For the Young Villain’s Happy Ending - Chapter 96

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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 96

‘This is troublesome.’

The eyes of a predator.
Beyond the brush, a low growl echoed—its tone unmistakably ominous.
Since it hadn’t crossed the barrier, it likely wasn’t a werewolf or similar monster.

‘Could I outrun it?’

I reconsidered my options.
Recalling how Maverick had pursued me effortlessly at the Imperial Palace last time, I doubted Vivian’s running speed would suffice.

‘Perhaps the wooden sword instead….’

I quietly grasped the hilt of the blade I held at my side.
Could I manage it? The orc last time had been slow enough to catch, but this was different.

Crunch.
The beast emerged slowly from beyond the brush, its gaze never leaving mine.
It was a wolf.
Three times the size of an ordinary wolf.
White fur on its face and black fur on its ears.

‘Is this the mountain’s master the villagers spoke of?’

Master or not, it was a man-eating wolf.
They said it only emerged from the deep mountain ravines beyond the barrier.
Why had it come this far?
Regardless, that wasn’t the pressing concern now.

“Grrrr.”

Beneath its wrinkled snout, fangs the size of forearms gleamed.
Though there was considerable distance between us, if that wolf charged, it would be upon me before I could even turn.

‘I have no choice.’

Raina Hart extended the hand gripping the wooden sword’s hilt forward.
She leveled the blade’s tip at the wolf and spoke.

“You want to eat me, don’t you?”

The mountain’s master and I locked eyes, neither yielding an inch as we studied each other.
The famished wolf moved first.
It lunged forward, closing the distance toward its prey.
In an instant, the wolf’s shadow fell across my head.

“…!”

But I had no intention of falling to the wolf’s fangs like this.
It went without saying that this was Vivian Asperada’s body.
Yet strangely, I felt certain I could evade the wolf’s attack and swing the wooden sword.

‘Why? Its movements look slow.’

I watched the wolf without blinking.
And just as I was about to swing my sword at the wolf charging toward my throat—

“Yelp!”

The wolf let out a pathetic cry as it flew sideways, crashing to the ground and skidding across it.
Sharp water arrows pierced through the wolf’s tough hide.
Every arrow struck a vital point, severing the wolf’s life before transforming back into water and cascading down.
Witnessing the mountain’s master’s pitiful end, I spun around urgently.
I still held the wooden sword in a defensive stance.
Magic.

‘Could they have been watching nearby all along?’

The Mage protecting Vivian Asperada.
My palms pounded with my heartbeat as I gripped the sword.
The Dark Mage was still nearby.
If I found them, I could feign a mistake and hurl some curses their way.
That rotten Dark Mage.

‘Where are they….’

Raina Hart paused mid-step, her gaze sweeping across her surroundings before she abruptly froze.

The creature was crouched low.

A translucent window materialized before her eyes.
The thought consumed her mind—surely not.
It felt as though she’d been struck from behind.
Her assumption had been utterly wrong.
It wasn’t some shadowy conspiracy.
The person who had been watching over me these past days—

“Ah….”

My mind went blank, yet my eyes continued to scan the surroundings with meticulous precision.
The direction from which the arrow had flown. The dense thicket sprawling there.

“….”

I didn’t need to see what lay beyond that quiet expanse—I already knew.
Raina Hart moved forward.
My head and heart pounded in unison, drowning out everything else beneath the weight of the headache and the indescribable emotion.
I was terrified you would flee before I could even see you.
There had to be a reason you hadn’t appeared before me these past days, only watching from the shadows.
A faint glow of mana began to shimmer above the thicket. Teleportation.
No. Don’t go.

“If you leave now!”

At Raina Hart’s cry, the light scattered instantly, as though caught in the act of wrongdoing.
Raina Hart spoke toward the thicket, her voice trembling with desperation.

“If you leave now… I won’t forgive you.”

I was terrified that being discovered would make you vanish.
A fear I had never felt even facing the wolf consumed my mind with such overwhelming force.
Swallowing countless pleas not to leave, Raina Hart slowly parted the thicket.

“Ha.”

A sound emerged from deep within her chest—whether a cry or a gasp, she could not say.

The monster crouched low.

Through the translucent barrier she could not bring herself to lower, Kevenriak’s figure overlapped with the scene before her.
He knelt upon the cold earth, his body folded inward.
Like a penitent. As though begging forgiveness from her.

“Keri.”

I had imagined countless times the moment my voice would reach you.
It had been my joy to envision how you would react upon regaining your senses, upon seeing me again.

“Master.”

A single smile—the kind you always gave me—would have been enough. I believed that was all I could ask for.
And yet.
Raina Hart extinguished the barrier and hurried through the undergrowth, dropping to her knees before him.

“The ground is cold. Why are you doing this?”

Why should he present himself to me in such a manner?
Why must you kneel before me like this?

“….”

Kevenriak did not answer.
Raina Hart’s trembling hand reached for the back of his head.
Kevenriak flinched, yet did not pull away from her touch—accepting it fully, as he had in those distant days when he was her student.
Still soft, his dark hair slipped through her fingers.
With careful tenderness, she stroked the head of her disciple, whom she had not touched in two years.

