For the Young Villain’s Happy Ending - Chapter 87

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 87

Arrows descended in a torrent, embedding themselves into the earth and encircling the carriage.
The panicked horse bolted—its reins severed—while the driver’s seat fell silent.
A metallic clang rang out toward the carriage where Raina Hart lay prone on the floor, shielded by Tiernan Fargan’s body.

“You there! I’d suggest you come out before we roast that carriage whole!”

Tiernan lifted his head toward the window, surveying the area around the carriage.
The attackers were a Bandit Group numbering in the dozens.
The figures emerging from the surrounding mountains toward the carriage were far from ordinary.
Emboldened by their numbers, the bandits radiated an almost reckless confidence.

“Vivian, stay hidden inside. Don’t come out under any circumstances.”

Tiernan whispered to Raina Hart, who crouched low on the carriage floor.
Vivian’s form was wrapped in a blanket.
Tiernan had arranged it to conceal that anyone was inside.

“Understood. I’ll play dead.”

Raina Hart nodded, her gaze fixed on Tiernan’s grave expression.
Because the carriage carrying Vivian had come under attack, Tiernan’s green eyes had darkened with lethal intent.

“Oh, so you’re actually coming out?”
“Brother, with that pretty face of yours, you think you can take us all on alone?”
“Why not just leave? Hand over the sword and carriage. We’ll treat them real good.”

The bandits snickered as Tiernan emerged from the carriage.
They appeared to have been lying in ambush along the desolate mountain road.
Raina Hart peered through the gap in the carriage door, observing the scene outside.

Terrible luck.

I watched Tiernan Fargan walk toward the bandits, drawing his sword.
Raina Hart expressed her regret toward the bandits.
The bandits seemed fearless, whether in Hibei or here.
Picking a fight with a Sword Master—what audacity.

‘I wish I had a sword too.’

Raina Hart reached over the seat and retrieved the wooden sword.
The sword Kevenriak Heteroven had gifted to Vivian. She’d brought it along thinking it would be useful for Vivian, who couldn’t wield a regular blade.

“Hey, you there. Say something, will you?”
“….”
“Irritating. I can’t stand guys like that.”
“Because he’s handsome? Someone who looks like horse dung trampled under a horse’s hoof shouldn’t be talking.”

The bandits tightened their encirclement with pointless banter.
Tiernan Fargan slashed the nearest bandit instead of answering.

“Ahhh! My hand!”
“You bastard!”

With that, dozens of bandits rushed at Tiernan Fargan.
Though surrounded by bandits and obscured from view, Tiernan Fargan seemed to have a considerable advantage.
His silver hair, occasionally visible due to his height, moved with ease through the combat, and every scream that reached our ears belonged to the bandits.

“This will be over soon.”

Raina Hart murmured, then jumped back in alarm at the sight of a single eye peering through the carriage door crack.
The carriage door, which the bandits had ignored, burst open. A rough-looking bandit grinned wickedly and scanned Vivian inside the carriage.

“Well, well. Premium goods, aren’t they?”
“…Who are you calling merchandise?”
“Heheheh. Feisty, too. If you don’t like being merchandise, there are other ways to earn our favor.”

The bandit reached out toward Raina Hart.
Around Tiernan Fargan, roughly thirty bandits still swarmed.
He seemed unaware of the situation here, occupied with them.
Raina Hart curled her lips into a composed smile and rose to her feet.

“Why should I?”

In the same motion, I seized Tiernan’s pocket watch from the floor and hurled it at the bandit’s face, then threw the blanket I’d been wearing to obscure his vision.

“…!?”

The bandit cried out in pain, struck squarely between the brows. The opening I needed had appeared. I grabbed my wooden sword from the seat and moved toward the opposite door.

‘If I’m captured, I’ll become a liability for Tiernan.’

The bandits would use Vivian as a hostage to force Tiernan into a disadvantageous position. He might even drop his blade and surrender willingly for her sake.
I’d like to believe the protagonist’s fortune would protect us, but my faith in the original story had already crumbled to dust.

‘I refuse to be a burden.’

The moment I unlocked the latch on the opposite carriage door and pulled it open—

“Where do you think you’re going!”

The struggling bandit seized Vivian’s ankle.
As his massive, pot-lid-like hand wrenched her foot with brutal force, Vivian lost her balance and began to be dragged away like prey caught in a crocodile’s jaws.

“Vivian!”

Tiernan, who had dispatched most of the bandits, witnessed the scene unfold.
He tried to rush toward her immediately, but the remaining bandits blocked his path like obstacles. The distance that had grown between them during the prolonged combat prevented him from reaching her in time.

‘Did you think I’d just accept this…!’

I swung my wooden sword with all my strength at the bandit.
It was a strike powered by Vivian’s swordsmanship ability. The blade whistled through the air with force, only to be caught with a dull thud against the bandit’s palm.

“…!”
“This sword has no weight to it at all. Are you seriously trying to play with toy swords against me?”

