The Baddest Villainess Is Back - Chapter 106

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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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Episode 106
“This is…….”
“Mom and Dad’s room!”
“…….”
It was exactly the sort of bright, elaborate room a newlywed couple might occupy.
Rozelin swept her gaze around the space, then strode toward the bed and dropped onto it with a sigh.
Arma’s eyes widened.
“Rozelin, are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m fine…….”
Rozelin had begun to answer out of habit when she hesitated.
She glanced at Arma, then rubbed the back of her neck and spoke again.
“No, actually. I’m not feeling well.”
They had walked for hours without rest, and the chill of cold sweat running down her spine refused to fade.
“……I apologize. I wasn’t paying attention to anything else.”
His mind had been so taut with anxiety—dreading some calamity—that he’d neglected to notice Rozelin’s condition.
Arma scrubbed his face roughly, chiding himself.
“No, it’s my fault for not saying anything.”
He knelt on one knee and carefully removed Rozelin’s shoes.
Despite the heels being nearly flat, her feet were noticeably swollen from the long hours of strain.
“Eek!”
“Mom and Dad are making love!”
“Oh! Should we get out of here so they don’t notice?”
“Will we get a baby brother or sister?”
“I heard that if Mom and Dad hold hands really tight under the blankets, that’s how babies come!”
“Shh, what if we startle them? Let’s go ask them to give us a little brother!”
Arma, about to massage Rozelin’s feet, froze at the voices and presence he sensed behind him.
His face flushed red.
He looked up at Rozelin in confusion.
Unlike what he’d expected—her being expressionless—Rozelin gazed down at him, her eyes wavering slightly, as he knelt before her with her feet cradled in his hands.
“……Rozelin?”
When Arma called to her carefully, Rozelin blinked, then nodded with an indifferent expression as if nothing had happened.
“Yes.”
“I…… never mind.”
Arma, his thoughts scattered like snow, abandoned what he’d been about to say and seized her feet with both hands, kneading them gently.
Under the careful attention of his touch, heat crept into Rozelin’s cheeks.
She raised her hand and rubbed her face once.
‘……I’m losing it.’
She’d thought she could suppress her feelings, but each time something like this happened, her heart thundered so violently that it made her chest itch—as if she wanted to claw at herself.
“Cold water would be nice.”
“Hmm, cold water? Do you need that?”
At the clear voice from behind, Rozelin lifted her head, and Arma sprang to his feet, turning around.
“Hi. Mom, Dad?”
A blonde boy leaned against the doorframe, arms folded, smiling.
While other children might be in early childhood—six to ten years old—this boy was clearly in his teens.
He appeared to be roughly the same age as Rozelin.
Rozelin’s eyes grew heavy and cold.
“It’s Ed!”
“Brother Ed!”
“Brother! The new mom and dad came!”
“And they weren’t even scared of us!”
“Dad even petted my hair!”
The children rushed toward the blonde boy, chattering excitedly.
“Is that so? Good for you.”
The blonde boy listened to their stories and roughly ruffled the children’s hair.
Behind the blonde boy stood a smaller, runty boy—barely half his height—who seemed timid and peeked out shyly from behind him.
A boy with dark hair like Arma’s and blue eyes.
The black-haired boy also appeared porcelain-like, like the other children, but what was striking was that, unlike them, his face held expression.
Standing behind the blonde boy with a look of clear tension, he caught Rozelin’s gaze—and she glanced at Arma, then squeezed his hand.
“Rozelin.”
Arma turned and wiped the cool sweat trickling down her cheek with his hand.
“Come now, your mother doesn’t look well. Your father said we need some cold water.”
The blond boy seemed to have decided to send the children away, beginning to coax them with remarkable gentleness.
“Oh, that’s right!”
“She’s probably hungry too, so bring back something to eat.”
“Got it! Come on, everyone—let’s go hunting!”
“Yes!”
“Mother, we’ll be back soon!”
Rozelin watched the children bouncing away, their hands waving broadly in farewell, and offered them a faint smile.
“Yes, be careful out there.”
The children faltered at Rozelin’s words.
The room fell silent for a moment, and just as Rozelin began to furrow her brow, the children answered loudly, “Yes!” in unison.
