Disqualified as a Villainess - Chapter 81
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————
#81.
“Ha, I have no idea what those things are, but if you fire from that angle, you’ll….”
Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat!
“Aaaahhhhh!”
Seeing hundreds of mana bullets streaking through the air from the drone’s simultaneous barrage, Ethan and the members scattered in panic.
They had no knowledge of drones whatsoever, and the greatest problem was that none of them possessed defensive abilities capable of stopping this onslaught.
Meanwhile, Octavia stood unscathed at the firing position.
“Did I appear to you as a weak human incapable of protecting herself?”
The mana bullets embedded in the tree behind her formed the silhouette of a human figure.
“It’s equipped with extremely precise targeting technology. Since there’s no signal jamming here, friend-or-foe identification through multi-spectrum sensors and encrypted code exchange….”
Rat-a-tat-tat! Rat-a-tat!
“A malevolent spirit commanding demonic birds with strange incantations!”
“Chaos Entity manipulation? I knew it!”
The buzzing drones pursued the fleeing members, unleashing a barrage of mana bullets.
After they vanished from sight, I rested my hand against my cheek and exhaled deeply.
“That would have been an excellent opportunity to collect combat data against humans, but they ran away.”
If I’d issued a lethal command, I would have killed them long ago. Or rather, I wouldn’t have minded killing them even without such orders.
I simply preferred to refrain from unnecessary murders when possible.
‘If I get wrongly implicated in a murder charge, I’ll be executed.’
And there are quite a few people eyeing me for exactly that purpose!
If each person had a fate architect, I’d file a lengthy complaint.
I surveyed the mountainous terrain surrounding me.
“Those fools didn’t intend to kill me, it seems. The Chaos Entities also appear concentrated toward Central Authority.”
If that weren’t the case, the Admiral would have been automatically summoned.
Shading my eyes with my hand, I gazed far beyond the distant mountains and my eyes widened.
Flames were soaring up from the Great Forest toward Central Authority.
“It appears a flame user trapped in an ice age hallucination started a fire.”
The autumn weather was dry and the forests were vulnerable to wildfires. If the connected woodlands spanning the entire region burned, it would become difficult to gather potion materials and food supplies.
‘With combat ongoing and most people trapped in hallucinations, they likely won’t have the capacity to extinguish the flames… I suppose I have no choice.’
After deliberating, I picked up the controller and input commands to the drones. Light flickered across the mana stone bracelet before fading.
‘So this is how I end up using the fire suppression function I installed just in case flame users tried to assassinate me.’
I’d accumulated so much resentment that my worries were endless.
“Who’s there?”
I quickly turned to survey my surroundings.
I’d sensed something suspicious nearby.
“Hello?”
The voice offering a light greeting somehow felt familiar.
The dry fallen leaves scattered across the ground rippled, and something sticky and pitch-black rose up from beneath.
Soon multiple eyes opened from the black body and blinked.
It was the Chaos Commander I had seen before.
“Octavia, we finally meet again.”
It was the voice of the handsome Priest trapped in May’s Secret Harem, the one wearing a sheep’s head—Ginesa Royal.
Did those people use summoning magic for communication as well?
Being in the Chaos Realm must have allowed them to send a Chaos Commander.
“Why haven’t you come to find me? Did you just use me and throw me away?”
The voice was captivating and flirtatious, but hearing it from that grotesque form stirred nothing within me.
“Well, I’m simply not attracted to promiscuous men.”
“I’m not promiscuous. I’m just experienced and highly skilled.”
“That’s the same thing. Why did you come to find me?”
“To help you, just like last time. Do you have any idea how much I suffered using consciousness transfer while in this broken state?”
The crudely formed Chaos Commander wavered and trembled.
“And your Father and Older Brothers are weeping at the Barrier. They’ve been standing there all day, calling your name. Being rational Mage Engineers, their minds seem to have accepted that you’re dead, but their hearts refuse to let go.”
“Father and my Older Brothers… at the Barrier?”
I felt a sharp pang in my chest and lowered my head.
‘I want to tell them I’m alive.’
I had sent various signals beyond the Barrier, but received no response.
When I circled along the opaque Barrier wall and saw no one, it became clear this space could not interact with the outside world.
“Regardless, you said you’d help? Do you know how to close or eliminate the Domain Erosion Gate?”
“If you find the chaotic medium that forms the foundation of the domain…”
It seemed like something important was about to be revealed.
Suddenly the voice cut off, and the Chaos Commander’s form scattered like a wave that had briefly crested, vanishing in an instant.
