That’s How I Became a Villainess - Chapter 16

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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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Chapter 16

The next day, Isaac, muttering about ghosts and hauntings, cleared away every portrait hanging from the staircase.
This was after Bridget had removed all the Magi she’d affixed to the frames.
‘A ghost, my foot.’
It was simply a concentration of Magi.
When Magi attached itself to objects and formed clumps, it could mimic shapes, and occasionally those phantoms would shimmer faintly enough for human eyes to glimpse them.
It wasn’t a common occurrence.
It only happened when several conditions aligned by pure chance.
Bridget could manufacture those conditions deliberately.
Having heard the previous night’s commotion from Anna, Bridget snorted silently to herself, delighted beyond measure.
Isaac and Penelope didn’t dare show their faces around the estate for quite some time.
To Penelope’s relief, the servants’ attention had fixed squarely on Isaac’s lower half.
“Every night that woman wailed so loud, I figured there had to be something to it, didn’t I.”
Bridget wasn’t the only one suffering each night.
Not a single servant had failed to notice the liaison between their master and his mistress.
The butler had merely instructed them all to pretend ignorance.
“Making a fuss over a muscle spasm.”
“Acting it out must’ve been the real trial. Pfft!”
“Haha! What a belly-laugh! Hehehehe!”
Raucous laughter kept spilling out from beyond the servants’ quarters.
The butler had his hands full warning them to keep their voices down.
Isaac knew the servants were gossiping about him behind closed doors, but he clenched his teeth and pretended not to know.
‘It was dark! It was too dark to see properly!’
Though aggrieved, he couldn’t afford to show it—such flailing would only compound his wretchedness.
Isaac wept quietly.
From that night on, the Winston Estate fell silent.
Bridget no longer suffered.

* * *

Then one day, while Isaac and Penelope were away during daylight, someone knocked on Bridget’s door.
“Madam.”
It was Cedric, the butler.
“Has word come?”
Bridget hurried him inside and closed the door behind him, asking as she did.
In truth, Cedric had never been bought by Penelope.
“That woman attempted to bribe me with this, madam.”
Cedric set a jewel before Bridget—one Penelope had given him—and confessed.
“You could have simply accepted it. Why tell me?”
“I do not wish to work for people of that character.”
Isaac’s public contempt for his servants’ dignity had left its mark.
Isaac had unwittingly played directly into Bridget’s scheme to expose both their true natures by bringing Penelope into the house.
From that moment, Cedric’s loyalty had evaporated—he could no longer bring himself to serve under a man like Isaac.
Cedric had been turning over Penelope’s proposal in his mind, wondering whether he should leave the Winston Estate.
But he had worked here since long before House of Winston had purchased the property.
Some butlers devoted themselves loyally to a single family across generations, while others like Cedric took root in a single estate and served many masters in turn.
It wasn’t easy to abandon a place where he’d spent his life simply because the current masters displeased him.
That was why he’d sought out Bridget.
“What do you think I should do, madam? I’ll do whatever you command. Should I refuse her and come back?”
“No, don’t do that.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Take the jewel and do as Penelope asks.”
“But—!”
“I don’t need invitations from others through a middleman. You can give her as many of those as you like. Only one thing—if word comes from House of Spencer, tell me of it alone.”
“…Very well, madam.”
And Cedric kept his word.
Bridget tore open the letter he had sent.
As expected, it contained a request written in Millea’s neat hand—asking her to come to the Spencer Estate because he needed help.
“I need to go out.”
“I assume this must be kept secret from the master? Will it take long?”
“It shouldn’t take too long.”
“I’ll make sure to cover for you.”
The more Cedric found Isaac and Penelope repulsive, the more his heart leaned toward Bridget.
Just before leaving the room, he hesitated a moment before asking.
“Will you truly leave the master and that woman as they are?”
Cedric knew what kind of treatment Bridget was receiving.
Though it had stopped after the last incident, what Isaac and Penelope had been doing every night at the estate was, in essence, malice directed at Bridget.
Not knowing that Bridget had orchestrated that accident, Cedric couldn’t understand why she would leave the two of them alone.
“You know she does it on purpose. That woman believes you’re helpless and can’t do anything about it. She’s trying to confirm her own influence. She’s becoming unbearably arrogant. Who knows what she’ll do next to provoke you.”
“Of course I know.”
“Then why…?”
Bridget smiled quietly.
The butler was slightly startled by the look in her eyes.
There was no helplessness, sadness, or anger in them.
Though her expression was inscrutable, it was clear that the events unfolding were causing Bridget neither confusion nor pain.
Her eyes held a resolve that hadn’t been there before.
“You have some plan, then.”
Cedric realized that Bridget’s tolerance of Penelope wasn’t simply because she was weak and soft-hearted.
“It won’t last much longer. She’ll soon understand that these tactics won’t get her what she wants.”
Cedric was taken aback by Bridget, who seemed to be quietly scheming something while observing the situation unfold.
‘Is she really like this?’
He’d thought her gentle and innocent, but when had she become someone who gave off such an impression of strength?
Cedric thought Bridget had begun to look different to him at some point.
And that brought him considerable solace.
If he thought of himself as remaining at the estate not to serve someone like Isaac, but for Bridget’s sake, then perhaps his current life wouldn’t fill him with such doubt.
“Should you ever need my assistance, please don’t hesitate to ask.”
“Thank you, Cedric.”
Cedric bowed respectfully and withdrew from Bridget’s room.
Left alone, a flush of anticipation bloomed across Bridget’s cheeks.
‘At last, Millea seeks me out.’

* * *

“Welcome, Countess of House of Winston.”
When Bridget arrived at the Spencer Estate, which stood near the Royal Palace, a gaunt Millea greeted her.
She looked at least ten years older than she had at the last party, as though worn down by terrible worry—yet her hair was still meticulously arranged without a single strand out of place, her clothes impeccable, and her elegance undiminished.
“I heard you needed my help.”
“Yes.”
Millea poured out the story of her son to Bridget.
“If I could just help him sleep soundly for one night, I would be grateful.”
Her tone was composed, but her voice trembled despite her efforts to hide it.
As far as Bridget could remember, Millea had always been a strong woman.
But now, worrying for her son, she was simply an ordinary mother caring for her child.
“Many physicians have come, but nothing has helped. My son hasn’t slept properly for a single night since returning from the battlefield.”
“Don’t worry. Everything will be all right.”
Even after summoning Bridget, Millea had been anxious about whether she could accomplish what the doctors had failed to do, and tears welled up in her eyes.
Though she was not one to show tears before others, Bridget’s confident assurance brought her comfort.
Bridget was led to where the patient lay.
In truth, she could have found the way without being guided.
The Magi grew denser the closer one came to the patient’s room, and by the time she stood before the door, it was so thick on all sides that she could barely see a hand’s breadth ahead.
“Come in.”
Millea, for whom the Magi was invisible, walked unhesitatingly into the dense, fog-like Magi.
Bridget stopped short upon entering the room.
‘The mass of Magi….’
Clumps of Magi, so dense they had taken on tangible form, clung to the ceiling and all the walls.
For some reason, this room alone felt bitterly cold.
It shifted between liquid and solid, squelching softly as it churned through countless shapes.
A human head thrust from the black mass, then vanished—arms and legs following the same pattern of emergence and withdrawal.
‘It’s mimicking the patient.’
A Magi that imitated inanimate objects held little power.
At most, it startled the eye and nothing more.
But a Magi that clung to a person and mimicked them—that was perilous.
It brought death.

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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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