The Baddest Villainess Is Back - Chapter 66

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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 66
“No.”
Rozelin answered curtly.
“……No?”
“Yes. If I’d only been thinking that way, I’d have left home already.”
Cherti’s shoulders flinched again.
He stared at Rozelin with an expression of profound shock.
“……I don’t know what love is.”
“Excuse me? Father did everything with Mother to bring me into this world, and now you’re going to stand there like a moody adolescent saying you don’t know what love is? Mmph—”
Cherti’s face went blank, and he silenced Rozelin’s flowing stream of words by covering her mouth with his large hand.
“Where on earth did you pick up such strange talk——”
“Mmmph——”
With her mouth covered, Rozelin made muffled sounds.
Realizing belatedly that he was covering Rozelin’s mouth, Cherti’s face went deathly pale and he jerked his hand away.
“What book did you——”
He stepped back hurriedly, muttering under his breath.
“Father, could it be that love, excluding the physical aspect, is more platonic——”
“Enough.”
Cherti’s hand shot out reflexively, then stopped mid-air as he spoke with finality.
Rozelin stared at his large hand hovering uncertainly before them, then caught one of his fingers.
“It’s fine, Father.”
Rozelin broke into a bright smile, and Cherti froze at the radiance of it.
“As long as Father controls his strength properly, there’s no way I could die.”
At Rozelin’s matter-of-fact words, Cherti’s eyes widened.
He was about to pull his hand from her grasp.
“If you don’t want to kill your only daughter, you’d better control yourself. I’ll cling to you every time I see you. You do love me, don’t you?”
Cherti’s head bobbed awkwardly as he opened his mouth.
“……I……I……Don’t talk such peculiar nonsense!”
……He fumbled and failed completely.
It seemed his social skills had been even worse in his youth.
Rozelin sighed openly.
“And Father, you’re far darker than I remember—it’s embarrassing to go out with you. Could you perhaps make yourself a bit more presentable?”
“……What?”
“Then I’ll go to sleep now. Hold my hand while I sleep, please.”
The child lay down on the bed, grasped Cherti’s hand as he stood there awkwardly, and closed her eyes.
Before long, the large hand completely enclosed the small one.
* * *
‘……So this really is my original world.’
Over the past four days, Rozelin had quietly learned about the news and past events one by one, and now she sighed.
“By the way, did a peddler come through here today?”
“Oh, yes. How did you know, miss?”
“Just a hunch. If you bought anything from that peddler, go get your money back right away. It’s all a scam.”
“Pardon?”
“Tell me—a week ago on my birthday, did I go down to Father’s room in the basement and get scolded?”
“……Oh, that wasn’t because the young master disliked you, miss. It was——”
“I know Father doesn’t dislike me. So I did go, then?”
“Yes, well……Did your memory……”
“No, I remember now. Better not go outside tomorrow—there’ll be enormous hail.”
“Could it be that Grandfather, who went to the Duchy Territory, is coming back tomorrow?”
“Ah, yes. That’s right! But according to the Temple’s forecast, heavy rain is expected tomorrow, so we’re concerned. He needs to arrive safely before the meeting.”
“He probably won’t make it in time. The valley will flood and he won’t be able to cross.”
She buttonholed the passing servants whenever she could and tried to gauge the timeframe from her memory.
After Garen took her to the Parallel World, Rozelin had spent much time contemplating.
Even in a parallel world, aside from the great currents of history, small things differed slightly.
The gift she received on her birthday might not have been a doll, or the rain that fell on her birthday in this world might not have fallen in that one.
A shop that existed in Rozelin’s world might not exist in that one.
Yet the great currents remained strikingly similar.
If war came, war came. If a nation was destined to fall, it fell—unless someone intervened.
From this, Rozelin had concluded that this world was the past of her original world.
‘……What could it possibly be?’
Rozelin sat perched on the edge of the bed, her short arms folded across her chest in an awkward embrace as she swung her feet restlessly.
