Disqualified as a Villainess - Chapter 10

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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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#10.

First Interrogation
The First Sin

“In the end, justice always prevails. Evil cannot overcome good.”
These were the words Dominic spoke in that final scene where the villainess Octavia in the novel met her end.
It was time for her to pay the price for joining hands with the Chaos Forces and taking innocent lives.
“How absurd. Justice is merely the spoils of the victor.”
Octavia refused to acknowledge her crimes until the very end, earning universal condemnation through her villainous conduct.
Even after losing her left arm, she maintained an unwavering composure, as though all sensation had been dulled within her.
“Octavia. You stand upon the execution platform because that madman, the Kelsedny Prince who was your accomplice, betrayed you. This is the consequence of cause and effect. Did you truly believe such a wicked heart could win another’s affection? You even caused the death of your father and brothers—the only ones who ever cared for you.”
Even beneath Dominic’s cold gaze, she remained unmoved.
And the words Octavia spoke in that execution scene seemed quite pregnant with meaning.
“Yes, I am an evil person. I am incapable of sharing genuine feelings with others, and betrayal has long been my companion. But no matter how wickedly and selfishly I have lived… I am no murderer.”
Rather than resenting Kelsedny Admiral, Octavia despised and treated as a traitor the very Dominic she had once cherished.

「
“And the traitor is you. To be precise….”

Octavia’s clouded eyes turned toward Chloe, who stood with a composed expression.

“You are all hypocrites.”

Though her words remained unfinished, she replaced them with a gentle smile.

“Whether one is a hypocrite or sincere—you only know when you see it through to the end. Then I too shall become a hypocrite.”
“…I hope to remain your eternal nightmare.”

Thunk—!
The blade of the guillotine fell with a piercing whistle, descending like a torrent.
Such was the pathetic end of a villainess.
Octavia could not close her eyes. Her platinum hair scattered in the wind, flowing like gold dust carried upon a river.
」

This was the last dialogue and narration of Octavia in the original work.
At the time, I had read this section over and over again. It was natural for a villain to die without repenting, blaming others to the end, but I couldn’t shake off a nagging sense of discomfort.
Now I stood before the decryption equipment in Father’s Research Laboratory, determined to uncover the source of that unease.
I gazed quietly at Dominic’s encrypted letter in my hand.
Since the research laboratory contained books on ciphers and decryption, and my past self had been trained at the Military Research Institute, I could decipher it without much difficulty.
A chilling premonition swept down my spine—this letter seemed inextricably linked to the misfortunes that had befallen Octavia and the Ludovisi Family.

***

I stood vacant-eyed, staring into empty space as I held the decrypted letter.
“Treason? He plotted treason?”
「What I desire is to inherit the throne. All of this is for the sake of my homeland.」

Dominic had been preparing to restore the current Crown Princess’s right of succession.
I read the next decrypted sentence with a chill running through me.

「…To accomplish this, the destruction of the Ludovisi Family—the Crown Princess Dekima’s most powerful financial lifeline and base of support—must come first.」

With each character I read, my heartbeat seemed to grow louder.
This was why not only Octavia but her entire family had perished.
Father and my older brothers had insisted on my sister’s innocence and attempted to help her escape from prison and flee into exile, only to fail.
In the process, charges of treason were applied, and many members of the family were executed.

“I’m sorry for all the harsh words I spoke under the guise of concern. It’s my fault for failing to be a proper older brother. Father thought of you until his dying moment. We will too.”

The pitiful figures of my older brothers facing execution flashed before my eyes as if they were memories I had witnessed firsthand.
‘I cannot be consumed by emotion.’
I forced myself to maintain rationality and think carefully.
“So they fabricated a false charge against me.”
Shadow Consumption Syndrome was an extremely rare disease—an incurable malady of unknown origin that, even if one managed to survive through holy power, had no cases of complete recovery.
The original work’s conclusion was that Octavia Ludovisi, who had gained power through a deal with the Chaos Forces, had cast a psychic curse attack on the Prince. But as you can see, I was just an ordinary person with no abilities whatsoever.

“No matter how evil and selfish a person I might have lived as… I am not a murderer.”

In the original work, Octavia was revealed to have committed a total of eight crimes.
Beyond the brutal charges of regicide, religious crimes, economic crimes, and treason, the most serious was opening a catastrophe-level gate to assist the Chaos Forces, which triggered a national upheaval.
Circumstantially, there was a high probability that most of them were false accusations for which she was executed.
#Capable female protagonist, #intelligent female protagonist—keywords tagged on the protagonist Chloe. Could she truly have been unaware of this?
If I were to expose this letter to the world and execute the male lead for treason through dismemberment, this story would end in just ten chapters by novel standards. Unfortunately, there was one more irregular existence entangled in this affair.

