Disqualified as a Villainess - Chapter 49

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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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#49.

The Third Interrogation
The Third Sin

Hugo, having assembled the arm his subordinates had retrieved as though piecing together a puzzle, bowed respectfully to Kelsedny Admiral.
“I greet you, Admiral.”
True to an ability user whose body regenerated infinitely so long as the core remained intact, he held his rapidly recovered hand against his chest, his head bowed.
I stared at Hugo intently.
‘I’d love to dissect that man under the pretense of advancing medicine and life sciences.’
The Admiral’s gaze followed my curious eyes, belatedly settling upon Hugo before returning to me just as quickly, as though he had nothing more to say.
“I made it clear you were not to associate with other men.”
Perhaps because I harbored that perverse formula of excitement toward men who despised me, he seemed to have arrived at a grave misunderstanding.
“I thought you said it was fine as long as I didn’t sleep.”
“The regulations have changed.”
Whether due to some inappropriate noise drifting from somewhere or the peculiar atmosphere of the shadows, the ordinarily composed man wore an unmistakably displeased expression.
“Being strangled by another man is also forbidden. Rather, ask your official lover—me.”
He spoke like a stable psychopath burdened with an anxious lover.
“Ah, it wasn’t enjoyment—it was a dangerous situation.”
As the Admiral’s cold gaze fell upon me, Hugo, who had been silent, opened his mouth as if to explain the circumstances.
“Sir, Lady Octavia assaulted Count Hertan and forcibly extorted his assets.”
The Admiral, who had been casting subtle glances my way, questioned me.
“Are you in financial distress?”
Suddenly transformed into a subsistence-level robber, I nodded with a pitiful expression.
“I was so desperately hungry that I had no choice but to coerce the Count—who was harboring two clergy members from the Purge List in the monastery—into surrendering land with gold mines.”
The Admiral, wearing an expression of subtle bewilderment at just how hungry I must have been, shifted his stance and gazed upon the monastery building with his back to me.
As though recalling Count Hertan’s unpleasant proposition regarding the two clergy members, his head tilted slowly.
“Winterford Marquis.”
The Admiral, pointing toward the monastery entrance with his finger, added calmly.
“I intend to demolish the monastery in thirty seconds.”
He offered no explanation for his reasoning.
“Octavia, cover your ears.”
There was only instruction.
Boom—!
Moments later, the top of the bell tower erupted with the explosion.
The shockwave surged forward, tousling the Admiral’s black hair and the hem of his garments.
Beyond his broad shoulders, which blocked my view, small fragments of stone scattered in all directions.
Clutching his clothing, I merely peeked my head out to survey the situation.
“One.”
The Admiral’s fingertip had already come to point at the Monastery of Night’s structure.
“Two.”
At the Admiral’s cold count, Hugo—his expression utterly blank—issued orders to his terrified subordinates.
“Notify the people inside. If they don’t come out within thirty seconds, we’ll classify the cause of death as explosive decompression.”
Cowering behind the Admiral like a contemptible squirrel, I flashed Hugo a brilliant smile.
I’d simply given him justification because the Admiral looked ready to obliterate the monastery on the spot.
By his principles, he rarely involved himself in Kingdom affairs, but he applied the charge of ‘offending his sensibilities’ with meticulous rigor—such was his self-centered nature.
I merely exploited his capriciousness strategically.

