For the Young Villain’s Happy Ending - Chapter 4

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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 4

Two handmaidens appeared to be bathing Kevenriak.
One might have mistaken it for ordinary bathing assistance, but something was profoundly wrong.
It was the dead of night, and she could hear the muffled laughter of other adults echoing through the chamber.
Raina Hart pushed the door open wider.
And then.

“….”

A small child in a wooden bath.
Moonlight streaming through the window illuminated the tub, and white vapor rose between those rays of light.
It came not from the bathwater, but from the child’s own breath.

“Here now, Your Highness is cold, isn’t he? Let me add some hot water for you.”
“Hot water? Where would we find that? Besides, His Highness prefers cold baths, doesn’t he? Isn’t that right, Your Highness?”
“….”
“Of course. Such trifles mean nothing to the noble blood of the Heteroven clan.”
“Glory eternal to the radiant Heteroven!”

Handmaidens and servants scattered throughout the chamber mocked the child and lit their pipes without restraint.
Their callous laughter seemed disturbingly familiar with such cruelty.
My heart plummeted, and my hands began to tremble.

[Do not forgive.]

Someone whispered from the depths of my consciousness.
Yet separate from that voice, I felt my blood run cold throughout my entire body.
An unbearable rage kindled within me.
It was not directed at whoever had thrust me into this novel, nor at the Imperial Palace, nor at those who tormented the child.
It was directed at myself—at Raina Hart, at Ando Hwa.

“….”

What had I said this morning?
To this child trembling in an ice-cold bathtub like this.
Hadn’t I handed out medicine and spouted something like, “If you get hurt later, apply this”?
Because that’s how the original story was written. Because it was obvious the child would be injured later.

“What….”

What is the original story’s setting? What is the villain’s narrative?
The child’s gaze lifted, meeting mine as I stepped across the threshold.
Round, wide blue eyes. Pure eyes that held nothing but surprise at discovering me.

For this child, abuse and neglect were everyday occurrences.

‘Everyday?’

I ground my teeth audibly.
Then I strode forward without hesitation toward a single point.

“W-who are you?!”

Thud.
The child’s pallid complexion came into view.
Breath misted from the small head, hair soaked through, dissipating into the air.

“This place isn’t somewhere anyone can just enter—ahhhhh!”

Thud.
The skeletal torso, so emaciated that bones protruded, bore fresh wounds across its surface.

“P-please save me….”

Thud.
Flesh reddened and welted, the body wracked with pain trembled like an aspen leaf.

“Forgive me, please forgive me…!”

Tap.
Yet the child remained unmoved. As if abuse being everyday was simply written fact.
Raina Hart stopped before the wooden bathtub. The voices of servants and attendants pleading for mercy had ceased.
They had all been consumed by her magic.
Only silence enveloped the two of them.

“…Kevenriak?”

Chatter. His jaw trembled so violently his teeth clacked together.
Her name spilled from between the child’s lips, which had split open again and wept blood.

So he knew. The name of this body’s owner.
I had only seen him as a character in a story.
But he had been seeing me.

‘Why did I only realize this now.’

The Kevenriak before my eyes was neither villain nor tyrant.
He was a child who had never known affection, who accepted that unspeakable abuse as natural.
Just an eight-year-old boy.

Raina Hart lifted the trembling Kevenriak from the bathtub.
She dried him with magic, knelt on one knee before the child, and wrapped his small body snugly in her outer robe.

“…Why are you crying?”

Kevenriak asked.
Raina Hart kept her gaze fixed on her hands as she tied the robe’s knot and spoke.

“Because I’m sorry.”
“Ah….”

An awkward exclamation escaped the child’s lips.
It was not indifference to Raina Hart’s tears.
He simply did not know how to respond in such a situation.
Kevenriak had never been comforted by anyone.

“Your Highness.”

