For the Young Villain’s Happy Ending - Chapter 112

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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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Chapter 112

【Betuzhenia’s Garden】

“I didn’t see the memory of you rejecting me, but I did see the memory you were muttering about.”

The shock of being caught drained the color from my mind, but I quickly turned my head left and right. Zikhard remained motionless. Kevenriak slept on.
Yet unease gnawed at me. What if he was merely pretending to sleep?
I hastily grasped Kevenriak’s hand. He didn’t stir, but that offered no reassurance. I brought my forehead close to his, gazing at his closed eyes from a distance where our noses nearly touched.
Thump, thump. My heart raced with anxiety. If my secret were to be exposed to him, it could not be now.
Our relationship was still too unstable.

“What are you doing, descendant? No matter how fond you are of your companion, such displays of affection are—”
“Be quiet.”

The Dragon cleared his throat awkwardly. These young ones were bold indeed.
I observed Kevenriak carefully. His breathing remained unchanged. His cheeks didn’t flush, nor did his long lashes tremble. His crimson lips were—I hastily lifted my gaze upward. The distance between us was too close.
In any case, Kevenriak was certainly still asleep.
I withdrew my forehead and turned to face the Dragon. Though I appeared composed, my heartbeat thundered in my ears for an entirely different reason than before.

“Ahem, well. My words are not yet finished.”

The Dragon, who had taken on the form of a boy once more, began laying out the memories he had stolen, one by one.

“The body you entered is the Female Protagonist.”
“….”
“The body you seek should have been dead—an extra.”
“….”
“And that one over there is—”

The Dragon gazed at my hardened expression and smirked.

“How is it, descendant? Are you now inclined to grant my request?”

The mana seeping into the cave walls brightened and dimmed in succession. Though Vivian’s body could not sense magical power, I could perceive it.
The Dragon was drawing mana together now, pressing down upon me with its density. Had Vivian been a Mage, she might have collapsed to her knees, gasping for breath beneath such oppressive power.

“If you refuse my request, what do you think I’ll tell your companion, Kevenriak?”

The light on the wall flickered faster. The wind sweeping through the cave produced an eerie sound.
It was a petty threat made with memories stolen without permission. Raina tightened her grip on the dagger in her hand, but there was nothing else she could do.
With Vivian’s body devoid of magical power, she couldn’t defeat a thought-form entity…

Whoosh—
That was when vines erupted from the ground. They coiled around the Dragon’s body in an instant, binding it so tightly it had no chance to escape.

“…!”

The Dragon, silenced by magic, gasped with its mouth agape.
This was…

“Raina.”

Kevenriak’s hand, which Raina had been holding, grasped hers in return. Perhaps the dense mana caused by the Dragon had awakened him. Kevenriak slowly rose to his feet and called out to Raina.
I worried whether the Dragon’s words might have reached his ears. But Kevenriak’s steady, unwavering voice that followed reassured me.

“Is this your enemy?”
“…Yes.”

Raina nodded.
A glimmer of something flickered in the blue eyes of the 7th Circle mage, and the orange eyes of the prey were stained with horror.
In theory, a 7th Circle mage was stronger than a thought-form entity.

***

A thought-form entity.
A mass of lingering will left behind by a Dragon who had reached the pinnacle of magic—the 9th Circle—before death, squeezing out its own mana.
In human terms, it was similar to a vengeful spirit unable to rest. A thought-form entity aimed to fulfill the lingering will left by its original body, maintaining its form solely for that purpose until its mana was exhausted. Because it lacked a mana heart, a thought-form entity could only use a handful of spells it had frequently employed in life.

“The highest-ranking mages can interfere with others’ mana. That makes them natural predators to thought-form entities that maintain their shape through mana.”
“….”
“So don’t say anything foolish from now on.”

Raina was having a serious conversation with the Dragon inside the chamber of vines that Kevenriak had created.

“If you don’t want to dissipate without fulfilling your lingering will.”

In one hand, she held a cat-summoning bell.
The ominous implication was clear: if you reveal my secret, you die with me.

“Ha!”

The Dragon, bound by vines, let out a laugh of exasperation, but that was all. The seventh-circle Emperor had personally experienced just how well the woman sitting across from him followed orders.

‘He’s definitely gotten smaller.’

