The Baddest Villainess Is Back - Chapter 190

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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 60
What was Erebos?
‘Primordial Darkness.’
There could be no master for him save the Abyss itself. Though in truth, even that was nothing but rumor.
“……One question, then. Bashin—have you ever seen Erebos? His true form, I mean.”
“You do ask a great many things, don’t you. If you mean to satisfy your curiosity and then take your leave, I’ve no objection—but.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’ll ask one question in turn, then. Do you intend to keep running the Cult as it stands?”
She drew on the hookah held between her lips, exhaling in lazy wisps, and nodded.
“Of course. Recently I happened upon something amusing, and I’m savoring it slowly, enjoying myself immensely.”
Amon laughed—a rapturous sound, as though she’d never been angry at all.
“Don’t you see, Bashin? Isn’t it delicious? No matter how strong a human becomes, the moment you take a loved one hostage, they’re rendered helpless.”
“Is that so?”
“Ah, love—what a thing. Everything turns to nothing in the end anyway, when death comes.”
Amon spoke at leisure, then let her body collapse against the back of her chair, limbs sprawled.
“I see.”
Garren Wilbred replied without inflection.
At that hollow response, she tilted her head back to study him, then fell silent, drawing on the hookah for a time.
“In any case, there’s no need to leave a world I can still enjoy for hundreds of years to come. Things are only just beginning to get interesting.”
She spoke without affect, her eyes heavy with languor.
At her confident words, Garren Wilbred nodded as though satisfied.
“Such is the case, then.”
Having heard the answer, he opened his mouth freely.
“Erebos, I’ve seen him before. We even traveled together once, for a time.”
“Traveled?”
Amon fixed him with a somewhat weary look.
She couldn’t fathom how long he’d been alive.
More than that—it astonished her that someone who’d lived so long retained any coherent self at all.
‘And here he is, coherent enough to play at romance with humans, no less.’
A snort escaped Amon before she drew deeply on the hookah.
“But from what I gather, after sleeping for so long, he’s lost his form entirely and become something that can’t rightly be called a living creature—merely will given no flesh.”
As he spoke, Garren Wilbred gazed out the window with an expression that seemed, in some indefinable way, like longing.
‘Longing?’
Could such a thing exist in a demon?
In a demon who’d lived through epochs so vast they defied comprehension?
“So that’s what dwelt in that human man, then.”
She murmured it softly to herself.
‘He was wise to run.’
If that had truly been the Primordial Darkness, Amon could never have won.
Of course, since she held the crucial role of Greed, the odds were high that the Abyss would find some way to aid her even if she fell—but still.
“It must have been the will to stand closest to his master and protect him.”
Garren Wilbred added this thought, then gave his mouth a thin, subtle smile.
“Then that girl…….”
“Curiosity ends there.”
Garren Wilbred cut off her words lightly, amusement threading through his tone.
“Curiosity killed the cat, as they say.”
……
“Just keep your mouth shut.”
Amon rolled her eyes slowly, lazily.
Sometimes she wondered. Thousands of years must have passed, yet stories of humans still reached her ears from time to time.
The human world itself had been nearly forgotten, remembered by almost no one—yet among demons, there was hardly a soul who didn’t know of it.
Especially among the ancient ones.
Garren Wilbred turned to leave with a plainness that made her question why he’d come at all.
As she watched his retreating back, Amon opened her mouth.
“Say, Bashin. Did you like that human that much? Enough to go mad, accept thousands of years of exile, and come warn me yourself?”
……
Thud.
Garren Wilbred’s steps ceased, and he turned slowly to face her.
Eyes devoid of all emotion, absent even the glimmer of life itself, met hers across the empty air—the very essence of what the being called Bashin was.
Thump!
A crushing weight pressed down on her from above.
As her breath caught in her throat, she hurled the hookah she’d been holding and sprang to her feet, reflexively dropping into a combat stance.
He turned his gaze from Amon, offered a thin smile, and withdrew.
“You liked that, didn’t you.”
Before the words had finished, he vanished from sight.
Amon stared at the sweat glistening in her palm, breathing hard.
“Insane monster,” she muttered.
God, she’d had enough of his games.
With a sigh, she collapsed back into her chair and let her forehead drop against the table.
“Maybe I should go play with my toys instead.”
She rose, smiled to herself with an eerie lightness, and disappeared.
* * *
Arma tidied the ransacked room, carried Rozelin on his back as he shifted back into wolf form, and made a wide detour to avoid attention before returning to the Wilbred Mansion.
Garren Wilbred stood at the front gate as though he’d been waiting for them.
“You’ve returned.”
On four legs, Arma kept his distance and faced Garren Wilbred across the courtyard.
Garren Wilbred approached the massive wolf, apparently intent on taking Rozelin from him.
“You’ve lingered on this side far too long. Go rest now. I’m not the only one who needs looking after, am I?”
A low growl rumbled from the wolf’s throat.
“I’d find it rather troublesome if you thought I’d truly become nothing but a beast.”
The wolf retreated a step, baring its teeth and widening the distance between them.
Garren Wilbred tilted his head with a perplexed expression.
“Do I seem like someone who’d harm a child?”
Silence.
“There’s no need. Don’t worry. I truly do think of her as a daughter.”
Garren Wilbred closed the gap with an easy stride.
The wolf let out a strange, strangled sound.
Startled at his own helplessness, the creature made an odd whine.
Garren Wilbred chuckled softly and carefully lifted Rozelin from the wolf’s back.
“I want this child to find happiness for her own sake this time. Unless I’m given an order, I will only watch over her—so worry no more.”
Another low growl escaped him.
“You don’t seem to have the stamina left to transform back. Why don’t you rest over there? Your body consumes twice the energy on this side.”
Even sleep wouldn’t restore him properly.
Marveling at his extraordinary willpower, Garren Wilbred turned away, cradling Rozelin.
The wolf, too, raised a foreleg and rubbed its eyes as if grooming itself, then padded toward the garden beyond.
Garren Wilbred watched him go, then laid Rozelin on the bed.
“Has it really been eight thousand years?”
He pressed the tip of his index finger gently against her furrowed brow and smiled.
“You’re late, my lord.”
After drawing the blanket over her with unhurried care, Garren Wilbred turned toward his wife with an unmistakably pleased expression.
‘I should tell Selena that Rozelin has returned.’
Selena had been deeply worried about Rozelin’s absence, with no word until this late hour.
As he opened the door and stepped inside, he found Selena just emerging from her bath, her skin flushed from the warm water.
“Selena.”
“Your Grace.”
“I told you that you could call me Garren.”
He strode forward, bent low, and brushed his lips softly against her cheek as he murmured.
“Did something good happen?”
“Yes.”
He didn’t deny it.
“I’ve reunited with someone I’ve missed.”
She said nothing.
“Not in that way—rest assured. The person in my memory was a man, after all.”
Garren Wilbred quickly added the clarification, worried she might misunderstand, and scratched his cheek lightly.
“In any case, Rozelin has returned safely, so don’t worry yourself.”
Still bent forward, he gently lifted her and tucked her beneath the blankets.
Her face flushed crimson in an instant.
Selena pressed her lips firmly shut and turned her head away.
“Would you mind if I took a reward?”
“You didn’t even do it because you were asked to.”
“Demons are greedy creatures—it’s just their nature, I suppose.”
He braced his hand beside her face and lowered his head toward her in one fluid motion.
Selena’s wavering gaze slowly closed beneath her eyelids.
Garren Wilbred laughed softly as he eased his knee gently between her thighs, then brought his lips to meet hers.

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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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