I Bought the Villains With Money - Chapter 82

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

Chapter 82.
The results would be dire. Casion, catching my glance, continued speaking.
“Professor Umbreller is someone Karman recommended. You know that already.”
Karman was right. I knew it in my head, but my heart wouldn’t cooperate.
“Where should we go?”
While we bickered, the carriage had slipped out of the Royal Palace. The driver, bringing it to a halt, cracked open a small window and asked.
I had to make a choice: complete the assignment or abandon it and turn back.
‘What do I do?’
While I wavered, cold air continued trickling through the small driver’s window.
“Cough.”
Casion coughed as the frigid wind hit him. When I spun around, he covered his mouth and curled in on himself, our eyes meeting.
He fought to suppress the cough. His small shoulders rose and fell in rapid succession.
“I’m, hck, cough—really fine. If you go back, you won’t, cough, see me.”
Casion spoke through it.
Not long after our Betrothal Ceremony had been held—I couldn’t very well break the engagement now. Left with no choice, I passed a map through the driver’s window.
‘Let’s manage somehow. We’ll do well together.’
“Huh?”
The assistant driver beside the main one let out a strange cry after checking the location. Clearly, even he found it deeply inappropriate.
“Is this the place, my lady? You really mean to go here?”
“Yes, please take us!”
I answered quickly and shut the window firmly.
Then, as Casion coughed restlessly, I rubbed his back and wrapped a blanket around his shoulders.
The assignment promised to be far from smooth.
And my prediction proved correct.
“We can go no further!”
At the foot of the mountain where Wind Valley lay, the driver flung open his window and shouted.
The wind blew so fiercely that conversation without raising one’s voice was all but impossible.
Casion and I gathered our things.
“One moment, Your Highness.”
Just before we left, I stopped him, troubled by the exposure of his bare neck. I wrapped a scarf around it for him.
“That’s enough—you do it yourself.”
“I have this.”
I picked up the blanket he’d left draped over the carriage seat. As I wound it and draped it around my own neck, Casion’s brow creased.
“Let me do that. You wear this instead.”
“Your Highness, you must maintain your dignity.”
“Who’s going to see us in the forest?”
“The escort will.”
Ever since the bomb incident at our last Betrothal Ceremony, Karman had grown considerably more vigilant about his children’s safety.
Whenever we went anywhere, we had an escort. So surely they’d followed us today as well.
At the very least, four guards would have come along.
“Do you have no dignity?”
“I never had any to begin with.”
I lifted my chin with mock arrogance, and finally Casion let out a soft laugh.
Though I’d declared boldly that we couldn’t abandon the assignment, the truth was Casion was tense. He understood his own condition better than anyone.
Thanks to my joke, the tension eased from his face, and he buried it deep into the scarf I’d wrapped around him.
I knocked on the carriage door, and the driver opened it.
Whhhhiiiine—
The moment it swung open, a tremendous howl of wind rushed in. The door rattled, and my hair whipped across my face, blocking my view.
“Your Highness, we really must go, mustn’t we?”
I shouted from behind Casion.
Casion nodded and stepped down.
***
Hah, hah.
Clinging tightly to Casion, I gasped for breath. With each inhale, my vision went white.
“You, hah, you should go back, cough.”
When Casion coughed, his body lurched sharply. His back and my chest collided hard. There was nothing I could do about it—I was holding him from behind.
Afraid he might apologize, I hid my pain and kept rubbing his shoulders. His body was cold.
“I can’t leave you here, Your Highness.”
“Go get, cough, help—cough, bring people back.”
Casion’s cough grew worse.
“Your Highness, you must be freezing. Bear with me just a moment—let me see if there’s anything useful in here.”
I rummaged through the Magic Pouch I always carried with me.
All manner of objects tumbled out of it.
A pearl known as Whale’s Tear, a Magic Contract, Golden Ink, Glass Slippers, Lebert’s Anti-nausea Medicine, an Hourglass…….
There was nothing—not a single thing—that could ward off the cold or summon help.
“Argh!”
I cried out in frustration, and Casion, who had been leaning the back of his head against me, lifted his chin. His forehead brushed against mine.
“Go down without me, I said.”
Casion’s voice came out hoarse and fractured.
“Two is better than one. What if I slip again on the way down? Then it’ll truly be the end.”
At my harsh words, Casion’s brow furrowed.
I found myself retracing how we’d ended up in such a situation.
We were in the middle of completing an assignment for Umbreller.
The assignment was to find the Ipheli in Wind Valley and investigate its habitat.
The moment we descended from the carriage, we set off toward Wind Valley without rest.
No matter how far we walked, Wind Valley never came into view. The snow was to blame for everything.
The town had enjoyed two days of clear skies and the snow had melted, but on the mountain it still lay thick and undisturbed.
We had no choice but to push through the drifts, and our pace slowed considerably.
Instinctively, I knew that if we didn’t complete the assignment quickly, danger would follow.
