The Baddest Villainess Is Back - Chapter 78

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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 78
“Yes.”
It was only natural, wasn’t it?
There could never be only good days, only happy ones.
If life’s undulations are called light and shadow, then naturally where there are good days, there must be bad ones too.
“But Lady Rozelin, some lives are…… branded as someone’s shadow the moment they are born.”
At the Royal Guard Captain’s words, Rozelin fell silent.
“Some people are condemned to live forever in another’s shadow simply because they were born—treated as trash that cannot even be burned, pointed at their whole lives.”
Amusing.
There was no laughter in his voice as he added that it was amusing.
Rozelin walked slowly, and after a long silence, she opened her mouth.
“Still, you cannot torment others just because you’ve surrendered to your own greed and selfishness. Those people surely had their reasons too, and perhaps there were misunderstandings.”
As Rozelin’s words continued, the Royal Guard Captain’s pace slowed, and his expression grew increasingly strained, then twisted.
“……So first, try loving people. I think the reason you see the world so darkly is because of a lack of love and…… well, you know.”
“……Pardon?”
“-If I said that, it would be righteous, wouldn’t it? Speaking honestly with my personal thoughts…”
Rozelin stopped walking, smiled, and spun around sharply.
“It’s the fault of whoever gave birth to you.”
“…….”
“Whoever failed to guard their loins is the one at fault.”
“……You know what I’m saying.”
“I thought you were speaking in riddles—was I wrong?”
Rozelin shrugged, withdrew her escorted arm, and strolled through the vast Imperial Capital Garden.
The Royal Guard Captain, who had been standing still for some time, followed behind her into the garden.
“Being born is rarely a sin.”
Rozelin slowed her pace gradually.
“Among them, the most common in the aristocratic world is being an illegitimate child with unclear origins.”
“……They say that beasts with too sharp a mind are disposed of quickly.”
“Why? For fear they’ll realize their own plight and run away?”
The Royal Guard Captain met Rozelin’s smile—sharp as a rose among thorns, yet worn with ease—with a subtle expression.
“……Because they realize they’re hunting dogs meant to die, to be used up. If a hunting dog realizes it’s afraid of dying, things become complicated, don’t they?”
At the Royal Guard Captain’s words, Rozelin stood silently beyond the thorn-laden rosebushes, watching the middle-aged man.
“Must someone born as a shadow live as a shadow their whole life?”
“No.”
Rozelin shrugged and spoke.
“Must a life branded as defective from birth remain defective forever?”
“That too, no.”
Rozelin likewise shook her head.
“You cannot call being born a sin.”
Yet even as she said this, it was something Rozelin had only recently been able to speak of calmly.
“But from my short time living…… I dare say that the moment you decide to harm others using the misfortune given to you as an excuse and act on it—that becomes a sin.”
“So should a life lived as a guilty party simply endure the misfortune that came by bad luck and accept it?”
Rozelin shrugged.
“I don’t know. I’ve always thought so until now.”
Rozelin slowly turned her head and spoke softly.
“I thought being born was a sin too, but when I died and came back, I found there were far more people who actually liked me than I expected.”
As an illegitimate child, Rozelin knew something of that life well enough.
Yet in Rozelin’s case, it was more accurate to say she had been seized by her own premature fear, caught in delusions only she harbored.
Rozelin did not know how it felt to live as someone’s shadow.
But she knew how it felt to live alone, forgotten by someone.
“Being so rushed with simply living, always looking forward, I missed so much—and now I regret it.”
Perhaps Rozelin was now slowly retracing the path she had walked all this while.
Stopping her forward gaze, looking left and right, walking again while reexamining the road she had traveled.
And returning to the regretted past.
There, Rozelin made a clear decision.
Rozelin would die.
“So I’m putting things one by one back where I wish they had been, and it feels far better than I expected.”
At Rozelin’s cryptic words, the Royal Guard Captain merely looked bewildered, offering no reply.
“There are things you don’t know unless you speak them. Why not set aside revenge for now and try having a conversation?”
Returning to the original world, she would restore one by one, with her own hands, everything to its rightful place.
“Why did you refuse the position of Queen?”
