The Abandoned Villainess Takes Everything This Time - Chapter 174

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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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174.
Lillian turned slowly around.
She realized it even before the sound of the ring falling could reach her ears.
The forest scent she’d always drawn in as easily as breathing had vanished.
“……Your Highness?”
Only Lillian’s voice echoed hollowly through the emptiness.
No one was there.
He’d been there just moments ago.
Instead, only a faintly gleaming silver ring remained on the floor.
“……Ah.”
This…… the ring we made together…….
“…….”
She slowly picked up the ring.
“What on earth is this?”
Lillian murmured to herself, staring at the ring resting in her palm.
As if the ring itself—not the man who’d just vanished—would answer her.
“You said I wouldn’t lose anything.”
So why did you disappear like this all of a sudden?
You took the bracelet I made to frighten you, that chain-like thing, and left.
‘This is the first time you’ve given me something knowing it’s me.’
……So that bracelet is definitely yours, and this ring isn’t?
“After we made it together…….”
Lillian slowly turned the ring over to look at its inner surface.
There, inscribed by her own hand, was the engraving she’d given him.

“…….”
Lillian pressed her forehead against her clenched fist, the ring gripped tight within.
And then she quietly crouched down.
* * *
……Footstep, footstep.
Echoes rang through the Tower of Spacetime.
The Emperor had been alone in this place for a very long time.
Out of duty as Tarandia, to keep this world from crumbling…….
But today, a visitor had come.
“……You came, child.”
The Emperor stopped before Lillian, who sat crouched on the floor.
“I said choosing one of the two would be more efficient.”
“…….”
“Yet you did not.”
Lillian’s shoulders trembled slightly.
But the Emperor was not blaming her.
He was simply surprised that she had chosen something entirely different from what he’d anticipated.
“It must have been a difficult path.”
“…….”
“But…… in doing so, you saved them both.”
“……Did I truly save them?”
Lillian lifted her head, still clutching the ring as she sat hunched on the floor.
Tears streamed down her cheeks.
She’d clenched her teeth and tried desperately to keep her heart from crying out—and failed.
She loved Ren.
But she couldn’t bear the thought of this other version of him sacrificing himself unilaterally.
She’d believed there would be an ending where everyone was saved.
“I, I thought I did well. I did everything you commanded me to do.”
“…….”
“Could I have made another mistake—”
“……No.”
The Emperor shook his head.
“That Evren has seeped into my son as he is now.”
“……!”
“When the body is destroyed, the soul is affected as well.”
Especially with a death caused by Mark Destruction—the soul would have been shattered into countless pieces.
Those broken fragments would be filled in, and now at last a single, complete soul has been formed.
Yet even as Lillian heard this explanation, she remained deeply skeptical even through her tears.
“But they hated each other so much…….”
“……Tarandia…… despises all people in the world equally.”
“Ah…….”
“That is how…… he was able to remain Emperor for so long.”
Either loving no one.
Or regarding everyone as inanimate objects while despising them utterly.
A Tarandia with no heart was always meant to be that way.
But Lillian bent Evren Tarandia’s very nature.
She made it possible through love alone.
“So…… it is not an eternal parting.”
“…….”
Only then did Lillian nod.
So that’s right. I haven’t lost anything, just as he said.
‘I’ve gained everything instead.’
And yet the parting was still unbearably painful.
She tried to hold back, but the tears wouldn’t stop flowing…….
The Emperor gazed at Lillian awkwardly.
Lillian felt his gaze keenly, but once the tears had started, they wouldn’t easily cease.
“……You have…… more tears than I expected.”
“S-sob, n-no, no, Your Highness. Actually, I’m the type who, who doesn’t really cry much normally.”
Yet the content of her words did not match her eyes at all.
After another awkward silence, the Emperor looked up at the ceiling and spoke.
“Stop.”
“……Yes.”
Lillian rose to her feet and roughly wiped her face clean with her hands.
‘What comes next then?’
I awakened the ‘White Night’ and punished the ancient evil.
‘In exchange, Ren’s body should be restored, but—.’
Lillian looked around the Tower of Spacetime.
The holes in the walls had grown wider, and the pace of deterioration seemed to be accelerating.
‘And the complexion of His Highness…….’
He looked so pallid with exhaustion that it would be strange if he didn’t collapse and fall asleep at any moment.
Of course, even before Evren appeared, he’d been shouldering the danger of this world alone.
“H-hic, h-hic.”
I have to finish saving the world.
I need to live well and have everything with all the people I love.
And there was only one way to fill those gaping holes.
Lillian hiccupped and picked up the Torch she’d thought to bring even in this situation.
The answer is Silver Sealing.
“Um, Your Highness. How many holes were created by the Distortion?”
“…….”
The Emperor stared fixedly at Lillian.
And when she heard his answer, Lillian felt briefly like weeping again.
* * *
The Sanctuary of the Perniers Imperial Palace.
The people still could not leave their places.
“What on earth is happening?”
Marguerite asked anxiously of Elias and the other Shadows.
The image of the World Tree showing the distant past had simply cut out.
Everyone knew that Lillian, as the Daughter of God, had saved those times.
“Shouldn’t she be returning by now?”
“……Or has she perhaps suffered a counterattack—.”
As Elias murmured worriedly, Duke Baltazar, who’d been listening, could hold himself back no longer and bellowed.
“Blast! What are you all doing!”
“Your Grace—.”
“The Holy Relics! We must offer more Holy Relics! No—shouldn’t we squeeze out our powers and reconnect this again!”
“Calm yourself—.”
“How can I be calm! Start with my power—implant it in the Sanctuary at once!”
As the Duke bellowed, people sprang into rapid motion.
“Search the family archives at once!”
“O-our family too!”
“If a three-hundred-year-old Artifact could help—.”
The Priests prayed frantically, and some tried using their power on the earth itself as they labored.
“The World Tree is deepening!”
“Good, melt more Artifacts! Pour them into the ground!”
Amid the sounds of prayers and Artifacts being brought forward.
“Look there!”
One person pointed at the darkening shadow of the World Tree.
“At the tip of the branch—don’t you see something?”
“……!”
Truly, at the very tip of the branch, small silver flower buds had begun to bloom.
One, two. Three…….
Slowly, one by one they appeared, and the petals opened with delicate grace—a sight of breathtaking beauty.
“Come to think of it……”
Jeanne gasped in wonder and looked up at the sky.
“The roaring sound is no longer heard…….”
“Ah—!”
The terrible noise from the sky, which had seemed about to tear the world apart in recent days, was subsiding.
The source of the anguish over the unknown, the wrong choice that had clung to them like the name Iris, was disappearing.
Then those flowers were—.
“The Holy Maiden is saving the world, and thus she sends us this signal of her grace…….”
Everyone watched with aching hearts as the flowers of the World Tree bloomed.
All who beheld it felt their eyes grow moist.
They all understood nothing of how Lillian was effecting this salvation.
……And in the casket, the fingers of the sleeping man twitched slightly, once.

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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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