The Baddest Villainess Is Back - Chapter 108

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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 108
* * *
“Ah, so that’s how it is. I understand.”
“I haven’t even explained anything properly, and you’re already acting like you get it?”
“Well, that’s what I meant—since I’m your prospective father, you should play nicely with the prospective grandchildren, shouldn’t you?”
That wasn’t what she meant at all.
Rozelin’s exasperated look met Garren’s utterly shameless expression as he spoke.
It seemed they’d arrived less than an hour and a half after being shown to their room.
“That’s almost the same, but who’s the prospective father?”
“It is, though.”
He looked at Rozelin with eyes that reminded her to recall what he’d said before.
Rozelin met his gaze with lingering discomfort.
“Why did I have to come out alive……”
“Your thoughts are leaking out again.”
“I said it out loud on purpose.”
……
Garren Wilbred looked at Rozelin at her shameless remark.
Rozelin met his disapproving gaze without concern, then shrugged.
“But what’s the point of playing along with this game?”
“This is a Game, after all.”
Rozelin seized upon one crucial fact.
“The Abyss seems to have restrictions.”
Rozelin glanced sidelong at Garren, impressed at how quickly he’d grasped the situation from just a single sentence, then nodded.
“If we win three times in the Games to come, we win overall.”
“What happens if we lose?”
“……Well, you saw it yourself.”
Rozelin pointed outside the door with her finger.
Arma’s expression darkened slightly as he recalled the screams echoing from the many empty rooms lining the corridor.
“Surely you don’t mean……”
“We passed the first Game, so that’s our victory.”
Rozelin answered Arma.
It looked like a refuge of innocent children, but this was a Game. Rozelin had actually participated in this Game before.
“This little game—you just have to play along nicely and treat them well.”
It was a method these weary children had devised just to receive affection in any form they could.
So all you had to do was not show disgust or dislike, but simply accept them silently, embrace them, and stroke their heads.
These children had once welcomed even Rozelin’s blunt and austere affection, so both Garren and Arma should manage well enough.
Rozelin slowly rubbed her eye sockets, exhaustion weighing on her.
She’d rested for quite a while, yet the fatigue persisted.
“Rozelin, if you’re tired, you should sleep. I’ll keep the children company.”
A soft touch—Garren Wilbred’s hand came to rest on her forehead.
“You’re running a fever. It seems sleeping as His Highness the Third Prince suggested would be wise. If your health suffers, nothing will go right.”
“……But.”
“The Third Prince and I will handle the children.”
There was more to do besides that anyway.
Rozelin went through her tasks one by one, then felt a sudden tightness in her chest, her eyes blinking slowly.
“I’ve thought it for a long time, but you’re far too harsh on yourself.”
Pride ran so deeply in her that Garren Wilbred hadn’t even known of her weak constitution until her very last moment.
Though rumors of it existed, she’d never shown a trace of it in public, so he’d forgotten.
“Didn’t I tell you, Garren? I’m quite sickly. I was never healthy from birth. They always told me I could die any day. For all that, I’ve lived rather long, haven’t I?”
A fragment of memory, now distant it seemed, suddenly surfaced, and Garren’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“Rozelin, the Marquis Wilbred is right. You need rest.”
……
“Trust me. I won’t go anywhere or cause any trouble.”
The man with eyes that glimmered as if holding the sky itself spoke in a resolute, unwavering voice.
Rozelin smiled faintly.
“Don’t worry, Rozelin. I will protect you. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Rozelin, go now. If you go first, I will certainly follow.”
The shadow of a man’s broad shoulders—larger than he was now—flickered across her eyelids.
Rozelin nodded slowly and lay down on the bed.
Soon, long, steady breathing filled the room.
* * *
“And so the dreadful Monster Prince of the kingdom returned to his human form, and they all lived happily ever after.”
Arma folded shut what must have been his nth Fairy Tale Book and set it aside.
