The Baddest Villainess Is Back - Chapter 125

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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 1, Side Story 5
“Hnn, nnnaaahhh!!! Ahhh!! Ahhh!!!”
Like a man witnessing an impossible reality, he screamed until his voice grew hoarse, then exhaled in ragged, violent gasps.
Arma saw the bloodstains stuck to the floor beneath the soot.
Knife wounds scattered across the charred corpse caught his eye.
And yet there was no sign—no trace of anyone who had entered and then left.
“No…….”
There was so much he owed her in apologies.
First and foremost, he should have told her that he’d planned to fake his death and hide. That he was sorry for putting her through such hardship…….
Ah, but he needed to explain why he’d had to fake his death in the first place.
For that, he would have had to tell her about his past.
“There’s so much to tell you…… Rozelin……. Mother…….”
Arma clenched his teeth.
He rested his forehead against the charred corpse’s chest and let out a low, animal moan.
“I’m sorry…… I…….”
This was not what he’d intended.
Rozelin’s death had never been part of his plan.
He’d never meant to complicate things to such a degree.
His own disappearance should have been enough.
“Rozelin……. If only I’d arrived a little sooner…….”
This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.
The plan was never meant to go like this.
In truth, the moment Rozelin left the Duke’s Estate, they should have had no connection whatsoever.
Arma should never have sought her out.
Had he not, she would have been dealt with by others while she was poking around stirring up the nobility—or else she would have survived through some brilliant stratagem of her own.
Because Arma approached her recklessly, Rozelin’s life was prolonged; and because Arma vanished without taking responsibility, her life ended like this.
This was not what he’d wanted.
He had never wished for any of this.
“……No. No…… no. No, Rozelin……. Please. Don’t die.”
Arma rose unsteadily to his feet, holding her trembling form close against his body.
“Garren. Garren Wilbred…….”
Arma drew in a sharp breath.
His appearance was wretched—soot clung to his snow-white skin and covered his entire frame.
“Rozelin, Rozelin. I was wrong. I think I was mistaken about something. That question I asked you back then. I…… I need you. I think I need you, Rozelin.”
He opened a corridor through darkness.
The darkness could go anywhere there was shadow.
When night fell, there was no place he could not reach; and even in daylight, anywhere that lay in shadow, no matter how distant, he could traverse.
Arma’s Abyss was virtually invincible at night.
“I need you, Rozelin. You proved you could live well without me, but I…… I don’t think I can. Rozelin, Rozelin…….”
As he walked through the corridor of darkness, Arma murmured endlessly to himself.
No answer came, and though the corpse, burned by fire and once hot, had now grown cold and brittle, Arma did not stop walking.
To a casual observer, he might have appeared mad.
But the corridor, which contained only pitch-black darkness, was a passage only Arma and those he permitted could traverse.
He walked numbly forward through the endless tunnel.
“Did Garren Wilbred kill Rozelin? Then…… I’ll demand that the Marquis Wilbred bring her back to life.”
Arma laughed softly, almost in a whisper, holding her against his chest.
“Fortunately, there is an Abyss in this world. So there must surely be an Abyss somewhere that can revive the dead. Isn’t that right? I heard those people executed recently had an Abyss of Immortality. So there must be an Abyss somewhere that can bring a dead person back to life.”
Arma continued whispering and murmuring without pause.
Like a man who knew that the moment he stopped murmuring, he would awaken from the dream and return to reality.
Like a man who did not want to wake from that dream, so he spoke endlessly.
Yet men were not granted eternity.
“Rozelin, I will find the Marquis Wilbred. He may be necessary to bring someone back to life.”
Arma spoke as he pressed his lips to Rozelin’s forehead.
“But where could the Marquis Wilbred have gone? It seems like…… he’s not nearby.”
After walking for some time, Arma stopped abruptly while still cradling Rozelin and murmured quietly.
At least, he did not appear to be within the range where Arma could currently travel.
He clicked his tongue.
Traveling while holding Rozelin like this carried significant variables.
Moreover, Arma could only move through shadowed or dark places during daylight hours, which placed severe limitations on him.
‘First, I’ll go back and lay Rozelin in her room…….’
It was the moment Arma had just dispelled the corridor of darkness and stepped back into the world from that space.
– I thought something felt off. The fire hadn’t quite consumed everything.
Whoosh—!
A familiar voice that seemed to resonate through the very space rang out from nowhere, and Rozelin’s body began to burn.
“Rozelinnn—!”
Arma’s eyes, wide with horror, let out a scream.
Without sparing a glance at his own arms burning away, he hurriedly pulled Rozelin into his embrace, but this time the darkness could not swallow the flames.
Instead, the flames devoured the darkness itself.
“This… what… gaugh…!”
The fire that raged with enough fury to consume even Arma’s arms burned through Rozelin’s entire body, and then, as if it had never existed, extinguished in an instant.
As though it had never been there from the start.
Leaving only a handful of ash behind.
“…Rozelin…?”
No.
No, no, no.
Arma collapsed onto the hard floor of the underground cell, his hands groping across its surface.
His skin, raw and blistered beyond red, seemed to matter not at all to him as he fumbled through the ash scattered across the rough stone, clutching it in his fist, his teeth grinding so hard his jaw trembled.
“…The Abyss.”
Was it the Abyss?
No, the feeling was somehow different from the traces of the Abyss he knew.
If not the Abyss, then what in the world was it?
‘Does it matter?’
There is no body.
Without a body, there is no way to bring Rozelin back.
No way to bring her back?
Without a body, how could he possibly revive her?
Does there exist an Abyss that can restore life through the soul alone?
“A… ah… no… no… no… aaaaagh!!”
Arma screamed, clutching his own head.
Thud, thud, thud—!
He hurled his head against the floor like a madman, his cries echoing through the chamber, until his breathing became ragged and desperate, as though hyperventilation itself had seized him.
“Gasp… huff, wheeze…”
A voice echoed in the space.
Low like a cavern… and yet familiar.
“Wilbred… the Marquis.”
Arma growled the name like a wounded beast.
Recognition of the voice’s owner came a beat too late.
Measured, soft, with that distinctive inflection and cadence—gentle yet at odds with his appearance.
There could be no one else.
It was him.
He had killed Rozelin, and he had now taken her from Arma’s arms.
There was no evidence, no proof, but a conviction without reason seized him.
Arma stared blankly down at his own corrupted hands, seeping and raw.
Just moments ago, these arms had held Rozelin in his embrace, but now there was nothing left.
He was certain he could have saved her. He had believed he could have saved her.
In a world where humans blessed with divine power defy Causality itself, where Ability Users far transcending mortality hold dominion, surely it was not beyond him to save a single life.
Somewhere in the world, there would be a way.
He could search the Empire; if nothing lay there, he could search other lands; if not there, he could search the islands. That was what he believed.
‘But what if there is no one left to save?’
Rozelin is gone.
Rozelin will not be here anymore.
He will never speak with her again.
He will never again give her a blanket as a gift, never again visit her home.
Death, parting—that is what it means.
“I wish Rozelin had truly been fine without me.”
Arma suddenly understood.
How cruel the words he had once spoken to her had been.
Rozelin is gone.
And there came to Arma a day when nothing was fine.

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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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