“I’m sorry. I was late.”

The sight of his bowed head ached in her heart; she wanted to lift his face, but could not.
Her own face was ruined by tears that would not cease—she could not bear to show him.
The cold earth beneath Kevenriak’s bowed head was also wet with the Emperor’s tears.
After a long silence, the Emperor’s lips slowly formed words.

“I’m sorry, Raina Hart.”

The moment she met the Emperor’s blue eyes as he lifted his gaze.
I could no longer hold back the tears that threatened to spill.

“Don’t forgive me.”

His eyes remained hollow and empty still.

“I killed you.”

A sorrow too vast to fill spilled forth as words.

***

“This much should be easy to smash.”

Ban hurled her body forcefully against the wall.
Yet the wall neither crumbled nor even trembled.

“Give it up, Ban.”

A square space the size of a reception room.
Max, sitting on the floor, spoke to the energetic Ban in a flat tone.

“Seems like we’re trapped in that woman’s space. It’s not real, so it won’t break.”
“Hmph. Would a disciple of Raina Hart give up so easily?”

Ban’s stubbornness only intensified, and she began transforming her arms into tiger claws to strike the wall.
While Ban desperately tried to destroy the wall, three disciples including Max remained seated on the floor and continued their conversation.

“Liam, Max. Tell me what you remember about the perpetrator.”

At Jasmine’s words, the two took turns recounting the clues they had witnessed.

“She was a woman.”
“There was a mole near her left eye.”

The day before.
The Raina Pursuit Team, composed of Jasmine (21 years old), Ban (19 years old), Max (18 years old), and Liam (20 years old, intelligence specialist), had been lurking around the House of Asperada.

“We’ve made it this far, but how do we confirm whether Vivian Asperada is inside the Duke’s Castle or not?”

I’d briefly considered slipping inside and back out.

“Teleportation won’t work. There’s a barrier around the castle that blocks intruders.”

Max, naturally gifted at sensing magical power, had discovered the barrier.
We’d nearly been caught as trespassers and thrown into the Asperada Duke’s Castle dungeon.
My disciples were huddled together, deliberating on how to infiltrate.

“We have visitors.”

Whoosh! Bang!

A mysterious woman cloaked entirely in robes suddenly appeared and attacked us.
Black magic power.

“A Dark Mage…!”

My disciples’ eyes sharpened in an instant as they attacked her, but even with Jasmine—a high-tier 4-circle mage—and three other disciples at mid-tier 3-circle, we were outmatched.
And so we’d been trapped in this space, enclosed on all sides by walls.
While Ban continued pounding against the walls, the other three disciples pressed on with their conversation.

“The mole near the eye. The Emperor said it would be a meaningful body mark on whoever killed my Master. The person who attacked us must be that culprit, right?”

Liam and Max nodded in agreement.
Jasmine posed a question to them.

“Why did she call us ‘visitors’?”

As if we’d stepped into her domain.
Max squinted with one eye.

“Because the culprit is someone who lives in the Asperada Duke’s Castle?”
“…The Duke and Duchess of Asperada.”

Liam, the information broker, muttered to himself.
At the sound of his voice, Jasmine and Max turned to look at him.
In Liam’s mind, the letter Raina Hart had left for her Disciples and the information he’d heard from Person were synthesized together.

“Master’s suspected culprits were among those people.”

Ban, who had somehow caught those words, stopped pounding the wall.
As the Disciples conversed, Ban, who had been gradually increasing her beastification, now looked no different from a tiger walking on two legs wearing pants.
Turning her head toward Liam, she asked with her lips curling upward.

“Why are you telling me this now?”
“Master only had suspicions, and it’s better not to share unconfirmed information….”

Liam, who was explaining the first principle of information provision, fell silent as an ominous feeling crept up his spine.

Crack. Crack.
As Ban, who had returned to human form, approached while cracking her knuckles, Liam scrambled backward while still seated.

“Ban, I’m your older brother…?”
“I know. Older brother Liam.”

Ban grinned wickedly. Liam was seized with terror.
Jasmine and Max shook their heads at the sight.

***

The Emperor still knelt before her.

“Keri didn’t kill me.”

Where could such heartbreaking words come from?
What fault could you possibly have?

“The Dark Mage did.”
“….”

In the meantime, there were beasts eyeing the mountain’s master’s failed prey as their own prize.
But they all vanished by the Emperor’s magic before they could even make a sound.
Vivian’s physical condition was also restored by the Emperor’s magic.

“…Raina Hart asked me to live in her letter.”
“Yes.”

At Kevenriak’s words, I answered with conviction.

“You can live, Raina Hart.”

A smile bloomed across my lips at those words.

“That’s a relief. Keri wanted to live—”
“No.”

Kevenriak’s answer cut off my words.
And at what followed, my heart trembled.

“You can reclaim your body. Not mine—yours, Raina Hart.

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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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