The children clustered beneath his chair showed no change in their faces, yet their voices rang with unmistakable emotion.
“Wow, the Monster Prince is so cool!”
“No way, the Princess is cool! She said she loved the Monster Prince!”
“That’s right—she said she loved him even though he was a monster. That’s why the curse broke!”
Rozelin rose quietly from her seat, watching the children huddled together in debate.
She had been here for four days already.
The High Priest had arrived on the second day and become the ‘eldest’ of this family game.
As for Batar……
He had destroyed the entire Maze, and she’d heard he was forcibly banished from the forest by the Monster as a result.
It was the moment Rozelin tried to slip out of the room unnoticed.
“Hey, next time let’s ask him to read it. He’ll read it for us.”
“……Me?”
“One hundred million Olang.”
Arma brushed himself off and stood, speaking casually.
“Ha, Your Highness, surely you don’t think I’d compromise for mere money……”
“Two hundred million.”
“All right, kids—your brother will read all of this for you!”
The High Priest quickly planted himself where Arma had been and called out with a bright laugh, and Rozelin worried he was about to sell his soul for that paycheck.
At this rate, he really would trade away his liver and spleen for coin.
Garren Wilbred was likely off entertaining the children elsewhere in the Mansion, hearing their stories and playing along.
“Rozelin, let’s go.”
Arma quickly attached himself to her side.
For the entire duration of their stay at the Mansion, he had scarcely left her presence.
He couldn’t even sleep in a separate room—the children’s persistent insistence that, as mother and father, they had to share quarters.
Whenever Rozelin moved to go anywhere, he would notice at once, drop whatever he was doing, and stick to her side.
She understood his worry—they were, after all, deep in enemy territory.
So it was fair to say the two of them were practically joined at the hip twenty-four hours a day.
As they walked down the Corridor, Arma quietly took her hand. Rozelin faltered.
The moment she glanced sidelong at him, her gaze met his in the empty air.
Arma had been watching her.
She startled for an instant, but then continued walking as though nothing were amiss.
‘Should I tell him?’
That was Rozelin’s recent preoccupation.
She had told him about her plan to die, but she had said nothing about her survival plan.
She had never intended to tell him about the survival plan in the first place.
The outcome was too uncertain, and it was theoretical thinking—closer to a gamble than anything else.
So really, only one person needed to know: Garren Wilbred.
Rozelin thought him an annoyingly hedonistic man, but even so, she considered him trustworthy.
And besides, they had shared life and death together……or rather, to be precise, a World Line Transfer.
She had chosen not to tell the others, not wanting to give them false hope.
‘……I know that other world is my world.’
Rozelin slowly came to a stop.
She had received too much affection here.
Even if she went back, she could not live as the ‘Rozelin’ of that world.
Rozelin was greedy.
So greedy she could not let go of what lay in her grasp.
She wanted to shed the regret and guilt left behind in that other world, and yet keep the affection of this one.
She wanted to give up nothing at all.
So Rozelin had decided to speak.
To tell him she would be leaving soon.
That it might take a long time to wait. But if he didn’t mind……
“I will wait for you.”
……She hoped he would wait, even so.
“In exchange, please marry me when you return.”
So that when they met again, they might court each other properly from the beginning.
“……?”
And so Rozelin was taken aback by the answer that came—as if he had read her very thoughts—and by the sudden proposal.
“……That’s a bit much.”
“……I’m sorry?”
“Arma, rather than letting the moment sweep us away into such a major decision, shouldn’t we take time to truly know each other through proper courtship first……Mmph!”
Arma laughed and covered her mouth with his hand.
“Yes? Please do that.”
Rozelin found herself nodding slowly without quite meaning to, responding to the clear message in his eyes—read the room a little better.
“Yes, then I’ll wait patiently.”
Arma clasped both her hands firmly as he spoke.
Rozelin nodded once more, then let herself be drawn forward as Arma took her hand again and they resumed walking.
She felt like a snake charmer who’d just been led over the fence.

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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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