For the Young Villain’s Happy Ending - Chapter 151

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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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Side Story Episode 4

Kevenriak turned slowly. Bright sunlight streamed through the window, and he smiled radiantly within its glow.
“Yes.”
It was the brightest expression I had seen on Kevenriak’s face in recent memory. Watching his elation, I felt that my days of deliberation and the decision I had made were not in vain.
If I had known he would be this happy, I should have made up my mind sooner. What is an Empress’s position, anyway?
‘It should be similar to being a Guild Master.’
I despised dealing with people, but managing them suited my aptitude well enough. And there was the accumulated experience as a leader built through countless regressions.
The positions of Empress and Guild Master were certainly different in nature. But the essence—protecting those beneath you—remained the same, so I could manage to stand beside Kevenriak without shame.
‘Though I’m still uncertain about the Empress’s gown.’
The thought of the elaborate, voluminous dresses worn by the former Empress, Tratscha Heteroven, filled me with dread. But if I used the excuse of refusing extravagance, perhaps I could wear a simpler gown instead.
Either way, it would be better than a future where I sent Kevenriak alone to that dreary Imperial Palace.
For now, I remained ensconced there under the guise of being the Emperor’s teacher, but that excuse could not last a lifetime.
‘And by the end of this year, marriage proposals will begin trickling in, with people eyeing the Empress’s position.’
For now, things remained quiet, perhaps out of deference to my status as his lover, but the world would never allow such an accomplished unmarried Emperor to remain uncontested for long.
Marriage proposals alone would be a mercy. Among them would surely be those who approached Kevenriak through underhanded schemes. The world contained no shortage of people who defied all reason.
‘No matter how many times I regress, I cannot abide that sight.’
But from this moment forward, such worries were pointless. Kevenriak had consented to marriage.
“I’m so happy.”
He walked toward me, his joy laid bare without reservation. A great heartbeat resonated through my entire body.
I could not suppress the spreading smile on my face.
“Marriage is merely a formality when you consider our relationship.”
I added to my words.
“But I think it will be good to do it anyway.”
Kevenriak returned to the bed and took my hand, pressing a kiss to my ring. Every movement was careful and hushed, as though performing a sacred ritual that must never be desecrated.
He opened his mouth as if making a vow.
“Thirty years? No, let me shorten it to twenty. I don’t have the confidence to endure any longer than that.”
“…What?”
I blinked. I could not follow the workings of Kevenriak’s mind. Something felt distinctly misaligned.
Were we having two different conversations?
As if to prove my thought, Kevenriak spoke.
“I cannot allow the continent you protected to fall to ruin. While I am Emperor, I will excise the rot from the Betuzhenia Empire and establish the foundation for its growth. Once I find a suitable successor, I can simply stage an accident.”
An accident? What in the world was he talking about?
“Keri.”
“If I am not Emperor, no one will trouble you. Then we will marry.”
I felt as though I had been struck on the head.
While I worried over whether to wear an Empress’s gown, Kevenriak had already devised a plan to stage a fake imperial funeral decades hence and launder his identity.
Was this the reason he accepted my marriage proposal without hesitation?
Raina’s lips parted as she searched for words. Before she could find them, Kevenriak’s blue eyes crinkled beautifully as he smiled.
“I’m glad you’re a Dragon Quarter, Raina.”
The average lifespan of a Dragon Quarter was one hundred fifty years.
Kevenriak was already painting a picture of a flower garden where he and Raina would live contentedly together for a hundred years after his abdication.
“Wait, hold on. Keri. That’s not what I meant—you were asking me to marry you right now.”
“Right now? If that’s what you want, Raina, then I want it too, but…”
His troubled blue eyes dimmed.
“Then give me just one day. Tonight, I’ll stage a sudden—”
How horrifying!
Raina urgently covered Kevenriak’s mouth with both hands.
“I meant a relative timeframe. This year or next year. Not twenty years from now.”
“…?”
He looked utterly bewildered. It was painfully obvious he was thinking the same thing—that she meant to stage an accident this year or next. I needed to clear up this misunderstanding.
Raina met Kevenriak’s gaze directly.
“You said you’d cut away the rot and build a foundation.”
Kevenriak pulled down Raina’s hands that covered his mouth.
“Nothing is more important than you, Raina.”
“Keri, don’t you still understand what I’m saying?”
“Not at all.”
Raina swallowed a sigh.
The equation ‘becoming Empress = something Raina dislikes’ had been so firmly established that he’d completely shut down his reasoning in that direction.
There was nothing for it but to be direct.
“I’ll become Empress. At your side, Keri.”
“…”
At Raina’s confession, Kevenriak’s pupils trembled finely.
Speechless, he lowered his head and pressed one hand to his forehead. A long silence stretched between them, and Raina waited quietly for his answer. Finally, Kevenriak spoke.
“…Raina.”
The nape of Kevenriak’s neck flushed a deep crimson.
“How much of a greedy man are you trying to make me?”

