Disqualified as a Villainess - Chapter 38

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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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#38.

A brief sigh escaped.
The Admiral, who had been staring blankly at the ceiling as if time itself had frozen, lowered his head with a deliberate motion. His golden eyes, now radiating a different temperature, fixed upon Octavia pinned beneath him.
He tugged at his tie and loosened it casually, then smiled—a smile that was neat yet innocent, boyish in its charm.
‘He’s smiling so beautifully at me?’
Octavia’s face flushed with bewilderment.
“Wait a moment—”
His large hand gently covered her lips as she tried to speak.
Eyes now completely golden drew near, as if merging with her own gaze.
“You said I didn’t need permission.”
His subtly altered tone carried the tenderness of a lover.
Like that night when he’d been thoroughly intoxicated.
She could never have understood the principle behind how a man who despised even the slightest touch could suddenly transform into someone entirely different.
She had no leisure for contemplation.
His tongue traced along her skin with deliberate pressure, descending as if licking a wound or indulging in desire.
One of his hands had already slipped beneath her clothing, rummaging through it.
“Mmph—”
Her hands, startled by the unfamiliar sensation, reflexively pushed against his chest.
“Do you dislike me because I’m not in my right mind?”
He posed the question as if it held little significance.
Whether it was a dissociative disorder or a symptom of mental collapse in a chaotic state, one thing was certain—he was decidedly not himself.
Octavia blinked as she felt the hand covering her mouth loosen.
Even in this moment, she detected the contradiction and asked.
“Why are you so skilled at this?”
He tilted his head slightly while toying with the loosened undergarment straps, then chuckled.
“Is that strange?”
Unlike the ascetic demeanor she’d witnessed before, his sensually curved eyes now gleamed with desire.
“It’s extraordinarily strange.”
A man who insisted on chastity before marriage—an inexperienced one at that—who had shown no interest whatsoever in women’s undergarments, couldn’t possibly unfasten the straps with just two fingers as if it were second nature.
“Who are you?”
Based on her observations, Octavia was certain this was a different personality. He gazed at her intently, his smile fading.
“Keldi.”
He introduced himself with an endearing nickname, unfastening the buttons of her upper garment with his teeth as he spoke languidly.
“It’s disappointing that you’re being coy. We’ve already done everything. Or rather, we’ve done enough to have tried everything.”
A faint smile returned to his lips as he buried his face against her chest, releasing a low sigh.
“Darling, when are you going to marry me? I’ve been waiting far too long.”
“…Is this really what you want? Enough to borrow another self to say it?”
At Octavia’s troubled voice, he lifted his head with a look of disappointment.
“Being of the Royal Family, marriage as a legal institution or the need for an heir isn’t necessarily required—”
He rubbed his head against her affectionately, his black hair tickling the nape of her neck.
“I just… wanted to be with you.”
Octavia exhaled deeply, her chest aching with an inexplicable, poignant sensation.
‘Neither my favorability nor my aversion is changing.’
While I was curious what result might emerge, I could not entangle myself with the unknown entity that had seized the Admiral’s consciousness.
The system shows no reaction now, but someone of that caliber posed a danger equivalent to ten thousand favorability points.
“Return to being Kelsedny Decart, the one who despises me. I have something important to discuss.”
Snap.
Octavia flicked her finger against his forehead, delivering a sharp rap.

