The Baddest Villainess Is Back - Chapter 65

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Episode 65
* * *
‘It hurts. I’m burning…….’
Her entire body was aflame.
Her wrists, which had clearly been freed from their bindings, still throbbed with a phantom ache.
Rozelin groaned against the pain.
She possessed considerable fortitude and a certain tolerance for suffering, yet that tolerance did not render agony painless.
Her head pounded.
The heat was so intense that even each breath she exhaled felt torturous.
Was this what hellfire felt like—immersion in an inferno?
“……why won’t it come down?”
A low hum resonated through her skull.
As though she were submerged underwater, the world thrummed and vibrated; she opened her eyes slowly to orient herself.
Everything blurred before her.
“That’s all we can do…… Oh, Miss. Miss Rozelin, are you conscious?”
At the unfamiliar voice, Rozelin’s body tensed involuntarily.
‘Who is that?’
The fever burned through her; her eyes grew hot for no reason she could name.
“Rozelin, are you awake?”
This voice was far more recognizable.
Familiar, yet it sounded far younger than she remembered it being.
‘……Have I died?’
Rozelin’s lips twitched weakly.
‘Has the fever returned?’
Her thoughts refused to cohere, though something told her that her body was not in its proper state.
“Ah…….”
Her voice came out hoarse and broken.
“Ah…….”
“Rozelin, are you all right? Speak to me.”
“Fa… fa…….”
The eyes of Cherti, who had been watching her from above, widened sharply.
“It hurts. Hold me…….”
Rozelin, who had always regretted never having indulged in childish complaints, raised her trembling arms—then stopped short.
‘……These are a child’s hands?’
What moved at the command of her mind was the small, delicate hand of a child no more than five or six years old.
In other words, her hand—yet her own hand looked impossibly small.
‘……Have I finally lost my mind?’
In her haze, Rozelin surrendered once more to sleep.
* * *
She had been made young.
Rozelin couldn’t decide whether to feel joy or sorrow at a situation that could be summed up in those few words—whether she should…….
Well, there was no point in that question.
She felt no joy, no sorrow; only bewilderment and absurdity.
“……This is madness.”
Rozelin muttered quietly, her brow furrowed.
Her tongue was short, causing her words to slur slightly, though she took what comfort she could in the fact that she could still speak.
Heat radiated from her scalp, clouding her thoughts.
Leaning against the headboard of the Bed, Rozelin exhaled hot, labored breaths and fought to gather her wits.
Alongside the absurdity came an odd clarity of mind.
She had once visited a Parallel World, and she possessed an Abyss that allowed her to live more than one life.
‘How did I come to be here?’
Rozelin considered the question.
Three possibilities came to mind.
First: she had escaped the kidnapping unharmed, then lost consciousness and died, slipping into another Parallel World.
Second: she had gone mad or was dreaming.
Third: her Abyss was involved somehow.
All three seemed equally plausible; none stood out as the obvious answer.
‘The third is most likely.’
Rozelin exhaled hot breath and, crawling awkwardly, made her way toward the foot of the Bed.
The Bed stood tall, and with her diminished height, she would need to grip the sheet to lower herself down.
‘When I was young, it was like this.’
Because she’d been sickly so often, her frame was smaller and frailer than her peers—she could barely lift a single piece of silver cutlery.
Rozelin dragged the neat quilt on the bed down carelessly beneath her and slid off it like a child playing on a slide.
She stood before the full-length mirror on one side of the room.
Her pale cheeks had flushed a deep crimson from lack of sunlight, robbed of their natural color.
Looking at her hollowed cheeks and thinned eyes—the marks of a serious illness—she could only sigh.
Rozelin lifted her hand and pinched her cheek hard. The pain was sharp enough to bring tears.
‘It doesn’t seem to be a dream, at least.’
The sensations were too vivid for a dream, and her senses were intact.
‘I don’t seem to have gone mad, not yet. First, I need to understand what’s happening.’
Pain of this degree was familiar to her, so there was nothing strange about it.
Rozelin rose on her toes to turn the doorknob.
If only the doorknob had turned.
“……Rozelin?”
“Father.”
“……Who told you to move about without permission? I’ve always told you, haven’t I? You…….”
“That I’m worthless rubbish who only causes trouble when I move, so I shouldn’t move at all? I understand.”
Cherti faltered at the child Rozelin’s cutting words—harsher than necessary.
Rozelin looked up at her father, who seemed younger in her memory, more naive, darker and more shadowed than she recalled.
“……No, I didn’t say it that way.”
Cherti added the words hesitantly, his brow furrowed in confusion.
“I know. I know you love me, Father.”
At the child’s innocent voice, Cherti lowered his gaze to Rozelin.
Her eyes, always hazy and weary and listless, seemed unusually bright today.
Cherti gazed at the girl’s jade-like eyes and pressed his lips together tightly.
“……I……”
“Father, did you come to me in secret like this often, whenever I was sick?”
“……It wasn’t exactly in secret. I just had business outside, and thinking of you on the way, I dropped by as I passed.”
“Because you always said that, I thought you hated me.”
At Rozelin’s words, Cherti’s shoulders stiffened abruptly.
He looked down at her, his gaze trembling with shock.
“I don’t hate you. It’s just…….”
“So I even thought about leaving the house.”
Rozelin noticed her short tongue made the sound difficult to pronounce properly, and inwardly clicked her tongue at herself.
At her words, Cherti’s pupils dilated sharply.
“You can’t possibly go out……!”
“I know I’d only be a burden, but if I’m going to be a burden no matter where I am, it seems better not to be here at all.”
Rozelin let slip words she’d never dared speak aloud before.
‘If this is something like an Abyss Rampage, what kind of Parallel World is this?’
Rozelin rolled her eyes indifferently and continued.
“So I thought I’d leave.”
“…….”
When no response came, she lifted her head again.
Cherti stood frozen as if struck by lightning.
At his trembling pupils and the bewildered look beneath, Rozelin shrugged.
She couldn’t have seen it before.
Rather, she couldn’t have known.
“Father.”
“…….”
The man, draped in countless ornaments, could only part his lips soundlessly in response to his small daughter’s shocking words.
“……Did you ever regret that I was born?”
And with that, Rozelin dropped another bomb—a question she’d wanted to ask since childhood.
“……What?”
As Cherti’s gaze lowered, the child was gazing steadily at a small doll on the nightstand beside the bed.
The doll whose side had been torn open in her memory now looked almost new.
In this Parallel World she’d entered after dying as a criminal, that doll hadn’t existed.
Which meant that not all versions of Rozelin across every Parallel World had received this doll.
Yet Rozelin’s memory of receiving this doll on her fourth birthday was crystal clear.
‘Could this world possibly be…….’
Rozelin hesitated, then opened her mouth again.
“It’s nothing much, really. I’ve just always wanted to ask. Of course, I know I can’t undo my birth, that I exist now—but I wondered.”
“…….”
“If I hadn’t existed, Father might have been able to live happily with Mother.”
“…….”
The man remained silent even at Rozelin’s unusually grave words.
As his silence stretched long and heavy, Rozelin gave a small, careless shrug of her narrow shoulders.
“I’m going out for a moment to check on something. I’ll be back soon.”
The instant Rozelin brushed past Cherti’s side, he startled and caught her, lifting her up without ceremony.
Held firmly beneath the armpits and dangling helplessly, Rozelin was deposited forcibly onto the Bed.
“…….”
Rozelin’s face darkened with displeasure.
“Always…….”
Cherti sat Rozelin at the edge of the Bed, then knelt on one knee before her, meeting her gaze as he spoke.
“Always—have you been thinking such things?”

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————