For the Young Villain’s Happy Ending - Chapter 139

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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 139

A rebellion had erupted.
Tiernan Fargan. The Imperial Prince of the fallen Tunterra Empire had raised an army. Whether through years of meticulous preparation or sheer cunning, his forces proved formidable. They had seized the castles of Betuzhenia Empire’s lords, cutting off supply routes and reinforcements.
Yet the Betuzhenia Empire had anticipated the uprising. The Emperor’s forces, positioned strategically in advance, held the line against the rebels. Victory remained elusive for either side. Yesterday favored the rebellion; today the Emperor’s army gained ground. The endless warfare had reduced the lands of Betuzhenia to scorched earth.
Tiernan Fargan, the rebellion’s commander, was a Sword Master—a talent that emerged perhaps once or twice in a century. When he finally took the front lines himself, everything changed. Betuzhenia’s generals fell beneath his blade.

“I shall handle this personally.”

With no capable commanders remaining to lead the armies, Kin, the Emperor’s advisor, marched out herself to crush the rebellion. The rebel forces were swiftly suppressed under her command. Yet even as victory seemed assured, something felt wrong.

‘Where is Tiernan Fargan?’

He was nowhere to be found. A diversion tactic, then.
The moment clarity struck, Kin tore open a scroll. It was a teleportation scroll inscribed with the Imperial Palace’s coordinates.

“….”

The landscape before me shifted. For an instant, I thought I had torn a scroll to the wrong location.
The Imperial Palace lay in ruins as though a meteor had fallen. Scattered among the debris were the corpses of Imperial Knights and rebel soldiers alike.
This hellish vista… was this truly the Imperial Palace?

“Your Majesty!”

I ran.
Kevenriak was a sixth-circle Mage. With his contract to the Grimoire of Magic, one could say he approached seventh-circle mastery. He could not have lost. He simply could not have.
Then why….

“….”

The knight who had been frantically searching the palace grounds came to an abrupt halt. I stood motionless, gasping for breath as I gazed upon him lying among the rubble. If he still lived—if his breath had not ceased—his upper body should have stirred even slightly. But it did not. His eyelids were closed, his face paler than I had ever seen it.
Why… you.
The world seemed to twist and distort around me. My legs trembled. I took one step forward, then my strength abandoned me and I collapsed.

“…Your Majesty, Your Majesty!”

Perhaps he was mocking me. Outwardly, he seemed perfectly fine. The Knight rose low and rushed toward him as if about to topple forward. I tapped the Emperor’s shoulder and called to him. But there was no response. He wasn’t breathing. His heart wasn’t beating.
Like a dead man.
Like… the dead…

A sharp, piercing ringing tore through my eardrums.
Kin gasped heavily, suffering through hyperventilation for a long while. When my breathing finally steadied, I was lying on the ground, my face streaked with tears as I stared up at the sky.

“Are you alright?”

The moment Ando Hwa realized his voice in her ear was a hallucination, she sobbed uncontrollably.
What use was a transcendent who had lived through thousands of regressions? In a world where the future remained unknowable, I couldn’t even protect a single person.
I wanted to deny it until the end, but I had to accept it.

“Hwa, don’t cry… huh?”
“I’m finally repaying the debt of life I owed the Guild Master. Thank you for everything.”
“Ando Hwa, Hunter! A Dungeon Break is—!”

“Kin.”

I lost you.

During thousands of lives, I killed my emotions. That was the only way to remain unbroken by any death. Love was the first emotion I felt.

‘Ah, I love you.’

When I realized that feeling, I was terrified—yet simultaneously, I felt like someone wandering a desert who had finally obtained a single cup filled with water.
I held it close. When my thirst became unbearable, I would sometimes press my lips to its surface as I walked beside you.
Now you are no longer by my side, and my cup rolls empty across the ground. Its contents have spilled not into my mouth but across my skin.
The emptiness consuming my entire being was too agonizing to bear.

“Neat, isn’t it?”