***

“That hurt.”
He slowly raised his upper body, both hands grasping his face and black hair.
Remaining silent with his head bowed for a long moment, his lips parted slightly.
“…Hah.”
Beneath his hands, where sinews stood taut, his clenched jaw betrayed confusion.
His lips twisted upward in a bitter smile, then slowly he lifted his hands, gathering his hair fully to reveal his face.
Whether mocking or anguished, his expression held an unsettling ambiguity.
As if wrestling with a fractured identity, his eyes blinked once, twice, three times—the golden light in his irises rapidly narrowing.
Then he raised his right hand, clenching it with force.
Smack—!
The sound of him striking his own cheek reverberated through the air.
Looking up at the ceiling, he traced the blood gathering at his lips with his tongue, then slowly lowered his gaze to her.
Disheveled hair, drowsy eyes, reddened eyelids.
The pupils of the elegantly ruined man had returned to their original color.
“I have.”
After a long breath.
“Prevented something I would have regretted.”
He spoke as though he had averted the world’s annihilation.
‘If I hadn’t stopped myself, I would have regretted it… was he speaking to himself?’
Octavia gazed up at the man looking down at her.
Having lived as a member of the Decart Imperial Family, the axis upon which the world turned, he was a man who confined everything within the boundaries of principles he had established.
His large hand still gripped her slender waist.
His gaze moved rapidly across her loosened garment—up and down, down and up.
Their breaths, each carrying different temperatures, gradually mingled and warmed.
At length, a low voice cut through the silence.
“Did I remove it.”
“Was that while you were in a dissociative state, Keldi?”
At her question tinged with amusement, his eyelids descended like cold metal, veiling his golden eyes.
“That seems to be the case. The fact that you told me such a pet name proves it.”
He acquiesced readily, tilting his chin upward.
His throat and larynx moved visibly as he swallowed hard.
A sigh followed, and then came the question.
“Why did you try to die?”
At his flat, emotionless voice—neither questioning nor reproaching—her lips, which had been pressed firmly shut, curved into an arc.
“Leaping into the Shadow? I wasn’t trying to die. It was experimental instinct.”
She spoke like a mad scientist, laughing brightly as she reached her hand toward his cheek.
“You won’t let me die anyway. A man who says he wants to kill me with words.”
He pulled his chin back, evading her hand.
Though freed from the grip of unconsciousness, the desire that had lingered while he undressed and admired her remained vivid and layered within him.
“It’s not merely words.”
His hand, fastening her gaping collar, seized Octavia’s cheek.
“Just now, I nearly destroyed you vulgarly. You could have died with a single misstep. Though truthfully, it wouldn’t have mattered much….”
But that was precisely the problem.
Every word from his lips was dominion and command, and his will became reality itself.
It was always the other who exercised restraint and self-preservation, never himself.
He turned her face this way and that as though examining a collectible, continuing his words.
“Perhaps I wish to witness you shatter elegantly, not by another’s hand, but by mine.”
His face drew gradually closer, his voice calm as a confession.
“So I will do this my way.”
“How….”
The language of question and answer lost sound, swallowed with breath.
Octavia’s eyes widened greatly.
A metallic taste of blood spread across her tongue. She watched his eyes, lowered with quiet intensity, slowly close.
She was far more shocked than when she had witnessed his eccentric behavior and contradictory actions before.
It was like a lover’s kiss. In other words, it felt formal, as though sealed by a betrothal.

Favorability Decline [+4,000]

Yet even as I found solace in the fact that he still held me in contempt, his lips parted slowly.
“From now on, we shall be official lovers.”
Most already believed as much, and we had even kissed before everyone’s eyes.
Moreover, in my current state, another personality could emerge at any moment and buy her flowers as a gift.
“But that is merely a formality—the truth remains that we are bound by a transaction.”
Octavia, her lips flushed with heat, tilted her head in confusion.
“…Is there truly a need to make it official? I was content with an unofficial, quasi-romantic arrangement.”
The Admiral merely lowered his gaze, looking down at her.
“Did that sound like a reasonable proposal?”
“It was courteous. It always has been.”
She, who had long since mentally classified him as a madman with only polite lips, lifted her chin defiantly.
Despite being pinned beneath him, she somehow created the illusion that she was the one looking down.
He found this displeasing and rose to sit upright.
Octavia, released from his hold, slowly rose as well.
“That’s why I found the Admiral appealing.”
As someone from a war generation where all perished equally, she continued, indifferent to whether her counterpart was of noble or lowborn birth, rank meaning nothing to her.
“If I refuse, will I then experience the injustices of society firsthand?”
Though not a conventional confession, the Admiral felt the sting of rejection, and a shadow crossed his brow.
She spoke with full knowledge that he never decided matters on mere whim.
It was neither boldness nor ignorance.
That woman with her peculiarly virtuous face was undoubtedly someone who acted with meticulous calculation beneath the surface.
“You’re hardly in a position to refuse.”
Yet Kelsedny Decart was no ordinary man either.
“You are in a state of disorder yourself.”
Octavia’s eyes widened slightly at the direct hit.
“Your very survival depends upon me. Paradoxically so.”
He had already discerned her condition—that she was unloved.
Had she truly desired affection, he would not have sought to summon her original personality instead of the one currently obsessed with her.

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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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