Disqualified as a Villainess - Chapter 42

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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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#42.

Uriana kept her head bowed low. Neither the dagger-like insults nor the stones hurled at her caused pain.
A life so hollow that it might end with a single falling stone—it hardly mattered.

“What an honor to serve you, Saint!”

She regarded the young Priests who once pressed wildflowers into her hands as younger siblings in her heart.
The friends who had walked beside her through life’s entirety, she had arbitrarily deemed family.
‘I should never have done that.’
From the beginning, a disqualified wretch rejected by the world had failed to recognize her place, grasping at far too much.
As she lay there in resignation, something hurtled toward her, and she smiled faintly.
“How fortunate.”
You’ve come to kill me.
Then came an explosion so violent it seemed to rupture her eardrums.

When Uriana’s eyes opened again, thick white smoke enveloped everything before her. Yet her skin stung faintly—hardly the sensation of the afterlife.
Through the dissipating haze, a peculiar silhouette approached.
“…A demon? Or an angel come to collect me?”
Before her stood a figure in formal attire, wearing a black gas mask shaped like a plague doctor’s beak-nosed visage.
“Stop spouting unscientific nonsense and get up.”
That characteristically gentle yet utterly blunt voice…
Uriana’s eyes widened.
“Octavia?”
“Why are you saying names in this situation? Use your head.”
Octavia grimaced as she struggled to lift Uriana, bound by ability-suppressing rope.
“Why are you so heavy? Did you enjoy a final feast in prison?”
Uriana, biting and releasing her lip anxiously, spoke.
“Chloe, why are you trying to save someone as useless as me? No matter who you are, you cannot escape the Heresy Trial. Just let me die.”
Octavia, having descended from the platform of shame, looked down at Uriana, who perceptively called her by the name Chloe.
“The smoke not bothering you?”
“Of course not. A Holy Ability User of Saint rank would…”
Uriana, momentarily forgetting her circumstances, made a face of realization. In her bound hands lay a sacred object—a rosary that had been confiscated.
“You sound full of hope for someone claiming they want to die.”
“You know that I chose Chaos Space, don’t you?”
At this, Octavia’s expression remained unmoved.
“Life happens that way sometimes. Where is the person who always makes the right choice? What matters is how you take responsibility after the choice is made.”
At words she had never expected, Uriana’s lips merely trembled.
Octavia gestured toward the ability-suppressing rope binding her, adding:
“You can free yourself now, can’t you? If not, I’m leaving you behind. I saw the blueprints for that rope—it has a tracking function built in.”
Through the dissipating smoke, two tall men came rushing toward us.
They wore the same black gas masks as Octavia.
They were my older brothers, Samuel and Vittore.
“Bia, if you don’t escape quickly, something unfortunate is going to happen.”
Vittore pointed at the smoke vanishing in the strong wind.
“Some unconventional strategist brought a human fan.”
The smoke spreading everywhere was a special tear gas that Samuel had helped create—one that didn’t neutralize easily. I couldn’t believe someone would actually try to blow it away so crudely in another direction.
“Impressive.”
Octavia shrugged and set Uriana down.
“Pardon me.”
Samuel untied the rope and scooped up the stumbling Uriana into his arms.
Uriana curled in on herself and squeezed her eyes shut.
The three villains successfully spirited away the Saint marked for execution and quickly climbed into the car.
Vittore pulled bandages from a medical bag and sighed.
“Ah, I’ve never done anything wrong except human rights violations.”
Samuel, sitting in the driver’s seat, turned to look at Uriana. He still wore his gas mask.
“Please be careful not to hit your head, Saint Uriana. My driving is rather rough.”
True to his word, the moment we took off, the acceleration sent her body sliding.
‘Does this man have no concept of roads?’
Uriana, about to apply a bandage to her wounded forehead, wore an incredulous expression. We were crashing through storefronts and streetlights indiscriminately as we fled.
“Which would you prefer—cat bandages or dog bandages? I grabbed the children’s variety in such a rush.”
She couldn’t help but laugh at the childish bandages Vittore offered her.
Perhaps it was because there was no one left to scold her for laughing so freely.
The towering spire of the Holy Temple visible through the car window receded into the distance, along with memories of living as a restrained member of the clergy.
Fragments of memory surfaced—walking with comrades in worn, ill-fitting junior priest robes.

“Uriana, let’s never be reborn again.”
“Then live with all your might, as if this were your last chance.”

‘Come what may.’
The moment I abandoned all the hopes I had struggled so hard to preserve and fled, paradoxically, I felt true freedom for the first time.
“Thank you.”
I expressed my gratitude to these chaotic Saviors.
“Shut up.”
Octavia, sitting beside me, added in a cold voice.
“You’ve been kidnapped.”
Recalling the urban legend about a mad scientist in the Ludovisi Family who conducted human experiments on prisoners, I wore an incredulous expression.

Meanwhile, Kelsedny Admiral gazed quietly at his car receding into the distance.
He had witnessed the entire situation unfold.
From the moment three figures in gas masks appeared and loaded Saint Uriana into the stolen vehicle before fleeing, his gaze remained fixed upon the shortest of the three.
Yet he maintained complete non-intervention throughout.
There was no reason for him to involve himself in such trivial security matters of the Kingdom.
“Car theft followed by the theft of a Saint.”
The Admiral’s lips twisted slightly with self-mockery as he recalled Octavia—villainy incarnate.

