The Baddest Villainess Is Back - Chapter 139

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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 9
“Who says we’re friends?”
“How disappointing. And here I thought we weren’t friends, yet I’ve traveled all this way to see you.”
Rozelin’s face twisted into a grimace as Garren Wilbred voiced his exaggerated lament about having no choice but to leave, his tone dripping with theatrical disappointment.
“How did you find out?”
“I came here once when you weren’t around.”
“Impressive.”
“Stop treating me like a child.”
Rozelin narrowed her eyes and clicked her tongue.
At her youthful yet biting tone, he burst into laughter and shrugged.
“Besides, I only know what the High Priest told me about Batin.”
“Ah, those people are rather tedious. The genuine article is more sensitive than you’d think. They track traces quite well.”
“There are fakes?”
“Have there not always been plenty of humans claiming to be a Messenger of God, in any age, any world?”
With that, he tilted the teapot and poured a bit more tea.
Rozelin watched him for a moment, then shrugged.
“In any case, I’m grateful you came.”
“I’m glad it proved useful.”
“But you—is it really all right for you to be here? What about the Marquise…?”
Wasn’t it the case that when he appeared in one world, his very existence vanished from the other?
As Rozelin’s expression darkened slightly, Garren Wilbred opened his mouth with a smile.
“I was honest with her. Since she’ll live well enough without me now, I needed a reason to hold on to her.”
Since she had already erased her lingering affection for him, once her memory faded, her emotions would slowly dilute and eventually disappear altogether.
Even should she recall her memories later, no trace of feeling would remain.
“I didn’t want to see that happen.”
“…That’s unexpected. That you’d go through all this trouble to find me.”
“How could I miss the chance to see you now that you’ve become a daughter? I absolutely couldn’t miss it.”
At his teasing remark, Rozelin’s brow furrowed sharply.
Just when she was beginning to feel a touch of gratitude, he swept even that emotion away—it was both remarkable and infuriating.
With a click of her tongue, Rozelin narrowed her eyes and turned her head sharply away.
“So you preserved the Marquise’s memory separately so she wouldn’t forget?”
“I employed a different method.”
“What…?”
“That’s a secret from you.”
……
At Garren Wilbred’s firm words, Rozelin’s eyes narrowed before she nodded.
“Though it’s a shame. In this world, the Marquise—no, the young Countess—seems to be discussing marriage with another nobleman.”
As Rozelin spoke in a deliberately casual tone, Garren Wilbred’s hand paused briefly before his eyes narrowed slightly.
“Lloyd Arenes?”
“…I don’t know his name. They said he was the second son of the Arenes Countly house.”
“It’s Lloyd Arenes. He’s been constantly hovering around her and pursuing her for some time.”
So this is what would have happened if I hadn’t been there.
As Garren Wilbred murmured quietly, his expression seemed distinctly uncomfortable.
“Well-behaved children should be getting to bed soon.”
Garren Wilbred rose from his seat.
“Garren, do you know about the Binac Sect?”
“The Binac Sect?”
He furrowed his brow as if his memory was hazy, then paused as if recalling something.
“Ah… yes, they would still exist. Since I haven’t tended to them, they’ve run wild with weeds and vermin everywhere.”
With a slight grimace, he offered a brief farewell and left the room, his expression distinctly displeased.
‘…Somehow I feel like he’ll go to the Marquise tomorrow at the earliest.’
With that thought, Rozelin shrugged and threw herself onto the plush bed, closing her eyes.
Sleep came quickly in the comfort of the familiar bedding.
* * *
Invited to the Dining Room by Garren Wilbred the next morning, Rozelin blinked blankly at the sight before her.
In the darkness of the previous night and her room, she hadn’t noticed, but Garren Wilbred appeared considerably younger than she’d thought.
If she’d always sensed him as a middle-aged gentleman, now all fine wrinkles had vanished and not a single white hair remained.
However one looked at it, he was simply an ordinary young man in his twenties.
‘I always thought he was young for his age, but… he’s definitely younger.’
Even if he had to be at least in his mid-to-late twenties, his face could easily pass for early twenties no matter how closely one examined it.