Raina Hart held Kevenriak tightly in her embrace.
Her silver eyes, dimmed to a somber glow, kindled quietly with resolve.
What did it matter what narrative the villain was supposed to follow?
The promise of someone I could barely remember paled in comparison to ensuring this child before me would not be hurt.

‘Are you watching?’

I posed the question silently to whatever unknown force sought to interfere with my thoughts.
It mattered little whether it heard me or not. This was a vow I made to myself.

‘Is this the ending you promised me—the happy conclusion for the protagonists? If so, I will protect it.’

But the happy ending would not belong to those two alone.
This child in my arms, stiffening unnaturally at the unfamiliar warmth of another’s touch.
This child too would find happiness.
I resolved with unwavering determination.

“I will make it so.”

***

On the Tan Continent, there were two empires.
Seventy years ago, these two suns began their war to devour one another.
And at last, only one sun remained in the sky, casting its brilliant light across the continent.

Eternal glory to House Heteroven!

Cheinols Heteroven, the current Emperor of the Betuzhenia Empire, had realized the dream he had so long yearned for.
Continental supremacy now rested in his grasp.
Everything was owed to the person seated before him.

“Are you still deliberating over the reward?”

The Emperor dropped a sugar cube into his teacup as he spoke.
At the end of his gaze sat a young woman with an inscrutable expression on her youthful face.

“You were the one who asked to see me first, so I assumed you wished to discuss the rewards for your military contributions.”
“….”

Raina Hart.
A prodigy whose monstrous talent was impossible to believe came from an eighteen-year-old.
No, age wasn’t the issue. There existed no one of her caliber anywhere on the Tan Continent, nor anywhere else in the world.
She belonged neither to the Magic Tower nor to the Imperial Palace or any other organization.
Raina Hart was formidable precisely because she stood alone.

“Well, if that’s not your request, then so be it. But consider my position—I’m keeping you bound to the Imperial Palace under the guise of education. Would I have asked you for instruction merely to cultivate a handful of Imperial Palace mages?”

That’s why I desire her.
Even knowing full well that forcing her would only breed resentment.
But how could I possibly secure such a talent—one devoid of greed or ambition?

“Are you truly determined to return to Hibei?”
“…I wish to undertake the education of the Fourth Prince, Your Highness.”

Raina, who had not uttered a single word since tea was served, finally spoke.
The Emperor’s brown eyes turned toward her.
Though he was Kevenriak’s father, not a trace of resemblance could be found in his features.
The boy’s azure eyes and raven hair—indeed, all his beauty—belonged to the Second Empress Consort.

“Education of a prince, you say. You mean the First Prince?”
“No.”

Raina shook her head at the Emperor’s hopeful expression.

“I wish to undertake the education of the Fourth Prince, Your Highness. That reward alone would suffice for me.”
“…The Fourth Prince.”

The Emperor stroked his chin.
Indeed.
The Attendant’s report from days ago had not been mere idle gossip.

“She observed the Fourth Prince’s Separate Palace with keen interest. When the Empress spoke ill of the Fourth Prince, she displayed what appeared to be displeasure.”

Upon hearing that report, the Emperor had taken some time to even recall who the Fourth Prince was.
A child born from a single night of passion with a beauty who had captivated him—truthfully, he had forgotten the boy’s existence entirely.
He was still alive, then.

‘So that one has managed to capture Raina Hart’s attention…’

An unexpected chess piece.
The Emperor smiled wickedly to himself.

“Several attendants working in the Imperial Palace disappeared overnight, I hear.”
“Is that so.”

The disappearance of attendants.
Ordinarily, such a trivial matter would never reach the Emperor’s ears.
But the problem was that those who had left their quarters last night had headed to the Fourth Prince’s Separate Palace—recently the focus of the Emperor’s attention.

“They must have fled. The lower classes are prone to such vermin-like behavior, are they not.”
“Indeed, Your Majesty.”