“I’ve stopped hiding now, it seems. The reason is simple enough. I have no interest in it. Overturning the world, reclaiming rights for illegitimate children…….”
Rozelin’s mouth curved into a languid smile.
“Isn’t that rather clichéd?”
Rozelin would restore that regretted past to its original state.
“Besides, I’ve always been selfish and greedy by nature…… so as long as you don’t interfere with my affairs, I won’t care what you do.”
She would change the past so that her future self might find happiness.
In the end, Rozelin was a selfish creature. Even her longing for others’ happiness existed only to serve her own.
“But lately, your captain here has become quite the hindrance, you see.”
Rozelin strode forward and drew a fan from within her sleeve, lifting it lightly beneath the Royal Guard Captain’s chin as she spoke.
“Did you hear what became of Lady Carmel?”
“……Well, I’ve heard rumors that she lost her limbs and had her tongue cut out before being abandoned somewhere, but…….”
“……Is that so?”
Rozelin’s expression twisted at Carmel’s end, which she hadn’t foreseen.
In truth, she’d sought to ruin an entire household and kill its heir — it would have been strange to expect the woman to emerge unscathed.
“In any case, I can obstruct you however I please. So don’t harm those around me.”
“Those around you, meaning?”
“The Bellion Duke Household. And the Third Imperial Prince — my fiancé for now, though we’re planning to break the engagement — along with Kaluta, with whom I’ve become friends, and his fiancée the Second Imperial Prince.”
With each name Rozelin added, the Royal Guard Captain’s brow narrowed further.
“The young lady of Bellion certainly desires much.”
“I know.”
“……Yes, it’s fortunate you’re aware.”
The Royal Guard Captain looked down at Rozelin with an expression that seemed to ask what manner of creature this was, though he managed an appropriate acknowledgment.
“Well, I’ve delivered my thoughts. I should be going now.”
The moment Rozelin turned to leave.
Shiiing—
A blade pressed against her throat with a sharp, cold whisper.
“I remain curious. How did you learn of me? And of Makruk…….”
“……Obsessive men aren’t popular, you know.”
“Ha, I was quite popular in my younger days. Only…… I’ve had to live my entire life as the shadow of the sun.”
Rozelin’s eyes widened at his words.
“……You don’t mean to say…….”
“Young lady, some lives remain forever as shadows, their very existence forgotten. When they die, they become people no one remembers — people who never existed at all.”
As she listened to his low, measured voice, Rozelin gently turned the Seven-Day Stone Bracelet encircling her wrist.
She was prepared to use it if things truly grew dangerous.
‘Why did I think illegitimate children only existed in noble houses.’
When she thought about it, the Imperial Palace was where secrets ran deepest.
If the Imperial household had hidden illegitimate children — not one or two — then his existence was hardly unusual.
“If you kill me here, the matter will only grow worse.”
“Perhaps, though in my judgment, allowing the young lady to walk free seems far more dangerous.”
Rozelin drew a slow breath at his words.
“My earliest memory is this: my father ordering me cast into the Training Facility as one might dispose of an unwanted thing.”
“…….”
“My mother, who was said to be doing well, was murdered with her mouth sealed one day. Half-brothers and half-sisters who trained and fought on battlefields died one by one.”
Rozelin remained silent as his account unfolded at a leisurely pace.
Tall rose vines seemed to conceal her from outside view.
“All for a single sun.”
“It is only natural that subjects of the Empire serve the nation’s sovereign.”
“To train one’s entire life for a faceless half-brother, to be thrown into war and survive — and then to see my father dead and my brother become a great, beloved sovereign who is loved and loves in return, wearing my father’s very face.”
Rozelin remained silent as the man, aged and long steeped in resentment and hatred, spoke with a voice that churned with anger.
She understood his rage, yet she found herself utterly unable to empathize.
“Just leave.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Rozelin spoke, her brow furrowed.
“……Pardon?”
“You could have simply run away and solved it all. I don’t understand why you wasted half a century with those abilities instead.”
Rozelin stepped back from the blade, touching her neck where it had pressed, and spoke with indifference.
“I’m sorry you seem to be looking for sympathy, but most people call that a waste of time.”
At her words, the man’s face hardened like stone.

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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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