***

Inside the rattling vehicle, I found myself facing an enormous crisis.
Since committing misdeeds anonymously didn’t directly increase favorability, I had accumulated disapproval by planning and executing schemes with Father and my brothers, accounting for every variable along the way.
All while periodically visiting the Admiral to torment him.
But the favorability points Uriana granted me had surged to an unforeseen extreme—a variable beyond calculation.

Favorability Increased [+2,000]

“…Becoming a biological specimen for your family seems far preferable to withering away bound in the Square.”
Uriana’s expression returned to serenity. She appeared almost enlightened.
“I have always lived disappointed by people.”
As I observed her, I blinked my eyes.
For a fleeting moment, I glimpsed luminous rays streaming from behind her head before they vanished—a cross-shaped radiance with rays extending in four directions from a central point.
It resembled the halos adorning the heads of the ancient martyred Saints depicted in the paintings hanging within the Holy Temple.
Once before, unable to resist my curiosity, I had accosted Kimihee as he passed by and posed a question.

“Priest, I have something I wish to ask. Were those halos in the paintings meant to indicate the hottest figure of that era, created with a reflective panel effect?”
“That’s quite the cheeky question for a priest. That signifies God’s gaze upon one who has passed the Trial of Order….”

Religious philosophy wasn’t my area of interest, so I couldn’t concentrate, though I think I muttered something about the light of divine grace.
In any case, Uriana was currently undergoing a religious trial, and I felt like I was dying because of her—someone who gave me as much favor as Father did.
“Deploying Special Forces is problematic. If I use emergency warp, it’ll leave a record.”
Holy Ability Users of Special Forces caliber were pursuing the vehicle we occupied.
Vittore was buying us time by hurling broken debris with his telekinetic equipment or toppling obstacles, but if this continued, the pursuers would likely detonate our car.
‘There are methods, but if I use our family’s proprietary developments and transmutation abilities beyond ordinary telekinesis, I’ll be traced.’
I removed my gas mask and called out to Vittore.
“Vittore, change my hair to look exactly like Saint Uriana’s.”
“If it looks beautiful enough to imitate even in a life-or-death situation, then of course I should do it.”
Vittore gently stroked my head. The transmutation-inscribed ring on his finger gleamed as my hair turned white.
“Slow the car down for a moment. I’ll draw their attention by pretending to be Saint Uriana, and you escape in that window.”
“Absolutely not.”
“No! I’ll just surrender!”
Samuel and Uriana strongly objected.
“I participated in this reckless plan for your safety.”
“Then we’ll all die anyway? Uriana, even if you surrender, it won’t matter. They’ll extract all our names through brainwashing control.”
At my words, Vittore, who had been lost in rational thought, nodded.
“They don’t know the culprit behind the escape commotion is Octavia. Hair color is something anyone can change on a whim.”
“Do you think they have time to identify friend from foe right now? The fact that Special Forces Ability Users were deployed means they’ve received orders for indiscriminate elimination.”
“Samuel.”
I calmly patted his shoulder.
“This variable was also part of my plan. So trust me.”
Originally, I had planned to execute this in a crowded area, but I couldn’t do that because I felt like I was dying from Uriana’s favor.
With Vittore’s help, I changed out of my formal suit into a black-and-white two-piece, then turned back to Uriana.
“Saint Uriana, could you cast a one-time protective barrier?”
Screeeech—!
Eventually, Samuel slowed the car as we reached a sparsely populated area. I opened the car door and leaped out.
Thud!
Even using my best falling techniques, something would have broken, but thanks to the barrier, I sustained no injuries whatsoever.
Beyond the closing car door, I saw Uriana with her hand outstretched, tears streaming down her face.
“Sigh.”
I immediately began running toward the area with more people.
Boom—!
Seeing my figure rushing away, they must have been convinced I was the Saint changing clothes and fleeing, because a magical projectile fired from somewhere destroyed the building ahead of me and cut off my escape route.
I stopped, blocked by the collapsed ruins.
‘They definitely targeted me.’
The trajectory of the magical projectile seemed to have curved due to some influence.
Then, a cold voice came from behind me.
“Are you the criminal Uriana?”
No matter how ruthless Special Forces soldiers were, they wouldn’t kill innocent civilians. I turned to face the soldiers with a pitiful expression.
“Sob… why are you doing this to me…? I just needed to use the restroom…”
The armed soldiers’ expressions softened as they beheld the tear-stained, exquisite face.
“Your hair color and length are identical to the Fallen Saint’s… it’s so uncommon that we mistook you. We apologize.”
“No, that’s not it! She appeared suddenly from the direction of the fleeing vehicle—we should have been suspicious, shouldn’t we?”
It was precisely when one soldier, unswayed by her beauty, stepped forward.
Suddenly, a chilling premonition seized my body. In the next instant, I watched a massive steel rebar plummet toward my head.
“Ah.”
My body felt as though it was hurled through the air in that singular moment.
Crash—!
As the deafening sound subsided, I opened my eyes that had been squeezed shut, and found myself gazing into luminous golden irises.
It was Kelsedny Admiral, who held me in his embrace.
He regarded me in silence for a moment, then smiled languidly with his eyes.
“Is life truly so tedious for you?”
It was not Kelsedny Admiral, but another personality—Keldi—who had rescued me from the brink of death.

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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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