The Baddest Villainess Is Back - Chapter 135

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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 2, Episode 5
Rozelin had been making sounds by striking the tin bucket like a percussion instrument with all her might, and she stopped moving right around the moment the man began wailing and weeping openly.
She lowered her head and hurled the tin bucket she’d been holding—so dented and mangled it was barely distinguishable from a scrap of cloth—to the ground.
‘Ah, forget it.’
A beggar’s life, really.
She’d once heard that people live according to their station.
No matter how she thought about it, a life at rock bottom simply didn’t suit Rozelin in any number of ways.
She’d lived without want since birth—her food, clothing, and shelter always secure—and now she was supposed to manage without? It stung a little.
‘Damn Garren Wilbred.’
The man was the problem from the start.
If he’d only been honest with her, things wouldn’t have come to this.
Though she supposed they would have anyway.
Rozelin conceded the point objectively.
After all, she’d made the decision to come here of her own accord from the beginning.
So she couldn’t exactly blame Garren Wilbred.
Ah, I can’t stand this anymore.
Once she’d decided to quit, her spirits lifted, and Rozelin broke into a bright smile.
“Uh, uh-huh-! I’m, I’m terribly sorry!!”
The beggar apologized hastily, his face turning pale.
Thwack.
She kicked him in the rear.
“Ow!”
Rude, really.
* * *
“Sniffle, sniffle…. Wah….”
Rozelin sat by the fountain in the Central Plaza, eating sweets and watching a stocky, grimy man drop tears from his eyes.
She could feel tsk-tsk sounds and stares from all directions.
A Binac Sect acolyte and the beggar’s fellow beggars stood at a distance, regarding Rozelin with expressions of disgust.
The man who’d been thoroughly beaten, then treated to ice cream and sweets by the far younger Rozelin, was now on his knees in front of her, sniffling away.
His eyes were swollen from crying and blows both, and a lump had risen on his head.
‘Strength really is everything.’
There was no need for lengthy explanations when you could settle things with a show of force.
“I want to ask just one thing.”
“Y-yes, please go ahead.”
“There’s an Alley Leader type here too, isn’t there?”
“Pardon?”
“I’m asking if there’s someone who has all the beggars firmly under his thumb, that’s all.”
“Ah….”
At Rozelin’s words, the swollen-faced beggar worked his lips silently, unable to answer, then mumbled again.
“There is one, right? Someone with some special standing or administrative position in the Binac Sect.”
The beggar nodded at Rozelin’s question.
When she simply gazed at him, he hurriedly spoke.
“Religious organizations of that sort tend not to want to reveal direct collusion with beggars, as a matter of principle….”
And besides, they didn’t collect the takings themselves each time.
The money Rozelin had begged was gathered by her teammates and brought elsewhere. So Rozelin had no idea where it went.
“The leader, sniffle, yes, there is one.”
“Who?”
“Sir?”
“Where is this person?”
Rozelin hopped down from the fountain and planted herself on the ground as she spoke.
“Ah….”
“What? Need another massage?”
Rozelin shook the dented tin bucket lightly as she spoke.
“N-no! It’s just that… if you look deep into the Market Alley, there’s that tavern, and behind it he often….”
Rozelin nodded at the beggar’s words.
To be frank, Rozelin had never once imagined she’d ever end up in a state like this.
But just because she’d never imagined it didn’t mean she could afford not to prepare for the one-in-ten-thousand possibility.
So at the very least….
She had to avoid being bullied.
And she’d grown hungry besides, and now she felt like giving the annoying Binac Sect a taste of what they deserved.
So Rozelin decided to become the Alley Leader.
* * *
“So you’re the leader of this alley, the one with ties to the Binac Sect?”
Rozelin pushed open the door the Beggar had pointed to and stepped inside, mimicking the dialogue she’d overheard from street thugs not long ago.
No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t think of anything more vulgar than that.
“……What? Who are you?”
“……?”
What was this grimy man, who looked to be at least fifty years old?
