The Baddest Villainess Is Back - Chapter 114
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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 114
“……What are you saying?”
“Go on and tell him properly, even if it’s at my grave.”
As Galioth turned away again, Edward had already closed the door and retreated into the mansion.
The shabby wooden structure began to shimmer, transforming once more into an ornate Western estate.
“……Brother! When will Mother come home?”
“I want to see Dad and Mom!”
“I miss Mother Rozelin…….”
At that moment, upon hearing the voice from inside, Galioth’s eyes flew wide open.
“……Who did you say?”
The instant Galioth’s eyes snapped open and he spun around—
Bang!
The door slammed shut.
“……Rozelin, Bellion!!”
Again.
That woman had interfered again.
‘So the dream wasn’t wrong after all.’
What was wrong was her existence.
Galioth’s eyes blazed as he clenched his fists.
‘……I’ll have to kill her myself.’
He strode swiftly away from the mansion. As Galioth vanished, the mansion door cracked open slightly once more.
“If that sort of man comes looking, don’t kill him under any circumstances. Just let it slip that I was here, and send him on his way. Understood?”
Edward’s brow furrowed.
He had no idea why he’d been told such a thing, but he’d done as ordered.
‘I never thought he’d actually come looking.’
Presently Edward returned inside and shut the door behind him.
Silence fell over the surroundings.
* * *
“Rozelin, you……!”
The moment her feet touched the Marquess Territory, Rozelin saw her father striding eagerly from the entrance as if he’d been waiting, and she folded her hands primly before her.
“You keep……!”
“I apologize.”
And she struck first.
Lowering her eyelids and letting her gaze soften, she parted her lips again.
“……I was wrong.”
Cherti, who had plenty to say, worked his lips silently before turning sharply to regard Garren Wilbred, the High Priest, Arma, and Batar with his gloomy expression.
Upon seeing Arma and Batar, Cherti hurled a fierce look at Garren Wilbred.
“Have you no sense? One might excuse children for being childish, but what fully-grown man takes an only daughter to the Monster Forest? Wasn’t your entire subjugation force no more than a handful of priests and knights?”
Turning her gaze from her father’s furious rebuke, Rozelin caught a brief glimpse of Garren Wilbred.
Garren glanced at Rozelin for a moment, then shrugged and spoke with perfect composure.
“Well, I suppose I must apologize for that. I had no particular intention of it, but…….”
Garren smiled faintly and looked at Cherti Bellion.
“It seems to me you’re raising her like a hothouse flower. Am I mistaken?”
“Of course not……!”
Eyes blazing, Cherti reached out and pulled Rozelin behind him, his voice rising.
“I’m not mistaken! You may not have daughters of your own, which might explain your view, but she is my only child. A parent’s heart has no wish to see her in danger.”
“Yet some flowers only grow when cast into rough soil.”
With meaningful weight, Garren studied Rozelin once more.
“No, that’s unnecessary.”
Cherti spoke with finality.
“Rozelin should grow seeing only good things. There is no need for her to witness what is not.”
“……Such a pity. The discord between parent and child in their thinking, you see.”
For Garren Wilbred, who knew exactly what scheming Rozelin was engaged in, the opposing view was simply lamentable.
“The subjugation was successful, after all. Moreover, she obtained the Monster Forest itself. I would call that sufficiently worthy of praise…….”
“I need no such thing. She has lived well enough without it. I have no desire to rely upon the hands of so small a child.”
Purple mist rippled around Cherti Bellion.
Unlike the time when it had lashed out indiscriminately at everything nearby, it was now distinctly a Poison Mist threatening only Garren.
‘……His control has improved considerably in that time.’
Garren marveled inwardly.
Because his power was so overwhelming that he could not restrain it, he had assumed it would take at least several more years to master it.
“You will understand once you have a daughter of your own.”
Garren Wilbred faltered.
He lifted his head, wondering if the man was mocking him—someone without children, or perhaps someone whose marriage was not harmonious.
Yet Cherti seemed to genuinely believe what he was saying.
Garren Wilbred’s expression darkened at that look. He simply could not fathom this man.
“Do not approach my daughter.”
Rozelin was not weak.
Her resolve was quite firm—a fact that even Garren Wilbred acknowledged.
Yet Cherti behaved as though he were handling her like some delicate wildflower.
