I’m a Villain, but I Want to Live a Long Life - Chapter 179

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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“Ah, for crying out loud! Move aside!”

“Hey, I’ve been standing in line for two hours! If you don’t like it, go stand in line yourself!”

A peaceful afternoon with the sun beating down.

Only the wind was cool, and the autumn atmosphere was beginning to be felt.

The North Village Street of the Empire was bustling with countless people.

“Is it really true that they’re giving out Renix meat in front of the newly built temple?”

“That’s what they say! Doesn’t it make you feel like even non-existent faith is suddenly sprouting?”

Women with headscarves whispered to each other in excited voices.

Besides them, there were workers in boots, young children, and elderly people with walking sticks.

The crowd lined up on the street was so long that the end was nowhere in sight.

Marzina, who had been standing in that line for an hour, muttered with a determined voice.

“My youngest has been starving for days, but if I get meat this time, I’ll let him eat to his heart’s content.”

“What are you talking about? Haven’t the relief rations increased lately? You have many children, so you should have received enough. Why is food still lacking?”

“Why would it be lacking, you ask.”

Marzina’s expression became gloomy.

And she glanced at several men walking over with a swagger from a distance.

“It’s because of those bastards over there.”

The woman next to her clicked her tongue.

The Swein Gang.

They were thugs who had settled in North District a few months ago and had been causing trouble.

“What, they used to run an illegal slave trade somewhere in the provinces?”

“Who knows. But just seeing them threaten people with knives…”

Marzina muttered in an aggrieved voice while crouching down to avoid being noticed by them.

She had already been having part of her relief rations stolen by them for several weeks.

All because of the simple reason that she had bumped shoulders with them while passing through the market.

‘Hey lady, are you crazy and want to die?!’

Having found fault over something trivial, they immediately made an outrageous demand.

‘From now on, bring us 60% of the rations you receive. If you don’t bring them, we’ll cut off both your legs.’

Faced with them holding a sharply honed dagger right in front of her eyes, Marzina almost burst into tears.

But still, she had no intention of giving them her rations.

That was until her young youngest child, half-sobbing, told her something terrible.

‘Mom, those people really go around stabbing people. Just give it to them, okay? What if you get hurt, Mom!’

Reporting to the Law Enforcement was too scary because of potential retaliation.

Rumors had already spread throughout North District that the Swein Gang had bribed the Law Enforcement.

“Surely they won’t ask me to hand over the meat I get from the temple too, right?”

“Still, just in case, if you get meat, hurry straight home. Okay?”

Marzina nodded with a frightened face.

Thinking of her youngest who had been starving for days made her want to cry.

After glancing at the Swein Gang once, she craned her neck and looked forward again.

The line had already shortened quite a bit, so it seemed she would be able to get meat soon.

It was when she was anxiously shuffling her feet.

“Well, well, look who we have here?”

A sluggish voice came from right behind her.

Marzina was startled and turned around.

The people who had been next to her just moments ago had parted like the Red Sea.

Standing boldly in the middle was Swein, whom she didn’t want to see even in her dreams.

“S-Swein…”

“Why do you look like that? Did you see something you shouldn’t have?”

Marzina’s pupils trembled.

“Aha, you’re standing in line to get meat. I really love Renix meat too.”

Swein took out a sharp folding knife from his pocket, placed it between his fingers, and spun it around.

“You know, right? 60% of the rations you receive belong to me. Just in case you don’t know, let me tell you – meat is also food? Even if you’re ignorant, you’d know that much, right?”

When Swein grinned, his gang members giggled and burst into mocking laughter.

A flash of anger appeared in Marzina’s eyes for a moment.

“I-I can’t give it to you this time…!”

“What?”

Swein’s expression instantly became menacing.

Marzina squeezed her eyes shut.

“The, the children are sick! My youngest hasn’t been eating properly for d-days… Eek!”

However, she stopped mid-sentence and immediately collapsed to the ground.

Right in front of her pale face, a sharp sword was thrust forward.

The people surrounding them each held their breath with terrified faces.

“Say that again.”

“The, the meat, I c-can’t…”

The blade pushed in right next to Marzina’s neck.

“Say it again.”

“…”

Tears slowly welled up in Marzina’s eyes.

Her lips trembling, she finally spoke in a thin voice.

“If, if I get meat, I’ll g-give it to you…”

Swein grinned.

Then he tapped Marzina’s cheek with the flat of his sword.

“Good thinking, lady. You should have acted like this from the start. Don’t you know that I am the law in this neighborhood?”

Then he stood up and looked around at the gathered crowd.

It looked like he was searching for other people to steal meat from.

That’s when it happened.

Suddenly, the gathered crowd began to part.

Swein raised one eyebrow and turned around.

