Disqualified as a Villainess - Chapter 70

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

#70.

The Fifth Interrogation
The Fifth Sin

After informing the Prince of the truth, I had returned to the Northern Squadron Quarters where I was stationed.

“You handed the sarcophagus over to Octavia?”
“The Ludovisi Family decided to investigate it and dispose of it safely afterward. Is something wrong with that?”

I learned through the Bank President that Octavia had obtained the sarcophagus.
The information that those sarcophagi had been moved toward the Border Precinct Area was equally troubling.
‘The Mayor fell for Octavia’s serpentine tongue.’
Now that matters had come to this, I had to stop it by any means necessary.
The moment I arrived at the Quarters where the members were staying, I discovered a room in complete disarray and senior members sprawled about, drowning themselves in alcohol.
Ethan, who had received hard labor for embezzling supplies yet remained idle and refused to leave, lay unconscious on the ground.
“What is this right now… What about the Border Precinct patrol duty?”
The Third-Class Ability User hiccupped as he rose at the sight of me, his expression sheepish.
“We finished our shift, and, hic, we’re resting now. The newly recruited junior members are on duty. It’s only a lower-tier Heart Gate, so please don’t worry too much. Hehe.”
Their work was a manageable difficulty, one dominated by waiting.
In such circumstances, the rank disparity between existing and new personnel became a plague.
Ultimately, they had dumped everything onto the newly arrived lowest-ranking members in accordance with the chain of command.
People possessed far less sense of responsibility for their duties than one might expect.
Even less so in freedom without violence or coercion.
It was revolting.
I suppressed the bile rising in my throat and opened my mouth.
“There’s something important that needs to be done.”
“Pardon? We finished all today’s missions….”
My eyes, which had always carried an image of mercy and goodness, turned cold in an instant.
“I’m issuing this order on behalf of Prince Dominic. Disobedience will result in punishment.”
Startled by my changed tone, they scrambled to their feet.
“There are sarcophagi sealing demons in five districts. Go immediately to the remaining Border Precinct Areas excluding the North and retrieve the sarcophagi.”
At this, Ethan, who had been snoring in sleep, stirred and groaned in irritation.
“Hey! Can’t you see the shift’s over? What time is it now!”
“Rest time was granted as a courtesy given the absence of unusual circumstances—it was never given as an inherent right.”
“Acting high and mighty with that armband… I’m not going. Do whatever you want.”
Seeing Ethan’s brazen defiance, the other members exchanged nervous glances.
I felt a deep fury boiling up again and clenched my teeth.
It was abhorrent. Despite providing them with livelihood through the lowest-tier magic stones, despite giving them the chance to join the Holy Knight Order and live with dignity, despite covering up their crimes and allowing them to participate in missions to pave their path to redemption.
Is it truly impossible for someone born fundamentally flawed to accomplish anything?
‘It would be better if useless people simply ceased to exist.’
Chloe swallowed her contempt and turned to regard the remaining team members.
“As I mentioned earlier, locate and retrieve the sarcophagus.”
With Ethan excluded from the assignment, a flicker of discontent crossed the others’ faces, yet they ultimately followed her orders and headed toward a different precinct area.

