he mean he had stopped the earthquake?
True to his words, the ground tremors that had shaken so violently I could barely stand were no longer felt.
However, that was only true for the immediate area where Serge and I stood.
Even so, he could not prevent the disaster that ravaged the mountain as a whole—beyond a few steps, it was pandemonium.
“Aaaahhhhh!”
“Barriers! Construct barriers!”
“Where are the earth-attribute ability users!”
It was an earthquake of such devastating intensity that even the fierce combat had come to a halt.
Awakeners and monsters alike shrieked and tumbled, buried into the earth.
Most of those still intact desperately clung to whatever trees and roots they could find.
Even the guards Serge had assigned to me were in the same predicament.
Of course, there were those who remained unscathed even in this chaos, like Serge.
For instance, a man suspended half in the air using the wind.
Vincent stood rigid just behind Serge, his hand outstretched as though he had been rushing toward us.
I could naturally tell who had shattered the boulder that was crushing me.
“…Edith Blake.”
He called out to me silently, his lips moving soundlessly.
Whether he had arrived just a moment too late, the distance between us was close enough that I could grasp his hand if I reached out.
Perhaps it was because he had been occupied with destroying the boulder.
I gazed silently at his trembling golden eyes.
A gaze mingled with the hope that he might still take my hand and the despair of arriving later than Serge.
I couldn’t fathom what had driven him to rush toward me—the man who had once turned a blind eye to whether I lived or died.
Yet regrettably, I would never grasp that hand.
Never.
Even if he had saved me faster than Serge.
“…!”
Realizing something from my indifferent gaze, Vincent’s face gradually drained of all color.
His fingertips, unable to reach me, trembled pitifully in the empty air before falling limply to his side.
“Tch, pathetically slow.”
Serge, who had sensed where my gaze was directed with uncanny precision, deliberately pulled my head into his embrace and hid me against his chest.
“What could you possibly accomplish at such a sluggish pace? Instead of wasting time staring at another man’s woman with such pitiful longing, why don’t you go find that commoner girl you were so fond of, Sub-Duke.”
“….”
“Truly, you’re no better than a dog chasing chickens. When did you ever care whether she lived or died? And now, of all times.”
Serge clicked his tongue and ridiculed Vincent without restraint.
Of course, I had been thinking the exact same thing moments ago, but if the two of them were to fight here like they had at the Imperial Palace, it would be disastrous.
So I struck his muscular forearm repeatedly, which was squeezing my head as though it might burst.
“I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!”
Only then did his tense arm relax.
I lifted my head from his solid chest and checked on Vincent.
Fortunately, the spot where Vincent had been standing close behind Serge was now empty.
I looked around, but he seemed to have already returned to the fierce battle intermingled with monsters and was nowhere to be found.
“Who are you looking at?”
A displeased voice fell from above my head, apparently offended by my search for Vincent.
I struggled and broke free completely from his embrace.
“Why must you speak like that? What if he loses control and comes at us?”
“Why, are you worried about him?”
“Of course I’m worried! He’s the number one suspect for going berserk!”

79%

I furrowed my brow, recalling Vincent’s Magi readings from moments before.
We weren’t in immediate danger yet, but if the battle continued, those numbers would skyrocket in no time.
Vincent’s rampage on Equinox Island—the one that had obliterated even the Awakeners themselves—was more than enough for a lifetime.
I resolved to perform a purification soon, before things escalated, when the man suddenly spilled out childish jealousy without a shred of sense.
“The only thing you need to worry about is me.”
“His Highness’s Magi levels remain stable.”
“I’ve been curious about this for a while now—how exactly do you know that? Just guessing based on how he looks?”
I brushed off Serge’s nonsense without much thought.
I hadn’t revealed to anyone yet that I could perceive the Magi readings of the Awakeners in addition to purification.
It was too trivial an ability to call a Dual Gift, besides….
The real problem was that I’d just realized I’d lost the crystal orb.
‘Damn it.’
I sighed, pressing my throbbing temples.
During the sudden earthquake, when I’d been knocked over, I must have dropped the crystal orb I’d been holding.
With the ground fractured and collapsed everywhere, riddled with cracks, there was no way I could find a smooth, round sphere that had vanished into who-knows-where.
‘How can things go this wrong?’
I’d found Sephiroth, but without the crystal orb, I couldn’t locate that cave-like place.
‘It seemed to be somewhere to the west, roughly.’
I was just recalling the direction the light had pointed to when—
Kuuuung, kuuurrrrung—
A deafening roar tore through the sky.
My vision darkened considerably.
I froze mid-glance upward, my ears covered.
So that’s why the earthquake felt so ominous.
A vast, pitch-black void—utterly different from the cracks that had opened before—gaped its maw wide, threatening to swallow the entire surface of the earth.
It was almost remarkable that I hadn’t noticed it opening, given how frantically I’d been rolling around in the dirt.
“That, that’s….”
A Gate?
I’d encountered many large Gates before, but never one in this form.
Beyond that, it was strange that a Gate of such magnitude had opened completely at such a rapid speed.
‘Could it be… that the ones already open have merged together?’
The scene I’d glimpsed from below the Gorge flickered through my mind.
Kuuguung, kuuguuguung….
From the abyss where pitch-black Magi shimmered and undulated like heat haze, something protruded.
One thing was certain—it wasn’t a Monster.
“Look, Princess.”
Serge pointed at it cheerfully, as if he’d discovered a new toy.
“So dimensions really are merging. That’s an architectural style I’ve never seen before.”
And indeed, what was pouring out in reverse from the Gate was none other than—
a modern high-rise building.

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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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