If You Are Suited for the Villain's Secretary - Chapter 43

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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 43
The world has always been this way. If you don’t seize, you will be seized.
Muttering that he was merely returning everything to its rightful place, Randolph reached his destination, his eyes gleaming with avarice.
He set down the bag at the location marked on the blueprint and connected the detonator.
Once he pressed the button, the explosives would bring down The Cliff and swallow Julius Noel’s House.
With the button in hand, Randolph crawled back out through the Sewers and positioned himself at a spot Norbert had indicated—far enough from the blast radius yet with a clear view below.
“I won’t get to see Iliana begging and pleading, but still, this is a fitting enough ending.”
As Randolph chuckled to himself, he recalled the call from just before entering the Sewers.
“Iliana?”
-Yes. What is it?
“Let’s meet for a moment and talk.”
-Ah, talk? But…
Randolph produced a word she could not possibly refuse.
“It’s about your father. Aren’t you curious where Ruben is and what he’s doing right now?”
Iliana fell silent on the other end of the communicator.
After a sigh, she asked.
-Shall we meet at that Tea House from yesterday?
“No, for a conversation like this, somewhere without people would be better. Come to Casis Bay. Alone, and tell no one.”
To reach Casis Bay, one must necessarily pass through the path beneath this Cliff.
Soon the awaited response came.
-…Understood. I’ll see you shortly.
“All of it. Clean. In one blow.”
Randolph repeated Norbert’s words as he raised the telescope.
Iliana would arrive soon.
Waiting patiently while wiping away the rain, he finally spotted a carriage approaching in the distance.
He gripped the button tightly. Just a little further. When it passes directly beneath this Cliff…!
“What?”
But the carriage stopped well before reaching the Cliff.
“Why is she getting out there?”
Then Iliana descended.
Randolph was flustered. Were the guards blocking her passage, forcing her to explain the situation? He was thinking when—
His eyes widened as he peered through the telescope.
“T-Tessa!”
The person who had stepped out of the carriage with Iliana was none other than Tessa.
Chills ran down his rain-soaked back like a lightning strike.
If that carriage had passed beneath the Cliff with Tessa still inside, then by his own hand he would have…!
But Randolph’s shock did not end there.
“Why is she walking here with that girl! This can’t happen, she can’t come!”
Though he couldn’t fathom why they were together, Tessa clung to Iliana’s side, conversing about something as they walked toward the Cliff.
Without thinking, Randolph cast aside the telescope and frantically pressed the communicator.
But Tessa didn’t answer.
Eyes that had been brimming with desire now flickered with terror and shock. Randolph gnashed his teeth and wailed.
“Tessa!”
But his voice was swallowed by the downpour, never reaching her ears.
There was a reason why Randolph was so panicked despite holding the button in his hand.
Norbert had said he would keep a spare detonation button ‘just in case.’ He was likely watching everything unfold from somewhere else right now.
If Norbert were to press the button without accounting for Tessa’s presence—!
“No—!”
Tessa and Iliana were just about to step into the area where Julius Noel’s House stood.
Randolph finally,
“Iliana! Turn back! You can’t go there!”
—What? What do you mean?
“You mustn’t come down to The Cliff! Leave that place with Tessa right now, I’m telling you to leave!”
He had no choice but to beg the nephew he’d despised so much.
—You can see us, can’t you?
“Run! The explosives will detonate soon… ugh!”
A terrible pain seized him.
Randolph lost his grip on both the communicator and the detonation button.
But it wasn’t just the pain in his shoulder that silenced him.
—Yes. ‘We’ were watching too, Uncle.
Iliana’s cold voice flowing through the communicator reached Randolph, whose face was pressed into the ground.
The moment Randolph froze, two people behind him clicked their tongues.
“I’ve seen all kinds of crazy bastards.”
“I knew he was despicable, but not to this extent.”
It was Luther and Selby, who had approached silently and were now wrenching his wrists and stomping on his back.
“No! Let go! There’s another button, Tessa, argh!”
Even as Randolph thrashed and screamed through the excruciating pain in his shoulder, someone crouched down in front of him.