Rozelin’s expression twisted slightly.
Had she come to the wrong place? Or was this some case of a parent who’d raised their child poorly?
“My apologies, elder. It seems I’ve found the wrong house.”
Rozelin furrowed her brow faintly.
“What did you just……?”
“Or is there someone here called the leader or chief of this alley?”
“And what if there is?”
Rozelin’s expression darkened slightly as her brow narrowed.
She clicked her tongue softly, her face tinged with something like sympathy, as if troubled by the situation.
“I see. Failed to raise your children properly, then……”
As Rozelin let out a sigh, the man’s face flushed crimson and he shot up from his seat.
“What the hell have you been saying this whole time, you brat! Who are you anyway? Wait—I remember your face. Aren’t you from Team Twenty-Seven? The one who doesn’t do his work properly!”
“Elder, I think there’s been a misunderstanding. I’m……”
“Don’t call me elder! I’m twenty-four years old, fresh and vibrant!!!”
“……?”
Rozelin’s brow creased.
She raked her eyes over him from head to foot, glanced around the room, and clicked her tongue.
“……I’ll grant you that. Your character certainly shows it.”
Rozelin decided to set aside her sympathy.
Twenty-four?
She’d never seen such premature aging in her life. She could’ve sworn he was at least fifty.
Or rather—at the very least, she’d thought he was an elderly grandfather with a full head of white hair and considerably advanced years.
“I do hope you’ll exploit people more industriously in the future and get some skincare in the bargain.”
“You—you—you crazy bastard, are you trying to get yourself killed!!”
The beggars of this alley never dared to mention Hans’s premature aging while he served as Alley Leader. Some had even been left paralyzed or crippled by him for far less.
But now, as Rozelin pressed on this nerve that no one else would dare touch, Hans’s eyes rolled back until only the whites showed.
“You’re dead today!!”
“Ah.”
The man called Alley Leader let out a roar and charged at Rozelin.
Rozelin’s head turned, and she stiffened immediately.
“……At this point, one might call it terrorism.”
With a cold prickling sensation crawling across her skin, Rozelin snatched up a shoe that lay on the floor and hurled it straight at the Alley Leader.
Smack!
“Ugh!”
The man, struck squarely in the forehead, went flying backward without even a sound.
“……Oh.”
The shoe fell to the ground, having left a deep mark across the man’s face. She’d thrown it far harder than intended.
She glanced down at her hand. When she flexed it slightly, the skin felt soft—exactly like a child’s.
She couldn’t help but wonder where all this strength kept bubbling up from.
Rozelin’s head tilted slightly, then returned to its original position, her expression settling into indifference.
“……I don’t understand it.”
She cleanly gave up trying to make sense of it.
Having unintentionally knocked her conversation partner unconscious by being too startled, Rozelin scratched her head.
Now that things had come to this, she thought it might be better if she took over as Alley Leader herself.
Growl.
She’d moved about so energetically all day that her stomach rumbled.
“……Not bad, actually.”
The Alley Leader’s hovel was decently furnished, and there were quite a few edible things in sight.
Rozelin’s eyes darted about, and she fished a few coins from her pocket, laying them on the unconscious Alley Leader’s chest.
Then she went to the table, spread butter on what looked like a crispy Baguette, piled ham on top, and ate it with gusto.
Throughout all this, the Alley Leader didn’t open his eyes.
She felt a twinge of conscience about it.
It felt less like respecting an elder and more like attacking one.
“There’s quite a lot of food here.”
She wrinkled her nose, muttering to herself. The quantity was rather excessive for one person to consume alone.
She gazed intently at the provisions scattered throughout the house.
Bread, dried meat, unopened new ham and butter—a fairly diverse selection.
Rozelin stared at the food in silence.
‘Since he can’t possibly eat all this alone anyway, should I help him?’
She gazed at it with quiet contemplation.
‘They say even kindness can be a sickness.’
And she gazed again.
Before long, Rozelin found herself holding a large cloth bundle retrieved from someone else’s storeroom.

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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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