For the Young Villain’s Happy Ending - Chapter 48

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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 48

Tap. Tap.

The sound of something tapping against the window pulled Kevenriak from his thoughts.
A messenger bird conjured by magic.
Only Raina Hart possessed the skill to cast such magic within the Imperial Palace.
Kevenriak hastened to open the window.
The moment the recipient’s hand touched it, the bird transformed into a letter.

「I forgot to water the flowers, so I’ll be away in Hibei for about a day.」

The message seemed abrupt, yet Kevenriak grasped its true meaning.
She needs time to think.
Though I believed my teacher would not abandon me, anxiety still lingered in my chest.
What if my confession caused Raina to flee?
What if she never returned?
What if she vanished as suddenly as she had appeared?
Kevenriak rushed from his chamber.

“Your Majesty.”

The two guards stationed at the door startled at the Emperor’s hurried pace and scrambled after him.
My teacher despised crowded places.
I had arranged for her to have exclusive use of the Separate Palace—a quiet, sun-drenched sanctuary.
Yet the distance from the Emperor’s Palace to that refuge was considerable.

Before Raina departed for Hibei, I needed to extract a promise from her.
That she would return.
That she would not leave me alone in this place.

“…Too slow.”

My legs could not keep pace with my heart.
Without breaking stride, Kevenriak invoked spatial teleportation.
When his next step landed, he stood in the corridor where Raina’s chambers lay.

“….”

Yet the momentum of my next step could not match what came before.
My mentor’s open door, and the stench of blood seeping through the gap.
That acrid smell hung in the air while the corridor remained terrifyingly silent.
My mind went blank.
Kevenriak, who had hesitated, now moved his long legs with urgent strides.
Even he did not know what possessed him or how his body was moving.

“….”

What entered his vision upon stepping into the room was a sight too cruel to be real.
The pale violet hair he had thought beautiful was drenched in crimson blood.
A violet broken at the stem, collapsed in a pool of blood.

“Master.”

Kevenriak knelt in that pool.
His white uniform was staining red, but that was the least of his concerns.
Kevenriak carefully lifted Raina Hart’s face.
A faint warmth lingered on her cheek.
She might still be alive. My master always exceeded my expectations.

“Raina Hart.”

Kevenriak called to her again.
He willed her closed eyes to open and look upon him.
He willed even the faintest breath to escape her lips.
But.
Against his desperate hope, Raina Hart’s breathing had stopped.
The heart that had always beaten so pleasantly to his ears was now silent.

“Ah…. Ah….”

Kevenriak let out a moan.
Unable to move again, he pulled her limp form into his arms and wept in silent anguish, curled upon himself.
The despair that poured forth was immeasurable.
Why. You.

“….”

Within me, despair melted like a swamp, pulling Kevenriak deeper into its depths.
The only sound echoing through the frigid chamber was the Emperor’s weeping.

‘You are a monster.’
‘You consumed Raina Hart.’

***

The barrier surrounding the Grand Mage’s Separate Palace vanished in the dead of night.
It was a barrier that even the Emperor’s Palace mage of the 6th Circle could not have broken.
Had Raina Hart dissolved it of her own volition?
The knights searching for the Emperor, who had hidden himself away, hurried into the Separate Palace.

“Your Majesty!”

Before the Grand Mage’s chamber door.
The knights could not bring themselves to enter, their breath catching at the sight before them.
The silhouette of a beast shrouded in darkness flickered briefly in the moonlight streaming through the window.
It was their Emperor.
Kevenriak Heteroven sat with his back against the wall, cradling someone whose eyes were closed.

“…Is that Raina Hart, Your Majesty?”

Person murmured the question to the Emperor.
His bewildered face betrayed his struggle to believe what he was witnessing.
The Emperor, who had remained motionless, finally rose to his feet, still cradling his mentor in his arms.

“What shall we do with her?”

Another knight discovered the red-haired woman collapsed on the floor, her breath gone, and posed the question.
The Red-haired Woman.
There were traces of self-inflicted death—her throat severed by a dagger, and below it, lacerated by magic.
The Emperor’s face remained impassive as he issued his command and left the chamber with Raina Hart.

“Give her to the beasts.”

***

House of Asperada.
An ancient lineage that had walked alongside the history of the Betuzhenia Empire.
Though the current Duke Asperada’s influence was not particularly strong for such a storied house.
But that was not the matter of importance now.

“Miss Vivian Asperada has awakened!”

News that the young lady of House Asperada had stirred from her prolonged slumber spread throughout the empire.
The duchess, who had lost consciousness in a carriage accident at fifteen, opened her eyes at the age of twenty-two.
Seven years of silence shattered—it was undoubtedly a joyous occasion.
Yet strangely, House Asperada had not presented the young lady’s face to the outside world even now, a month later.

“My dear.”

Simona Asperada called to her husband, Duke Asperada.

“How much longer do you intend to keep Vivian confined?”
“….”