We walked without looking back. It was only later that we realized there was no escort following behind us.
So when we arrived at Wind Valley, discovered there were no Ipheli flowers, and were ready to turn back—that was when dark clouds gathered overhead and heavy snow began to fall once more.
“It’s just us. Did they lose us somewhere, or was there never anything there to begin with?”
Casion shrugged his shoulders, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that we’d stumbled into someone’s trap.
So we decided to turn back. We’d return and tell Umbreller that the flower we were searching for didn’t exist, and find out whether this was some cruel prank.
So we retraced our steps to come back. Or rather, we tried to.
If only the snow that had fallen in the interim hadn’t erased our footprints. If only the mountain’s appearance hadn’t changed in the meantime.
We wandered, searching for the path. Casion’s strength drained away bit by bit.
He pushed forward, swallowing the medicine Lebert had given him without water, but eventually his body gave out. Casion’s foot caught on nothing.
And then he fell.
“Your Highness!”
I cried out and slid down the slope after him. And now we’re here like this.
Huddled behind a large rock to escape the wind, clinging to each other’s warmth just to survive.
“Diana, if you asked me to name the best thing I’ve ever done in my life……”
Casion, who’d been coughing fitfully, swallowed and opened his mouth to speak.
“It’d be believing in you.”
It was moving, said beautifully—but not what I wanted to hear right now. I stopped rummaging through the Magic Pouch and flicked him hard on the forehead.
“Don’t talk like you’re about to die!”
“Diana, I’ve always been mindful of endings. I thought I’d die from illness, but I never imagined I’d freeze to death.”
Casion gives up far too easily.
It hadn’t been long since he’d sworn he wouldn’t abandon Umbreller’s assignment.
“Stop that talk and eat this!”
I shoved Chocolate into Casion’s mouth. It was something I’d managed to salvage from the Magic Pouch.
“Mmph. Mm, mmmm.”
I heard Casion swallowing, melting the Chocolate in his mouth. I ate the half that remained.
With food in my stomach, things felt a little better.
“You’re speaking casually to me……”
“You look like you’re dying anyway. What’s wrong with being casual?”
Since Casion was turning my insides out, I decided to do the same to his.
“Hey!”
“I’m older than you. Since we haven’t died yet, call me ‘older sister’ at least once.”
I deliberately provoked Casion. If he got angry, he’d generate heat.
Casion pulled his back away from where he’d been leaning and turned to face me. His eyes fell on the pile of objects I’d stacked beside me, and he let out a sigh.
“You carry, cough-cough, so many useless, cough, things with, cough-cough, you.”
Perhaps because we’d separated for a moment, his body temperature had plummeted, and his coughing intensified.
I unwound the Blanket from around my neck. Then I wrapped it around Casion’s shoulders.
Casion tried to pull my hands away, thrashing weakly. I didn’t budge an inch.
There was no way I’d lose to someone whose strength had drained away like paper fluttering in the wind.
“This should be yours, cough, hack, ah, ack.”
Casion kept up his bravado despite looking like death itself. The more violent his coughing became, the faster my hands worked through the Magic Pouch.
I was terrified. Terrified that this might truly be the end.
What if I die here in this dark forest tomorrow without ever seeing the sun again?
But I couldn’t let Casion see my fear. If I lost my will here, it would be irreversible.
Just one thing, please — let something work out that can save Casion, just one thing!
Then my fingers caught on something.
“It came out!”
What emerged from the Magic Pouch was a Winter Dress. A thick woolen dress with a wide skirt — more than enough to cover us both.
“This should buy us another hour at least.”
I wrapped one of the sleeves around Casion’s neck and spread the skirt wide to cover both him and me.
“This must be an expensive dress. Cough, it’s going to be ruined.”
“Then buy me a new one.”
Yes, I’ll buy you one — Casion’s voice grew fainter and fainter.
I had hoped he’d get angry and snap back, but instead he promised to pluck stars from the sky for me.
His head drooped onto my shoulder with a soft thud.
This was it.
This time, we were truly finished.
I bowed my head and stared hard at the Magic Pouch resting on the skirt.
“Your Highness.”
I called to Casion. He didn’t answer.
“Casion.”
I used his bare name.
“You bastard.”
I even cursed.
“Don’t you dare die on me, don’t you dare.”
And then I wept.
Just then,
“My student freezing to death without being able to cast a single Fireball? That’s unacceptable.”
A voice of salvation rang out.
“Master Guardian?”
“So you rascals are still alive, are you?”
Guardian appeared before me, his white robes billowing.
I Bought the Villains with Money (serialized)
Written by Lee In-hye
Published by Kim Ju-hyung
Published by J Plus Media Co., Ltd. — Tiramisu
Marketing by Han Jae-hyuk
Address: Room 1101, 11th Floor, Ace Techno Tower 8th Building, 33 Digital-ro, Guro-gu, Seoul
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 publisher and author.
Violation of this restriction may result in criminal and civil legal liability.

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