A World Where You All Are The Villains - Chapter 204

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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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204.

Cross the Gate, he said.
Now, of all times.
It wasn’t so much bewildering as it was infuriating.
“Is that… something you should be saying right now?”
“It’s not something I can’t say, is it?”
His expression was far too serious for this to be a jest.
‘When did he beg me to find something to cling to here? To plead with me to live in abundance!’
A scalding lump of emotion surged up my throat.
This was a scenario I had never once imagined.
I could understand him begging on his knees for me not to leave, but a man pushing me away with his own hands…?
Unable to fathom why I felt so wronged, I shot him a glare brimming with emotion.
“You said I had to see what happens when I cross dimensions? But if that’s what becomes of me when I do, how am I supposed to cross?”
“You are the Purifier. Purify madly as you go, and somehow it will work out.”
He had just torn apart the very reason I had been purifying all this time.
Without even being certain it was possible.
His irresponsible words did not end there.
“Make a wish to that damned book again. Or find some commoner woman and pressure her instead. Do whatever it takes to restore things to how they were.”
“If I thought that would work, I would have tried it already!”
“Aren’t you the one who kept muttering about wanting to return? If it were me, I would have been grateful that it was the other side that ended up like this, and would have figured out how to cross. What have you been doing all this time?”
He spoke as though reproaching me.
His gaze—looking at me as though I were a helpless child—made my blood boil.
‘What have I been doing…’
I found where Sephiroth was.
I pondered how to stop him and resolve this crisis.
Beyond that, the Awakeners fighting endless swarms of monsters with no understanding of the cause.
The precious bonds I had left behind in the Capital.
And because I wanted to protect this man, who alone bore the weight of this towering building…
Though I had accomplished nothing concrete, I had agonized fiercely in my own way.
Over how to remain in this world and live safely.
While even entertaining the thought of accepting the gold and jewels this man had offered to give me…
“It’s fortunate, at least. That you have no lingering attachments in this place.”
Yet the man delivered his verdict with an unprecedented coldness.
Where had the person who had raged at me not to leave, spouting all manner of nonsense, gone?
“…But you said not to go before.”
“I never said that. Since you’ve ended up unable to leave, I was telling you to at least develop some affection for this place.”
…
“Did you really think the situation would spiral into such chaos?”
I knew he was deliberately choosing words designed to wound.
So that I could abandon this crumbling world without a shred of hesitation.
Yet sorrow crashed over me like a tidal wave.
Before I could grasp how to respond to this unfamiliar emotion, Serge lashed out irritably.
“Don’t waste time wavering and miss your chance to regret it. Find a solution already. I’m not going to spoon-feed you everything, am I?”
“….”
“Isn’t that just too cruel to me?”
I hadn’t said anything, yet he flew into a rage first and then muttered pitifully to himself.
When our eyes met as I stared at him in bewilderment, the sharp edge in his gaze slowly twisted.
The man who had been scrutinizing my face as though witnessing a final moment slowly closed his eyes, then opened them.
Then those abyssal black pupils, familiar as always, were revealed.
No—they were not as they always were.
For some time now, whenever he looked at me, his eyes had shimmered with multifaceted light.
This hollow, vacant, inorganic gaze was the first time since our initial meeting right after the possession.
Like those days when, despite the staggering Magi reading of ‘95%’, he recklessly squandered his power without the slightest concern for runaway corruption.
At such a dramatic transformation—as if he had excised all emotion at once—my heart lurched.
“Wait, Your Highness, please listen to me….”
I reflexively reached out to grab Serge.
But he turned away coldly.
And before I could even blink, he rushed toward the pandemonium where masses of humans and monsters were tangled together.
“Your Highness!”
I called after him urgently, but of course he never looked back.
Even now, he was already releasing his power to its limit—what on earth was he trying to do by going there?
‘Is he really going to lose control and rampage?’
Fortunately, the anxiety that made my heart sting was quickly dispelled.
“Screeeee―!”
An avian-type monster that had been circling aimlessly through the air to avoid the masses of humans fell abnormally onto Serge’s head.
Just before impact, he kicked off the ground and leaped, landing deftly atop the creature.
Immediately after, the monster, which had lost its bearings and was teetering precariously, began normal flight with dull thuds of ‘thud, thud!’
I watched in stunned silence as the monster shot skyward.
The man was charging toward something far more insane than losing control and indiscriminately striking down monsters and humans.
‘Is he really planning to close the Gate?’
The likelihood of such an absurd plan actually succeeding was slim.
Regardless of his formidable power or the Magi reading, the Gate itself was simply too massive.
On top of that, as time passed, it kept absorbing other Gates and growing larger—how could he possibly manage it?
It was impossible.
He would surely fail.
Yet there was no way to stop the madman soaring toward the sky.
I gazed up at the man who had already become a distant speck, and only then did my expression crumble.
“…You think just saying it and leaving is enough?”
That’s not it.
I’ve decided to stay here.
Since you insist on trying to form a bond, let’s find a way to resolve this together.
The words I hadn’t managed to speak crumbled hollowly in my mouth.
I stood there like a lost child, muttering to myself.
“…What am I supposed to do now?”
Just because the man who stood by my side had left, my focus seemed to scatter as if I’d lost all direction in an instant.
Was it truly the answer to cross the Gate and return to my original world before this realm perished, just as he said?
But how on earth could I do that?
“Princess, it’s dangerous. Please come this way.”
It was Serge’s subordinates, left behind, who roused me from my bewildered stupor.
The guards surrounding me hurriedly ushered me along.
At the very rear, heading down the Mountain, were the wounded and high-ranking nobles who had reluctantly marched out due to the imperial decree.
As I absently surveyed that direction, my eyes suddenly widened at a familiar face.
A middle-aged man with blood streaming from his forehead, his expression twisted in pain.
None other than the Duke.
Absurdly, he was meekly waiting his turn for treatment among the throng of wounded.
Langton, the Duke’s Aide, stood beside him, fidgeting anxiously as if pleading about something, but the Duke remained silent and unmoved.
‘Why….’
Most of those healing the wounded at the Gate Site were merely ordinary Healers.
It was customary for high-grade Awakeners to be employed by high-ranking noble houses for payment.
That didn’t mean they refused to heal other wounded, but their priority was always their employer.
In other words, without money, one couldn’t receive proper treatment.
That’s why the Duke’s Household had separately hired a Healer at considerable expense.
Several Physicians, including an A-grade Healer who had once served the Imperial Palace itself.
Yet around the Duke standing in line, there was neither Eston nor a single ordinary Physician in sight.
It made sense. He simply hadn’t brought any.
And I instinctively grasped the reason.
‘Because of me.’
Because even when I had run away under the pretense of recuperation, I had tried to take Eston with me.
Or perhaps in preparation for an emergency like when a Gate suddenly appeared in the Capital, just as it had at the Imperial Palace not long ago.
Whatever the case, the Duke had made such a fuss early on, urging me to leave the Purifier Order and granting me independence.
If I were to say I didn’t know he would go this far, that would be a lie.
Yes, I had known all along.
How he had shifted his stance the moment I Awakened.
How he had said a dead daughter wouldn’t come back to life just because he did this now.
Though I had deliberately sneered and turned away, I couldn’t help but notice that the Duke’s eyes, watching me from afar, always held concern and worry for his child.

