Don’t Look for the Resurrected Villainess - Chapter 262

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Side Story Episode 6

“I will guide you.”

The guard who had been flustered and at a loss when facing me took the lead himself.

As I followed without refusing his kindness, I suddenly realized this scenery felt familiar.

All prisons might look similar, but the fact that this one felt particularly familiar meant…

“Ah.”

“Yes?”

“No, it’s nothing.”

I smiled calmly and shook my head, and the guard who had been looking at me puzzled resumed walking. I looked at the guard’s back walking ahead and expressionlessly erased my smile.

Of course it would be familiar. This was the very prison where I had been confined.

‘My parents are imprisoned here?’

I wasn’t sure if this was Heinrih’s intentional instruction. Or perhaps this prison was simply a place for confining criminals of noble birth, making this situation a mere coincidence.

Either way, it felt strangely poignant. It wasn’t that I particularly wanted them to experience everything I had gone through…

But isn’t it true that you can only understand how something feels by experiencing that situation yourself?

“Here it is.”

While I was lost in thought, the guard had brought me to the prison door. When he opened the outer door of the double-locked entrance, I could see the tightly secured iron bars locked from the inside.

The guard who opened the door lit a lantern fixed to the wall. The pitch-black interior of the prison became dimly illuminated.

“The prison has nullification magic cast on it, and the criminals are shackled so they cannot approach the bars. They are in separate cells, with soundproofing magic between them to prevent the criminals from communicating with each other. You can speak with them individually.”

Listening to the guard’s explanation, I stared inside the iron bars. The person sitting inside had not yet noticed my presence and was sitting on a chair facing the wall.

The glimpse of his frail back and worn, tattered clothing revealed how much hardship he was enduring in prison.

“I will wait outside. Please call me whenever you need anything, Reviver.”

The person who had shown no reaction until now flinched at the guard’s last words. Then he slowly turned around.

Unkempt beard and roughly cut hair. He was so thin that his prison uniform hung loose on him—it was my father.

A man who was once called the Duke of Roam, but now was just sitting in prison, spending indefinite years.

The last head of a ruined noble house.

“…Anelli.”

My father stared at me intently. I thought he might immediately hurl curses at me, but surprisingly, he just quietly looked at me.

I looked back at him the same way. After a long silence, my father finally stood up.

He had been a man of good build and impressive stature. I heard that in his youth, he had made countless young ladies weep. But the father standing before me now was closer to a gaunt, exhausted old man.

His wrinkled face was filled only with fatigue, and his eyes had darkened, showing none of his former vigor.

The Duke of Roam who had once thrived more than anyone at the king’s side was no more.

“You look healthy.”

Coincidentally, my father’s greeting was the same words he had said when we met at the banquet hall. Though the situation was completely different now.

“You don’t look healthy, Father.”

“You call me Father.”

“…I know where the blood flowing in my body originated from. Regardless of how unwelcome it is.”

My father smiled bitterly at my answer.

“I see.”

Again, for a long while, my father said nothing. I could see no hatred or resentment in my father as he quietly looked at me.

That was unexpected. He had lived his entire life as the head of Roam and fallen in an instant, and even though that downfall was entirely brought about by his own daughter’s hands, could he really show no emotion like that?

Or had he given up? Since he couldn’t escape this situation anyway, and couldn’t regain his former glory?

“What brings you here?”

My father’s calm question left me speechless instead. What brings me here, indeed.

Honestly, I hadn’t come with any particular intention. I had simply come out of curiosity after overhearing a conversation between guards by chance. I had no specific goal I wanted to achieve.

Did I expect my father to mock me, saying I had gotten my sweet revenge?

I moved my lips slightly and lowered my gaze.

“Just because.”

The answer came out rather coldly.

It was something I had blurted out because nothing came to mind, but after saying it, I thought there couldn’t be a more appropriate answer.

So I raised my eyes to meet my father’s gaze.

“Just out of curiosity.”

When I was confined in this place, I was in quite a miserable state. My family never came to see me, and I trembled day by day at the punishment that might come at any moment.

Even those emotions dulled as time passed, and later I just prayed for this hellish time to end.

Perhaps that’s why I was curious whether my father’s calm face was the same as mine back then. Had my father also resigned himself to everything and was hoping for it all to end as soon as possible?

“How do you feel?”

My father’s expression, which had been calm throughout, wavered for the first time. He seemed to think there was some intention behind my question, narrowing his eyes and falling silent.