The bandit held the wooden sword in one hand, his expression utterly unimpressed as he sneered.

‘It really is too light for actual combat.’

It was a wooden sword that Kevenriak had hollowed out and crafted to give to Vivian.
With Vivian’s strength and such a light wooden sword, could it truly serve as an offensive weapon?
Raina Hart bit her lower lip.

“To think I’d be overwhelmed like this…!”

Thwack!

“Ugh!”

That was when the bandit’s face twisted in agony, and something exploded across his palm as he gripped the wooden sword.
The bandit screamed and released the sword, stumbling backward. The arm holding the wooden sword hung limp and powerless from his shoulder.

“Y-you…! A mage…!”
“…A mage?”

Fear flickered in the bandit’s eyes as he looked at Raina Hart.
It was an expression I had often seen during my days as an Archmage.
A mage? He thought I had triggered that explosion myself through magic.
But why did an explosion even occur…?
As confusion clouded my mind, a memory from last night suddenly surfaced.

“It’s a gift, my lady.”

The lesson where I had displayed sword techniques I could scarcely believe myself capable of.
Before taking a break, when Kevenriak told me to strike at his heart and I lost heart, setting down the wooden sword.
The Emperor, who said he had no time, took the wooden sword, examined it carefully, and returned it to me.
At the time, exhaustion had clouded my vision, so I hadn’t paid proper attention.

“If there’s a rat, swing with all your might.”

The cryptic words and his captivating smile had troubled me deeply.

“….”

Raina Hart rose to her feet and stepped out of the carriage.
A woman emerges. The bandit, writhing in extreme pain, put distance between himself and Raina Hart.
Judging by how my arm had just been shattered, I must be a close-range mage. After all, I had cast magic without incantation.

‘At least I’ll reach the Fourth Circle….’

An advanced mage starting from the Fourth Circle could face ten trained Knights alone.
Damn it. I thought she’d be an easy target—some helpless noblewoman.
The Bandit cursed under his breath, realizing he’d made a grave mistake.
In the tense standoff, the woman before him swung her blade.
Crack!
Not at him—at the boulder beside her.
It was slightly shorter than the woman’s height, wide enough for five or six adults to lie upon.

“Is she insane?”

The Bandit muttered without thinking at the sight.
His jaw went slack as what followed unfolded before his eyes.

Crackle, crackle, crack.
From where the woman’s blade had struck, fissures spider-webbed across the boulder’s surface, and then—an explosion erupted from within the cracks, shattering the stone into countless fragments.
It hadn’t even looked like a particularly forceful swing.
Confronted with close-range combat magic the likes of which they’d never witnessed, the surrounding Bandits faltered and stumbled backward.
If that blade touched them, they would die.

“….”

Raina Hart was just as startled by the shattered boulder as Tiernan Fargan, who had been rushing toward her.
Raina Hart stood holding the wooden sword, staring at the crumbled fragments of stone as she murmured.

“Keri….”

He must have inscribed magical formulas onto the wooden sword.
He’d turned a beginner’s training weapon into a legendary artifact.
Raina Hart turned her head.

Flinch.
The wounded Bandit whose eyes met hers gasped in terror and dropped to his knees on the spot.

“P-please spare me! My lady!”

***

Tiernan Fargan stared at Vivian with an expression of utter bewilderment.
The bandits surrounding her were prostrating themselves, begging for their lives.
Did Vivian know magic? Even when she swung her sword at the boulder, her stance had been flawless and economical. She wielded the blade with perfect mastery.

‘You are….’

Admiration spilled from Tiernan’s lips before he could stop himself, directed entirely at Vivian.
She was truly incomprehensible. At times, she seemed on the verge of collapse, yet in the next moment, she was like an unbending tree, like an eternal flame that refused to be extinguished.
Whenever I gazed upon Vivian, that fire seemed to kindle within my own spirit.
As Tiernan stared at her with endless fascination, the Bandit Leader’s voice reached his ears.

“You idiots! Who are you bowing to!”

The leader’s furious voice reverberated through the space, and his subordinates’ aggrieved protests spilled forth.

“B-but, Leader!”
“She’s a high-level mage! We don’t want to die!”
“Y-you, you fools!”

He’d even recruited common street thugs, yet they lacked any backbone.
He’d lost most of his men to a single pretty-faced swordsman. The mere dozen or so remaining were now on their knees before this woman—whether she was a swordmaster or a mage, he couldn’t tell—trembling and begging for their lives.

“That witch-like——”

The Bandit Leader gnashed his teeth and hurled his axe at Vivian, but before he could even make a sound, Tiernan’s blade struck him down.

“Vivian.”

Watching Tiernan rush toward her, I realized something.
That man has fallen for the Female Protagonist.

‘To Tiernan right now, Vivian looks lovely even if she shatters boulders and looks like a bandit leader.’

This is why the setting is terrifying.
I attributed everything about the way Tiernan rushed toward her to the setting itself.
Because right now, Tiernan’s expression was unmistakably that of a man in love.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————