For the Young Villain’s Happy Ending - Chapter 98

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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 98

Thump, thump.
Kevenriak Heteroven’s heart hammered against his ribs.
Raina Hart called out to me, but I couldn’t turn around.

‘She’s caught me.’
‘Caught what I’ve done.’

I had thought that with dark magic concealing my heartbeat, she wouldn’t notice anything amiss from appearances alone.
But.

“…What have you done?”

In Raina’s voice as she spoke to me, there was meaning—a weight of understanding.
She knew. She knew exactly what I had done.

“Why is there a wound from a blade…”
“Raina.”

But I couldn’t stop here.
I had found your soul. If I advance just a little further, you can live—how could I possibly abandon this now?
Using magic, I fastened the buttons of Raina’s garments as she lay there, then turned to face her.
To silence the words that would spill from her lips, I opened my mouth first.

“I can explain.”

I hastily composed my expression into one of calm assurance.
A tender smile played at the corners of my mouth, meant to soothe her fears.

“Explain…?”
“Two years ago, when you sent me that magical messenger bird.”

For the first time, I spoke aloud the terrible memory, letting it spill from my lips.

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

The day I confessed my heart to my Master.
Raina Hart sent me a magical messenger bird.
I was terrified that you, who had departed for Hibeiro, would never return to me.
When I teleported there with an anxious heart, what I found was—
A horrifying silence where even your breathing had ceased.

“Your Master’s heart was beating so faintly.”

“…Ah, ah….”

I lifted you from the pool of blood with my own hands.
From that day forward, pitch darkness consumed me.
You were the only light in my life.

“In that moment, I awakened to the 7th Circle.”

When I lost everything, enlightenment came—the path to the next realm.
The seventh ring newly formed around my mana heart always constricted me like a curse.

“If I become a supreme mage, I can stop time, can’t I? I can also control the toxin. I stopped time in the Separate Palace and controlled the dark magic poison afflicting your wounds while unraveling the curse.”

I even wielded that cursed ring as a means to persuade my Master.
Kevenriak Heteroven scraped the very bottom of myself, clawing together everything I possessed.
Hoping you would pity your desperate disciple and fall for my lie.

‘A soul cannot be recovered once lost.’

To return a soul to its original body, it could not be done without her consent.
If kind Raina Hart learned that making her heart beat was achieved by burning my own life, she might flee.

“After lifting the magic nullification, your Master’s heart….”
“Keri.”

But her voice stopped me.
Her tone was resolute, as if she had no intention of believing my lies.

“That’s not it, is it?”

Raina Hart observed her disciple with his head bowed.
Had she heard his lies first, she might have believed him halfway.
But she had already made her certainty.

“When Keri discovered me, my heart must have already stopped.”

It was when she had seen his torso just moments ago—unmarred, without a single scar.
Questions accumulated in Raina Hart’s mind.
Her heart had been pierced through. The wound carried the Dark Mage’s spell negation, leaving no time to save her heart.

‘How?’

How could her body have survived in such perfect condition?
As Raina Hart kept all possibilities open and speculated about the past, a memory from days gone by surfaced in her mind.

“I wish you’d grow stronger quickly. I don’t have much time.”

The Emperor who had taken Vivian Asperada as his swordsmanship disciple, asking her to pierce his heart. Kevenriak Heteroven, who had urged her to grow stronger, saying time was running out.
Magic could not resurrect life. Not unless one touched upon the forbidden.

‘Life transference.’

The moment she recalled that forbidden dark magic, everything fell into place.
Even your actions back at the Imperial Palace, which she had not understood.

‘So that’s why you asked me to pierce your heart. To end your final moment as my final moment.’

I thought I understood everything, yet the despair you felt always ran deeper than I imagined.
But I could not leave you trapped in that despair forever.

“Keri.”
“….”

Raina Hart moved past the head of her reclining body and stood before her bowed disciple.
She cupped his face in her hands and met his eyes.
I know why you’re desperately weaving lies for me.

“Stop the magic. Right now.”

