I Bought the Villains With Money - Chapter 1

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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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Episode 1.
“I wish you would live.”
I wish that too, Your Highness.
I wish you would live too.
So then, we—
“Let’s get married, Casion.”
Casion, sickly as he was, heard Diana’s words and replied with a face on the verge of collapse.
“You’ve lost your mind.”
***
Diana Viola Irenberl was the object of envy for every woman in the kingdom.
She was the only daughter of a ducal house—her ancestors had been founding contributors who stood at the kingdom’s very birth, and thanks to their shrewd business acumen, they possessed wealth enough to swallow a small nation whole and still have coin left over.
And on top of all that, she was beautiful and brilliant.
Because of this, Diana had lived her entire life without a care in the world.
Except for one thing: losing her parents to an unexpected accident at the age of twelve.
Comforting her in her grief, her uncle Count Colcos took on the role of her guardian.
Through Colcos’s introduction, Diana met the First Prince Dayson and fell in love at once.
The heiress of the kingdom’s greatest house and Prince Dayson naturally came to promise each other marriage.
Except for the absence of her parents, her life was flawlessly happy.
A life where she saw only beauty, ate only the finest things, wore only elegance. Everyone showed her kindness, and everyone coveted what she possessed.
So Diana could never have imagined it.
That at twenty-one, she would find herself not at a wedding altar, but ascending the scaffold.
“Diana Viola Irenberl, step forward to receive judgment.”
The king’s representative raised his voice.
As though struck by lightning, Diana’s body trembled violently before she shuffled forward toward the place where the guillotine stood.
With every step she took, curses rained down from the crowd.
“For deceiving the righteous Royal House and the kingdom’s people, and for attempting treason for the sake of personal gain, you are sentenced to death by execution!”
As she stood before the guillotine, the king’s representative cried out once more.
Roooaaarrr—
A sound like thunder erupted from the crowd.
“Wait, please! Our lady would never do such a thing!”
Jennice, Diana’s handmaiden, pushed through the throng and cried out.
Watching from the execution ground, Dayson’s face twisted with rage.
“What are you doing! Execute her at once!”
He urged the executioner to proceed with the sentence.
At the prince’s command, the Security Forces moved with absolute precision.
Jennice, who had been trying to reach Diana, was blocked by the guards, and various minor procedures were boldly skipped.
Diana kept her eyes wide open, staring for a long moment at the one hastening her death.
Dayson, Diana’s betrothed and the crown prince of the kingdom, made no attempt to clear her of the false charges. Instead, he led the charge toward her execution.
When Diana spoke of misunderstandings, when she begged him to recall their shared love, he cut her off coldly.
“I never loved you. I only needed your money and your power.”
‘Filth.’
Click—the executioner fastened Diana’s wrists to the board. With her cheek pressed against the wooden plank, Diana rolled her eyes to glare at the woman standing beside Dayson.
Her cousin Bella was leaning against Dayson with a pitying expression on her face. Bile rose in Diana’s throat.
“Poor Diana. You should have just sat quietly and played the purse. Why did you suddenly try to act as head of the house? That’s why I took everything from you. Your money, your house, your fiancé.”
Not long before, Bella had come to Diana in the Underground Dungeon and mocked her, saying that she and Dayson were in love.
“Since when? Since when have you and Dayson—?”
“From the beginning. From the very moment you met him.”
The instant those words reached her ears, Diana felt the ground beneath her feet shatter. Her entire life came undone.
Diana had gripped the bars and shaken them, screaming that she would never forgive, but Bella only scoffed. Locked in that cell, Diana was as helpless as a newborn child.
Remembering it now, rage blazed through her. Despite legs so weakened by her cruel imprisonment that she could barely stand, her eyes burned with fierce light.
Every insult, every contempt, every curse became a blade lodged in Diana’s heart.
But she was not ready to surrender.
She thought of a legend passed down through the kingdom.
“If three or more doubt one’s death, that soul shall be saved.”
In truth, Diana had never believed in legends. She loved fairy tales, but she was not so childish as to confuse them with reality. She preferred money to fairy tales, she loved jewels, she adored the sweet words others offered her.
