The Abandoned Villainess Takes Everything This Time - Chapter 179

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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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179.
Lillian smiled shyly.
“I have a gift for you too.”
“Your whole lifetime?”
“…I’m grateful you love me that much, but this is something physical.”
Lillian took Ren’s hand and bolted toward the back of the workshop, practically vibrating with excitement.
Without turning to look, she could feel him smiling.
“What is it? You’re giving me an artifact—”
“A Measurement Artifact!”
Ta-da!
Lillian beamed.
I had Sacred Objects installed here in the garden just for us!
“……”
“Technically they can only be installed inside the Temple, but I had this one made for the garden instead!”
By the rules it shouldn’t be possible, but I made it happen. This is the privilege of a saint.
“Once we measure, our ranks stay fixed and visible forever. Isn’t that incredible?”
Ren smiled distantly.
“Lillian.”
“Yes?”
“I have trauma around numbers.”
“Then you’d better overcome it if you’re going to be Emperor.”
You’ll have to collect taxes, after all.
But instead of saying something so cold, Lillian twirled her hair around her finger.
“It might not be a number this time.”
“Zero is a number too, though.”
“……”
Wait, he’s being pretty suspicious about this.
Why does he assume it’ll be lower than 60 in the first place?
Lillian decided to ignore the faint, determined, and slightly sardonic expression on Ren’s face.
“Come on, give me your finger.”
“Sigh.”
He looked up at the sky, his expression making it clear he was enduring something distasteful.
Just you wait—that expression is about to change.
She dropped a single drop of blood from each of them—an Ability User and a Controller—onto the scale section.
Ren still wore the expression of a martyr, but Lillian already knew.
What the result of this measurement would be.
“It’s ready.”
Lillian spoke in hushed tones and glanced at Ren sideways.
He was still staring intently down at the result.
“……”
“Well? What do you think?”
A memory Lillian had forgotten from her childhood.
Back then, she had already confirmed her Compatibility with Ren.
Infinite Ring.
A relationship with no beginning and no end had emerged.
‘I wanted to tell him about this number right away!’
But so many things happened afterward that she’d missed the moment to say it.
After returning, she kept waiting for the perfect, more dramatic timing to surprise him, and it came to this.
But…
“Ren. Did you have a heart attack from being too happy?”
“……”
“……Ren?”
Lillian’s expression hardened in an instant.
Please don’t have another heart problem—this was just a joke!
“Ren, are you—oof!”
But he suddenly pulled her into his arms, lifting her feet clean off the ground.
Before she could even steel herself, he was kissing her face all over.
“Someone help, someone save me.”
“Strange sounds.”
Lillian laughed aloud and then accepted his proper kiss.
It was hot and dizzying, and his eagerness—as though he’d never done this before—was contagious.
But she had to know…
“Ren.”
Lillian barely managed to ask as their lips separated.
“Do I not need to be Imprinted again?”
“Hm?”
“My Imprint disappeared, remember.”
Because of the black lion’s attack that Iris had summoned.
“We could just Imprint again now.”
“……”
“Would it be all right with only you?”
Ren studied her for a moment with hungry eyes.
His beloved woman, eternally his alone.
That was deeply, deeply tempting, but…
“No.”
Because now he remembered.
That he had rewound time wanting to give Lillian everything.
And he also knows that the moment she’s Imprinted, he will steal away her infinite Control Power.
He wants to monopolize Lillian, but this one thing he cannot allow.
He kissed the space between her brows and whispered.
“You need to have it all.”
“Mm……”
“Lillian.”
“Yes?”
“I’ll make sure you never regret choosing me this time.”
“……”
“For a lifetime.”
“……”
Lillian closed her eyes quietly.
That time when she fled north, abandoned by her family.
The two paths diverging before her came back into focus now.
‘Which one will you choose? Try to guess.’
Truth be told, Lillian had meant to take the left path. It was slightly more convenient for reaching Tenebrin.
But her feet kept turning toward the right.
The scent was pure and mystical like a snow-covered forest, and above all—comforting.
