The Baddest Villainess Is Back - Chapter 204

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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 74
“……So that’s how it is?”
“Exactly. That’s why the selection process allows you to move through time to some degree. You can turn back time exactly once in your lifetime, and you can connect with versions of yourself that exist across countless worlds.”
So the Regression ability too. The dream where I possessed my younger body—all of it was an ability?
“Would Sansar have known?”
“No, he wouldn’t have grasped the true nature of it. Even a god couldn’t have read you to that extent.”
So he really had given humans such insane power and Chilyo Stones?
‘Though that was incredible, naturally.’
I unclenched my fists and nodded with satisfaction.
The fact that Sansar had seen me simply as a human being was rather gratifying.
“He likely thought of you as someone carrying an Abyss that hadn’t Awakened. Only demons can read you properly. Even then, without Awakening, I myself couldn’t sense it.”
I studied Garren Wilbred quietly before nodding.
He’d given me a lengthy explanation, but I simply processed it in my own straightforward way.
“In any case, I have tremendous power to kill demons, so I can Seal Amon, right?”
Since that was all I’d wanted to know in the first place, I cut through all the complicated details and distilled it into something clean and certain.
“That’s correct.”
Garren Wilbred let out a hollow laugh and shrugged.
“Then that’s all that matters. Solomon and all that—I don’t care, and I don’t remember anyway. I’ll just think of myself as a different person and move on.”
……
Garren Wilbred said nothing in response.
He only watched me in silence.
Of course, I didn’t reciprocate his gaze.
“I understand that my damned father yearned for Solomon. But that’s not me, so if you could avoid projecting me onto that image, I’d appreciate it. Is that possible?”
I spoke honestly.
I didn’t want to drag things out indefinitely, and I had no desire to argue or apologize later out of wounded feelings—or to accept an apology I didn’t think I deserved.
……
“Garren……?”
To my words, Garren Wilbred looked down at me with an expression I couldn’t quite read, silent.
“……Father?”
He blinked slowly.
His gaze distant, fixed on something far away.
* * *
When was it?
Ah, that day the sky was draped in an unusually vivid crimson—the late evening when the sun hung low.
“No, no……. Jagan……? Jagan! I, I couldn’t have done this. I didn’t…… Why…… Why am I. Why…….”
Perhaps the space reflected in his eyes was simply so scarlet that he mistook it for sunset.
What was certain was only that it was around the time the sun descended.
“Salome, come to your senses.”
“No, no……. Basin, I, I…… I……!”
“It’s all right, Salome. Good, good.”
Erebos, who had always clung to Salome’s back, now hung from his arms, weeping freely as he clumsily comforted the man, stroking that snow-white hair.
“Erebos is right. You merely fulfilled the role the Abyss assigned you. There was no malice in you, no ill intent—it was simply…….”
“That’s exactly the problem!!”
Garren Wilbred sometimes thinks back on it.
“I never felt Jagan was useless!! I—this isn’t right……. This is wrong, having no will of my own. I…….”
“Salome?”
“I…….”
What should I have done for you then.
What words should I have spoken.
“Don’t. That’s not it, Salome. That’s not it.”
Did time pass.
Did silence flow.
Day and night came and went in succession, and with each passing day, he wasted away.
“I didn’t want to kill my family. I’m sorry.”
When the sunset came around again, the red seized his vision once more.
“I…… don’t want to kill you too. I’m sorry. I love you.”
Whoosh—!
In that instant, Garren Wilbred’s vision flooded with crimson.
A fragile human, unable to comprehend nor endure the role thrust upon him, shed tears as a final scream of despair.
“Salome, Salome!! No…… Salomeeee!!”
Darkness swallowed the crimson dusk.
What shadowed him was that darkness itself, or perhaps his own eyelids shutting out reality—he could not say which.
It was despair and loss tasted for the first time by a man who had been born to rule.
──The day he lost his family.
* * *
“Hey there, Garren Wilbred.”
Rozelin dragged a chair over clumsily, climbed atop it, thrust her face close to his, and waved her hand to catch his attention.
Garren Wilbred blinked once, drawing himself from his reverie, then lifted his arm and gave her a light flick on the forehead.
“Mind your manners, young lady.”
Rozelin screwed up her face and rubbed her brow gently.
Odd—he was a demon, so most blows barely stung, yet that flick of his always actually hurt.
“You’re the one who didn’t answer when I called.”
Rozelin let out a deliberately exaggerated sigh.
“So what, damn father—are you alright?”
“I’m fine.”
“If that’s all it takes to satisfy you, I could project into you, but don’t ask me to overdo it. I can’t play that Solomon person for you.”
The girl scratched her cheek and hopped down from the chair.
With an awkward expression, her hand clutching at her clothes, she seemed restless before finally lifting her gaze to meet his.
Her lips parted slightly, and her face bore an expression so unfamiliar, so unguarded, it startled him.
“When damn father makes a face like that, what am I supposed to do? If it’s hard, you should tell… no, not me. You’d better tell Selena instead.”
…….
“You asked me to be your daughter in the first place, and here you are thinking of someone else while looking at me? You know that’s not right, don’t you?”
She rolled her eyes, then slowly grasped the door handle and began to open it before pausing.
“The sun’s already rising! I’ll come back tomorrow, so teach me how to use that ability or whatever. Sleep well, damn father!”
Rubbing her tired eyes, the girl dashed into the Corridor and vanished in an instant.
‘I told her not to run.’
He frowned.
Solomon learns within the cycling of life and death.
The Solomon he remembered was bright and forthright, innocent and righteous—a man who could not lie, whose honesty about his own feelings always brought an unguarded smile to his face, boyish in his simplicity.
But the Rozelin he remembered was one who pushed others away, harbored suspicion, spoke words that cut deep, and trusted no one.
She could not be honest about her own feelings—deceitful, betraying, able to smile only when she tore others down.
A lonely woman who chose isolation, standing alone in darkness.
‘If Amon has appeared, then reaching this degree of Awakening without it being strange would mean…….’
Perhaps Solomon had lived for a long time without Awakening.
Whether unable or unwilling.
Whether through learned restraint, or because there were no longer any hot-blooded demons left.
Either way.
“……Family.”
Was it that he wished to become family with him once more?
He slowly rubbed his face. As he turned his head, the dawn was brightening.
A crimson dawn, much like that time long ago.

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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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