The Baddest Villainess Is Back - Chapter 150
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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 20
While Christine staggered from the blow—as if struck by a hammer—Rozelin slipped out of the Cabin.
Outside, the other knights were conversing cheerfully among themselves.
‘Those fools are done for.’
Rozelin thought it briefly.
Whatever they’d been doing, she could tell that the Abyss had gotten involved.
‘Come to think of it, I left the carriage at the foot of the mountain.’
Carrying an adult woman on her shoulders felt awkward at best.
She’d wanted to try wrapping her in a blanket and cradling her like a princess in both arms, if only she could manage it.
“Miss, where are you going? Allow us to escort you—”
“Never mind. You don’t need to follow.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Christine can fill you in. I’m busy, so I’ll be on my way.”
With her passenger perched on her shoulders, Rozelin’s short legs moved in quick succession as she began her descent.
“Wait—Miss! Please hold on—”
“Christine! What’s going on? Why is the Miss—”
“So the young lady is more stubborn than I thought.”
Rozelin’s eyes widened suddenly.
She hadn’t sensed his approach, yet his voice came from directly behind her.
Since inhabiting this body, Rozelin had become remarkably sensitive to presences.
She could hear whispers from a distance with perfect clarity.
Which meant—
there was no reason she should have missed someone approaching from behind.
“If you don’t have time for conversation, shall we talk as we walk?”
“I told you I have nothing to discuss with you.”
“You’ve become quite arrogant for someone who was once an orphan.”
“I’m entitled to be.”
Rozelin answered tersely, doing her best to hide any sign of tension.
“Isn’t it cruel how easily you discard people? Such a pity.”
“That’s the fault of those who failed at their task, not mine.”
Rozelin replied coldly, her expression unchildlike and grim.
‘… I should have arrived by now.’
Unless she was mistaken, she’d been walking for quite some time.
And the carriage hadn’t been left anywhere near this far away.
Even for a mountain ridge, she hadn’t been climbing this long.
After another ten minutes of walking, Rozelin gave up.
It wasn’t from fatigue or pain in her legs.
It was simply the realization that something about this situation was deeply wrong.
“What have you done.”
“Pardon? What are you suddenly talking about, young lady?”
“Are you an Ability User of the Abyss?”
She turned to face him, tilting her head back to look up at the man who towered over her.
“You know of the Abyss, it seems.”
“Is there anyone who doesn’t?”
“Well, unless you’ve awakened the ability yourself, you wouldn’t know much. Have you finally decided to talk with me?”
“What did you do?”
Despite Rozelin’s curt question, he merely tilted his head with an unperturbed expression, offering no answer.
“I’m afraid I don’t quite understand what you’re asking.”
Ah, talking might jog her memory after all—
his casual addition of words was nauseating.
‘In a world without Garren Wilbred, it seems not only Marlux sets up shop like this.’
The garbage he hadn’t disposed of in time had apparently grown far larger, becoming refuse that couldn’t even be burned.
“This is why trash should be taken out promptly.”
Rozelin muttered softly, then carefully lowered Lily Bellion from her shoulders and set her beneath a tree before drawing her sword.
“We don’t need to talk. I’ll kill you and be on my way.”
“… My, how frightening.”
The moment Rozelin gripped the sword with both hands, a blade far larger than herself—
something black began seeping from the Ring on her left hand, slowly saturating the blade and staining it pitch-black.
“That is—”
The Priest’s eyes widened as he murmured softly.
“……I had questions about that bracelet you wear on your wrist, but now there’s more I need to ask.”
“I’ve no intention of telling you.”
Bang!
Rozelin, who had kicked off the ground, vanished from sight.
The Priest muttered something quietly and furrowed his brow.
A translucent barrier materialized around him, wrapping his body in protection.
“Where is she…….”
He gasped and jerked his head up in that same instant.
A girl with sword in hand was dropping down from above his head.
Crash!
As Rozelin swung the blade she held with all her strength down against the barrier, a deafening boom echoed out.
“It’s no use. This is the blessing of Binac…….”
Crack, crack.
Fissures spider-webbed across the barrier.
“……Protection.”