「To obtain what Arseno desires, this would be an absolutely necessary step, would it not?」

The recipient of the letter was not Kelsedny Admiral, but the absolute ruler known as the Terror of Ten Thousand Years—the strongest esper currently in existence.
He was the Admiral’s older brother and the Emperor of the Lucifer Empire: Arseno van Decart.
Like his name, derived from the rare mineral “Arsenophilite,” he was a toxic existence who had murdered his parents and siblings to seize the throne.
Only Kelsedny had survived the bloody purge he orchestrated.
Given that I was entangled with such an apex predator of the food chain, the likelihood of being buried in the ground after being covered up by manipulation was considerable.
Moreover, unfortunately, there was no one to believe Octavia’s public interest report, nor any social credibility to draw upon…
Dominic was one thing, but I couldn’t fathom why Arseno would target our family.
If it were about suppressing transmutation abilities, it was the Lucifer Empire itself that actively developed Magical Engineering, the second generation of alchemy.
“But why does Kelsedny Admiral have this letter in the first place?”
Was he an intermediary courier?
Yet tucking a letter meant for the Emperor among fan mail made no sense.
In any case, thinking positively, I was a possessor—someone who had transmigrated into this body.
Wasn’t being a possessor like wielding a cheat key that would remain valid even if the genre shifted to disaster fiction?
‘Now I have a justification to torment and destroy the protagonists to my heart’s content and exploit their disfavor.’
Under the conviction that “the best defense is offense,” I swiftly established my objectives.
If I remained passive, eventually I would bear all the blame, and Father and my brothers would die as well.

1. Preemptively dismantle the incidents related to the charges that would lead to my execution.
3. Keep Father and my brothers alive, as they are trustworthy allies and emotional anchors for family stability.
We bring to life fathers and older brothers who become trustworthy partners and emotional anchors of stability for the family.
4. Revise the plan of being inextricably entangled with Kelsedny Admiral to something messier and more sordid.
‘The uniformed beauty who despises me… I’ll exploit him appropriately until my tastes change, then discard him.’

***

Octavia headed straight to the Deep Research Facility, the building adjacent to the mansion.
As an extension of the estate, it was a place where confidential experiments and research were conducted, hidden from public view.
I needed to see how this family’s research operations functioned.
Since I was a member of the family, entering the research building posed no difficulty.
She passed through the Design Room, Test Operation Room, and Records Room in the corridor before standing before the Central Research Lab, the heart of this facility.
Of course, it was locked.
Knock, knock.
When she knocked on the door directly, a researcher with a haggard face opened it.
Judging by her position, she was the Chief Researcher. Her bleary eyes narrowed slightly as she rubbed them.
“What brings you here?”
“I wanted to take a look around.”
“You think you can understand this? You didn’t even major in it.”
In the past, Octavia’s Academy grades had been excellent, but she had kept her distance from the Magical Engineering Department.
Moreover, her controversial remark in the past—”Nothing but a walking calculator”—had drawn considerable criticism from the researchers here.
“Will you crush a budding sprout trying to start anew?”
“Does this work look easy to you? Given our tight situation, it’s obvious I’d only give you a superficial tour anyway. There are security concerns too. Absolutely not.”
“I see.”
Quite the sense of duty, then.
Octavia nodded, stealing a glimpse of the complex transmutation formulas and blueprints visible through the crack in the open door.
‘Transmutation formulas are equations, transmutation circles are the algorithms executing those equations, and magical power is the energy variable.’
The concepts and structures differed, but they aligned with the knowledge I possessed.
Suddenly, beyond the Chief Researcher’s continued criticism, I noticed the other researchers’ faces—all but lifeless.
It appeared they were struggling with an unsolved problem.
Having grasped the fundamentals and committed the basic formulas to memory in a short time, Octavia turned away, feigning disappointment.
Typically, unsolved problems are written publicly where all researchers can see them.
A sort of collective assignment.
‘Whoever solves it receives a reward.’
She went to the Common Hall and gazed at the problem written on the blackboard.
This world was far more primitive than the one she had lived in, but it wasn’t at the level where people wept over simple mathematical formulas.
‘A high-dimensional data problem.’
To put it in perspective, it was the sort of problem requiring one to rapidly assemble hundreds of thousands of puzzle pieces.
She picked up chalk and wrote something down without hesitation.
“Technology too far ahead of its time will only bring calamity, so let me show you a more appropriate method.”
She had already learned through experience that rapid development relative to consciousness level was humanity’s curse.

「Rather than viewing the whole, decompose it simply into parts, then work backward to find the answer. A decomposition technique.」

She also wrote out the formulas applied to this world’s concepts in neat order.
Recognition and rewards mattered little; seeing these pitiful researchers stirred old memories, and she wanted to help.

After Octavia departed, the Chief Researcher emerged in a haggard state and discovered the blackboard bearing the answers.
“Let me see what nonsense some fool has scribbled this time.”
As she scanned the board, her eyes gradually widened. Eventually, her mouth fell open in astonishment.
“Who, who on earth did this?”
What Octavia had written was a concept that, by this facility’s standards, would not be fully established for another thirty years.

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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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