But now she believes. She trusts with desperation. If belief can build a castle, then hers will become an impregnable fortress.
“If any here doubt that this criminal’s death is just, raise your hand.”
Most procedures had been omitted, but the executioner could not arbitrarily skip this one—the right to voice objection.
Diana waited with desperate hope for someone to come forward on her behalf, grasping at straws.
But her hope proved hollow. Silence reigned on all sides. Time flowed on, indifferent and merciless.
‘Not a single soul? Truly, there’s no one left who’ll weep for me?’
Even that last glimmer of hope had been nothing but a hollow wish. Diana’s shoulders sagged, her head dropping without strength.
It was then.
“Miss! Stop! Our miss would never do such a thing!”
Jennice thrashed desperately through the Security Forces, fighting her way forward.
Her face a wreck of tears and mucus, she called out to Diana with raw urgency.
Diana’s heart seized, hope and desperation surging through her again.
‘Just two more.’
Had her plea been heard?
“I cannot accept Diana’s death!”
A woman with flame-red hair swept forward—Cho.
She was Diana’s aunt. Her mother’s sister, someone Diana had scarcely ever truly spoken with.
Diana, who had counted only the House of Colcos as her blood, had only recently learned that her mother’s brother lived somewhere in this kingdom.
If she had known she would die like this, she would have shared so much more with her aunt. Bitter tears streamed down Diana’s cheeks.
With the clash of steel, the king’s soldiers encircled Cho and Jennice, blades pressed against their throats.
Diana’s jaw clenched, her eyes wide and burning.
Her fists trembled violently. She stared at the execution ground as if to tattoo its sight upon her eyes, and cried out.
“Let them go!”
But the bonds holding Jennice and Cho only tightened.
Diana’s voice broke with the weight of her helplessness as she begged.
‘Please. Just one more. Give me one more chance!’
The executioner lifted the corner of his mouth in a smile, as though he knew exactly what was running through her mind.
When he raised his hand, the chains binding Diana’s arms drew taut. Without further delay, the executioner cried out again.
“For indulging in luxury and excess while mocking the lives of the kingdom’s people, for insulting the Royal House of Petrola and plunging the nation into chaos—crimes so grievous that they cry out for justice! By the name of King Karman of Petrola, I pronounce sentence! Let the guilty receive their punishment!”
“Mmph—!”
Diana shook her head desperately, clawing for even a moment more.
‘One more! Just one more! Even if it’s a lie, let someone doubt my death! Please, please!’
But her desperate struggle was in vain. The roar of those crying for her execution only grew louder.
Tears rolled ceaselessly down Diana’s cheeks.
Not tears of sorrow or fear of death, but tears of fury.
‘If… if hell exists, I’ll wait for you there!’
Boom—
The execution drum sounded across the plaza. When it reached five beats, the sickle aimed at Diana’s throat would fall.
Boom, boom—
The drum continued its rhythm.
The drummer raised the mallet high to sound the fourth beat.
But then, from somewhere, a fierce wind swept across the square.
And a heavy voice that overwhelmed the gathered crowd rang out across the plaza.
“Wait. Everyone seems rather impatient, don’t they?”
“Who goes there? An execution, once begun, cannot be stopped!”
The executioner bristled at the sudden voice, turning his head this way and that in search of the speaker.
But he could not find him. Frustrated, the executioner snatched the mallet from the drummer’s hands and struck the drum himself.
Boom,
The fourth beat sounded from the executioner’s hand.
And just as the final fifth beat was about to follow—
“Casion Lichter Petrola!”
The same voice rang out again from above, loud and clear.
“Though the records say I’m dead, I am still a prince of this realm. Surely a mere executioner cannot silence me?”
“What?”
Now that he knew where the voice came from, the executioner’s head snapped upward.
To his shock, a man rode a wyvern high above the execution ground.
Despite the distance, the man’s eyes gleamed with a clarity as vivid as if he stood close.
His eyes were gold—the symbol of the Royal House.
And in his hand, he held the Royal Treasure, which had vanished long before.
