The Baddest Villainess Is Back - Chapter 122

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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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Part One, Side Story 2
She folded the Blanket neatly, set it on one of the chairs, gave it two light pats, and returned to her seat.
“……What do you mean by ‘disappearing’? Arma is always gone anyway.”
Once every two weeks.
Except for the single day Arma visited, there were no days when Rozelin and Arma met.
This day, too, was not one they had deliberately arranged.
It was merely a one-sided relationship that ended if Arma did not visit or if Rozelin failed to inform him of her new location.
Both Arma and Rozelin knew this.
If Arma stopped coming, or if Rozelin did not tell him where she had moved, this connection could only end.
A precarious bond, walking on thin ice.
How these visits had begun, why this relationship had endured—neither of them could say anymore.
Arma simply maintained the connection out of Inertia, while Rozelin waited like a Tamed Fox, refusing to leave on these days, simply biding time until this hour arrived.
“Just…… because.”
Arma silently cursed himself for asking such an impulsive question.
He could not fathom why he had uttered it in the first place.
No matter—Rozelin’s answer was always the same.
It doesn’t matter. What could possibly be different?
With or without Arma, Rozelin’s life would scarcely change. After all, his presence meant little to the shape of her existence.
There was nothing of Arma in Rozelin’s space. When she first made this Residence her own, nothing of his had existed within it.
‘One Dining Table, one chair…….’
He turned his head, then stilled.
There was another chair facing the one he sat in.
No—since he had appeared unbidden at the Residence Rozelin had bought, an extra chair had been added for him.
Look now. At Rozelin’s Dining Table, there were no longer just one chair.
“By the way, will you be staying for dinner again?”
“Ah…… if you wouldn’t mind, Rozelin.”
“It was lonely eating alone anyway, so it’s fine. There’s beef stew with baguette, and I’ll boil some noodles—does that suit you?”
“Yes, of course. I’ll set the plates.”
“Do.”
She answered flatly, yet her expression was grimly determined.
Arma felt an unbidden laugh escape him.
After observing her for quite some time, he knew: Rozelin, raised as she was in the Duke’s household, could not cook.
This meal had surely been prepared by someone she had hired during the day. She must have learned to boil noodles from that same hired hand.
She was born proud and aloof, a young noblewoman by nature. And she had grown up bedridden, ill for so long.
Because of this, she had read many books but lacked practical experience. Thus she excelled at Etiquette but floundered in domestic affairs.
Rozelin tried not to show it, but it was plain to Arma’s eyes. Of course, she tried not to betray that he had noticed.
In any case, if there was one thing Rozelin could not master after watching it only a few times—something she fumbled with no matter how many times she saw it—it was cooking.
She could not manage dishes that required precise timing or meticulous cuts to achieve delicate flavor.
So to avoid betraying this, she had the hired hand prepare the difficult dishes beforehand, and confined herself to the easier task of boiling noodles.
‘……It’s rather endearing.’
As he gathered the plates, the thought struck him so forcefully that he stopped short, his brow furrowing.
He scrubbed his face vigorously.
‘Endearing, what nonsense.’
She was beautiful, yes, but endearing? Hardly.
She was not cute. Not objectively!
Arma hastily set the plates down on the Dining Table and shook his head.
He had no idea why such strange thoughts had seized him.
At the sound of water beginning to boil, he stopped setting the plates and turned.
Rozelin had retrieved something from somewhere, her face drawn tight, and placed it on the Kitchen counter.
‘What is that?’
Clink.
At the bright metallic sound, Arma’s eyes widened.
‘A Coin?’
A Silver Coin—one about the size of an adult man’s thumbnail.
Rozelin grasped a bundle of noodles and held it against the Coin, adjusting the quantity.
After measuring, she confirmed that the amount of noodles matched the Coin’s size perfectly, then dropped the noodles into the rapidly boiling water.
When she repeated the process a second time, Arma could no longer contain his laughter.
He could not help but burst out laughing at the sight of Rozelin, her expression grave, carefully matching each bundle of noodles to the tiny Coin.
