That’s How I Became a Villainess - Chapter 25

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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 25

“……Matters between husband and wife ought to be resolved between them.”
“That’s hardly something to dismiss as a private affair, is it?”
“She’s made her decision to leave without escalating things.”
“…….”
“It seems she has nowhere else to go.”
Milea studied Ulian’s expression intently.
She read something in it.
She nodded once or twice, then turned and walked away, leaving him behind.
“……Very well.”
Even after she left, Ulian stood motionless, frozen in place.
“…….”
The door closed, and silence settled.
Or so it seemed—until the bottle of alcohol in Ulian’s grip cracked, and then shattered with a sharp crack.
He stared at his bleeding hand, cut by the glass shards.
As though it were Isaac’s face.

* * *

Bang!
Bridget, who had stayed obediently in her room at Milea’s request not to wander during the day, watched as the door was thrust open roughly.
Ulian stood in the doorway.
Having sensed his approach through the Flow of Mana, Bridget rose calmly from her seat.
“Ulian.”
Despite his violent entrance, his aura was cold, his expression blank.
Only the blood trickling from his hand seemed to speak for his turbulent emotions.
“Nowhere to go?”
“Ulian. You’re bleeding……!”
Alarmed by the sight of his blood, Bridget reached out, but he seized her arm.
Blood from the wound spilled across her skin, trailing down her fingers where it dripped away.
“Just say the word. If you wish it, I’ll have you thrown into the Underground Prison.”
He pulled her close, his face composed as though he felt no pain at all.
Their faces drew near enough that their breath mingled.
He tilted his head lazily, studying her eyes, his tone dripping with mockery.
“Isn’t my prison more comfortable than the cesspool you’d return to?”
His eyes held a dangerous light.
“In that cesspool, you’d become a puppet, used cruelly and without mercy—but in my prison, all you’d need to do is sleep quietly.”
A sharp smile crossed his face.
“Sweet oblivion, that would be.”
“Ulian.”
Bridget placed her hand over his wounded one, blood still flowing.
“You won’t kill me.”
Her eyes met his with a certainty born of conviction.
She had seen his true self in the twilight of their past life.
All those anguished confessions he had torn from himself—his heart was laid bare to her.
His brutality held no fear for her.
He suffered because he loved; he raged because he suffered.
And because she knew she was the source of that suffering, Bridget made no move to flee his anger.
“I won’t fear you.”
At the steadiness in Bridget’s gaze, Ulian’s eyes wavered.
He forced a smile, feigning composure.
“Is it because you hope I won’t, or are you expecting me to remain a pitiful wretch still besotted with a former lover who betrayed me?”
“I’m not speaking from such shallow calculation.”
“Ha. Amusing. You’ve misunderstood something—I hate you.”
“I know.”
“Now that you stand before me, I have no choice but to kill you for your betrayal.”
Bridget withdrew a handkerchief and bound Ulian’s wound with it.
Her composed manner made Ulian furrow his brow.
“Playing it cool, are you? Can’t read the situation? Our relationship isn’t complicated enough for this.”
Yet the emotions flickering in Ulian’s eyes as he spoke seemed far more tangled than his words suggested.
Bridget gathered the ends of the handkerchief and knotted them deftly, then looked up at him.
“Don’t kill me. Take me instead, Ulian.”
“What……?”
“You can do it now, can’t you? If I hate returning to my husband, then take me from him. He’s the sort who’d sell me to you the moment you showed the slightest interest. You know it yourself.”
Bridget’s hand cradled his cheek softly.
“Use him to put me at your feet.”
“…….”
“I’ll sit upon you in front of that pathetic husband of mine and lavish you with affection. Until your fury subsides. Until I become your solace.”
Honeyed words melted and flowed from her tongue.
“If you command me to dance, I’ll dance. If you command me to die, I’ll play at dying.”
“…….”
“I’ll become your fool, yours alone.”
Ulian’s eyes wavered.
The ferocity that had gripped him moments before began to ebb.
He fell silent for a time, then turned away.
“That’s ridiculous.”
His voice had lost all its force.
Bridget watched his retreating figure in silence.
Just before he turned, his face had betrayed a single thought: ‘She’d allow it?’
He looked like a man who had expected refusal and instead received permission, leaving him strangely hollow.
Bridget understood then.
He had never once considered using power or strength to keep her at his side.
‘So who’s the tyrant?’
If he were truly a heartless tyrant, forcing the person he desired to remain beside him would be nothing. A trivial thing.
‘He was worried about me.’
He had come running at the mere mention of her returning to Winston Manor.
Beneath his savage words and actions, he had tried to hide his true heart—but to Bridget, who knew him, his frantic concern was laid bare as day.
His answer had already been given.
He would summon her back to the Royal Palace.
‘Ulian. I’m going to dedicate this life to you, you know.’
For his glory and happiness, she would become a villainess cursed by the entire world without hesitation, or sink to any depravity without regret.
‘I’ll even use my own vengeance as fertilizer to raise you up.’
There were many ways to push Isaac and Penelope off a cliff’s edge.
The reason she did not yet shove them into the abyss was simply that the time for it had not yet come.
Bridget had to return to Winston Manor.
She had not yet laid enough traps.