“Ha ha, I’m relieved you’re well enough now that I can finally hand over the title to you.”
At the generous Wilbred Marquis’s words, Garren Wilbred, who had been tilting his Wine Glass with elegant grace, smiled faintly.
“Yes. Mother must be lonely too, so you should go to her, Father.”
‘……So he does know how to use formal speech.’
It was rather novel, seeing him speak with such courtesy, given that he habitually deployed an arrogant “you” or a distinctly elderly manner of speech ending in “-ly.”
“Yes, seeing how often letters arrive these days, she does seem quite lonely.”
“Perhaps you should exercise a bit more, sir. I hadn’t realized you’d put on so much weight.”
“Nonsense, I haven’t gained that much.”
“You have, sir. Without me here, I’m sure you’ve done nothing but eat.”
At Garren’s words, the Wilbred Marquis’s gaze slipped away.
‘……He wasn’t like this before, was he?’
From what Rozelin could recall, the Wilbred Marquis had been stocky, but not to this degree.
It was only after coming here and observing him for some time that she realized something: she had seen the previous Wilbred Marquis before.
But she hadn’t recognized him because he’d grown so stout.
‘So this was the fruit of Garren’s painstaking efforts.’
With no one to manage him, the man had been treated rather like a domesticated animal.
‘At this point, there’s fat no matter where you’d cut him—he’s worthless even as meat…….’
Rozelin, who harbored such a gruesome thought without any particular concern, tilted her head slightly as she observed Garren Wilbred, who seemed oddly at ease.
‘It seems he doesn’t dislike him, after all.’
That was somewhat unexpected.
Though one had to admit, the current Wilbred Marquis possessed too fine a temperament to warrant genuine dislike.
“By the way, you promised to adopt this child as a foster daughter—why didn’t you inform me first? Now it looks as though I’ve simply chased away my own granddaughter.”
“It was my fault for stepping away, so it’s quite all right. She’s a clever girl and has conducted herself well, hasn’t she? Isn’t that so, daughter?”
“……Well, yes.”
Unable to speak freely before the Marquis, Rozelin replied with a decidedly reluctant expression.
“Ah, well, I’m sorry about that, dear. I should have explained the situation more fully.”
“……I didn’t think you would believe me.”
Rozelin offered a sufficiently plausible excuse.
At that, he seemed to contemplate something, then chuckled quietly and stroked her head gently with his large hand.
Caught off guard, she rolled her eyes with an unfamiliar look, and Garren Wilbred let out a soft laugh.
“Since you’ve only just become my granddaughter, I may be clumsy about it, so please forgive me if I fall short. Your name is…….”
“Rose.”
“Ah yes, Rose. It’s a lovely name.”
At the generous praise, Rozelin inclined her head slightly.
Rozelin regarded the Wilbred Marquis, whose perception of himself had shifted completely in mere weeks.
The man who, not long ago, had spoken of having no son now naturally recognized Garren Wilbred as his own.
‘It’s unsettling.’
A child could appear without your knowing it, and a child you’d grown fond of could leave without your knowing it either.
And you would remember none of it.
“Father.”
“Hmm? What is it, son? Shall I stroke your head as well?”
“No, sir. But your daughter hasn’t eaten anything at all.”
“Oh my! My apologies. Do eat, Rose.”
Rozelin, thinking him remarkably candid in his emotional expression, gave an awkward nod.
‘He doesn’t seem like Garren’s father at all.’
Though technically, it amounted to an impersonation of a foster son.
‘Was he like this in the original world as well?’
The way he reproached his father with an at-ease expression, the way he looked after his health——
‘Can even demons feel affection?’
Though given how he consistently referred to them as “humans,” there did seem to be some sense of superiority at work.
“Rose, if it’s hard to cut, shall Grandfather do it for you?”
“Oh, I can manage.”
Unaccustomed to such excessive kindness, Rozelin lowered her eyes awkwardly and, with habitual force, cut into the Steak before her.
Clang!
The Knife, unable to stop at the meat alone, continued through to the Plate beneath, and the Plate shattered loudly.
“…….”
“…….”
A long silence settled over the table.

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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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