The man descended from the wyvern, leaping down toward the execution ground.
When he touched solid earth, no one could doubt his identity.
Beyond the golden eyes and the Royal Treasure, his face bore the unmistakable features of the prince who had disappeared years ago.
“Y-Your Highness?”
Diana’s eyes flew open wide.
Casion, whom she had believed dead, stood before her full-grown.
So beautiful and radiant that she couldn’t tear her gaze away.
“It’s been a long time, Diana.”
Broad shoulders, muscles rippling subtly with each movement, hair black as pitch that seemed to devour sunlight, and golden eyes of unfathomable depth that gave away nothing—everything about him arrested her attention.
Diana swallowed hard.
“You—you really are Casion? You’re… alive?”
“Thanks to you. But look at the state you’re in. I came to repay a debt, and fortunately it seems we’re not too late.”
Diana remembered at once what debt Casion spoke of.
“The day I fled, you saw me but held your tongue. Because of that, the pursuers caught up more slowly. And with the jewels you gave me, I survived countless crises. You saved my life.”
What had been mere compassion on her part, Casion had carried in his heart all this time. Enough to appear at the execution ground to repay it.
None of it felt real. Diana couldn’t believe what was happening.
The moment she was imprisoned on false charges, every person who had poured sweet words turned away. Even those she had thought family.
And yet Casion, who had helped her only once, was standing up for her now.
“Do you need help?”
Casion asked, and when he smiled with a gleam in his eyes, his austere expression warmed like the midday sun.
Diana nodded as if entranced.
The returning prince positioned himself in front of her. The moment his shadow fell across her, she felt a deep, inexplicable sense of relief.
“I, Casion Lichté Petrola, cannot accept Diana’s death.”
For the sake of legend, a formal procedure had been created, and the prince had stepped forward. To shield Diana, branded a traitor.
Whispers rippled through the crowd. Hope bloomed across Diana’s face.
The condition of the legend had been fulfilled. Now perhaps something extraordinary would occur to save her.
……
But no matter how long she waited, no dramatic change came.
The fragile hope in Diana’s heart crumbled to dust.
‘After all, legends are just legends.’
Yet she wasn’t as disappointed as she might have been. Three people had risked everything for her, after all.
“Thank you, Your Highness. I won’t forget you, even in death.”
Diana whispered softly.
She had planned to exact her revenge even from beyond the grave. Adding one more debt to repay wouldn’t make that task any harder.
Through the murmurs, voices urging the swift execution of Diana’s sentence wove in.
Casion dropped to one knee and met her eyes.
“Don’t think of it as a debt. You saved me once, and I’ve saved you once. Now we’re even.”
……
“And you—aren’t you giving up too easily?”
Before she could ask what he meant, he whispered something low.
“I want you to live.”
Boom—
The drum sounded again, mocking Diana’s hope, and the executioner’s blade rose high.
And just when she thought this was truly the end.
‘Don’t worry, Diana. You will be saved.’
Casion’s voice resonated inside Diana’s mind.
‘This is… Magical Telepathy?’
A method of transmitting words without sound existed only in the magic wielded by sorcerers: Magical Telepathy.
Diana’s eyes widened. She opened her mouth to answer Casion.
But that beautiful voice, said to be like a nightingale’s song, could no longer be heard.
The blade fell, and she was dead.
Strangely, the last thought Diana had as she met death was of Casion.
‘Your Highness was… a sorcerer?’
I Bought Out the Villains with Money (Serialized)
Author │ Lee In-hye
Publisher │ Kim Ju-hyeong
Published by │ J Plus Media Co., Ltd. – Tiramisu
Marketing │ Han Jae-hyeok
Address │ 1101, 11F Acetech Tower 8th, 33 Digital-ro, Guro-gu, Seoul (Guro-dong)
Email │ [email protected]
Website │ http://blog.naver.com/jayplemedia1
ⓒ Lee In-hye 2021
※This work is published by J Plus Media Co., Ltd. under contract with the copyright holder,
and the content may not be used in any form or by any means without permission from the company and author.
Violation of this may result in criminal and civil legal liability.

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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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