That’s How I Became a Villainess - Chapter 42

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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 42

‘What on earth?’
The Cottage had a small window, barely the size of a palm. It didn’t open, but glass had been fitted into it to let the light through.
Bridget shifted a wooden crate beneath it and climbed up, wiping the cloudy pane with her hand to peer beyond.
“Good heavens.”
Penelope had set fire to the Cottage—Lord knows when she’d gotten hold of the Matches.
She’d gathered dry grass and scattered it over the roaring flames, then caught sight of Bridget pressed against the window and laughed like someone possessed before bolting away in the opposite direction as Cedric and the servants came running.
It was impossible to comprehend.
‘She’d actually do this?’
She’d thought the same thing only moments ago.
Aesop and Penelope resembled each other, she’d said—but to think they shared even the same irrational and terrible impulses.
Anyone could lose their reason to the Magi.
Most people, when that happened, turned their violence inward against themselves.
Few tried to harm others this way.
This was less the work of the Magi than the manifestation of a selfishness she’d always carried within.
Black smoke poured through the gaps in the cracked walls in an instant.
“Cough! Cough!”
Bridget hacked and began moving the straw piled near the burning section toward the center of the Cottage.
She needed to buy time—any amount of it. Once the fire reached that heap, it would be unstoppable.
It wasn’t long before she heard Cedric’s voice from outside.
“Bridget! Are you in there?”
“Cedric! I’m here! Help! I’m trapped!”
“Oh, good Lord.”
Cedric stamped at the flames to keep them from spreading, then swung his coat over the fire as he barked orders.
“Bring soil! Now!”
The servants who’d come with him scrambled to find earth, but the area was nothing but Grassland, and bare hands made digging difficult.
“Do you have any tools?”
“We have to break the bolt!”
“Move aside, sir!”
A servant shoved past Cedric and reached for the latch.
But Penelope had set the fire directly beneath the door, and the bolt had already grown dangerously hot.
“Ow! It’s too hot! This won’t work!”
“Try using this Branch!”
Someone brought a sturdy-looking stick and struck the bolt, but the rusted metal wouldn’t come free when the angle shifted.
“Someone get an axe from the Manor! We’ll have to break through the wall!”
Cedric shouted.
Meanwhile, the flames were already climbing toward the roof.
The ancient wooden walls cracked and splintered, their bark peeling away—perfect kindling for the spreading fire.
Cedric moved to the rear of the Cottage and threw his shoulder against it.
It looked so decrepit that the servants ought to bring it down easily, yet surprisingly the wall held firm.
“All together! One, two, three!”
Thud!
“One, two, three!”
Thud!
The wooden boards flexed but refused to splinter.
Bridget crouched in the middle of the Cottage, pressing a Handkerchief over her mouth and nose, waiting for rescue.
She could see fire climbing to the ceiling now.
‘It’s all right. It will be all right.’
With so many people trying to help, surely nothing could go wrong.
Yet her heart thundered with panic, and she forced herself to stay calm.
Black smoke filled everything—nothing was visible except the savage red light the flames threw out, fierce and hot.
The fire crept toward her inside the Cottage, eyeing the hem of her Dress. She gathered the fabric in her fists, compressing it as much as she could.
“Bridget! Are you all right?”
Cedric’s voice called desperately from outside.