‘She could just eyeball it…….’
No one would mock her simply for being unable to cook…….
Arma, lost in thought, froze mid-sentence.
‘Come to think of it, the Duke’s wife was rather… intense.’
She’d tried to control Rozelin in every conceivable way.
From lessons in Etiquette to the smallest details she insisted no noble daughter need learn—all to ensure there wasn’t a single flaw to be found.
Of course, Rozelin hadn’t always been so composed.
‘No, she was quieter back then.’
When she was much younger, she’d kept her mouth shut and glared with poisonous intensity.
Then one day, when a group of mischievous peers moved to spill a drink on her, she’d reflexively swatted the cup away with rough force—and that was when the rumor took hold: the Mad Young Noblewoman. Everything changed after that.
‘What would have happened if she’d just let that drink spill?’
Perhaps the vile epithet wouldn’t have stuck at all.
That day, Rozelin must have learned that a gesture of defiance worked far more effectively than silent, seething glares.
Maybe, if she hadn’t learned that lesson then, the Rozelin of today wouldn’t exist.
Suddenly, Arma lowered his gaze and gazed quietly back and forth between his dishes and hers.
When he’d first arrived here, Rozelin’s dishes had been singular—one of everything. But in the end, people change.
Just as he’d discovered that Rozelin’s restraint was never merely submission.
Arma opened his mouth slowly.
“Rozelin… you’d manage fine on your own, wouldn’t you? Even without me?”
……
Rozelin, who’d been awkwardly fishing noodles out with tongs, went still.
She kept her back turned and said nothing.
“You’ve been asking strange things since a moment ago. Are you going somewhere?”
“No, it’s nothing.”
“I thought as much. Nothing will change.”
Rozelin spoke matter-of-factly, as always. And he’d wager anything—Rozelin had changed too.
“I’ve managed perfectly well all this time without the Third Prince, and I’ll manage just as well without him from now on.”
Rozelin set down two plates of hastily prepared noodles as she spoke.
She placed bowls of stew beside them, along with two cups of water. Two sets of bread, two Butter Knives. Everything in pairs now. Nothing like the days when only her portion existed.
Arma said nothing, only gazed slowly back and forth between the dishes and Rozelin sitting across from him.
Rozelin seemed absorbed in examining the noodles she’d cooked herself, as if pleased with what she’d brought to the table.
Her expression never changed, but he’d learned long ago, from lingering by her side all this time, that her true feelings showed through her actions.
Resting his chin in his hand, Arma narrowed his eyes, his pale blue gaze growing heavy.
Those innocent eyes had transformed into something weighted and dark, sinking as deep and dim as the world itself.
“Rozelin.”
“Yes.”
“I’d really like it if you were truly fine without me.”
At Arma’s words, Rozelin’s brow furrowed and she slowly lifted her head.
When would a woman who hasn’t yet realized love understand this?
Arma smiled simply.
“Are you really going away?”
“No. It’s just… when you said you’d do fine without me, it made me a little sad.”
“……Isn’t it stranger to say someone can’t live without another person? Wouldn’t you think I can’t survive without you?”
……
At Rozelin’s counter-question, Arma’s words caught. He’d never once considered such a response.
When Arma didn’t answer, Rozelin sealed her lips shut.
Feeling her heart stir restlessly, she narrowed her eyes as if to say ‘see?’, then tilted her head and picked up her spoon.
“A person doesn’t become helpless overnight just because one person disappears.”
At Rozelin’s words, Arma made a small grumbling sound and shrugged his shoulders.
“You always say the right thing, so there’s no beating you at it.”
“I know.”
……Yes.
Arma let out a long sigh.
He’d learned well enough in the palace, and he didn’t think he’d learned less than Rozelin, yet he had no idea why he could never win an argument with her in words.
“Still……”
Rozelin, who’d been stirring her stew, spooned up a large piece of meat and spoke in a voice that seemed to creep in almost against her will.
“……I think I’d find it a little lonely.”
At her whispered words, Arma’s eyes widened slightly.

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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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