‘Phytoncides are good for mental health.’
So Lillian believed in pseudoscience and chose the right path.
But even if she’d lived through that moment countless more times, she would have chosen it.
Today she was happy, as if she possessed everything.
And now that she knew this was just the beginning.
#On the Beginning of the End
The ‘original’ Crown Prince surveyed the barracks slowly with eyes whose light had been extinguished.
A quilt fallen to the floor.
A dagger that spoke of desperate resistance.
Blood spatters scattered across every surface.
None other than Lillian’s blood….
“……At least beg for your life.”
Evren—or rather, the man who would one day become Ren—muttered to the woman in his arms, completely exhausted.
“Why did you resist…?”
He brushed back the hair of the dead woman.
The cheeks he used to wipe clean when she suffered from high fever were now completely pale.
“……If only you had said you’d sell my secrets, begged me to spare you. Wouldn’t that have been better…?”
But the dead Lillian offered no answer.
He recalled his final conversation with Lillian Tillard.
It had been before the most critical operation, meant to strike down Kail and Iris.
‘I’ll be back.’
‘….’
‘You should give up on that foolish idea of leaving in that state. There’s nowhere for you to go anyway.’
He mocked her turning away from him, finding her bitter and resentful.
That was how it ended.
……An ending he could not accept.
So he had to save this woman no matter what price he paid.
So you’re saying you’ll surrender your ‘relationship’ with Lillian as the cost?
Ren slowly looked up.
The figure before him was white light suspended in empty air.
The one Ren had summoned by burning through all his remaining lifespan was the Creator God.
“Yes.”
Ren pulled the dead Lillian close again.
He had sacrificed the future of becoming Emperor by defeating Kail, and all his current memories.
Yet even after sacrificing and sacrificing more, the price was not enough to resurrect the dead.
So for his final price, he would surrender the ‘relationship.’
That his relationship with Lillian would become zero, nothing at all—
“Send her somewhere else.”
“……”
“Not to Perniers, and to a world without Control Power—the very thing that has tormented this woman her entire life.”
A world where the very concept of ‘Non-ability User’ didn’t exist would be ideal.
As long as this woman can be happy.
If she finds something she wants in that world, what happens to me doesn’t matter.
But Evren. My final Tarandia.
“……”
If Lillian should die in that world too, she will return here.
“……Ha.”
That is an inevitability you cannot escape. And when she returns, Lillian will come to find you.
“Ha-ha!”
Ren laughed irreverently at the god’s words.
But the laughter that burst from him as he clutched the corpse—filled with bitter regret—sounded almost like a beast’s cry.
When the choked laughter finally ended, Ren sneered at the god with barely-open eyes.
“Spare me your impossible nonsense. That will never happen.”
…….
“Lillian Tillard would never……”
The being he had arbitrarily fallen for and Imprinted—
“……said she hated me.”
Her smiling face was far too beautiful.
That was why he wanted to come down from the Tower of Yuphe and see her up close.
Becoming Emperor, his subordinates, blood relatives, countless other humans—
in truth, none of it mattered compared to the longing to see her smile.
Yet because of that single desire, he had destroyed everything.
He had destroyed Lillian.
“So she could never come to me.”
But you never asked Lillian herself about that, did you?
The god slowly beat its wings like a white butterfly and whispered.
You and Lillian have never once truly spoken to each other.
Ren remained silent.
Lillian was always suffering over you being destroyed by your Ability.
The god shook its head, watching the Tarandia who distrusted itself.
Right before your eyes, she kept showing signs that she loved you—and you couldn’t perceive it.
So Ren will sacrifice the ‘infinite’ relationship entirely to save Lillian, but Lillian will never let the end come.
Even though Lillian herself will not remember this ordeal for all eternity—
……she will still cling to the lowest number that allows them to be together.
Someday, Lillian will prevent the relationship from falling to zero, the fate she was meant to suffer.
With that number that would one day be praised as the most elegant and beautiful in this world—sixty.
Until the day she falls completely in love all over again.
[The Abandoned Villainess Gains Everything in the End] The End

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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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