***

I stood at a distance, watching the Monastery of Night consumed by flames.
For the sin of offending the Admiral’s temperament, the Monastery of Night had ultimately exploded.
Yet only the location had vanished; they would undoubtedly relocate and resume operations clandestinely elsewhere.
Even if the greatest Emperor himself came and issued a prohibition, human desire multiplied like mold in a cellar.
Moreover, due to the Winterford Marquis Family’s monopoly on their special alloy, anything beyond a warning was likely impossible.
‘The exclusive holder of the special alloy is the second most powerful figure after the Royal Family.’
Without raw materials, weapons and arms could not be manufactured.
To Octavia, lost in contemplation, the Admiral spoke, his silhouette backlit by flames that soared as if to pierce the starlit sky.
“I’ve never been on a date, but I can confidently say this was the worst date in history.”
The unwholesome venue selection, forced self-harm summoning instead of a planned meeting, livelihood-driven robbery, and the monastery explosion spectacle amounted to nothing less than villainous terror plotting, no matter how charitably one viewed it.
Octavia asked with a graceful eye-smile.
“Did you enjoy it?”
The Admiral regarded Octavia with an impassive gaze.
Boom—!
Startled by the sound of an orc wine barrel that had flown this far bursting, she clung to him.
The Admiral, realizing he had already wrapped one arm around her, exhaled a sigh.
“But how exactly did you demolish the monastery? Mana fusion? Or something on the level of aerial bomb firepower…?”
Octavia’s curiosity ignited; she turned her body to observe the inferno that had swallowed the monastery whole, turning her back to the Admiral.
The Admiral, suppressing an unexpected contact and a reaction that betrayed his intentions, narrowed his eyes slightly.
At the sensation of something firm against her lower back, Octavia’s body trembled with a start.
“Oh.”
She quickly withdrew her hips, her face flushed with embarrassment.
“I thought it was a gun.”
The Admiral swept back his jet-black hair, his lips tightening.
‘A strange human.’
To put it bluntly, she was a disaster—a variable.
His gaze followed the glimmering golden radiance.
Beneath the smooth silk sleeves flowing along her elegant shoulders as she turned, a faint apostolic aura gathered around her violet bracelet.
This was the reason the Admiral was certain he had incurred a responsibility toward her.
This was a light visible only to those blessed by the Royal Family and the Apostles—those possessing saint-tier abilities—and Octavia seemed unaware of it.
‘How did she take it? She hasn’t even become a subordinate.’
It wasn’t much power, but it was remarkable that a normal human body hadn’t perished from it.
“By the way.”
She, standing at a slight distance and turned away, opened her mouth.
“Someone of high standing apparently prevented the young priests from being executed. Do you know who?”
Her voice carried a certain conviction.
“I did it.”
He confessed it like an admission.
He was reluctant to acknowledge his good deed before Octavia, but knowing her cunning nature, she would dig out the truth with relentless effort anyway, so he decided to tell her what really happened.
“I’m not exactly participating in your lawless scheme. I simply dislike seeing children die.”
At this, her shoulders trembled slightly and a shallow laugh escaped her.
“You saw everything when the Saint ran away back then, yet you pretended not to notice. That makes you an accomplice.”
Her voice had become slightly gentler.
“The principle is to refrain from interference and respect the Kingdom’s autonomy.”
Yet here he stood—the man who had severed an Empire marquis’s arm and obliterated a monastery—saying such things.
“How wise. You don’t have to fulfill the duties of the strong, and selective inaction becomes possible.”
“Are you accusing me of hypocrisy?”
“Quite the opposite. It means you don’t act unless you truly mean it.”
At this, the Admiral posed a question that even he himself thought unnecessary.
“Why do you save others?”
“Because they have utility. I keep them alive for that reason.”
Octavia turned back, offering her usual gentle smile.
“And just to be clear—don’t like me.”
He couldn’t understand why she suddenly said such a thing.
“If the moment ever comes when you want to say you like me, then do it as a parting gift when I die.”
It sounded like a jest, but her enigmatic violet eyes—neither cold nor warm—seemed to speak the truth.
The Admiral’s slack lips pressed into a thin line.
The moment he heard her words, an inexplicable dissonance settled over him.
To him, Octavia was no different from any other inorganic human—merely an instrument.
Whether she lived or died, she was simply part of the world’s circulation, following its order.
It was in that moment of contemplation.
Crack—
Like a lantern show of the dying, a single scene flashed rapidly before his eyes.
His own silhouette, quietly gazing at someone hung in the square after the execution.
The way it swayed helplessly resembled white cloth hung out to dry in the sunlight.
A familiar shoulder line, a familiar build, one remaining arm.
A pale hand he had never properly grasped, yet whose owner he could unmistakably identify.
A purple bracelet wound around the slender wrist glimmered, reflecting the sunlight.
‘Octavia.’
The Admiral, realizing whose body he was inhabiting, squeezed his eyes shut as a wave of nausea washed over him.
For a phantom that flickered into existence and vanished in an instant, it had been far too cruel and vivid.
Whether it was a tragic vision conjured by some other personality obsessed with this woman, or one of those occasional messages from the Apostle, he couldn’t say.
Since foresight and prophecy were concepts that defied the natural order of causality, it couldn’t be a revelation of the future.
“Shall we try again properly?”
Octavia’s calm voice pulled him back from the depths of his reverie.
With a rosy flush blooming across her cheeks, she faced him directly with a smile.
“You’re disappointed because our first date wasn’t very good, aren’t you? I forgot that you’re such a romantic who values first experiences, Admiral.”
He confirmed once more that her hair and arms were fully intact, then exhaled deeply.
“I’m going home.”
“Home? Isn’t that what adults do on dates after they’ve tried everything?”
“No, I need to feed the dog.”
“The dog… you actually have one?”
He gazed quietly at Octavia’s rosy cheeks.
His thoughts had shifted.
Her death would bother him somewhat, he realized.
He felt as though he had stepped into another world. This change of heart, unmistakably his own, felt disturbingly unfamiliar.

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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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