― That you find the house where you were born and raised uncomfortable. That there’s not a single place in all that vast space where you can truly rest at ease.
― This incompetent father of yours, who only now understands… Won’t you forgive me just this once?

As I recalled those words, clarity struck me with an almost ironic force.
The reason I had rejected the Duke’s intentions—knowing full well why he left both the Healer and even me, the Purifier, in safety while throwing himself into battle—and crawled my way here regardless.
It wasn’t to stand here uselessly, wringing my hands in helpless despair.
I too wanted to protect them.
In a world without evils like Sephiroth.
So that the people I had grown to care for could live in peace and happiness for as long as they drew breath.
“Your Highness.”
One of my escorts urged me forward, noticing I remained rooted in place.
“Your father is waiting.”
I quickly scanned the area and pointed toward a dense forest region safely distant from the clusters of wounded.
“We should head that way instead.”
My escorts, well aware of my secret departure from the Duke, mercifully complied without question.
Moments later.
“Y-Your Highness…!”
“No, wait—!”
The five guards surrounding me crashed down into the undergrowth with feeble cries.
I swept my gaze frantically across the surroundings.
I sensed no other presence watching.
My escorts had wisely decided it was safer to distance ourselves from the battle zone, pulling me deep into the forest—a decision that had served us well.
“I’m sorry.”
I murmured as I extinguished the purifying flames that had illuminated the darkness.
“But your master won’t have the mind to worry about you anyway.”
Because he would soon lose control.
‘Did he know it would come to this?’
Is that why he rode away on that monster without looking back even once?
‘He told me to leave quickly, yet gave no warning to his subordinates—what was that about?’
If he was going to lecture me about refusing even self-purification and conserving strength for the moment we crossed the Gate, shouldn’t he have dismissed my escort first?
Grumbling to myself about his recklessness, I soon turned and began running away from my guards.
Whether that last level-up truly had an effect, I felt no adverse aftereffects from using my abilities.
My body moved through the forest with remarkable lightness—a stark contrast to the heaviness weighing on my heart.
‘Faster.’
I anxiously recalled the last Magi reading I had seen from Serge.
His rampage could not be stopped.
Even if I killed Sephiroth immediately, the Gate wouldn’t close automatically.
So I had to hurry back.
Before that mad man, consumed by his own uncontrolled power, dragged every human and monster with him into mutual destruction.

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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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