Someone wearing a robe was fearlessly walking toward him step by step.

Confirming the light-colored hair flowing down from under the robe, he tilted his head.

“What the hell is this.”

At that moment, a cold voice echoed among the crowd.

“Why would the food that the temple provides belong to you?”

“What?”

His face, which had been deeply frowning, spat out a short curse.

“What the hell is this bitch saying? Do you know who I am?”

And he strode toward the woman and raised his arm. However.

“What, what the hell…!”

With a whoosh sound, the knife that had been gripped in his hand slipped away,

“Aaaaaargh—!!”

And was driven precisely into the center of his foot.

Blood immediately seeped out from his dark-colored shoe.

“Ugh, aaah…”

Swein collapsed to the ground in shock, unable to pull out the knife stuck in his foot, screaming in agony.

A robed woman ahead met his gaze.

“Does it hurt?”

Swein lifted his head with a terrified expression.

The woman pulled back the hood that had been covering her face.

Fine platinum hair cascaded down in gentle waves.

Swein momentarily forgot his pain and stared blankly at the woman’s face.

White, clean skin that exuded nobility even in stillness.

As he gazed with a dazed expression at her beautiful features that seemed crafted by an artisan,

her eyes that sparkled like embedded sapphires slowly curved into crescent shapes.

“Uh… Uhhh!!”

It was at that moment that Swein’s body floated up into the air.

He looked down at his own body floating like dust with his eyes wide open.

The woman’s gentle voice reached him.

“It won’t do to complain about pain from just a little wound on your foot. The torture from the executioners ahead will be much more painful than this.”

Swein’s eyelids opened even wider.

Soon his body crashed down onto a pile of stones beside the street with a loud thud!

The woman slowly rose from her spot, watching him sprawled out and groaning.

Swein’s gang members hesitantly backed away.

One of them shouted in a panicked voice.

“I don’t know what this is, but everyone run…!”

But he couldn’t finish those words.

Kaboom—!!

This time a fireball exploded right in front of his feet.

The man who had collapsed on the ground soon floated up like Swein. And flew toward the pile of stones.

The next man, and the one after that too.

“On the first day the temple reveals itself before everyone.”

The woman who had piled up the entire gang beside the stone heap without lifting a finger frowned.

“It’s troublesome if you keep ruining the sacred atmosphere.”

The woman dusted off her hands, turned around, and asked Marzina.

“Are you alright?”

Marzina moved her lips and blinked her eyes.

“Don’t worry. They will receive appropriate punishment. I’ll give strict orders to ensure this doesn’t happen again.”

“Who exactly are you…”

The woman didn’t answer and took Marzina’s hand to slowly help her up.

Suddenly wind blew, causing the front of the robe she wore to open and flutter.

Through the gap, a crest that no citizen of the Empire could fail to recognize was revealed.

Lady Tigris, Selene, pointed to the large temple visible at the end of the distant line.

“Today, the person who became the owner of that temple.”

“How did you manage the North District?”

Security Captain Nors flinched and trembled.

When he raised his head, he saw Lady Tigris looking down at him with a piercing gaze.

“Th-that is…”

He had been assigned here two months ago.

Unable to break his habit of taking bribes from his previous workplace, he had accepted just a little… a very little of the tokens of appreciation that Sredic offered here too.

‘Damn it. Why did I have to get caught…’

The moment he glanced up at the Lady before him again.

“Where do you get the nerve to meet my eyes?”

An ice-cold voice flew at him.

Nors was startled and quickly lowered his gaze.

“You’re permanently banished from the North District. And you’ll have to cough up two hundred times the bribes you received from that trash.”

Nors’s eyes went wide.

“T-two hundred times, you say?”

“Why. Can’t do it?”

Startled Nors’s gaze wavered aimlessly.

Two hundred times for taking some bribes!

He had never heard of such a law anywhere.

“L-Lady. It is my fault, I admit. But two hundred times for taking some bribes is too much…”

Silence followed.

Selene’s lips curved up crookedly as she chuckled, then an order immediately fell.

“Fine. Kopel?”

Nors watched with a terrified face as the large knight strode toward me.

“Take this bat-like human to the estate and imprison him in the castle dungeons.”

His arms were immediately bound. Nors’s face turned pale.

“T-Tigris Estate? S-suddenly?”

The Lady smiled.

“You said two hundred times was excessive for just taking some bribes.”

“L-Lady! What I meant was…!”

“If you take ‘just some bribes,’ can’t you handle ‘just some punishment’? Try to endure it well. See what the weight of the bribes you took really means.”

The horrified Nors was soon dragged away by the knights’ hands.

Thinking that the rumors about her being a saint who was benevolent but sometimes more cruel than a demon were really true.

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