For the Young Villain’s Happy Ending - Chapter 84

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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 84

A drizzle fell over the Imperial Palace on a late summer night.

Everything was ruined.
Raina Hart walked aimlessly through the corridors.
The bracelet the Emperor had placed on my wrist—the one he’d insisted summon him if I ever left my chambers—clinked softly as I moved.
But in this moment, neither Kevenriak nor I, nor anyone else, could afford to care about such things.

“Keri.”

My student’s pet name escaped my lips.
Now that the oath had been severed, it was a name I could speak even before my disciple.
Yet it was a sound that would never reach him—not when he rejected my very voice.

“I had hoped the princess was not a liar.”

The Emperor’s wounded eyes pierced through me.
Why did you release the oath you had bound Vivian with?

‘Was it so she might open her heart to you, even slightly?’

I became your student for that beginning, drew closer to you for that purpose.
But careless words that slipped from my unguarded lips shattered everything.
Vivian became a liar, lost your trust. You raised your defenses anew against my hasty touch and fled.

“From the beginning again….”

The words tumbled from between my pallid lips.
I laughed—a hollow, bewildered sound at my own unconscious utterance.
From the beginning, she said.
Do I even have that much time left?
My vision blurred. Vivian’s body was reaching its limits once more.
No—I cannot lose consciousness here.

“…My lady!”

I closed my eyes for a moment, then opened them.
Firm hands gripped both my shoulders. Someone was shouting at me.

“Miss Asperada! Are you alright?!”

A white uniform. I lifted my gaze upward.
Person’s face was etched with desperation for some reason.
Cold raindrops clung to Vivian’s ashen cheeks.

“I’m… fine.”

Despite my composed voice, Vivian Asperada’s jaw trembled uncontrollably.
Person quickly removed his outer coat and draped it over her shoulders.

“…Are you conscious now?”

He said something incomprehensible.
Whether I’d regained consciousness.

“Did I… lose consciousness?”
“No. First, let’s get inside a nearby building. You’ll collapse at this rate.”

Person pretended not to notice my unfocused eyes and led me forward.
Getting me inside the building away from the rain was the priority.

“Person.”

I murmured as I walked with his support.
We were still outside, but beneath an eave, so the rain didn’t touch us.

“The Imperial Palace is so vast.”

This place without purpose—no matter how far I walked, there was only emptiness.
The barren buildings offered no warmth. I felt only abandoned, left alone on desolate ground.

“Did Keri walk through the Imperial Palace feeling this way too?”
“The oath…?”

You’re calling His Majesty by his pet name in front of others. Has your oath been released?
Person, who had been about to ask Raina Hart about it, closed his mouth.
Just hours ago, she had been proudly speaking of the call bell and seemed delighted.
Even at dinner, she had laughed while exchanging small talk with the Emperor.
Miss Raina Hart, what on earth have you experienced?
Has His Majesty’s hollow gaze transferred to you?

“I don’t know how to save Keri.”

The path ahead is so obscured by despair that I wish I could simply let you go instead. If I sink into the same mire with you, could I at least hold you?
More than that—if only I still had my body. If time were on my side.
If nothing else, if only my body had been there. If time had been on my side.

“If I return to Hibeiro, then from that point on….”

Seeing Raina Hart like this, a sigh slipped from Person’s mouth.
Seeing Raina like that, a sigh escaped from Person’s lips.

“…Are you going to Hibeiro?”

He wanted to find her, exhausted as she was, at least a place to rest.
I wanted to give her, exhausted as she was, at least a place to rest for a while.

“….”
“If you go, Miss Raina Hart, they will surely welcome you. They all miss you so.”
“If you go, Raina Hart, I’m sure they’ll welcome you warmly. Everyone has been missing you.”

She raised her hand and rubbed her cheek. Moisture clung to her cheek, which had been struck by raindrops, and it was impossible to tell if it was tears or rain.
She raised her hand and rubbed her cheek. Moisture clung to her cheek, which had been hit by a round of raindrops, and she couldn’t tell if it was tears or rainwater.

“Person, am I crying right now?”

