For the Young Villain’s Happy Ending - Chapter 66

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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 66

Moments later, Raina Hart and Maverick teleported to Raina Hart’s Separate Palace.

“He’s inside. It seems His Majesty is here.”

Maverick spoke as he entered the small courtyard of the Separate Palace.
The absence of a barrier meant the Emperor was within.

So that’s where Vivian Asperada was rushing off to so desperately. To meet the Emperor. But why so suddenly?

She had bolted away mid-conversation with me as though she’d received a divine revelation.

“Is that all the information you have on Vivian Asperada?”
“Yes, that is all.”

Unable to resist the allure of gleaming diamonds, Maverick had accepted Tiernan’s commission.
He had investigated everything concerning Vivian Asperada.
It was work that could be completed in half a day.
The information on a noblewoman who had spent most of her years asleep amounted to barely a single page.

A carriage accident at fifteen years old. Asleep until twenty-two. Awakened, then vanished from the Duke’s Castle a month later. Notable characteristics—

Madness. Insanity.
For Maverick, who had met Vivian, this made little sense.
When they exchanged names, the noblewoman had seemed perfectly lucid.
And yet.

“No…!”

Maverick watched as Vivian rushed past him toward the entrance of the Separate Palace.
Her beauty had struck him first, but now she certainly seemed like someone whose mind had come unmoored.

Does the condition strike her like an episode?

Maverick scratched his cheek as he followed her.
He disliked encountering the Emperor, his creditor, but he needed to observe the client’s target more closely.
He was also curious why she sought the Emperor.

‘…Could she really be about to blurt out everything I said to the Fourth Prince?’

A chill ran down Maverick’s spine for a moment.
Raina urgently grasped the handle and opened the front door.

Crash—. Clang—.
A faint sound echoed through the Main Hall.
The sound of combat erupting somewhere within the Separate Palace.

“It sounds like someone’s fighting.”
‘Keri…! Ban…!’

Maverick asked Raina, but her mind was elsewhere.
Raina glanced around before bolting toward the First Floor Corridor.
The noise grew clearer as she ventured deeper.

‘There.’

She threw open the closed door. It was a different room—not the one where her heart had been pierced.

“This is going to be hard to stop!”
“…!”

Torn curtains, furniture in ruins, soot-stained wallpaper, shattered ornaments….
But what seized Raina’s attention more than the devastated room was—.

“Growl—.”

Ban rose from beneath the collapsed bookshelf.
Her right arm was that of a massive tiger.
Therianthropic transformation—Harp’s unique ability as a tiger-human hybrid.
Ban bared her fangs and charged forward.
Kevenriak stood opposite, calmly observing him as he rushed in.

“….”

The moment Raina Hart saw those hollow eyes, her mind went blank.
Keri had no intention of defending against this attack.
Her body moved first.
She pushed off with her feet and continued forward, her hands reaching out as if to grab him.

[You say death doesn’t frighten you? But it frightens me. Because I would never see Your Majesty again.]

In her chaotic mind, a voice scattered and faded.

“Your Majesty!”

Raina Hart let out a desperate cry as she wrapped her arms around the Emperor’s upper body.
She squeezed her eyes shut, imagining her back crushed beneath Ban’s massive front paws, her flesh torn open.
I’m sorry, Vivian. I’m afraid I’ll hurt your body.

“…?”

But aside from a heavy thud reverberating above her head, nothing changed.
Raina Hart slowly lifted her eyelids.

“What kind of human is this, shielding you?”
“….”

Ban’s angry voice.
The Emperor’s blue mana rippled across the transparent barrier that had taken Ban’s attack instead of Raina Hart.
Kevenriak Heteroven had cast a protective barrier.
Raina Hart lifted her head.
Kevenriak Heteroven’s face, not looking at her who had suddenly intervened, but at Ban.
The Emperor’s sharp voice directed itself toward Ban.

“One without mana.”
“…Hmph.”

At those words, Ban released her beast form with a dissatisfied expression.
It was because of her master’s teachings—never to recklessly use abilities or magic in the presence of those who were not mages.
The fierce beast’s yellow eyes, full of resentment, fell upon the princess she was seeing for the first time.
Raina Hart also turned her head to look at her.

‘Ban.’

My disciple, whom I haven’t seen in two years.
Longing, regret, and pride—a tangle of emotions churned within me.
Yet there was not a single one I could afford to show.
He must be nineteen now.
Unlike two years ago when traces of adolescence still clung to him, Ban had blossomed into an adult man whose flame-orange hair suited him perfectly.

“….”

When our eyes met, Ban’s gaze flickered.
She was beautiful—not quite as captivating as our master, but undeniably lovely.
That wasn’t what troubled him most.
It was the fact that the Emperor didn’t brush away the woman’s hand resting on his body.

“Don’t touch my body!”
“Your Majesty…?”
“The traces of my master….”