The Priest’s eyes widened as he muttered the word under his breath.
From Rozelin’s blade, a dark miasma began to writhe and seep forth, then dripped steadily through the fractures in the cracked barrier.
“This is insane. What on earth…….”
The Priest threw himself out of the barrier with a low curse.
Shatter!
Bang!
Simultaneously, the barrier shattered into fragments, and a deep crater-like hole opened in the ground.
“Hah…… What kind of power is that…….”
Rozelin, sitting down hard on the floor, watched quietly as those black things—whether mist or liquid, she couldn’t say—crept slowly back toward her.
The mass, writhing as it returned, brushed gently against the back of her hand like a cheek rubbing against skin, then seeped back into the blade.
Rozelin drew in a sharp breath.
“Young lady, what exactly are you…….”
Bang!
Before the man could finish speaking, Rozelin charged at him again.
“Wait, wait…….”
Damn.
He muttered a curse and rolled across the floor to evade the blade.
Rozelin landed lightly on the ground. The moment she gripped the sword, natural courses of action bloomed in her mind.
To topple the Priest as he tried to stand—to drive forward the instant her feet touched earth and kick at his back without pause.
To swing the blade down at the man tumbling across the floor—these actions came to her as easily as breathing.
“Young lady, little lady!”
Rozelin’s eyes flashed.
Her pupils narrowed to vertical slits, taking on an eerie, unsettling shape—as if someone else had taken residence behind them.
‘Kill him.’
The thought came unbidden to Rozelin.
After all, the easiest way to eliminate a loose end was to make it permanent.
“I’m going to kill you and leave.”
“I’m sorry!”
The Priest threw both hands up quickly and squeezed his eyes shut.
The blade descending toward his head stopped short, hovering inches above his crown.
“I’ll let you go, I swear. I won’t grab you. I apologize.”
The Priest laughed awkwardly, raising both hands as his face took on an innocent expression.
“Truly.”
“……Who are you?”
“I’m a mid-rank Priest of the Binac Cult. I came only because my superiors insisted I seek you out.”
“Why me?”
At Rozelin’s question, the Priest’s brow narrowed and his head tilted slightly.
Then he shrugged as if he understood nothing at all.
“I don’t know. I’m not a foot soldier, but I don’t hold any great rank either—I’m just the sort they squeeze from both sides above and below…….”
As he shook his head, claiming ignorance, Rozelin’s eyes narrowed to slits.
“Tell them I refused today as well.”
“And tell them not to show your face before me again.”
“I’ll relay that as well.”
Rozelin looked down at him with a dissatisfied expression, then slowly sheathed her blade across her back.
‘……Something feels off.’
Yet it felt wrong to kill an opponent who had raised both hands in apology, even offered surrender. There was a hesitation in it.
“What are you after from me?”
“Well, originally it was because of that bracelet on the wrist—the one radiating Sacred Energy—but……”
He watched Rozelin’s expression carefully as he rose to his feet, then smiled awkwardly.
The way he scratched his head made him look like someone missing a few pieces upstairs.
“……Um, well, it doesn’t seem like something I should settle on my own, so I’ll withdraw!”
The man, grinning broadly, declared his surrender cleanly.
Rozelin watched him for a moment, then turned away sharply with Lily Bellion still balanced on her head.
“Wait, you’re really leaving like this?”
“Want me to kill you?”
“No, I meant your subordinates~.”
Rozelin cast a sideways glance at the Priest and narrowed her brows.
Turning back, she spotted several knights who appeared to be unconscious.
“They can find their way home on their own.”
It had never been Rozelin’s concern in the first place.
Garren Wilbred likely thought the same way she did.
There was something subtly familiar about the two of them.
Especially in how little they trusted people.
Keeping someone at your side who had been touched by an unknown ability—someone whose danger was incalculable—would be foolish.
“You’re quite heartless, aren’t you, little miss.”
“At least you get to grow old.”
Rozelin smirked at him, annoyed by the way he kept tacking “little miss” onto everything he said.
“Could you tell me what that was undulating across your sword?”
“No idea.”
“Even though it just went into the Ring?”
“No idea. It was a gift.”
Rozelin answered curtly and began descending again.
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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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