The Baddest Villainess Is Back - Chapter 119

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 119
“I’ve dangled bait in front of the King of Marlux. He’ll bite, and he’ll come looking for me.”
Rozelin added, almost as an afterthought, that the King would probably arrive seething with rage—but wouldn’t kill her outright.
‘I knew it would come to this. You set everything in motion, and then what….’
Cherti Bellion regarded Rozelin with an expression of profound disappointment, but she merely smiled at his dismay and continued speaking.
“I’m going to kill the King. With the dagger Father gave me.”
“…That’s absurd. There’s no reason for you to soil your hands with such a filthy—”
“There is.”
Rozelin laughed, clear and bright.
Duke Devon Bellion, who had been about to raise his voice further, stopped short.
That smile of hers bore an unsettling resemblance to the one he wore when concealing his own schemes.
“He’s caused me far too much trouble. I need to be the one to end him.”
It was a savage smile, one that held the weight of much accumulated resentment.
She knew too well how exhausting it had been to construct this web—spinning thread after thread, limb by limb, until the trap was complete.
And she hadn’t managed it alone. Garren Wilbred’s strength had been indispensable.
That fact irritated her more than anything else.
“Have you ever killed a man before?”
After a long silence, Devon posed the question heavily.
Rozelin parted her lips as if to speak, then after a considerable pause, answered with a silent smile.
“Later. Once everything is finished, I’ll tell you everything—how I’ve lived, what I’ve been thinking, why I made these choices.”
Not now.
There was still a trace of hesitation in her. She had kept too many things buried to lay it all bare.
“…So what exactly do you mean by dying and coming back to life?”
Devon Bellion asked the question that his son, who seemed half-lost, could not.
“I can explain it two ways—the condensed version, essence only, or a detailed account. Which would you prefer?”
Rozelin posed the question as if she’d been waiting for it, and he answered with obvious reluctance.
“Keep it brief.”
“Albus here is actually an illegitimate child of the Thirteenth Sovereign. He’s remained alive through the Immortality Abyss, and he possesses the Soul-Handling Abyss. He also created the Demon Beasts.”
“…?”
As Rozelin extended her hand, Garren Wilbred, standing behind her, shrugged and placed the Indigo Stone of Seven Elements into her palm.
“And this stone is a Divine Gift I received from someone I thought was a friend—a god, actually. It governs souls. So I’m going to sever half of my soul and place it inside this stone.”
“…??”
Rozelin produced the Purple Guide Stone as if giving a merchant’s pitch.
“And this purple stone is called a Guide Stone. Once I attune it to someone, their soul can use it for one Long-Distance Teleportation, no matter where they are.”
“…???”
“And Albus’s brother, Edward, possesses the Immortality Abyss. So I’m currently immortal.”
Her explanation had spiraled completely out of control.
“Edward says that even if my heart is pierced, I won’t die—but I can fall into a comatose state. From there, Albus will split my soul in half and place one half into this stone.”
The faces of those listening grew increasingly bewildered, and they began tilting their heads sideways in confusion.
“So half of my soul will be stored in this stone and kept in my body—meaning the half of my soul that remains will be the one crossing over to the other world. Once my business there is finished, I’ll use this purple stone to return to this world and use Albus’s power to become a complete soul again.”
The expressions of those trying to follow her logic grew progressively more contorted.
At this, Garren Wilbred’s smile deepened.
“I’ve long thought so, but you seem to have a talent for deception that far outpaces your ability to explain things clearly.”
“…You didn’t understand?”
Rozelin, stung by pride, asked this hesitantly, and everyone fell silent, looking wordlessly at Garren.
“Ahem!”
Devon Bellion averted his gaze from Rozelin and let out an unnecessarily loud cough.
“My hearing may be failing me in my old age—my granddaughter’s voice is rather soft, and I found it hard to catch.”
This was the same Devon who could divine the muttered words of soldiers amid the chaos of war with supernatural precision.
“I, too, seem to be aging,” Cherti Bellion remarked from the front row where he had been observing.
“Give it another try, would you, Marquess?”
“……”
At Devon’s request, Rozelin fell silent, and Garren Wilbred laughed.
It was only after Garren Wilbred provided his own clear and concise explanation that their heads began to nod in comprehension.
After a long conversation and Garren Wilbred’s mediation, Rozelin finally obtained the consent of both Devon and Cherti.
Though by that point, the chairs and dishes in the vicinity had all dissolved in poison.
* * *
[Present]
“Rozelin!”

Cherti Bellion rushed forward and swept his bleeding daughter into his arms.
* * *
Yes, he’d known. He’d prepared himself.
Rozelin had already told him, so he’d steeled himself for this.
But……
“Rozelin!!”
Not like this. Never like this.
His heart lurched as blood poured—so much blood from one body—and he couldn’t comprehend it.
He couldn’t accept it.
Wouldn’t accept it.
No matter how many times he’d rehearsed this moment, steeled his resolve, nothing had prepared him for such devastation.
“Rozelin……”
He held her pressed against his chest.
“Stand back, please!”
“Aaaahhhhh!”
A boy wrapped in something pitch-black—whether Albus or not, he bore the Soul-Handling Abyss—plummeted from the sky alongside a Physician.
Everything happened in a blur.
“Please step aside, Your Grace.”
The Physician assessed Rozelin’s condition, then pried Cherti away and hastily opened a case he’d brought.
Cherti stood frozen, his blood-stained clothes clinging to him, his head tilted back in a daze.
Arma hung suspended in the air, his face carved from stone.
A boy with wings fashioned from darkness, his gaze fixed unwavering on Rozelin.
Was that truly a boy?
‘……Perhaps not.’
The bumbling facade he’d displayed before Rozelin—it had all been a lie. What remained was an arrogant, cold-blooded sovereign alone.
“……That woman, that woman……”
Cherti turned slowly to watch the man writhing across the filthy ground.
Though his eyes blazed red and his sinews stood taut, Cherti’s seeping poison was dissolving the muscles throughout his entire body—so thoroughly that even crawling seemed beyond him.
Cherti approached him with measured steps and crushed the hand reaching toward Rozelin beneath his boot heel.
Crunch—
“Ahhhhhhhhh!!”
The poison crept through him; his hand darkened to purple, then began to dissolve slowly away.
“Father, that Dagger you gave me once—what exactly are its capabilities? Does it kill instantly?”
“No, it doesn’t kill. I can sense the location of anywhere my poison has been used. So if you were to use it……”
“……?”
“No matter where you are, no matter what I’m doing in that moment, I will run to you. I will run to you and ensure that the one who stains your hands with blood lives in the most terrible way imaginable until the day you forgive them—a lifetime in a hell where even death is forbidden.”
Cherti’s gaze lowered slowly.
“Poison has quite varied uses, you know? Making nerve endings hypersensitive, dissolving only muscle or specific cells, creating tumors……”
Galiyo, crawling across the floor, rolled only his eyes upward to glimpse the man whose voice had turned so chillingly serene.
“I made a promise with my daughter. She said she’d return one day. So……”
Cherti Bellion smiled savagely.
The smile of the Duke—so rarely worn—was more ferocious and more luminous than anything in the world.
Cherti Bellion, radiating a vicious aura of poison and poisoned mist from every inch of his being, opened his mouth with the cruelest eyes imaginable.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————