***

When Chloe arrived at the Northern Sector Barracks, she discovered Octavia seated at an outdoor makeshift table, sipping tea with elegant composure.
‘I thought she would be confined to the Temporary Detention Facility?’
Beneath the gaslight that illuminated the dim barracks, her face wore an infuriatingly serene expression.
“As long as I hold administrative authority over this place, one-sided assertions carry no weight.”
Octavia spoke as though she had read Chloe’s very thoughts.
Prince Dominic had ultimately been unable to imprison Octavia.
To do so would have required apprehending everyone who knew of the sarcophagi’s distribution across each sector while turning a blind eye—the Saint Man who accompanied them, Duke Logan Ortega and Holy Knight Commander Ewain who executed the plan directly, and Julia, the commanding officer of the Prince’s Unit.
Chloe narrowed her eyes and approached her.
“Why do you conspire with the Chaos Forces to bring calamity upon this land? You have people precious to you as well. Despite having a family that grants your every wish….”
A sense of injustice welled up, constricting her throat.
Octavia sighed upon seeing Chloe paint her entirely as a villain.
“On what grounds do you make such an accusation? The sarcophagi were positioned as conduits to prevent the very calamity you speak of.”
“Don’t lie. You’re sacrificing people to obtain greater power, aren’t you?”
“Do you genuinely believe that, or do you simply wish to believe it?”
Octavia set down her teacup with a soft clink and lifted her gaze.
“Or perhaps you need a villain to prove that you are righteous and extraordinary.”
“Do you have any evidence that the sarcophagi serve to prevent calamity? If so, why didn’t you explain this sooner?”
At Chloe’s sharp question, Octavia slowly rose from her seat.
“You knew calamity would occur soon enough. Why didn’t you warn the people?”
“…What?”
“For similar reasons, wouldn’t you say? You’re merely a lowest-tier consecration mage clinging to possibility to barely maintain your position.”
Octavia delivered her cutting words with an expressionless, measured tone.
“You lack credibility compared to me. I ensured that myself.”
Chloe’s green eyes widened instantly, her pupils dilating.
She lunged forward and slammed Octavia against the Temporary Barracks wall.
“You ensured that yourself?”
“Placing you in the position of Saint and making you anxious. That was my creation.”
The beautiful, cunning demon smiled.
Even if Chloe awakened true power after the calamity as originally written, Octavia had ensured she would never believe it was truly her own.
Driving her into endless self-doubt.
“I applied enhancement techniques to your sacred artifact, temporarily amplifying your abilities. The results were quite successful.”
“Are you now confessing to committing an illegal act?”
Octavia leaned in close, her face mere inches from Chloe’s, and whispered in a low voice.
“You’re an accomplice too—you climbed to the position of Holy Priestess using that very technique.”
Chloe’s anger and momentum crumbled.
“That’s not possible.”
Her expression hollow, Chloe withdrew her hand from the wall and let her body sag weakly.
“Octavia, why do you hate me so much? Why do you try to erase my hope with such lies?”
Deep down, I already knew the answer.
That doll-like child I’d encountered by chance in my youth had looked at me with contempt the moment she saw me, calling me “filthy.”
There had never been any plausible reason to begin with.
“I don’t hate you. You haven’t done anything yet.”
The child I’d admired while despising shook her brilliant platinum blonde hair.
Then, caressing the contrasting dark locks, she whispered sweetly.
“When the day comes that I truly hate you, that’s when I’ll kill you.”
Chloe gripped the hand touching her hair with force. The hand she was touching for the first time was exactly as soft and supple as she’d imagined.
“You were an opponent I could never defeat.”
“Of course.”
She tilted her chin upward.
“I’m on an entirely different level.”
A transmigrator who had lived in a civilization of genuinely different dimensions and possessed knowledge of this world’s very script was practically a divine being.
Chloe stared at Octavia intently, bit her lip, then released it with a sigh.
“There’s no way an apostle dwells within you—you must be a demon of chaos.”
After reconciling the dissonance she’d felt all this time, Chloe concluded that this was a demon masquerading as Octavia.
‘From her perspective, that would make sense, wouldn’t it?’
Octavia nearly agreed.
A human who could destroy an entire nation with knowledge alone was essentially a grim reaper.
“If you were truly Octavia, you couldn’t have answered my question with something like ‘I don’t hate you.'”
Chloe’s green eyes shimmered with the faint light of the flames.
“To you, I was fundamentally an object of revulsion—someone whose very existence was repugnant.”
If she were truly Octavia, she couldn’t possibly have forgotten.

“Black hair? How disgusting. Why do you keep appearing before my eyes, being so bothersome?”

That single chance encounter hadn’t been the end of it.
After that day, young Chloe had gone to see her every single day, persistently. She’d deliberately tried to catch her attention.
Because she represented the ideal life I desired most.

“Ah, hello. I’m Chloe Arsenes of the Arses Baron Family.”
“The Arses Baron Family that wears rags without a single coin to their name? You dare speak to me, calling yourself nobility?”

I was certain that their mutual contempt had begun long ago.
Octavia had lost the Prince and descended into all manner of wickedness fueled by rage—precisely because her rival happened to be that irritating, filthy, lowborn creature.
Yet at some point, Octavia had ceased to insult Chloe in that manner. Gone was the gaze of disdain one might cast upon refuse.
She who once despised black hair now prattled endlessly about how the black-haired Admiral was her ideal type.
Octavia shrugged her shoulders, a faint smile playing at her lips.
“Lineage? I haven’t the faintest idea what you mean. All humans share the same fundamental nature.”
The current Octavia could never know the special memories of the past that belonged only to Chloe. Such details never appeared in the original work.
Even if I understood the reason behind her conflicted feelings—whether love-hate or corrupted admiration—nothing would change.
“The conclusion is simple: we are fated to be an antithesis that can never merge. Perhaps we shall eternally regard each other as evil.”
Beyond Octavia’s measured voice, a faint xylophone sound drifted from somewhere.
Ding-ding-ding.
The xylophone sound drew steadily closer, soon filling the entire space around us.
The relentless pounding was so piercing it sent shivers down my spine.
Octavia, gazing upward at the Dark Night Sky with Red Moon, murmured softly.
“Five Heart Gates have opened simultaneously.”
“All at once?”
Octavia, watching her grow ashen, posed the question.
“You already know, don’t you? When all five Heart Gates open, they summon a Chaos Gate capable of annihilating an entire nation.”
An unforeseen variable—one neither of us had anticipated—had emerged.
A deep rumble.
The earth trembled, and across the black sky, a circle of light began to etch itself into being.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————