Duke Asperada remained silent even to his gentle wife’s voice.
Simona Asperada placed her hand over her husband’s left hand.

“It’s already been three weeks since you locked Vivian in her room.”
“If she were in her right mind, I would have freed her long ago. They say she threw a fit like a madwoman just yesterday.”
“How frustrated she must have been to act that way. Try to understand her position. She suffered an accident and awakened to find seven years had passed.”

Simona Asperada.
The Duchess defended her stepdaughter, her brows drawn downward in concern.

“Though her body has matured, her mind is still that of a fifteen-year-old child. You must show her understanding.”
“That’s precisely why I cannot understand. What was that girl like before she lost consciousness? Docile, courteous, and brilliant. Now she’s nothing but a wild, unbroken filly.”

Duke Asperada furrowed his brow.
The image of his daughter from days ago, desperately demanding to be sent to the Imperial Palace, surfaced in his mind.
Had she not even resorted to crude threats when he refused to grant her wish?

‘What did I do when the Third Prince incited the Heteroven Rebellion two years ago?’

It was a story that my sleeping daughter could never have known.
After waking up after seven years and hearing tales of a world turned upside down, it seemed she wanted to play detective herself.

“I regret it now.”
“Regret?”
“I didn’t wait seven years for that child expecting this. Not this.”
“Then what were you expecting?”
“I thought she would become a daughter who could benefit the family. Not a madwoman.”
“So you confined Vivian because she failed to meet your expectations?”

The Duke fell silent again.
He could not admit that he had locked her away out of fear of what his mad daughter might discover playing detective.

“Darling, I pity Vivian.”
“You pity her?”
“Though she never accepted me as her mother… I understand. She lost her real mother at such a young age—she had nowhere to place her heart. Vivian didn’t.”

Duke Asperada patted Simona’s hand.
A woman of pure kindness.
Simona was a beautiful woman with an enchanting appearance.
Such a woman had married into his household at twenty-seven and taken on the care of seven-year-old Vivian.
It could not have been easy to raise a daughter with no blood relation as if she were her own child.

“You are too good for me.”
“What are you saying?”

The beauty mark at the corner of her left eye captured Duke Asperada’s gaze.
Simona rested her face against the Duke’s shoulder.

“You are the one too good for me.”

Duke Asperada steadied his mind and spirit as he breathed in his wife’s fragrance.

***

Vivian Asperada’s chamber.

“Open the door!”
“Miss…! Please stop!”

Maya grasped Vivian’s waist, restraining her from pounding against the firmly locked door.
Another one of the young lady’s episodes had begun.

“No matter how much you knock, it won’t open—you know that well enough…!”

Despite Maya’s desperate pleas from beside her, Vivian refused to stop hammering against the door.
In moments like these, the young lady seemed utterly mad.

“Open this door! Piartis Asperada!”

She had even begun shrieking the Duke’s name without restraint.

“Young lady…!”

All this time, it had been Maya’s duty to care for the sleeping Vivian.
A beautiful young lady of fifteen, just one year her senior.
Every time Maya beheld her sleeping form, she wondered if the gods themselves had grown jealous of her beauty and cast her into slumber.
Her hair was the same chestnut brown as her own younger sister’s.
Yet why did the young lady’s locks shine with such luminescence and softness?
No matter how often she combed them, those silken strands never once caught upon the teeth.
And that was merely the beginning.
Her skin, cleansed each morning and evening with nothing but a damp cloth, perpetually gleamed like lustrous pearls.
Her perfectly arched brows, her long lashes, her delicate nose, her lips curved in exquisite lines—
not a single feature failed to inspire admiration.
Maya had become utterly captivated by the sleeping Vivian, day after day.

Then came that longed-for day.
When those slowly rising eyelids revealed mysterious hazel eyes gazing upon her.
Maya felt her heart cease its beating.

Her young lady had finally awakened.
She had sworn then to cherish and serve her devotedly from this moment forward.
And yet.

“I said open the door!”

How could such vigor emanate from a body that had wasted away after seven years of slumber, its muscles completely atrophied?
It had already been a month. Vivian suffered these episodes almost daily.
The physician had said it was a mental affliction that would fade with time, yet with each passing day it only grew worse….

Knock, knock, knock.

Vivian’s delicate skin had flushed crimson from pounding on the door. Watching her, Maya’s heart shattered.
She could bear it no longer. Maya seized Vivian’s wrist.

“Haah… haah…”

Only then did Vivian cease her assault, breathing heavily and ragged.
Even in such disarray, she was beautiful—and it only deepened Maya’s anguish.

“Miss, why are you so desperate to reach the Imperial Palace? Everyone’s saying that going there means certain death!”
“It’s because I…”

Vivian fell silent, unable to continue.
For a month, the words she longed to speak had echoed only within her heart, forbidden from reaching anyone’s ears.

It’s because I am Raina Hart, the Emperor’s mentor.

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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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