If You Are Suited for the Villain's Secretary - Chapter 39

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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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If the Villain’s Secretary Suits Me
Chapter 39
As Aden listened to Laklan’s report, his mind drifted back to the early morning hours.
It had been a grueling sprint—finalizing the design in half a day and placing advertisements across every major newspaper in the Empire.
Perhaps that was why his secretary’s complexion had grown progressively worse.
Though he had gently suggested she rest, she stubbornly remained at her post, verifying every typo in the printed newspapers before finally collapsing onto the sofa in the residence’s reception room.
That had been three hours ago.
“Have there been any unusual developments reported by the security personnel stationed around Julius Noel’s residence?”
“The Noel Marquis House continues attempting contact, but we’re firmly preventing any approach. Additionally, since Scott is standing by to draft the ownership transfer contract the moment the deposit is confirmed, I suspect there won’t even be an opportunity for them to interfere.”
“We cannot rule out the possibility that Noel will mobilize private forces. Let’s assign additional security personnel. And have the construction materials for the harbor project standing by in advance…”
With so many matters requiring discussion, including the newspaper company, Aden had simply let his secretary rest.
Then, just before the briefing meeting, when he went to wake her, he suddenly noticed something odd about her breathing.
He placed his hand on her forehead. She had a fever. But since the meeting couldn’t be postponed, he had no choice but to call Selby and the Doctor under the pretext of being her guardians before stepping out.
Had she improved by now?
As Aden pondered this, his eyes met Laklan’s. Laklan tilted his head.
“Yes. Should I have both materials and personnel standing by?”
It seemed his train of thought had been interrupted.
Aden nodded slowly.
“Yes.”
“Understood.”
Laklan, organizing documents with an expression as refreshing as a tooth extraction, added in passing:
“Ah, just to be safe, I should mention—Secretary Iliana’s contact with Randolph Maurel yesterday was a matter previously shared with me. It wasn’t independent action, so there’s no need for excessive concern.”
“I see.”
This “I see” was a genuine “I see”—meaning this was information Aden hadn’t known.
Laklan smiled faintly.
“Yes. Then I’ll take my leave. Perhaps you should get some rest as well, sir.”
Finally alone, Aden flipped through several documents before stopping.
He ran a hand through his hair, thought for a moment, then rose and headed toward the residence.
For some reason, Selby was in the reception room. Iliana was still lying on the sofa. Hadn’t she been moved to the bedroom?
“Was the bedroom door locked?”
“Oh, no. She was sleeping so soundly that I was worried moving her might wake her, so I just left her here.”
“Her fever?”
“At first, her forehead was burning so hot it startled me, but strangely, the fever dropped quickly. The Doctor said it was psychosomatic fever—essentially not a real illness, but rather stress and exhaustion.”
Selby lowered her voice.
“It was probably because of that uncle of hers. Even I felt my stomach twist just thinking about his face.”
“You seem quite familiar with Miss Grecia’s circumstances.”
“Yes. It’s a bit awkward to call it privacy, but…”
Selby, changing the subject with ease, bowed respectfully.
“Anyway, um, it’s a bit strange to say this to you, sir, but please take good care of Iliana!”
“Yes, that was rather an imprecise choice of words.”
It was the moment Selby hesitated.
“There’s no need to ask. You’re doing well.”
“Oh my, I thought I’d made a mistake… I’ll take my leave then.”
“Thank you for your work.”
After Selby, experiencing the CEO’s distinctive manner of speech that drove wedges between people for the first time, clicked her tongue and left.
The reception room fell silent. Aden, seated in the chair across from Iliana, studied her briefly before producing a hip flask.
Everyone who knew Aden wondered the same thing. What on earth did that hip flask contain, the one he habitually raised to his lips?
Water? Tea? Alcohol? Coffee? But they were all wrong.
What lay inside the hip flask was a mana suppressant—a medicine.
Or rather,
“A mana suppressant? But… if you concentrate it to this degree, it’s no longer medicine, it’s…”
“I know. It’s poison.”
Poison, indeed.
