The Baddest Villainess Is Back - Chapter 126

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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, Episode 6
A week later—
Arma pursued Garren Wilbred.
He lived as though he had forgotten to eat, forgotten to sleep—as though his sole purpose was to chase after Garren Wilbred, nothing else.
Seven days into this hunt, he finally cornered Garren Wilbred at a desolate cliff’s edge.
“Persistent, aren’t you—even for a ghost. I confess I’m puzzled why one already dead should harbor such malice, chasing the living with such venom.”
“Garren Wilbred.”
Arma Dianitas ground his teeth, his frame wasted to skin and bone—a visage so ghastly it seemed pulled from nightmare itself—as he spoke the name.
Garren Wilbred shrugged lightly, his expression unbothered.
“Yes, Your Highness. What brings the Third Prince to such a remote place?”
“Why did you do it?”
The middle-aged man, worn by years, tilted his head with a confused air.
His mouth curved in an easy smile, yet his expression was utterly repugnant.
Arma clenched his bandaged fist and ground his teeth harder.
“Why did you kill Rozelin?”
“Hmm. That’s a strange thing to say. Whatever makes you believe I killed Rozelin Bellion, Your Highness?”
Garren Wilbred tilted his head as he posed the question.
Arma’s eyes snapped wide.
His eyes were already bloodshot, the vessels long burst, and a sickly killing intent coiled through the pale gaze.
Yet Garren Wilbred remained entirely composed.
“I cast off the facade of a prince long ago, so spare me the nonsense and answer!”
Shing—!
Arma drew his blade.
Dark energy coiled and swirled around the sword’s edge—a presence so dangerous it seemed capable of consuming everything it touched.
“What is that power, and why did you kill Rozelin?”
He lunged at Garren.
Clang—!
Garren pulled a blade from his staff, meeting Arma’s strike, his brow tightening.
“Do you even know what you’ve done—”
“That facade.”
Garren Wilbred cut him off lightly, a faint smile playing at his lips.
“When you think about it, wasn’t it that very pretense which drove Rozelin to ruin?”
At Garren Wilbred’s words, Arma’s eyes widened, his blade still locked against the other’s.
Watching Arma’s body stiffen and tremble finely, Garren withdrew his blade and laughed.
“You truly didn’t understand? What happens when you, carrying the title of Third Prince, linger at someone’s side?”
…
“Well, you dropped the facade of being a prince, so I’ve been speaking plainly—don’t hold it against me now.”
Garren Wilbred appended this with a laugh in his voice, sheathed the blade back into the staff he held, and tapped the ground lightly once with its end.
“I wondered why you’d chased me this far—so that was your reason, then.”
Garren Wilbred wore a look of mild surprise, tilted his head once, and shrugged.
“You didn’t want to be king, and by feigning death you left Rozelin behind—that wish came true. I can’t fathom why you’re doing this now.”
…
“End this game of pretend. Rozelin seems to have done the same.”
“I… I—”
Arma clenched his fists.
His face a ruin, his visage wasted and gaunt, he tore again at lips already split and bleeding.
“I have so much to apologize for. So much that I… I wanted to apologize, but my chance to do so… there’s no one left in the world to apologize to, so I can’t even—”
“Hmm. From what I know of Rozelin’s nature, I doubt she’d even want your apology.”
“I want to apologize… I—”
So much I need to apologize for.
So much I’m sorry for…
And after I’ve made my atonement, there are things I want to tell her.
But they’re things I can never convey unless I apologize first…
And the fact that I may never have that chance now—it fills me with such fury, such suffocation, I can scarcely breathe.
Is reality always this cruel?
Always, always…
“Why must it always—”
Why is what I long for always just beyond reach?
“Ah, I see.”
Garren Wilbred breathed out a low exclamation.
“You… you love Rozelin.”
Arma’s eyes flew open at the uncertain murmur, and he lifted his gaze in that instant.
“I’m sorry about this. It’s not my place to say, but… it’s your fault for not doing better when you had the chance.”
“…You bastard!”
Whoooosh—!
Flames erupted violently around Marquis Wilbred, spiraling outward to engulf him.