It struck Garren as peculiar, almost astounding, and he rubbed his chin with a subtle, complicated expression.
“I have not approached her.”
“Then do not come near her at all.”
“You make a difficult demand, Marquess.”
The man shrugged and glanced sidelong at Rozelin.
She—who would normally have intervened midway and stopped them both—stared quietly down at the hand Cherti held.
“Is it so miserable to live without a daughter?”
“Then perhaps the Marquess should father one himself.”
At his taunting, triumphant tone, Garren Wilbred’s shoulders lifted in a shrug.
“As it happens, one shall arrive soon enough.”
He spoke with meaningful eyes fixed on Rozelin, who rubbed the nape of her neck and smiled softly.
“Father, let us go inside.”
“……There is much I need to say to you.”
“Yes, and there are things I need to tell you as well.”
Rozelin nodded slowly.
“Things to tell me?”
Cherti questioned the weight in her words, but she offered no further answer.
‘How am I supposed to explain that I’m going to be dead for a while?’
Rozelin racked her brain earnestly, hoping her father would not lose control.
Of course, no clear or adequate answer came to her.
* * *
It was a night suffused with moonlight.
Rozelin sat perched at the head of her bed, reading a book, then slowly tilted her head back and traced through all that she had accomplished.
She gazed at her shabby Seven-Colored Stone Bracelet, now holding only a blue stone and a half-sized yellow stone remaining.
The purple stone had been fashioned into an Abyss Weapon bearing Albus’s Abyss, refined into the form of a ring.
Rozelin studied the silver ring on the index finger of her left hand, then shifted her gaze and drew a slow breath.
‘All the preparations are complete.’
She had made every conceivable arrangement.
Yet certainty that she would return properly eluded her.
All that remained was to wait for the moment.
‘The disgraced captain of the guard will surely come to kill me.’
She had thwarted his every move.
This time, too, he would have learned from Edward that Rozelin had visited that estate within the Monster Forest.
Rozelin methodically set her pieces on the board.
She had severed his limbs and, with Garren Wilbred’s aid, cut off his means of funding.
She stared quietly at the Chess Board placed on a corner of the bedside table.
The black pieces were packed tightly together, while the white pieces held only a lone King standing bare.
All of it a board she had woven and constructed.
A trap she had begun laying, strand by strand, from the moment she resolved to die.
‘Garren Wilbred played a crucial role.’
Thanks to him showing the captain of the guard what had occurred in the original world, the work had proceeded far more smoothly.
‘……I spoke of it based on the dream Father and Arma had, but I never thought it would actually come to pass.’
Rozelin drew her knees to her chest and slowly buried her face against them.
‘It seems I truly made a contract with quite a formidable demon.’
She had not known demons existed at all, and she certainly had not expected to encounter a contractor.
‘The young child with the Wind Abyss I rescued from Landarin is being cared for by the Marquess, it seems…….’
As for the illegitimate child of my aunt whom I rescued this time, it appeared Ian Bellion was tending to her with considerable tenderness.
Aximus Baldur, the earl, was also in their hands.
The two brothers, Edward and Albus, who had been the final link, I had managed to draw to my side.
‘With this, I have severed all the limbs that were attached to the King of Marlux…….’
Now only the King of Marlux remained.
Aside from Marlux, there didn’t seem to be any major problems, though I gathered almost no information before my death, so I can’t say what might have happened in the interim.
‘Still, Garren will handle it on his own.’
If nothing else, for the sake of his Marquess.
I was fortunate, really.
Garren Wilbred proved more helpful than I’d expected, and Rozelin’s family relations turned out far more harmonious than I’d anticipated.
Once the King of Marlux is dealt with, it will be a perfect future.
The kind of future she had yearned for in her childhood—a time so distant she could barely remember it now.
Yes, it would be that sort of future.
‘……It’s a shame, though.’
If I simply closed my eyes and looked away, I could certainly become happy.
But Rozelin……
had grown to love her family far too much.
With her blunt, indifferent expression and unfond nature, it wouldn’t show much on her face—but Rozelin could no longer turn away from the family that had seeped so deeply into her life.
Knock, knock.
A knock sounded at the door.
‘They’re already here?’
An earlier visit than expected.
In that moment, Rozelin’s muscles tensed as she clenched her fists and slid her hand beneath the pillow.
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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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