For a long time, I had suffered from an extraordinarily rare condition: “mana backflow.”
Ordinarily, mana exists within the bloodstream—flowing and circulating throughout the body.
But in my case, possessing mana that exceeded normal levels by thousands of times over, that formidable and heavy mana could not flow freely. Instead, it pooled stagnantly within my heart.
It was as though water meant to flow to the sea swirled endlessly within a lake. And if that lake’s embankment were to collapse…
The mana would consume my heart. Losing consciousness and degenerating into a mere shell of mana—what was called “mana runaway.”
“But it doesn’t matter. Just tell me if it’s possible.”
“I-it is possible, but…”
Of course, I had no intention of being swayed by backflow or runaway, so I had found a solution.
The mana suppressant. It was hardly a standard treatment. It was a drug used only by mages who crafted magical artifacts, erasing their own mana temporarily to eliminate variables that might affect their experiments.
I purchased the formula. Through La Mar’s distribution network, I sourced the materials and manufactured the medicine myself, concentrating it to its absolute limit.
And I drank it. I drank, and drank again.
No one knew I was consuming the mana suppressant, and the poison masquerading as medicine proved effective.
‘Until recently.’
Distrusting vague feelings or intuitions, I verified myself each morning with a mana detector.
After drinking the medicine, the detector’s needle would settle.
But recently, even after consuming the suppressant, the needle had begun to tremble.
It was unmistakable evidence that the suppressant’s efficacy was gradually waning.
“…Damn.”
Why now, of all times?
For me, what ignited the bomb of “mana backflow” was emotion.
There were stages. When emotions intensified, first came a searing pain and heat in my chest, as though something were clawing through it.
Next came a rippling sensation felt from behind my back, and finally, when sensation began to fade from my fingertips…
From that point on, there was no memory. I would awaken with only fragmented, nightmarish afterimages remaining.
‘Horrifyingly so.’
I harbored an extreme revulsion toward that sensation of my heart, rather than my mind, seizing and controlling my body.
If this is merely “backflow,” what would happen if “runaway” occurred?
That the most unpredictable adversary was none other than myself—this struck me as profoundly unsettling.
Yet in all the years I’d been taking the suppressant, it had never happened once.
“A marriage agreement was pointless from the start, because I can’t possibly marry… Ugh.”
Of all times, it had to be yesterday.
The moment I faced Randolph Maurel speaking of marriage over the communication device, my emotions spiraled out of control.
It was the prelude to that ‘backflow’—once familiar, and all the more terrifying for it.
But just before my vision blurred and my senses were consumed….
“Director?”
The instant I heard Iliana Grecia’s voice and met her gaze, my mind snapped back as if doused with cold water.
It was strange. The heat crushing my chest evaporated like a mirage, and I found peace in a single moment? Moreover, upon checking, my condition remained calm even today.
Aden gazed at the sleeping Iliana with heavy eyes, her breathing soft and steady.
He tried to analyze this anomaly with cold rationality.
‘…It must be coincidence.’
Though Aden was not one to welcome coincidence, there was no other way to explain it.
My condition remained calm because the obstacle that had been plaguing the project had disappeared.
I regained my senses because Iliana spoke to me just as the crest of the backflow reached its peak and was beginning to subside on its own.
Or perhaps the repugnant stimulus that was Randolph Maurel had been neutralized by her appearance, granting me temporary stability. A kind of ventilation.
Yet there was something that kept disrupting this rather rational conclusion.
“Open your eyes. I’ll help you.”
In the nightmares I sometimes had, a voice speaking to me with such tenderness—an auditory hallucination.
A voice that woke me from the backflow that tormented me even in dreams.
A dream I’d had for ten years. That ‘someone’ always appeared in the same form.
Though I could never be certain. I could never see their face.
Everything around was dark, and all I could see were small hands and a necklace of a peculiar shape.
It must be a fantasy. Another ventilation device my own mind had created.
And yet, knowing this, I….
“Everything will be all right.”
I sometimes missed that girl who told me everything would be all right.

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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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