Raina Hart offered a formal acknowledgment in a flat, emotionless voice.

“Yet something troubles me. They left all their belongings behind—as if they had merely stepped out for a moment.”

The Emperor hurled the question at Raina as she raised her teacup to her lips.

“Did you kill them?”

Raina’s hand paused for a moment, then she brought the cup to her lips as though nothing had happened.
A reaction so fleeting that ordinary people would never detect it.
But Cheinols Heteroven—who was he?
Though now merely an Emperor consumed by greed, he had once walked the battlefields where death lurked at every turn.
He would not miss such a moment.

“A jest.”

The Emperor smiled thinly.
The Fourth Prince’s Separate Palace, where the attendants had last been seen, was spotless—not a drop of blood, not a shred of flesh.
To erase people as though evaporating them without a trace.
It was undoubtedly the work of Raina Hart, but what did a handful of insignificant lives matter?
It sufficed that his question had put pressure on the Countess Hart.

‘A jest? Does the Emperor expect me to tremble?’

But it was no threat. Merely a slight irritation that becoming a tutor to the child would prove more troublesome than anticipated.

“…Your Majesty, I would appreciate it if you could state your intentions more clearly. Am I insufficient as the Fourth Prince’s mentor, that you wish to change the subject?”
“What are you saying? A being with dragon’s blood insufficient as the Fourth Prince’s mentor?”
“….”

Raina Hart fell silent once more.
The Emperor interlaced his fingers and rested them upon his thigh—a gesture of leisure.

“It’s fortunate no one else hears us in this chamber. Now that your mentor is dead, this secret belongs only to me and you.”

Thirteen years ago, an elderly mage had brought a small child before him, freshly ascended to the throne.

“Your Imperial Majesty, this child is a dragon quarter-blood.”

Dragons—the most superior of all races.
Yet their numbers were so few and their nature so reclusive that dragon sightings occurred perhaps once across centuries, making them extraordinarily rare.
A race regarded as myth. To possess the bloodline of such a creature.
The Emperor had wanted to disbelieve it, but there was no other explanation for Raina Hart’s impossible magical power and her brilliant growth.

“They say dragon quarter-bloods cease to age once they reach adulthood, living unchanged until death. How enviable.”

On the day she first carried out his command, the Emperor had been seized by overwhelming superiority.
Watching Raina kneel and present the enemy’s banner to him, he had sworn an oath.
I shall make her mine without fail.

“If you become the Fourth Prince’s mentor, will you remain in the Imperial Palace?”
“I wish to take him to Hibei.”
“You’re not taking the prince as a hostage?”
“No.”

She answered his questions without the slightest change in expression, yet Raina’s irritation swelled ever closer to the brink of eruption.

‘He’s being incredibly presumptuous. If that’s the case, why did he even offer a reward?’

A month ago, had he not said exactly this to her?
That he would grant her anything as recognition for the merit she had earned in war.
If that were the case, he should simply grant it. Why all this endless questioning?
Yet to extract Kevenriak from the Imperial Palace safely, she required the Emperor’s permission.

‘Endure it. Irritating as it is.’

While Raina Hart seethed internally, the Emperor continued.

“That would be troublesome. You, a Dragon Quarter, are far too powerful to make an enemy of.”
“There is no need for concern, Your Majesty.”
“Is that so? The future is unknowable, after all. Hart, do you know? Your master is dead now, but he left something behind for me.”

The Emperor withdrew a small glass vial from his robes and placed it upon the table.

“Your master gave this to me—a means to control you, one who carries dragon’s blood.”
“…A potion of subjugation, then.”

In the memories of the true Raina Hart before possession, the identity of that vial existed.
At her words, the Emperor could not hide his delight, his smile turning cruel and thin.
The moment he had so desperately desired had finally arrived.

“Drink it. And swear eternal loyalty to me. Then I shall give you whichever prince you desire—the Fourth Prince or any other.”

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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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