The Grimoire of Magic discovered her collapsed form and flew to her side, speaking.
Tiernan Fargan, the sole survivor at the end, had severed Kevenriak’s neck with his blade. I had reattached the Emperor’s separated body.

“You were late.”

The Knight didn’t even bother refuting the Grimoire of Magic’s reproachful words. It was true. I failed to protect him.
Kin rose to her feet and asked the Grimoire of Magic in a hoarse voice.

“Where is Tiernan Fargan?”
“He left the Imperial Palace. He needed to report the victory.”
“…”
“Listen, you. Do you know of the dark magic called Life Transfer?”
“…Life Transfer?”
“Yes, it’s dark magic that can resurrect the dead.”

The Grimoire of Magic, now without a master, whispered to Kin.

“Go and bring me a Mage of the sixth circle or higher. I’ll handle the rest.”
“…And after you revive His Majesty?”
“What are you asking? We’ll dye the Continent in blood and screams. Just as the Emperor desires.”

Kin let out a soft laugh.

“It’s you who craves blood and screams.”

For three years, it was the Grimoire of Magic that had manipulated Kevenriak’s mind. It had been gnawing away at his soul—before he became a tyrant, and even before that. Since the day they first met.
Kin slashed at the Grimoire of Magic. Shrieking, it vanished as if teleporting away.

“Your Majesty, forgive my presumption.”

Kin carried the Emperor on her back and walked. His limp body was heavy enough, yet she felt no burden. Only sorrow that he lay so silent against her shoulders.

“What lies beyond Jenia?”
“Are you curious?”
“…Not particularly.”

If only I had taken you out of the Imperial Palace back then.

“I’m a monster.”
“A monster? Isn’t that a bit too small for a monster?”
“…”
“My apologies. You’re so cute I couldn’t help teasing, no, please continue. So what?”
“So I’m going to devour everyone in the Imperial Palace.”
“You speak of vengeance, yes? I understand. I’ll help you. I am your sword, after all.”

I should have told you firmly that what you said about being a monster was wrong.

“Fool.”

Ando Hwa carried the weight of profound regret.
I had climbed the mountain beyond the City Walls of Jenia. It was a cliff where sunlight streamed abundantly and the vista opened before me in splendor. There I buried the Emperor.
A desolate grave without a single tombstone. The Knight spoke to the burial mound.

“The view is beautiful, isn’t it? I’m not sure what Your Majesty would think, but I’ve grown weary of the Imperial Palace. No, let me correct that—I find it abhorrent.”

The Imperial Palace that confined you for a lifetime, and me, who could not free you from it.

“Ando Hwa, you can only live one life in my world. If the Reptilian God keeps interfering, the order becomes distorted.”

The words the Reptilian God had spoken to me echoed in my mind.

“…Rest for now.”

I needed to witness much more. Things I did not know, what lay ahead.
Throughout the Betuzhenia Empire, the banners of the Rebel Forces hung everywhere. Streets filled with celebrating rebels. The Emperor’s Knight walked through them.

“Wait, Tunchar is floating in the sky?! The Witch didn’t destroy the city after all?”
“Shh—! Your voice is too loud. A wandering musician told us. The Imperial Prince said he saw it himself.”
“….”

From the Rebel Forces’ conversation I happened to overhear, I determined my destination. The enormous chasm left behind where Tunchar had vanished.
Moving there, I witnessed it. Vivian Asperada being lifted into the air, her neck strangled by something black and viscous, and….

“Mother… please, stop.”

Simona Asperada. And Tiernan Fargan, who lay fallen as though defeated while protecting his beloved.

“Raphael is… crying….”

Vivian, her neck strangled by shadow, gasped out the words. At her daughter’s tearful plea, Simona sighed and spoke.

“Forgive me, Vivian. I didn’t know you would discover the Dragon Lair. What a pity. If only you and Tiernan hadn’t tried to awaken the Dragon, I could have seen you rejoicing at finding Tunchar. You are my one and only daughter, after all.”
“What about Tiernan…?”
“He’s dead. But don’t grieve too deeply. He simply died a little earlier than expected. Now that I’ve killed all the detestable Heteroven, once I lower Tunchar and awaken the Dragon, everything will end.”
“Then… no one will survive….”
“That is precisely what I desire.”