Raina Hart observed the Dragon’s appearance intently.
The form that had seemed like a boy in his teens now appeared to be around eight years old. When he mentioned something about hobbies, he’d said it had been one thousand three hundred and seven years. It seemed his mana had depleted to the point where maintaining a mature form was difficult.
In any case, he was a thought-form entity. One bound to this space.

‘If I ask Keri to cast Silence on the Dragon, then we can just take the mana stones and leave…’
“Descendant.”

The Dragon muttered in a melancholic tone.
Raina Hart, suddenly concerned, glanced around her surroundings.
A nest-like space made of vines. Since she’d asked Kevenriak Heteroven to cast a Silence spell, no sound could escape, and no lip movements would be visible.

“Look, I understand you’re shocked, but—”
“Shocked? Why would I be?”
“Well…”

Wasn’t it obvious?
Now that you know this place is Betuzhenia’s Garden. But the Dragon spoke as if he didn’t care at all.

“Do I seem like the sort of being who would be swayed by your memories? I am certain that I am a being of a world beyond text. How certain are you of your own memories?”

A dignity different from before, a noble pride gleaming through. Raina Hart met the Dragon’s amber eyes, which seemed to pierce right through her, and closed her mouth.

‘How certain am I of my own memories?’

One side of her head throbbed. It was a bearable headache, but it felt as though there was something she didn’t know.
It was the Dragon who lowered his head first. As if resigned, he drooped his head and sighed heavily, again and again.

“Sigh… this ungrateful creature will never fulfill my wish. I promised to awaken a dear friend sleeping in Rare a thousand years later… but three hundred and seven years have already passed…”
“Wait.”

Raina Hart, listening to the despondent Dragon’s words, spoke to him.

“Wake up a sleeping Dragon?”
“Yes. That creature is a heavy sleeper, so I’ll need to coax it out gently.”
“…Is Rare perhaps Underground?”

The Dragon nodded. Raina Hart opened her mouth with a bewildered expression. As the saying goes, physicians cannot heal their own ailments.

“It seems I couldn’t find a single memory related to you among all my countless recollections.”

***

A moment earlier. It was when Kevenriak’s memories had been scrambled and he collapsed before the Dragon.
Just moments before, he had been grasping Raina Hart’s shoulder, discussing how dense the mana was.

“My sister danced beautifully.”

For some reason, Kevenriak had returned to a point when he was seven years old. Memories from those distant days, hazy and faint.
The young Fourth Prince, whom no one in the Imperial Palace paid attention to, was hiding in a tree that day, observing the people around him.
Those he saw that day were Simona Asperada, who had become a Duchess that year, and seven-year-old Vivian Asperada. They had come to greet the Empress as the new Duchess.
After that, perhaps with time to spare, Simona Asperada seated herself beside Vivian Asperada on an outdoor bench near the Fourth Prince’s Residence.

“But selfish ones broke her wings and she fell. Like the butterfly you love, Vivian.”
“Gasp.”
“Isn’t it terrible?”

Simona Asperada smiled gently at the shocked Vivian Asperada and continued speaking. Kevenriak listened to her words.

“So I wanted to show them how terrible that was. Everything unfolded according to plan. But I returned to the starting point, leaving the final plan behind. Right after my sister’s wings were broken.”
“Why? If you go back before they break, she can still fly.”

Simona Asperada’s hand stroked Vivian Asperada’s head.

“God made it so. But fortunately, just as you remain unchanged, that child will also remain unchanged. Those who broke her wings will be devoured by that child.”

Simona Asperada lifted her head. For a moment, as if she could see me, Kevenriak also gazed at her sharply. Simona Asperada whispered to me hidden within the leaves.

“Like a monster.”

With those words, the world around me shifted. Kevenriak’s past memories dragged him into a nightmare.
Light pierced through the horror intermittently, illuminating him. As he retreated further, a brilliance far surpassing any nightmare lingered long in his dark world before fading away. Kevenriak gazed upon that light and thought.

‘Raina Hart.’

I must return to her. The moment that realization struck, the swamp pulling me down became solid ground. A thick concentration of mana assaulted my senses.

“If you don’t grant my request, what do you think I’ll tell your companion, Kevenriak?”

The voice reached her before she even opened her eyes. Something unsettling in it felt like a threat to Raina Hart, so she attacked immediately.
But the Dragon’s words wouldn’t leave her ears.
Your companion, your companion….
Kevenriak buried his face in his hands. He couldn’t even begin to fathom what conversation Raina Hart and the Dragon had shared.

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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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