The Baddest Villainess Is Back - Chapter 71

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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 71
“The talks haven’t progressed—surely the plague situation isn’t still…”
“No, Kaluta brought up that matter first, so negotiations on it are already concluded.”
At Devon’s answer, Rozelin exhaled a long breath of relief.
“That’s a mercy, at least.”
“Kaluta’s king takes tea time with the Emperor periodically as well, so conversations are certainly happening through informal channels.”
Rozelin nodded.
She could roughly grasp Kaluta’s intention—a display of will that she be included, even if only in form.
‘They didn’t need to go this far for me…’
It was painfully obvious he was trying to build up her standing.
If Rozelin participated in the negotiations, it would ultimately give her grounds to offer public statements, and grant her a measure of power in her own right.
Now that Kaluta had declared her a friend.
“Have you captured Magluk’s King?”
“No. The Third Prince refuses to hand over the one who kidnapped you, so I haven’t been able to interrogate him. The boy is stubborn as they come—tsk.”
At Devon’s explanation, Rozelin recalled the last time she’d seen Arma.
‘…He looked so pale.’
Still, it had caught her off guard somewhat.
If anyone had come to rescue her first, she’d have wagered it would be Geren Wilbrid, or Khan, or her father.
“Rozelin.”
“Yes, Father?”
“May I ask why you were there with that man at all?”
At Cherti’s question, Rozelin hesitated.
“I was simply kidnapped.”
“Kidnapped? But why would you be kidnapped in the first place?”
“Well, it seems everything I’ve been doing all this time has been connected to Magluk somehow, so I must have been in their way.”
At Rozelin’s words, Cherti went utterly still.
“What? What in blazes are you talking about?”
“The disappearances, the arson, even this plague outbreak—Magluk was involved in all of it.”
She had known and acted accordingly.
The Emperor had doubtless suspected she possessed some Abyss like divining the future.
“Lady Carmel, when you really think about it, I had her driven away because she was a thorn in my side, and my second uncle suddenly ended up imprisoned—so they must have thought I held some grudge.”
There were indeed quite a few coincidences piling up.
And from their perspective, it was certainly suspicious.
‘Though I did do some of it on purpose…’
Without concrete evidence, they had no choice but to resort to kidnapping her.
‘I never expected them to make a Queen’s proposal, though…’
Rozelin slowly raised her head.
“What did that man say to you?”
“Ah, that I should become Queen of Magluk.”
“…What?”
“He said I should become Queen of Magluk.”
The moment Rozelin’s flat words finished, a heavy silence descended.
* * *
Darkness, darkness, darkness.
In a space filled only with pitch-black darkness, the man—Auximus—was slowly going mad.
He could feel himself wasting away, skin clinging to bone.
At first, it had been manageable.
He constantly used his Abyss to summon flame, so he could be the only light in the darkness.
But he was not alone in that darkness.
There was everything else.
When he lit a flame, all the things the darkness had swallowed appeared before him.
Corpses, nothing but bone and rot, things like that.
And that fact had awakened considerable terror.
At first, the man—Auximus—had been fine.
He was a being with the Fire Abyss, after all.
But everyone has their limits eventually.
In the darkness, time seemed to crawl impossibly slowly.
More than a year must have passed, and yet he remained alive somehow.
Yes.
Auximus was still alive.
Nothing existed, and yet he survived. Through darkness that seemed eternal and a hell from which there would be no forgiveness.
And today, after an unmeasurable stretch of time, he was dragged up from that darkness.
He squeezed his eyes shut against the flooding light.
Buzz—buzz.
His ears rang with a dull hum.
Auximus couldn’t open his eyes at all.
After so long in darkness, his eyes wouldn’t adjust to the light, and it took him a long while before he could finally crack them open.
His vision swam in a milky haze.
He blinked hard, trying to dispel the discomfort, but the blur wouldn’t clear.
As if the darkness had swallowed his sight whole. He blinked again and again, then shuddered violently.
“Still alive, then. How surprising.”
A cool voice descended.
After several more blinks, Auximus realized it wasn’t daytime but the dead of night.
Yet even in darkness, the light seared his eyes unbearably.
“Ha…….”
He couldn’t make out who stood before him, but Auximus knew one thing for certain.
The bastard in front of him was the dog who’d thrown him into this hell.
“I heard Rozelin opened her eyes yesterday.”
“……You.”
His own deeply sunken voice startled him, and he rubbed his face.
“Damn it, damn it!”
“Surviving for nearly a month shows a certain resilience.”
Arma no longer wore a youthful, innocent face.
His hair was swept back, exposing his forehead clearly, and his blue eyes held not freshness but arrogance and contempt.
Watching this through his blurred vision, Auximus let out a mad laugh.
“You’re insane, you know that?”
Arma looked down at the maddened man and crossed his legs.
In the darkness, he’d left one arm behind somewhere; he’d returned as a one-armed man, changed from when he’d entered.
“I was wondering how you survived a month without food…….”
As Arma let slip a mocking laugh, Auximus bared his fangs and grinned savagely.
The middle-aged man knelt on his haunches, his face twisted with cruel amusement, and stared menacingly at Arma.
“Tell me about Magluk.”
“Why would I tell you?”
Auximus’s condition was dire.
One arm, never properly treated, had been burned and was now rotting; confined in darkness for so long, his vision had died, his pupils clouded with what looked like a white film.
He was skin and bones with his skeleton jutting through, and his eyes and cheeks were hollow.
Every time he made a sound, his breathing quickened noticeably, and from the blue tint at his fingertips and lips, hypothermia seemed evident.
Frozen breath vapor streamed from his mouth with each word.
His entire body was now so ravaged by melted skin and burns frozen in place that he could hardly be called human anymore.
It was plainly the result of his desperate efforts to keep the pearl he’d swallowed from stealing what little warmth remained.
Crackle, crackle.
His body flared intermittently, though even that seemed to be reaching its limits.
“You look like you’re about to die anyway. Wouldn’t it be better to speak before you do?”
“Have I lost my mind? I’d sooner die.”
Auximus laughed like a demon.
With his melted skin, he looked even more grotesque, but Arma didn’t blink.
“How pitiful.”
“The pitiful one is you, hiding behind your Mask. Living as if you’re powerless.”
“I’m simply uninterested in what comes next. Unlike you, I’m not a blind fool.”
Arma spoke coldly, looking down at Auximus.
“So you won’t speak of the King’s true identity?”
“Of course not.”
“Then I have no choice but to kill you.”
The man clenched his teeth and trembled helplessly against the cold creeping ever closer.
In truth, Auximus knew it too.
His body was already finished. He would die soon enough.
“Tell the lady this for me—I die because of her.”
…….
At his savage words, Arma’s eyes narrowed.
‘He’s more tight-lipped than I expected.’
Yet he had no desire to show Rozelin a man in such a wretched state.
‘The right to punish ought to belong to Rozelin….’
After a moment’s deliberation, Arma dragged him toward the Underground Prison.
He meant to have the creature—still clinging to life—healed.

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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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