A World Where You All Are The Villains - Chapter 208

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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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208.

‘Gag!’
Nausea surged at the sight of carnage too grotesque to witness with open eyes.
I hastily clamped my hand over my mouth to stifle any sound.
I lacked the fortitude to bear witness to this horrific crime scene any longer.
As I wrenched my gaze away, other details finally penetrated my awareness beyond Sephiroth.
Not only did a figure lie upon the Altar, but several bodies were scattered haphazardly across the blood-pooled floor.
They were surely Awakeners whom Sephiroth had abducted and drained of their blood.
‘Are they dead?’
The distance made it impossible to discern their condition.
Yet Sephiroth would not have killed them outright, even if drained nearly to death.
They needed to remain alive for Sephiroth to continue wielding supernatural abilities like instantaneous teleportation.
As I turned my head away, consoling myself with this logic, I belatedly discovered something beyond the Altar that I had missed.
It was a form so colossal that I marveled at my own blindness in not noticing it sooner.
‘…A Monster corpse?’
Yet I had never heard of a Monster of such magnitude.
The S-rank Monster that Ruellin had summoned from the Imperial Palace could not measure up to even this creature’s elongated tail.
Thick bones and preserved, decaying hide spoke to the overwhelming majesty this being must have possessed in life.
‘…A Dragon?’
The legendary creature naturally came to mind.
I had known Sephiroth was a Dragon-slayer, yet witnessing the Dragon’s corpse with my own eyes left me utterly bewildered.
‘Then this place is…the Dragon’s Lair?’
I had only recently accepted that I had been possessed—or rather, dimensionally transported—into a fantasy world where magic existed, and now Dragons too…
Yet when I considered that only a Dragon possessed the power to artificially carve such a vast cavern within a cliff face, the pieces fell into place.
“Why! Why are you still like this, why―!”
It was then.
A piercing wail suddenly tore through the air.
Thud.
Sephiroth, now crouched in the blood, cradled a half-bodied corpse and muttered desperately.
“Theo, please come to your senses. It’s me—Ruellin. Your one and only wife.”
“Grrr, grrgh.”
“…Is one S-rank Awakener truly insufficient?”
As I eavesdropped in held breath, an abrupt sense of wrongness seized me, and I jerked my gaze toward the Altar.
The identity of the Awakener lying upon the Altar, obscured until now by Sephiroth, was revealed.
A pallid face stained with blood and silver hair disheveled beyond measure.
And above it, a brilliant crimson number glowing like a warning light.

100%

‘…Ethan.’
Ruellin being here was as good as revealing Ethan’s location.
I had forgotten it so completely, so absurdly.
No one had been searching for him.
Of course, given the circumstances, there had been no time to concern myself with him….
In truth, whether that foolish Ruellin lived or died mattered little to me.
Yet watching a man who once served as the Duke’s heir and commanded the Awakeners fall helplessly before everyone’s indifference was hardly a pleasant sight.
Moreover, the pressure mounted—I had to dispose of Sephiroth before he committed another act of madness and abducted yet another S-rank Awakener.
‘Now.’
With her attention fixed on her husband, this was my chance to strike.
I moved silently, approaching Sephiroth with deliberate slowness.
A fair fight?
Such nonsense could go to hell.
If I could eliminate him without giving him a chance to counterattack, I would thank the heavens themselves.
At last, when I reached striking distance, I extended my hand without hesitation.
‘Purification Beam!’
Whoooosh—!
A verdant ray erupted from my palm, now searing with heat.
The beam shot forth in a straight line, piercing Sephiroth’s left flank.
I had deliberately aimed for the heart.
“Ahhhhh!”
Sephiroth shrieked, his body convulsing in agony.
Clatter!
The Deer-Masked Maid’s mask tumbled across the floor.
Whether Sephiroth thrashed about like a squid caught in flames mattered not—I simply stared into the void.

997%
992%
985%

As expected, my purification was the perfect counter to that creature.
The moment the emerald beam touched it, the monster’s Magic Barrier stat began plummeting at an alarming rate.
Yet I felt none of the exhilaration from before.
The progress I had carved away in Volner had already regenerated completely.
I had no sense of how much more purification would be needed to bring it to 0%.
Or whether my body could even endure that long.
‘Faster, faster.’
Anxiously gnawing at my lip, I thickened the beam’s diameter.

