The Abandoned Villainess Takes Everything This Time - Chapter 166

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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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166.
Chapter 37. A Grand Plan for the Abandoned Villainess
Lillian blinked.
No. That wasn’t right. It couldn’t be yet.
“Count. We still have time.”
Ren lay sleeping in the underground chamber beneath Prince’s Castle.
Lillian had refused outright to have him brought to the Imperial Palace.
Perhaps Ren would simply wake on his own. He was an S-rank Ability User, after all—his body had to be remarkably resilient.
Duke Baltazar awkwardly took Lillian’s hand and patted it gently.
“Lillian.”
“……!”
“I’m sorry. This has become too difficult.”
The Count had always spoken to Lillian with respect, even when she was much younger.
So when such a man spoke to her as he might to his own grandchild, it felt… the reality of it slipped away.
“His heart is already damaged. Even if we pour Holy Power into him, there’s no recovering from this state.”
“But—”
“If we continue as we are, someone might yet attempt something wicked with His Highness’s body.”
That much was true.
There would be those scheming to extract something more from the body of an Annihilation Ability User.
But.
But……
“Now is the time we must bid farewell.”
“…….”
“I know it will be difficult, but let us release him now.”
* * *
Lillian made her way to the place where Ren’s coffin rested.
Ren looked as though he were merely sleeping.
But she found she could not summon the courage to look any longer.
Lillian turned her back to the coffin and sank down, wrapping her arms around her knees.
“You’re truly an idiot.”
How could he even think such a thing?
If someone else’s Marking took a hit, he thought he’d transplant it into himself.
“You said we’d get to know each other with marriage as the premise four years from now, and then you just left me like this…….”
Her words trailed off raggedly.
For the first time, she felt as though she’d reached a dead end.
Until now, she’d always had knowledge to draw upon, always had a presentiment that she could manage.
“……I don’t even know if the things we brought from the Palace of Heretics will help.”
Those Heretics were truly ridiculous—they could send people to the past, and yet
they had no method for resurrecting them.
“Useless.”
Lillian buried her face in her knees.
How much time had passed?
“Ah.”
She caught the scent of phytoncide first. Then the heavy footfalls of a man.
Lillian lifted her head.
Another Crown Prince appeared before her eyes.
She was not surprised.
“You’re back sooner than expected.”
“…….”
He held out a bracelet without a word.
The locking mechanism of the bracelet was loose and broken.
“I didn’t break it.”
“Of course you didn’t. I gave it to you.”
“But you deliberately made it break, didn’t you?”
“…….”
“You told me you’d lock me away in that castle forever.”
Lillian looked up at the man.
“……You’re an idiot too.”
It was astounding how a bloodline so devoid of heart could wound another so thoroughly.
“Don’t you know who I am? Don’t you know what my clan is?”
The man frowned at her question.
“……Deceitful Tillard?”
“Yes.”
A deceitful butterfly flitting between Ability Users.
“I did some bluffing with that bracelet.”
“Ha.”
“The locking mechanism was originally designed to loosen with time.”
Once it did, the Control Power sealed within would be released, and Evren’s Spatial-Temporal Movement Ability would be restored.
But he hadn’t bothered explaining all that at the time.
“You know how much I hate being abandoned alone.”
“…….”
“No matter how frightening you made yourself, I didn’t want that kind of punishment for you.”
Lillian had been abandoned in a crumbling palace.
So even in genuine anger and hatred, she could never bring herself to leave him defenseless and forever forsaken in some empty castle that never was.
“So you truly never wanted to see me again, did you?”
“……At that moment, I genuinely meant it. I was so furious with you. When I was suddenly trapped in that empty castle, I was terrified.”
“…….”
“That’s why I wanted to frighten you the same way.”
As though we’d gone back to how we were before, to those days when we only hurled barbed words at each other.
Back to when I stubbornly decided you’d never understand anyway.
“But the real reason was, my heart was in too much of a hurry.”
‘Priestess, you and that one are already many months apart, aren’t you? Several months must have passed.’
Once Markus told me that, I couldn’t afford to delay.
“I was terrified that if things continued as they were, everything I’d worked so hard to accomplish here would disappear.”
There were so many things I’d had for the first time.
An Artifact recognized under my own name.
People who cared for me more than family did.
The feeling of wanting to be with someone.
And so……
“I gave up trying to convince you with words first.”
Lillian slowly rose to her feet.
I’d lectured Ren about never taking the easy path.
Yet I couldn’t keep my own word.
“……I’m sorry for hurting you. Then, now, and for continuing to fail to express myself properly in words.”
“…….”
“But.”
Lillian grasped the man’s hand and pleaded earnestly.
“Please don’t destroy it…….”
“…….”
“You said you loved me.”
Tears spilled down her cheeks.
These were the tears she’d suppressed and held back since Ren’s death.
“Then cherish the things that made me who I am now.”
She was terrified he’d smash Ren’s coffin before her eyes and bring this place crashing down.
“You can’t say you love me while destroying what I love.”
She didn’t even know what to say to someone who offered no compromise whatsoever.
Evren stepped closer.
Without thinking, Lillian positioned herself in front of the coffin.
“……Don’t worry, Lillian.”
“But——”
“I’m merely looking.”
Evren gazed down at the coffin.
He looked satisfied.
Was he happy to be able to protect Lillian?
“……Ha.”
One who sacrificed less than me.
A man who’d remained at Lillian’s side without sacrificing anything.
“…….”
But Evren no longer mocked or challenged her.
Because he had sacrificed.
For life itself was the greatest price a human could pay……
Now at last, he too understood the truth.
He too had wanted to live such a life.
Even if he were to die, as long as Lillian survived unharmed.
He spoke bluntly.
“I can save him.”
“What?”
Lillian looked at him uncertainly.
The memory of how fiercely they’d hated each other was still fresh enough that she felt some doubt.
“Surely you don’t mean you’ll take his place—?”
“……No. That’s not it.”
He shook his head.
The struggle for dominance was over.
“You don’t have the option of giving up.”
Not suffering because of one or the other. Not debt, not heavy emotion—none of it.
Ever since Lillian was marked, there was only one thing Evren Tarandia wanted.
“What we want is for you to have everything.”
“…….”
Lillian sensed what he was not saying.
That she would have everything, never abandoned again.
My heart is walking around outside my body, after all.
Then I can’t let it be struck or damaged. I must become the supreme power in that domain.
And since I’ve become the heart of the person I love, it’s the same for her.
A heart doesn’t sit weeping in the middle of a road.
“Tell me how.”
So she would have it all.

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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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