The Baddest Villainess Is Back - Chapter 16

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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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Episode 16
“Roserin! Where are you going!”
“Hey, have you lost your mind?”
Roserin froze at the rough hand pulling her back.
Cherti, his face drained of color and rigid as stone, stumbled backward when he saw her approaching.
“Let go of me.”
“Let go of what! When he gets like this, the only way is to lock him up here until he calms down—!”
Ian Belion seized Roserin roughly, dragging her back.
She grimaced but held her ground, refusing to be pulled away.
“That’s exactly why he can’t control his power—because you keep running from it.”
Roserin spoke quietly but firmly.
“What…?”
“Let me go.”
She spoke those few words again and stepped forward toward Cherti with deliberate strides.
“Don’t come closer.”
Cherti’s expression twisted with fury as he raised his voice.
Yet his pupils were sharply constricted—a sign of the terrible tension coursing through him.
“If you come near me, it’ll only make things worse. I keep telling you—”
“If you don’t control this, Father, I’ll die.”
Roserin said it plainly.
Cherti’s shoulders trembled violently.
Splash—hiss!
Her shoes began to melt.
“Don’t come any closer—!”
His voice was quieter than before.
He was terrified that his runaway power might reach her, that she might be harmed by its overflow.
‘So this is what Abyss runaway looks like.’
Roserin thought as she took another step forward.
Splash.
Her shoes dissolved further into the violet, lethal liquid.
‘Abyss’—
in other words, a special power also called an Anomaly.
The ability that awakens with unpredictable probability was called by an ancient word meaning “abyss” precisely because no one knew where it came from.
Those who awakened to the Abyss gained some extraordinary power that set them apart from ordinary humans.
‘I knew Father had this power, but…’
she’d never imagined it was something like this.
That was because she’d never once seen him use it.
Some Abyss powers were sometimes difficult for their wielders to control.
So children with insufficient control, or adults with powers too overwhelming to master, wore accessories made from stones called Soul Stones to suppress their abilities.
The more Soul Stone jewelry one wore, the stronger the power being contained.
Cherti wore three bracelets on each arm.
Beyond that, he had small piercings above his ears and wore seven rings.
Duke Belion wore a fair number of ornaments himself, but Cherti wore even more.
And yet when his emotions flared, his power still leaked out like this, untamed and violent.
Cherti Belion had awakened to his power the moment he was born—and was regarded as an ill-fated child who’d killed both the midwife and his mother in the process.
He had been lonely, isolated, always alone.
Because when he was alone, no one else could be hurt.
“Don’t come near…”
Cherti’s voice was trembling now.
He couldn’t believe it.
While everyone else screamed and fled in terror, his daughter walked toward him with that calm face, treading carelessly through the lethal poison flowing from his body.
He wished desperately that this was all just a dream.
“Father, the truth is… I wouldn’t even mind dying.”
At Roserin’s words, Cherti’s eyes widened in shock.
“I have no real attachment to living. I’ve already died once before.”
Roserin didn’t even glance at the poison dissolving her shoes.
Instead, it was Cherti and those behind him who were anxious and trembling.
“You see, Father,”
Roserin opened her mouth carefully.
“there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you.”
Strictly speaking, the man before her was not Roserin’s true father.
If you had to insist on the distinction, then yes.
There was no one left to ask about it anymore.
You cannot question the dead.
Yet Roserin felt a strange dissonance.
If the people of this parallel world were truly so similar to those of the world she had inhabited……
Why, then, had her father in that other world died?
‘If Father’s Abyss were a poison, he should have immunity to all toxins……’
Why had he failed to notice the cowardly treachery Lady Carmel had employed?
“If someone who is immune to every poison in the world died from poison…… why would that be?”
What reason could there be for someone who never dies to perish?
Cherti faltered at Roserin’s question.
He studied her with eyes heavy with meaning before finally speaking.
“……Because that person’s body stopped trying to detoxify the poison.”
At Cherti’s words, Roserin went still.
Of course.
It was an answer she had half-expected.
Roserin lowered her gaze and released a short breath.