In that instant, a spark flew onto the straw that Bridget had moved.
Flames engulfed it in a heartbeat.
Whoosh!
Even through the black smoke, the fire demon burned with fierce brilliance, searing an image of terrible presence into Bridget’s mind.
‘It’s over.’
There would be no escape.
Cedric and the servants nearby—they couldn’t save her either.
Bridget’s strength abandoned her, and she sank to her knees.
As death drew near, only one face came to mind.
‘Julian.’
She had sworn to dedicate this life to him, resolved to save him—and now to die so uselessly, like this.
“Forgive me, Julian…….”
Then it happened.
Whirrrrrrrr!
Bridget’s shadow rippled and thrummed with violent force.
From within it, something vast tore free.
“Wh-what……?”
The shape solidified in the blink of an eye.
A knight clad head to toe in black iron armor, helm upon his head.
Two empty, pitch-black holes gaped where a face should be.
Voiceless, it exhaled breath dark as shadow.
Goooooo.
It resembled Magi, yet was unmistakably different. Something altogether other.
Against the knight’s abyssal darkness, Magi seemed little more than ash-gray by comparison.
The flames’ light could not pierce the black void within that helm—a hole that swallowed light itself.
A messenger from hell itself?
Bridget found herself stepping backward.
The Black Knight turned from her, and the Hammer in his grasp he hurled against the wall.
Bang!
The inferno surged forward to consume it, but the Black Knight stood upon the flames themselves, unmoved by their assault, swinging the Hammer with grim purpose.
Bang!
Twice was all it took—the wall fractured visibly.
The knight set down the Hammer. It dissolved into smoke, absorbed into his armored form.
He turned toward Bridget, and without ceremony hoisted her onto his shoulder and charged toward the cracked wall.
‘Ugh!’
The sheer force and momentum robbed her of even a cry.
Crash!
The fractured wall could not withstand the knight’s stone-hard body and tremendous strength—it gave way.
“My lady!”
“Good heavens—what is that?!”
“G-good God!”
“A monster! Someone save us!”
Cedric and the servants recoiled as the Black Knight emerged suddenly from the burning Cottage, Bridget across his shoulder. Some turned and fled.
Who could blame them? A towering figure nearly two meters tall, clad in armor so black it chilled the bone, its face nothing but an empty void where eyes should have been—a thing of such wrongness that its sudden appearance demanded flight.
“Set my lady down, I say!”
Cedric, mustering courage, swung a Branch at the figure.
But it struck the knight’s arm and bounced away harmlessly.
Cedric’s hand trembled. His face drained of color.
No human could witness such a thing without succumbing to terror.
Bridget, dangling from the Black Knight’s shoulder, regained her wits and stopped Cedric.
“I’m all right, Cedric! It seems… it’s trying to help me. Don’t attack!”
Only after hearing Bridget’s voice did Cedric find any measure of relief.
“What in God’s name is this?”
“I don’t know either. It just erupted from my shadow, out of nowhere.”
Bridget cautiously tapped the Black Knight’s armored back.
She had thought it might be intangible like Magi, mere smoke—but unlike those shadowy masses, the Black Knight possessed substance, and her fingertips met the hard, unyielding plate of his armor.
“Um… would you set me down?”
But the Black Knight seemed not to hear.
He pushed through the crowd and strode forward with sweeping strides.
Moving, just moving—yet his pace was extraordinary.
Cedric came running with quick slaps to his trembling thighs, trying to force his legs to move, but he couldn’t catch the Black Knight—the distance between them only widened.
“Madam!”
“Cedric…!”
Bridget lifted her head in alarm, reaching out her hand toward him.
But the Black Knight hoisted Bridget onto his shoulder and walked forward without a word.
His stride was purposeful, as though he had a specific destination in mind.
Bridget had no idea where he was taking her, dragged along helpless and resigned.
All she could see was the Black Knight’s broad back.
How long they traveled, she couldn’t say—but to her surprise, the Black Knight set her down almost as soon as they arrived.
“Oh!”
Though his gesture seemed meant to help, his touch was rough; when he set her down, he handled her not like a person but like cargo, carelessly and without regard.
Bridget squeezed her eyes shut just before she would have struck the ground.
Yet contrary to her expectation, the Black Knight didn’t throw her down.
He simply handed her over to someone.
“Inside.”
Low and toneless, the command fell.
Following that order, the Black Knight melted back into where he’d come from—into Bridget’s shadow.
At that familiar voice, Bridget’s eyes flew open.
‘Julian!’
There he stood before her.
Julian looked down at her with dry, indifferent eyes, and seeing her covered in grime and looking utterly wretched, he furrowed his brow.
…….
His lips moved slightly, but he said nothing, so Bridget spoke to ease his mind.
“I’m fine. I’m not hurt.”
Only then did he tear his gaze from her, tilting his chin toward something beyond.
Bridget looked, and her eyes widened in shock.
“A-Aesop…?”
Aesop knelt in the dirt.
With Penelope beside him—the one who had run away.

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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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