It was Laklan. As a former mine laborer, he was more familiar with explosives than anyone, and in his hands,
“What if we just reconnect this and leave only this bastard here?”
“Why ask? That’s a good idea, Branch Chief.”
The detonation device that Randolph had connected to the explosives was being held, now disconnected.
“Ha, ha…”
Randolph let out a sound that was neither laughter nor a sigh, and simply draped himself over Luther’s shoulder.
It was a moment later when his feet touched the ground again.
Because Luther had thrown him carelessly, Randolph’s face hit the ground first, and he barely managed to raise his upper body.
Among the people looking down at me, Iliana was the first one I locked eyes with.
“…You.”
Randolph ground his teeth.
“So you knew everything… and yet you made Tessa your shield?”
“Yes.”
The answer was terse.
Randolph shrieked convulsively.
“You knew the button was in my hand, you knew I might have pressed it if I hadn’t seen Tessa, and yet you dragged my wife into this! You made me—made me with my own hands do that insane thing to my wife!”
“What are you talking about, you bastard? You were the one trying to kill your own niece! If you’d pressed that button, it wouldn’t have been just Iliana who died. You were trying to end everyone here!”
Selby, unable to hold back any longer, spat out curses. Her tone made it clear she wouldn’t tolerate another word.
But Randolph’s ears seemed deaf to her words.
Randolph’s eyes, half-vacant, were fixed solely on Iliana.
“You think you’ve won. Don’t delude yourself.”
A pathetic madness flickered in Randolph’s eyes, his mind numbed by defeat.
“I made it clear. I said I would tell you about your father, Ruben. But now that things have come to this, you’ll spend your entire life chasing your father’s ghost! Go ahead and live with regret. You should have listened to me, should have for the rest of your—!”
“Uncle.”
Iliana cut off Randolph’s curse-like shriek and asked flatly.
“Do you still wish to cling to your pride?”
“…What?”
“I don’t understand what you taught me as a method to win in our negotiation.”
What reflected in Iliana’s eyes was neither fear nor dread nor despair.
“I know, Uncle. You don’t know anything about my father’s whereabouts.”
It was disillusionment.
“If you had known, you would have used it long ago. There would have been no need for kidnapping—it would have been a perfect card to push me as Victor Noel’s fifth wife. Yes, I also know that you and Aunt asked Jack from Fang to kidnap me.”
“Wh—!”
“And there’s more that I know.”
What Iliana produced was a forged seal.
“I just learned that you went so far as to forge my father’s seal to embezzle his estate.”
Looking at Randolph’s ashen face, Iliana spoke quietly.
“Don’t beg me to save you, to help you, or any such thing.”
“…”
“How am I supposed to help someone as foolish as you?”
“How am I supposed to help someone as foolish as you?”
Iliana returned to Randolph the very words he had once spoken to Ruben, her voice cold.
“Don’t delude yourself, Uncle. The one who has been chasing Father’s ghost and will continue to do so isn’t me. Even after stealing everything from your brother, even after becoming an advisor to the Marquis Estate…”
“Father once said that my older brother was clever and talented with words, unlike him.”
“…Ruben said such a thing?”
“You were deceived by a single lie from me—that my brother acknowledged you.”
As Iliana turned to leave, she added with an “ah.”
“And by the way.”
“…”
“I never married him, Uncle.”
Then she laughed softly and walked away.
The onlookers clicked their tongues and departed with her into the distance.
Left behind, Randolph opened his mouth with a strangled voice.
“Tessa….”
But Tessa, who had regarded him for a moment, soon squeezed her eyes shut and was led by the guards into a transport carriage that had arrived before she knew it.
Randolph’s vision rose as he stared blankly at her retreating figure.
Luther, who had seized him by the collar once more and hoisted him up effortlessly, shrugged his shoulders.
“Don’t worry. You’ll get to ride in the same carriage as your beloved wife. Of course….”
Crack.
Luther, still gripping Randolph’s collar, rotated his other forearm into view and added coldly.
“But first, we need to have a little ‘conversation’ together.”

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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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