“Your Abyss, Rozelin—it can only awaken after you die.”
“……What?”
“It’s complicated to explain in detail, but think of it as a kind of Resurrection Abyss. After death, you return to the past and get to live once more in another person’s body.”
Sansar had named her Abyss the “Resurrection Abyss.”
An Abyss that could only awaken after death.
‘So I really did die, then?’
Rozelin fell silent.
Yet there was still something that didn’t make sense.
‘Sansar said my Abyss could return to the past after death and inhabit someone else’s body to live again.’
That’s where the problem arose.
If she had truly died, then according to Sansar’s words, Rozelin should have been bound to another person’s body.
But instead, just as Garen had shifted her to a Parallel World, she had come back into her own body.
‘……Did the me in this world already die?’
Rozelin’s brow furrowed.
“After you die, you’ll become stronger than any Kaluta.”
“……So what am I supposed to do after dying?”
“I love all World Lines, but the one where I met you—I love that one most of all.”
Sansar had said that after her death, she would become stronger than any Kaluta-kin.
Yet in reality, she remained as frail as ever, unable to set foot beyond the blankets without permission.
A body that ran a fever after merely twenty minutes of walking—what could she possibly accomplish?
Rozelin burned with desire to do things, but her father and the others refused to allow it.
In other words, the odds were high that Rozelin had not yet died.
‘Could it be one of my Abyss’s other abilities?’
Rozelin had already died once and come back to life.
Only, instead of inhabiting another’s body as the conditions stipulated, it seemed Garen’s Abyss had exerted a compulsive force, pulling her into the corpse of her other self that lay in the Parallel World.
The condition of death had been satisfied either way, so it was possible that part of her Abyss had begun to blossom.
‘An Abyss is not a simple thing, after all.’
Having a Fire Abyss didn’t mean you could only conjure flames.
You could warm a person’s body or apply it in countless ways.
It was entirely possible that Rozelin’s Abyss had activated and claimed a body from a different Parallel World.
‘I don’t know the exact cause, but……’
Around the time she was five years old, Rozelin had gone for a walk in the Garden and fallen into the water.
She had drifted between life and death for nearly a month, unable to regain proper consciousness—or so she had heard from the servants.
Judging by the timing, it seemed this present moment fell somewhere within that month when she had hovered between life and death.
‘The servants always told me stories out of consideration for my sickness.’
Like how that peddler was a con artist, or how the Duke heading back to the Capital from the Duchy Territory couldn’t arrive on time because the Valley was swollen with floodwaters, or how the Abyss of the man who attended the conference in the Duke’s stead went berserk—she’d heard all of that back then.
“Miss, it’s time…… Are you really going?”
“Yes.”
“Will you be all right? Is your body…?”
“I’m fine.”
There was a slight fever, but that was nothing new—she’d always lived with it.
“Miss, I’ve saved up some money, and I was thinking of investing it in a business venture…… Which do you think would be better?”
A business investment? Suddenly?
Rozelin narrowed her eyes as she watched the servant smoothing out her dress.
‘Why are you asking me that?’
Rozelin clicked her tongue.
“I’m not a merchant. Why are you asking me?”
“Oh, but miss, they say you’re far more talented than that famous Fortune Teller. Isn’t that so?”
She found it utterly repulsive when a grown woman contorted herself and played cute in front of a child.
Rozelin stared at her with dark, narrowed eyes, then noticed the two Investment Documents the woman held out.
They were business proposals.
Not every business could secure the patronage of nobility.
So what became of the countless ventures that couldn’t win noble support?
It was simple.
They sought whatever small investments they could from commoners or wealthy merchants.
If the business succeeded, investors received a Dividend; if it failed, well…… it was bankruptcy, as it always was.
Only, lacking noble patronage meant that businesses accepting such small-scale investments were doomed to fail more often than not.
As Rozelin examined the papers closely, her eyes widened slightly.
‘This business received its investment around this time.’

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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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