A chill ran down my spine, and I spun around.
Thud, thud.
With each step, an overwhelming pressure and dread washed over me.
“Who were you just speaking with?”
The tall man walking toward me, dragging a limp body in one hand, was Kelsedny Admiral.
Blood-stained crimson streaks splattered across his black leather holster and his cold face.
Thud.
The man thrown like an object was the member who had installed the warp in the Warehouse—already dead.
“A Chaos Commander appeared and spoke to me.”
I didn’t know how much he’d heard, but he seemed to have already guessed my identity, so I decided to be honest.
“From now on, you must speak only the truth.”
The moment I heard his emotionless voice, I felt my breath catch as if my throat were being strangled.
‘Has that man been suppressing his aura in front of me all this time?’
Women who approached him for his handsome face but retreated with pale expressions; Lower-Ranked Members who fled on their backsides.
It seemed I had never seen him interact casually with ordinary people.
Now I understood why people stared at me like I was some kind of mutant for approaching Kelsedny Admiral so naturally.
“Did you meet with someone beyond the Chaos Commander?”
Each word of his interrogation was chilling.
Because her words carried dominion, her lips moved of their own accord.
“I went to the Underground Detention Facility before and met Ginesa Royal, who was held captive there.”
He drew closer and seized her chin, tilting it upward.
His touch was cold, devoid of tenderness or consideration.
“You mentioned help—did you borrow power from the Betrayer Apostle?”
It appeared she had slipped away covertly using Warp, making contact with the Chaos Forces.
“Or did you forge a dominion contract with the descendant of an Apostle taken prisoner?”
Octavia shook her head frantically.
“No.”
“If everything—reducing me to this state, forcing me into entanglement with you, and leading me into this calamity—was all the result of conspiring with the Chaos Forces.”
He paused, twisting his lips before adding coldly:
“…As I said before, you won’t have an easy death.”
Each time his gaze—laden with betrayal and disappointment—fell upon her, her chest ached.
From his perspective, such thoughts were justified.
An incompetent villainess who once wreaked havoc had suddenly become capable and begun to flourish—he would have already learned this through his intelligence network.
After meeting her, his personality had fractured abruptly; he was bound by a strange law that compelled him to keep her alive; and he had even shared a fragment of Apostolic power with her.
Ultimately, with his Core damaged, he had chosen to remain at a massive Chaos Gate.
To any observer, it appeared that an incompetent woman had sought the Chaos Forces’ aid to gain power, and this was now connected to schemes to exploit or kill him.
His hand, gripping her wrist as she faltered and tried to retreat, trembled faintly with rage.
He was barely restraining himself from breaking her bones.
Octavia saw genuine anger on his face for the first time.
Yet true to his Royal bloodline, his emotional turbulence remained restrained in all things.
She felt fear.
‘In the end, only the method differs—am I destined to die because of this man?’
Yet there was something she feared even more than that.
“Why do you keep seeking me out? Is there no one else to talk to?”
Upon reflection, the Admiral was someone I could speak to honestly and openly—someone who deserved to be despised.
Octavia barely parted her lips beneath the crushing weight that pressed down upon her entire body.
“I sought out the imprisoned Royal Family member to find a way to resolve Prince Jeriel’s shadow possession. I had to save him by any means. The Admiral simply appeared suddenly, offering to help me resolve the Gate.”
But since Keldi had cast soul dominion over him, that man would be able to discern whether her words were truth or falsehood.
“I…”
Even in her rage, Octavia placed her hand over his—the hand that controlled its strength with such precision.
“Without the Admiral, I die. Please believe me.”
At the desperation in her voice, his eerie gaze softened ever so slightly.
He released the wrist he had been gripping as though he might shatter it.
“What is the reason?”
“It’s like a death curse. A geis has been placed on me, so I cannot speak of it in detail.”
The Admiral wiped his face as though washing it dry and exhaled a sigh.
Lost in thought with his lips drawn tight, he suddenly posed an unrelated question.
“When you said you would not wish me dead even if you could—was that sincere?”
“Yes.”
At her calm reply, all expression drained from the Admiral’s face.
The anger, the sense of betrayal, the complex emotions that should never exist within the Royal Family—all of it was erased.
“I understand.”
With that emotionless response, he asked nothing further.
He neither doubted nor objected, turning away coldly instead.
Octavia stared blankly at his retreating figure.
Just as she had heard of Father and her Older Brothers waiting day and night before the Barrier, her heart felt constricted.
‘You said you disliked me too.’
Then why do you look at me with such eyes?
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————