“While you were at Rozelin’s side, even the Nobility didn’t dare make a move. But that was the problem—the way you disappeared like that. Rozelin was a thorn in the side of both the Nobility and Marlux alike. Sharp mind, good at walking the line, knowing secrets the family kept quiet about—gifts you brought her, no less—and didn’t she sell that information far and wide to whoever would buy?”
Garren hurled the Staff he’d been holding into the flames, then thrust his hand into his coat pocket with a slight smile.
“So… once the only shield vanished, the hyenas came circling for the prize pheasant.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“I’m guilty of nothing but delivering Rozelin safely to His Majesty before the others tore out my throat.”
Garren Wilbred shrugged again, as if wronged.
“Lies! You killed her! Garren Wilbred! You took Rozelin from me!”
“You killed Rozelin. Or perhaps she killed herself. I did not.”
“Stop spouting nonsense—!”
Arma ground his teeth and took a long stride toward Garren.
The flames transferred to Garren.
As the fire caught, Garren’s expression twisted slightly. Arma’s eyes widened at the impossible sight.
“What are you doing?”
“Thinking of dying.”
“Dying? Why? Marquis, what in gods’ names are you thinking?”
“Well… I find I no longer wish to live in a world without my wife. I think I’ve come to understand what love is.”
“What are you saying! Rozelin is—!”
Garren Wilbred said nothing more, as though he had spoken all he needed to say. He closed his eyes slowly, engulfed in the Inferno.
“It was rather an interesting life, in its own way.”
With those faintly murmured words, the flames roared with renewed fury, and he vanished silently into the great consuming fire.
As if he had never existed at all—this time leaving not even ash behind.
The flames that consumed Garren Wilbred left no soot, no trace.
It was a sight that defied belief.
“…What… what was that.”
Arma murmured blankly, a hollow laugh spilling from his lips as he sank to the ground.
After all the chasing, all the pursuit, nothing remained.
Arma simply sat there in a daze, unable to comprehend what had happened.
Like a lost child, he remained slumped there in his tattered state for a long time.
There was nowhere to go.
He had walked endlessly searching for traces of Garren Wilbred, used the Abyss, and come this far—he had no strength left to walk further.
The moment that thought crossed his mind, his head went blank and he tilted his face upward vacantly.
“Why am I even here…”
Arma furrowed his brow.
Who had he been chasing when he came here?
Why had he come? He’d been pursuing someone, but he couldn’t remember who.
It was all hazy, slipping away from him.
Now there was only one thing left in his mind.
“Rozelin…”
Yes, he’d come to make atonement to Rozelin.
Now Rozelin was gone. He could take no revenge, offer no apology, no atonement—could do nothing at all.
There was nothing left to do. No one to hear him, no one to blame.
Only Arma remained in all the world, left to endure this solitude and slowly lose his mind.
“Love…”
Arma whispered the word that circled endlessly in his thoughts.
What was love?
Did it change anything to understand it now?
Did it reach her to speak it now?
To understand it now only made it infinitely hollow.
“…I deserve this punishment. For the cruel things I said. I’m sorry. Rozelin, I was wrong.”
It was because he’d harbored such darkness, because he’d begun with such an ugly heart.
How could an ending be good when it was born from a desire to wound?
He would go back and build a Tomb for Rozelin.
He would build it and apologize for all eternity.
For all the suffering Rozelin endured, all the resentment she must have felt until her last breath. All the pain she bore.
“I never wanted to become emperor in the first place…….”
Arma lowered his head.
“I never intended to turn Rozelin into what she became.”
He hadn’t foreseen the bounty that came with the charge of regicide against the imperial family, but that was the result nonetheless.
And Arma had turned away from it all—had actually turned away. Hiding his body felt urgent, and besides, Rozelin was always so capable, so independent.
He’d thought that would be enough.
“……I love you, Rozelin.”
Arma murmured the words softly, struggling to his feet with unsteady movements.
His voice, scattered on the wind and tinged with sorrow, had become something like a plea—directed at someone he could never reach again, someone already lost to death.
Some time later, a tomb rose quietly in a sunlit place, crowned with a grand tombstone.
A strange rumor circulated: that a man, drunk almost every day, would visit and spend hours muttering to himself, and the tombstone never gathered dust—yet come winter each year, it was covered with a large woolen blanket.

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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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