Slash!
As the two conversed, someone rushed forward and severed the shadow strangling Vivian’s neck. As the shadow’s form collapsed, her body plummeted through the air. Before she could hit the ground, unfamiliar hands wrapped around her waist. When Vivian lifted her head, she saw a red-haired Knight.

“Sir Kin…?”

The Emperor’s aide—I’d seen him when I visited the Imperial Palace.

“How did you…find this place?”
“Run.”

Kin created distance and set Vivian down, then turned his gaze toward the Duchess. Despite her actions being interrupted, Simona regarded the Knight with an air of leisure—as if to say she could do whatever she pleased whenever she wished.
Kin spoke.

“Did you murder His Majesty?”
“How discourteous—a dog without a master loses its manners.”
“Tell me. Were you at the Imperial Palace? What did you do there?”
“Well, I did help Tiernan Fargan a week ago. I thought His Majesty’s mana had been depleted and the matter was settled, but his swordsmanship is quite exceptional, isn’t it? So I secretly bound his feet with shadows.”
“…So you’re the mastermind.”

How amusing.
Simona watched the Knight approach her. A mere imperial Knight daring to face a supreme-tier Mage.
Pitying the Knight for not knowing she was a 7-Circle Mage, Simona summoned several shadows. However, the shadows were destroyed entirely by the Knight’s blade—more precisely, by the aura enveloping it.

“A Sword Master…?”

Simona’s complexion hardened. This was no trivial opponent. She cast Target Duplication as she had against Tiernan Fargan.

Whoosh.
The aura the Knight unleashed obliterated Simona’s mana flowing toward the shadow.
She doubted her own eyes. An aura that could annihilate a supreme-tier Mage’s mana.

“What are you…!”

But her words of shock were her last. In an instant, the Knight closed the distance and drove his blade through her heart.

“You…”
“…”

Simona Asperada, her breath stolen away, tumbled into the depths of the Great Pit. The Knight who witnessed her final moments with an expressionless gaze turned back.
The woman who locked eyes with Kin called out to him in a flustered voice.

“Ah, there…”

Vivian Asperada.
She who betrayed Betuzhenia and sided with Tunterra…

“Sir Cedric, are you happy living in the Imperial Palace?”
“I fail to understand the intent behind such a question.”
“I wanted to live like a butterfly soaring through the fields, you see? But even before the accident, and even after awakening, my form resembles a butterfly pinned and preserved within a frame.”

Vivian Asperada ignored my words to flee and remained seated on the ground. Tiernan Fargan lay with his head resting on her knees, a faint breath escaping his lips. …He was alive. Kin moved toward her.
Vivian shielded Tiernan’s face with both hands, speaking desperately to the approaching Knight.

“Th-thank you for saving us. But…but…”

She didn’t know what to say. She knew what Kin had lost. She also knew who had taken that final thing from him.
No comfort, no excuse—
Coming from her lips, she who had betrayed Betuzhenia and become Tiernan’s lover, would only reopen the wounds this man carried.

“…I’m sorry.”

Vivian’s voice trembled with tears.
The Knight standing before her moved his hand. Unable to face what came next, he squeezed his eyes shut and wrapped his arms around Tiernan’s head.
A sharp tearing sound echoed. Opening her eyes at the noise, Vivian saw a white butterfly fluttering down through the air.

“…?”

It was no butterfly. A magical scroll, torn in half. As the scroll touched Tiernan’s upper body, the magic of teleportation enveloped them both.
Vivian, understanding the situation, turned her head in astonishment to look at the Knight. Beyond the light emanating from the magic, the Knight spoke to her.

“I hope the fields you soar through are not terrible.”

All around fell silent.
The Knight raised his sword.

[Conditions have been met.]
[Regression (L) activates.]

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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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