* * *

Penelope watched Josh’s retreating figure from a second-floor window as he left Winston Manor.
For days now he had come daily, begging Isaac to let him wait for Bridget’s return.
If they found that girl, he would drag her back by her hair and make her beg forgiveness—just please, he pleaded, reconsider the divorce.
‘Tsk, how pitiable. He doesn’t even know Bridget is dead.’
Penelope pressed her hand against the windowpane, her face etched with sympathetic sorrow, as if to pat Josh’s retreating back.
“Don’t make that face, Penelope.”
Isaac had entered the room without warning and pulled her away from the window.
“Don’t let on that you know Bridget is dead. If Josh somehow suspects it later, what then?”
“I’m sorry, Isaac. But I pity Bridget so.”
Penelope squeezed out tears.
“Who could have foreseen such a thing? A woman who seemed perfectly well just days ago. It’s so senseless.”
“I shouldn’t have told someone so tender-hearted.”
“What are you saying? In times like this, I must be your strength. You’re anxious and suffering too.”
Penelope embraced Isaac.
“Do you think it’s your fault? Will Bridget think so too, even in death? Will she curse me from beyond the grave and obstruct my path forward?”
Isaac looked afraid.
But what he truly feared was not the curse of Bridget from beyond death, but rather the political backlash that would follow once Bridget’s corpse was discovered at Kensington Mansion.
“All the bodies have been recovered, but there’s still no word of a body identified as Bridget.”
Isaac kept his ear to the ground, listening for any rumor of an unidentified corpse, any mention of a blonde woman’s remains.
“There’s no way to identify her openly.”
“If there’s been no word until now, there won’t be any later. Don’t worry yourself, Isaac.”
Penelope stroked Isaac’s back, soothing him.
“Bridget would understand that you had no choice, that it was necessary to elevate the Winston Family’s standing. That’s why she hasn’t been found—for your sake. For the Winston Family’s sake.”
“Is that… is that so?”
“Of course. Our dear Bridget had such depth of heart.”
Isaac nodded in relief at Penelope’s words.
“Yes. She was a good woman. Gentle.”
The dead are always beautified—for the comfort of the living.
And for some, death becomes a one-sided means of reconciliation.
“I miss Bridget. My one and only dear friend…….”
Free now from the need to envy or compete with Bridget, Penelope grieved for her with genuine sorrow.
The inferiority and self-doubt she had harbored toward Bridget dissolved entirely, leaving only the good memories—and dead Bridget felt all the more precious for it.
At the same time, she basked in the goodness of her own heart, that she could mourn her lover’s wife rather than rejoice at her 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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