The affectionate disciple’s expression crumbled in an instant.
Only then did Raina Hart understand.
Even after regaining her senses, those hollow eyes had been meant to hide your thoughts from me.
Wavering blue eyes gazed upon her.
Emotions that could no longer be concealed flowed out with aching poignancy.

“That cannot be.”
“Keri, dispel the magic.”
“…If you return to your original body…”
“Do you take your teacher for a fool?”

The transference of life accelerated beyond control the moment the other’s eyes opened.
It was a spell even Dark Mages refused to use, for none could escape death from it.
Should my soul enter that body, Kevenriak would perish on the spot.

“…Raina Hart’s heart still cannot beat on its own.”
“I could never wish to live at the cost of Keri’s life.”

Like a seesaw with a broken fulcrum.
One dies, and one lives.
One lives, and one dies.
The sorrow in this exchange is that we both covet the same place.

[Will you do it anyway?]

A shrill ringing echoed beneath the eardrums.
Amid the murky static, an unidentifiable voice emerged.
If you do not live, then I—

“Why… have I… come this far…”

A sudden, violent headache flooded the mind.

“Ugh…”
“Rai…na!”

A splitting headache drove Raina Hart to bend forward, clutching her upper body.
Kevenriak Heteroven seized both of her hands, shouting something desperately toward her.
The ringing in her ears and the blur obscuring her vision made it impossible to understand his words.
But that anguished expression—he was worried about me, as always.

[…Please protect the happy ending.]

For the first time in fourteen years, fragmented memories from my previous life flickered into sharp clarity before fading once more. Someone had spoken to me, and I watched the movement of their lips.
To that figure dissolving back into the haze of memory, I posed a question born of despair.

‘Why did you send me to this world?’

You should have sent someone greater than me.
Someone wiser, someone more capable.
Then Keri would be living the life you desired.

“The princess was sent by my Master to kill me, after all.”

In the end, I will stop your heart.
I pleaded toward the silhouette of Kevenriak Heteroven, still crying out to me.

“Please. Keri.”
“…!”
“Let me—”

save you.

***

“Raina Hart!”

Kevenriak Heteroven called out to Raina Hart, who was groaning in agony.
He had used healing magic, yet she continued to suffer.

‘It’s because of me.’

Her body was already unstable.
Perhaps my torment of Raina Hart’s soul was the reason she was suffering so terribly now.
And yet I could not bend my will.

‘I’m sorry, Raina.’

I know I’m being selfish.

“Are you trying to gain absolution through such a cowardly method?”

Words that Ban had spoken to the mad me.
Yes, Ban. I am indulging my desires cowardly.
But I never sought absolution. If absolution were offered to me, I would tear it to shreds with my own hands and scatter it over the filth of beasts.
What I truly desire is—.

‘…Like a flower.’

I merely wish that the only light I have ever discovered—my first and final light—never extinguishes in this world.

“Ah….”

In that moment, a moan escaped the lips of Vivian Asperada as she bowed her head.
I swiftly cast a healing spell upon her, and she slowly lifted her head as if her condition had improved.
But.

“Who…are you?”

The one before me was not her.
Though her face remained unchanged from moments before, an utterly unfamiliar visage gazed upon me.

“…Vivian Asperada.”

Kevenriak murmured as he released the hand he had been holding.

“Ah, yes.”

Vivian nodded.
She had left an apple on the table and written a memo in her notebook.
The surroundings had changed in a single blink, so it seemed the other soul sharing my body had awakened.
The headache I had briefly felt vanished in an instant, and the scene before me was—.

‘What…what is this situation?’

A raven-haired beauty so captivating it felt dangerous wept silently, tears streaming without sound.
Then, startled by the tears falling from her own eyes, she wiped her cheeks hastily.

“What? Why is this happening?”

Yet the tears would not cease.
The emotions embedded so deeply within the body had transcended the boundary of flesh, affecting even her—a different soul entirely.
Gazing upon the man before her, her heart shattered with an inexplicable sorrow.
Vivian wept without understanding why.

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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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