That was like a lifelong habit of my father, who had lived as a high-ranking noble. An almost instinctive habit of trying to understand the other person’s intentions and somehow lead the conversation in a favorable direction.

But my father’s analysis would be useless. Because this question was literally just what it was.

“Do you still believe there’s hope?”

“That’s not something you should say, having torn Roam to pieces.”

“Why do you say I did that?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. It was because I glimpsed the lingering attachment my father hadn’t completely shaken off, even while trying to stand there calmly.

“That just happened to be how things turned out.”

I looked at my father with a smile.

“You said anyone who deceives Roam would pay the price.”

On the day we met again, my father had said that to me on the balcony. I agree with those words.

Anyone who deceives Roam will pay the price.

“That’s why it turned out this way.”

I took a step closer to the bars and leaned forward slightly. As the distance closed, my voice became lower and more intimate.

“I’m also a Roam, after all.”

Even if I reject that name, I probably can’t completely cast off all the teachings of Roam that are carved into my bones.

Perhaps for my entire life until the day I die, everything I learned from Roam will influence my life in some way.

“From the beginning, it was a fight between Roam and Roam, and Roam was defeated but also victorious. What’s the problem?”

“The family was destroyed and everything was confiscated. Do you call this Roam’s victory?”

“Oh my. Father.”

The anger that finally appeared on my father’s face was somewhat welcome.

He had always stood back as if he were innocent in all this, as if he had made unavoidable sacrifices as the family head. Now he stood at the center of all defeat.

I felt like I was finally getting a glimpse of my father’s true face.

“Deciding what to do with the spoils of war is the victor’s right. Having won, I simply erased the name Roam and left only the victor’s name. All of Roam except me…”

The words that had been flowing smoothly gradually faded. Unable to finish my sentence, I pressed my lips together and straightened my body that had been leaning forward.

“Everyone was defeated.”

The spark that had briefly blazed in my father’s eyes gradually died out. My father, who had been blinking slowly, let out a long sigh and lowered his gaze.

His face became calm again.

“At least you don’t seem to be tortured. If you just don’t skip the meals they provide, you should be able to endure well. I used to live here before, and if you somehow force food into your mouth, you can sustain your life.”

Instead of answering, my father turned around. He was trying to return to where he had been sitting originally.

But my father, who had been moving away as if to end our conversation, suddenly stopped. He still had his back turned to me.

“Anelli Roam.”

My father called my name in a low, metallic voice and paused for a moment. Then he spoke in a gloomy tone.

“You’ve been through a lot.”

As if he didn’t particularly want to hear my answer, he sat in the chair with his back to me and stared at the wall. He looked like a withered tree.

I watched my father’s back for a long time before turning my steps toward the inner prison.

‘…You’ve been through a lot.’

Those were words I was hearing from my father for the first time. They sounded like congratulations for my victory, and also like acknowledgment of my miserable past.

But either way, they were words that were too late, words that would change nothing now.

* * *

My mother’s prison was not far from my father’s prison. At most, I could reach it by passing two empty cells.

But according to the guard, there was soundproofing magic between them, so it would probably feel no different from being confined alone.

And confining someone alone in a dark, wretched prison was a way to drive a person’s mind to its limits.

“Mother.”

Unlike my father who had been awake, my mother was asleep with a blanket pulled over her.

Her curled-up body didn’t seem like it would wake with just one call. I called out to Mother again, this time with a louder voice than before.

“Mother.”

This time the blanket stirred. The blanket that had been covering her up to her head shifted, and soon a human head emerged. Disheveled hair hung down long, covering her face.

Mother sat up while wrapping the blanket around her shoulders, looking around. Then she finally spotted me standing outside the iron bars and froze.

Mother, who had been sitting awkwardly on the bed in a daze, shrank her shoulders and pulled her body back.

“Another nightmare like this…!”

Her quiet muttering was filled with terror. I watched Mother with subtle eyes and moved a little closer to the iron bars.

“Were dreams with me in them always nightmares for you?”

At those words, Mother’s trembling body suddenly stopped.

“…Anelli?”

I could feel her eyes gleaming between strands of hair as they looked me over. Finding the hair that blocked her vision bothersome, Mother raised her hand and carelessly swept back her long hair.

Then Mother’s face was completely revealed.

It was a haggard and gaunt face, so much so that it was hard to believe this was the same Mother who had always looked down on everyone with such nobility.

With prominent cheekbones and sunken eye sockets, not a trace of the past could be found.

“You…”

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