When might a perfect immortal ever die?
Perhaps only when the immortal ceased to will themselves into living.
When every cell in their body stopped working.
Or when they decided, of their own accord, to die.
‘Why?’
Roserin wanted to ask.
But there was no one left among the dead to question, so she simply remained silent.
Roserin found herself standing before Cherti.
Seeing her half-melted shoes, Cherti reached out a pale hand, then hesitated.
“I always thought Father hated me. That I failed to meet his expectations.”
“…….”
Cherti’s eyes widened slightly, partially hidden behind his long bangs.
‘But what if……’
That were not the case.
Roserin’s eyes grew heavy and distant.
“……There’s no way.”
A pale hand reached out and gently grasped the edge of Roserin’s clothes.
“There’s no way……”
Cherti’s voice trembled finely as he clutched her garment.
In the same moment, Roserin slowly raised her hand as if to embrace him, then……
She slipped her fingers past his slightly parted lips and shoved what she held straight down his throat.
Gulp.
It was a pill—the Ultra-potent Sleeping Draught.
Of course, a draught that worked only on those who had awakened their Abyss.
‘Good thing I made this just in case.’
It didn’t exist yet, but it would be developed years from now—a medication for the Abyss.
‘More like a sedative, really….’
Cherti’s eyes flew wide, his throat convulsed reflexively, and his body pitched forward.
“There’s… no……”
Thump—Cherti collapsed to the floor, and Roserin quickly stepped back and removed her shoes.
“Wow, I really thought my feet were going to melt.”
She murmured softly and looked up.
Three members of the Belion Family were staring at Roserin in shock.
Their expressions were those of people watching something they had hoped for shatter spectacularly.
“……Why are you all looking like that?”
Roserin asked, casually tossing her ruined shoes aside.
“……Well, I thought perhaps you’d finally give this tiresome fellow some tearful embrace.”
At Igis’s words, Roserin laughed softly.
“Does it matter now? What’s done is done.”
Roserin tilted her head with a puzzled expression.
“Besides, I didn’t hear the rest of it. He’s passed out, after all.”
Roserin glanced at her father, now slung over Igis’s shoulder, and added lightly.
“The Nolrang Mine will be coming up for auction soon. It would be wise to purchase it.”
Roserin spoke and gestured to a servant nearby.
“You there—bring some shoes we can wear, even if they’re yours.”
“Oh, yes! Of course, at once.”
Roserin turned her attention back to Duke Belion.
“Lord Garen will likely be bidding as well. We might acquire it at a bargain, but I suspect he’ll offer around one billion Orals. To be safe, I’d recommend you prepare approximately two and a half billion Orals.”
Duke Belion said nothing.
“Ha! The Nolrang Mine? That worthless pit only yields garbage—nothing but cheap amber gems with no real value. Who in their right mind would buy that massive hunk of rock? Even a passing dog would laugh.”
Despite Ian Belion’s harsh words, Roserin’s expression remained unmoved.
“Of course, whether to purchase it is entirely your decision.”
“In any case, don’t charge in like an idiot the way you did before. Do you know who she is? She killed her own mother the moment she was born…….”
“Ian!”
At Igis’s sharp voice, Ian curled his lip and let out a scornful snort.
Roserin opened her mouth.
“Roserin.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
Hearing Roserin’s formal response, Duke Belion narrowed his eyes with displeasure, his brow twitching once.
“Call me grandfather. My only granddaughter shows me no affection whatsoever.”
……
At Duke Belion’s curt remark, Roserin’s brow furrowed slightly.
“My friends tell me their granddaughters do things for them all the time……. They go shopping together, coaxing them sweetly, showing them affection.”
“Is it possible those young ladies aren’t asking their grandfathers to buy them things when they go along?”
……Well, so I’ve heard.”
Duke Belion nodded reluctantly at Roserin’s words.
Roserin responded with a knowing nod of her own.
“That’s only because they don’t want to spend their own money. They just need a wallet.”
At Roserin’s dry remark, Duke Belion faltered.
He had not expected such a response to come back at him.

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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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