Then they dissolved into giggles and vanished.
Though their expressions remained exactly as they’d been before.
Once the children had gone, Rozelin smiled and closed the door, then regarded the two boys who had come inside.
“What could our mother and father possibly be looking for, to venture this deep into the forest?”
The boy came close enough to lower his torso, then asked with a sinister undertone. Rozelin merely looked up at him without speaking.
Each time Arma’s hands twitched as if he might strike, Rozelin gripped his wrist firmly.
“Have you no wish to leave this Mansion?”
The blond boy with his arms folded burst into laughter.
“No, I don’t.”
“Why not?”
“If I go out there, they’ll just stare at us with those dog-like eyes and curse us anyway. Why bother? My real parents were probably happy without me.”
The boy, his head turned away with his arms folded, let out a derisive snort, his voice carrying a childish edge.
Rozelin had seen these two boys before.
They were figures she had turned away from and pretended not to know—ultimately used by the King of Marlux, blamed for famine and plague, and executed by guillotine.
“Your parents are dead.”
Rozelin spoke with measured calm.
“…What are you suddenly talking about? Has there been a war?”
“No—the Thirteenth Emperor of the Dianithas Empire, Raidolt, has already passed away.”
The blond boy’s eyes widened sharply.
Arma, too, looked at Rozelin with surprise in his gaze.
And for good reason…
“The current emperor of the Dianithas Empire is the Twenty-Eighth—Seberus.”
This was the future, hundreds of years hence.
“…What kind of nonsense are you spouting? It’s been barely a few years since we came here!”
“No, think about it carefully.”
Rozelin spoke with serene indifference, unmoved by the fury erupting before her.
“How many mothers and fathers have come to this place in all?”
The boy’s eyes flew open.
“Why you came here at all.”
At her measured, toneless voice, the black-haired boy’s pupils behind the blond boy trembled finely.
“…Rozelin, I find this difficult to follow. Might you explain what has transpired?”
At Arma’s words, Rozelin glanced at him, then slowly parted her lips.
“Do you recall what I said earlier?”
Rozelin spoke, and Arma turned his head to look at her.
“That long ago, a certain emperor despised illegitimate children.”
The shoulders of the black-haired boy hiding behind the blond boy gave a violent twitch.
Rozelin slowly opened her mouth.
“Do you remember what the Thirteenth Emperor was known for?”
This was knowledge that all imperial family members taught to learn imperial history would know.
Though she herself had learned it while investigating this Mansion.
“…He was a tyrant. We were taught that he slaughtered anything that displeased him, and he even killed the women who shared his bed.”
At Arma’s explanation, Rozelin nodded.
“Yes, he despised illegitimate children greatly. Moreover, he held profound contempt for those of non-noble birth and was obsessed with bloodline.”
For every virtuous ruler that exists in this world, so too exists a tyrant. And there were those who believed they could judge a person’s worth by blood alone.
“So he placed great importance on the bloodline of his bedmates, and if he spent the night with someone who didn’t meet his criteria, he would have them killed. Yet there was one person who didn’t meet that standard, and she survived—giving birth to a child.”
By any measure, whether objective or subjective, he was a truly wretched emperor.
“When this daughter of a nobleman became pregnant, the emperor sought to make her his concubine. But before the wedding could take place, it was revealed too late that she herself was an illegitimate child.”
Yet when that wretch held absolute power, the individual was powerless.
“The Count’s House, unwilling to send their daughter to an imperial household where people were dying, sent an illegitimate child they had been hiding in her place.”
What happened next was simple.
The Emperor, upon learning the truth, flew into a murderous rage and killed her shortly after she gave birth, then obliterated the Count’s House.
But he could not bring himself to kill the child she had borne.
How could he? The infant carried imperial bloodline—killing a newborn of royal descent would invite condemnation he could not escape.
“So the Emperor created a detention facility to house the tainted blood. Deep within a dark, forsaken forest.”
A sanctuary from which no one could escape, where even those who fled would perish wandering the woods—a prison for illegitimate children.
“No…….”
The pale-faced blond boy whispered the words.
“Father didn’t abandon us.”
Watching the boy murmur with ashen features, Rozelin slowly traced back through the past.

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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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