***

When Raina declared her rest and departed for Hibei, Kevenriak thought that perhaps this life wouldn’t be so bad after all.
When the sun rose, Raina would be in Hibei and he in the Imperial Palace. When it set, he would return to Raina.
He had never been fond of the Imperial Palace either, but knowing Raina awaited him at day’s end made it feel different.
Loneliness, anguish, anger—such uncomfortable emotions never touched him. As long as Raina existed, the Imperial Palace was merely a vast structure to Kevenriak.
‘Perhaps this is the best form it could take.’
His position as Emperor would not burden Raina.
He would live that way until he stepped down from the throne, and then spend his remaining years inseparably bound to Raina.

“Keri, shall we marry?”

When Kevenriak heard those words, his joy knew no bounds. Could Raina Hart truly share the same future he dreamed of? Marriage. He thought his heart might burst from his chest.
How blissful would a life married to Raina Hart be?
Imagining that future made real, the decades he would spend as Emperor would pass in the blink of an eye. That alone was enough.
Yet she would become Empress for him. She offered him a dream he had never dared to covet, telling him it was his to have.
He knew no way to refuse his beloved’s sweet proposal.
And so Kevenriak and Raina Hart promised themselves to marriage.

That same year, early autumn.

My Master is coming with us
If you have any conscience, yield tonight to us

Kevenriak burned the paper he held with magic. When he extinguished even the light he had summoned to read the words, the Emperor’s bedroom fell into complete darkness.
The bedroom without Raina Hart felt desolate. Kevenriak leaned his back against the wall beneath the window in a familiar gesture, staring into the darkness.

“Raina Hart… Raina Hart…”

The Kevenriak of the past would huddle in that darkness every night, begging forgiveness for his sins. He believed he had become the hideous monster his childhood self had imagined, consuming his Master.
Had Raina Hart not taken him as her disciple, had she not returned to find him—he would have died believing himself a monster until his final breath.
He had been saved by Raina Hart.

In the darkness, a glimmer of magical power coalesced. Someone was teleporting into the Emperor’s bedroom.
“….”
Kevenriak’s hand moved toward the sword resting on the floor. Click. The hilt and scabbard aligned with a soft metallic sound.
From within the concentrated magic, a tall masculine figure materialized. Eyes like those of a golden beast swept across the room before settling on Kevenriak seated beneath the window, and he let out a low chuckle.
“What’s with the gloomy face?”
It was Harp, the tiger-man.
Kevenriak was the thief who had spirited away the Master, but Harp possessed enough composure today to mock him for it.
“How does it feel to be alone the night before your wedding?”
After all, they had succeeded in monopolizing the Master today. The Hibei Lord’s Castle was currently alive with a celebration the disciples had prepared in her honor.
Rather than answer, Kevenriak withdrew his hand from the sword and issued a sharp warning.
“Don’t stay up late.”
“Hmph, what does it matter when we sleep?”
“Raina Hart won’t sleep properly.”
Well, that was true.
When had this man ever concerned himself with anyone but the Master? Worrying over a lonely Emperor was nothing but a losing proposition for him.
And yet—
‘He seems awfully pleased about marrying the Master.’
Ever since the word “wedding” had been mentioned, the corners of Kevenriak’s mouth had refused to lift. To Harp’s eyes, accustomed to darkness, that expression was perfectly clear.

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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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