Person stared at her face at the sudden remark.

“Not something sentimental like that.”
“No.”
“No.”

I thought long about my disciples.
Even while gazing at the night sky earlier, I recalled memories of Hibei.
But.

‘I haven’t shed a single tear. When was the last time?’

I had wept on the balcony moments ago, but those tears came from my own emotions.

‘Yesterday? No, was it the day before?’

The body’s defenses, which had substituted for the sleeping soul, were weakening.
As the original soul’s strength grew, the conflict between us faded as well.
The time I had left to borrow Vivian’s body was truly, genuinely running out.

“Will Vivian wake up soon…?”

Person, who had been listening to Raina Hart’s murmur, asked.

“…Are you referring to the soul of Vivian Asperada, who is currently asleep?”
“…Yes.”

As Raina Hart nodded, Person continued with another question.

“But when she awakens, will you disappear, Miss Raina Hart?”
“That’s likely.”
“When you disappear, will it happen suddenly?”
“It could happen that way.”
“Is there no way for you both to coexist in this body?”
“…Person, this is Vivian’s body. The dead shouldn’t be greedy about such things.”

Person’s questions continued with relentless persistence.
When Raina Hart firmly shook her head at the final question, Person opened his hesitant mouth as if he had made a decision.

“Do you remember what you said when you met me on the road earlier? What you said when I grabbed your shoulder?”
“…Did I say something strange? I think I said I was fine…?”
“Before that. You asked me who I was. You also asked where this place was. And your face was quite frightened when you did.”

I had no memory of this. It felt as though I’d been struck on the back of my head.
Person added to his words.

“Were you Raina Hart…?”
“No.”

The gazes of Person and Raina Hart, facing each other, wavered precariously.

***

Vivian had awakened.
Though seeing my body still moving under my control suggested she might have fallen back asleep, she had awakened nonetheless.

‘Keri, what will you do with Vivian, who thinks you’re a liar?’

Kill her. Or—

“I have no intention of letting the princess go.”
“The princess was sent by my Master to kill me.”

Once I vanish and Vivian reclaims her body, would I order you to kill her?

“I could pierce her heart too.”

An ending where Vivian pierced her own heart—that was not acceptable.
I had no intention of making Vivian like Kin.
I had no intention of making you like me.
That would be nothing but a tragic ending for everyone.

“Keri…!”

Raina Hart climbed the stairs of the Emperor’s Palace urgently.
With time slipping away, I had to do my best to fulfill my desires.
I couldn’t think of anywhere you might have gone from the balcony.

“We received a report that a barrier has been erected around Raina Hart’s Separate Palace.”

Person said you weren’t at the Separate Palace. Then perhaps you were in your room at the Emperor’s Palace.
Before Vivian awakened again, before I disappeared, I wanted to see you.
You don’t have to believe that I am Raina Hart.
But it seemed I had to pour out what needed to be said before I left.

‘Beware of the Tuntera Rebellion Army.’
‘Raina Hart’s death is not your fault.’
‘Vivian won’t kill you.’
‘You’re not a monster.’

Words I wanted to say kept surfacing endlessly in my mind.
Raina Hart selected the most important ones among them.
I even deliberated over which words should frame the most crucial message.
I desperately wanted this one to reach you.

“Don’t die, Keri.”

After uttering those words, lacking confidence that I could protect Vivian from you, I asked Person to hang a red flag on the City Walls.
If Tiernan Fargan arrives, we have only hours left.

“Lord Person, Keri said he doesn’t have much time left. What does that mean?”
“I’m not certain, Your Majesty.”

Yet that single matter weighed heavily on my mind.
Why doesn’t he have much time remaining.

Click.
Raina Hart, who had been running without pause, opened Kevenriak Heteroven’s door.
A dimly lit chamber.
Raina Hart caught her breath as she entered and closed the door behind her. He hadn’t arrived yet, but surely he would return someday.

‘If I speak to him directly, Keri’s madness might turn toward Vivian. Better to leave a letter instead….’

That was when it happened.
In the center of the room, a luminescence of mana began to coalesce.

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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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