Ever since my master’s death, the Emperor had begun losing his grip on reason, reacting with acute sensitivity to anything that erased her traces.
That was why he despised being touched by others.
Raina stroking my hair, Raina holding my hand, Raina as I rested my head upon her lap….
The thought of another’s touch overlaying those memories was utterly abhorrent to him.
He wasn’t as sensitive now as he had been then, yet the Emperor still refused the touch of others.
If the Emperor had found someone precious besides my master—

“Emperor.”

Ban closed his mouth, which had opened to speak to Kevenriak.
No—there was no way he could hold anyone dearer than my master.
Otherwise, he wouldn’t have provoked such anger with those words.

“In any case, I oppose that plan. The others will feel the same, so don’t breathe a word of it to them.”

Ban issued the warning with an ominous air, then vanished in an instant.
Raina watched him disappear, but his gaze never turned back toward her.

“….”

The chaotic room fell silent.
Only then did I realize I had been holding Kevenriak this entire time, and I quietly withdrew my arms.
Then I lowered my gaze to the floor.
More precisely, I couldn’t see the Emperor.
Even in Vivian’s body, dull to the presence of others, I felt the Emperor’s piercing gaze on the crown of my head.

“So.”

The Emperor spoke.
My heart ached, wondering if this was anger directed at an intruder who had brazenly entered my master’s Separate Palace.
Wasn’t it said that only Person and those with unavoidable business would come to the Separate Palace seeking the Emperor?
Yet I couldn’t say I had come after seeing a semi-transparent barrier before Kevenriak.

“What brings the lady here.”

At the Emperor’s question, I glanced toward the door I had opened, searching for an accomplice.
An empty doorway. Maverick had long since left the Separate Palace.

***

“I was taking a walk nearby when I heard commotion from the Separate Palace….”

I couldn’t conjure a plausible reason for seeking out the Emperor.
An excuse so transparent even a child could see through it spilled from my lips.
Yet Kevenriak surprisingly said nothing and let my excuse pass.
Then came the silence that followed.

The gazes of the two facing each other were directed elsewhere.
I was looking at the floor, while Kevenriak held the lady in his unfocused eyes.

‘This is awkward.’

Just two years ago, this silence had felt as familiar and comfortable as the air itself.
So why did it now feel so strained and strange?
I knew the reason. Too much had changed to long for what we once were.

“Hmm….”

Raina Hart cleared her throat.
Still keeping her gaze lowered, she opened her mouth awkwardly.

“Well, um…. Thank you for granting my wish, Your Majesty. When I woke up this morning, my body felt refreshed.”
“….”
“And breakfast too. It’s been a long time since I’ve eaten something so delicious.”
“….”

Within Raina’s field of vision, Kevenriak’s long, straight fingers twitched in time with the end of her words.
He must have understood.

“Then I’ll… go for another walk….”

My disciples’ quarrel must be over by now, I decided to escape this awkward atmosphere.
But after bowing to the Emperor, I walked toward the door when I suddenly stopped.
The way he stood there, as if he might let me go at any moment, troubled me deeply.

‘What did he talk about with Ban?’

I turned back to Kevenriak and stood across from him.
Meeting his eyes, I asked.

“Your Majesty, is something troubling you?”
“…Troubling me?”

Kevenriak murmured.
Then, seeing the noblewoman’s face, something seemed to occur to him, and his eyes curved with a smile.
A smile that was clearly fabricated.
Even knowing that, it was dangerous. That beautiful smile threatened to ensnare me, as if I might fall into his trap at any moment.

What exactly do you want from me, Keri?

Kevenriak spoke.

“When will the noblewoman grow?”
“…Unfortunately, this is as grown as I get, Your Majesty.”

Vivian Asperada was twenty-two years old. The same age as Kevenriak.
Raina Hart matched his question with a melancholic expression, though she didn’t understand his intent.
Kevenriak chuckled softly, grasping Raina’s arm and drawing her toward him.
Throughout it all, their gazes remained locked. Raina lifted her head; Kevenriak lowered his.
Their shadows, drawn so close they nearly touched, seemed as though they might devour one another.

“I thought you had sent the lady to me, Master.”

Kevenriak whispered to Raina.
This was no mere soliloquy.
Perhaps now I could speak with him.
Perhaps he would tell me why.

“Why did you take me as your disciple?”

Kevenriak gazed into Vivian Asperada’s eyes as she looked straight up at him.
Those hazel eyes, so earnest and unwavering, as though they saw only him alone.

“Master!”

Once, I looked at her that way too.
Whatever form my feelings took as the years transformed me.
From the moment I first saw you, I adored you—so I thought it right to gaze upon you thus.
But in Vivian Asperada’s eyes, I could only ever appear infinitely repugnant.
Kevenriak moved the corners of his mouth—the smile his master had cherished—and spoke with hollow indifference.

“It’s a secret.”

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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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