943%

The creature’s Magic Barrier stat plummeted dramatically in an instant.
‘This is it!’
Having found the breakthrough, I immediately extended my other hand as well.
A dual-beam barrage, as it were.
That was the moment.
A high-pitched whine pierced the air—
A faint shimmer rippled outward, and Sephiroth’s surroundings distorted.
A translucent barrier enveloped the creature in a perfect sphere.
The same defensive shield that had withstood countless attacks from the other Awakeners without flinching.
I had never fought alongside them, so I hadn’t known.
That this cursed barrier would prove impervious even to my purification.
‘Damn it.’
The emerald beam, unable to pierce the shield, scattered and dissipated in all directions as if blocked by a wall.
Caught off guard, I withdrew my outstretched hands.
I wasn’t certain whether simply enduring until the stolen defensive ability vanished was the only viable strategy.
As I ceased the purification, an eerie silence descended upon the chamber.
“Huff, gasp….”
Sephiroth, clutching her chest and breathing heavily, suddenly fixed her gaze upon me.
“You…!”
Murderous intent swirled across her contorted, anguished face.
Yet perhaps because I had already witnessed that same deranged luminescence in an identical visage.
The impact was far less than I expected.
The woman with serpentine eyes studied me intently for a moment before finally speaking.
“So you’ve chased me all the way here.”
“….”
“It must not have been easy to kill Ruellin. How did you manage it?”
Having regained her composure, her voice had returned to its original refined tone.
A far cry from Ruellin’s wild-eyed, luminescent frenzy.
Before, I had assumed she was deliberately acting differently to assert her distinction from Ruellin, but now I recalled—Sephiroth was of Imperial descent.
It seemed to be his nature to quickly regain composure without much disturbance.
When I offered no response, Sephiroth smiled faintly.
“How fortunate that you’ve arrived.”
….
“I was just in need of a high-ranking Awakener.”
My assumption that he had regained his composure proved utterly mistaken.
His eyes fixed upon me gleamed with an eerie brilliance, at odds with the subtle smile playing at his lips.
As if he had discovered a delectable morsel of prey.
A different kind of dread from what I had witnessed in Ruellin moments before sent my hair standing on end.
Suddenly, he raised his arm.
I abandoned the silence I had maintained throughout and issued a sharp warning.
“Don’t move.”
….
“I’m debating whether to wait until that barrier fades, or simply smash through it with brute force.”
He froze rigid.
But soon, with a soft chuckle, he deliberately swept back his fallen hair as if to prove my point.
“My, you have quite a keen eye.”
My words, which implied knowledge that his defensive ability was temporary, were met with his surprisingly candid acknowledgment.
“Well then, how about this? We conduct a peaceful negotiation where no one gets hurt.”
….
“I obtain a small amount of your blood, and in return, you gain a way to return home.”
“You said the wish-granting failed.”
I had intended to maintain silence, but I could no longer contain myself.
“Is this what you call Paradise—inverting the place where I lived and cramming it here?”
“That was beyond my control. It was my first time merging dimensions….”
He drooped his mouth in apparent regret.
And he gestured with his eyes at his upper body writhing at his feet.
“If this side has also suffered severe damage, wouldn’t that build some trust?”
“Trust?”
He had brought this upon himself—transforming my husband, who had been living well in another dimension, into a monster. What audacity to speak of trust.
If he had truly wanted to resurrect my husband, he should have at least verified beforehand what condition a human crossing from another dimension would be in.
But he had devoted all his energy solely to finding a way to normalize the Erosion Beings.
Of course, it was possible that monsters didn’t exist in the modern era where I lived.
He had never anticipated that humans would be indiscriminately mixed together, let alone monsters.
‘Yet he stakes his life on a wish and conducts himself so carelessly?’
Earlier he spoke of creating an egalitarian society and playing god.
I couldn’t fathom what his true intentions really were.
From the way he poured Ethan’s blood, it didn’t seem like resurrecting my husband was merely a performance….
As I weighed Sephiroth’s intentions, I shook my head slowly.
“Sorry, but that’s not a particularly appealing offer. I’ll have to decline.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want to end up like that.”
As I gestured dismissively at my convulsing upper body, Sephiroth let out an “Ah” of understanding.
“Obviously, I’m not suggesting you cross the Gate or wait for the dimensions to merge.”
“Then what other method is there?”
When even the Book of Prophecy had failed, was there truly a new way that didn’t involve becoming a mass of flesh?
“Soul Exchange Ritual.”
My question was answered immediately.
“Beyond this point, there’s a soul exchange incantation that Ruellin inscribed.”
Sephiroth pointed toward the altar, where the Dragon’s corpse lay.
“You know better than anyone that the coordinates are certain. Using this, you could return right now. I’ll assist you in every way possible until the ritual is activated.”
“….”
“What do you think? Seems like a pretty fair deal, doesn’t it?”
Following his finger with my gaze, I swallowed dryly.
If he had made this proposal before, I would have accepted without hesitation.
After all, he was the very source that had possessed me into this world.
But it was far too late for that.
I had learned too much about this world, witnessed too much, experienced too much….
And so I had already made my decision.
“Not interested.”
“…Excuse me?”
“Not interested.”
I shrugged my shoulders and replied in an impossibly light tone.
Sephiroth’s smiling face froze in place.
“Why… is that? You wanted to return.”
There were plenty of reasons.
First, if that ritual were truly intact, he would have made it a condition long ago.
Moreover, even if I accepted, if I got caught in the Gate connected to this side, it would all be for nothing.
It was a plausible-sounding proposal ostensibly for my benefit, but thinking it through even slightly revealed it as treating me like a fool.
‘I wonder how many believers he’s roasted with schemes like this…’
However, rather than voice these objections, I chose to mock him in kind.
“Just. No particular reason.”
“….”
“I’ve changed my mind. Is it really so strange that I don’t want to go back anymore?”

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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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