The Villainess is a Millionaire Solver - Chapter 184
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 184
“Huh?”
The Great Spirit blinked his eyes.
“Wait, who do we have here! Isn’t this Princess Aristina? What in the world…”
He looked around with a bewildered expression.
Even at this very moment, strange darkness was closing in from all directions.
And in front of that darkness stood Ruellian, desperately trying to block this curse using every method he knew.
The Great Spirit became even more confused.
“What on earth is happening here…”
“I’ll explain later! Please save that person first!”
I pointed behind us and shouted.
There sat Grace with her eyes closed, sitting upright and waiting for death. Darkness rushed toward her unresisting body like a tide.
“Oh my!”
The Great Spirit gasped in surprise and lifted one foot, stomping it down hard on the ground.
A powerful vibration spread in all directions. The magic circle I had summoned poured out brilliant light in response to that vibration.
As the Great Spirit was summoned, the already distorted space became even more twisted. The darkness that had been creeping forward persistently hesitated momentarily.
“There are still people using such curses these days. This kind of thing should just be devoured. If we combine your divine power with the natural force I possess, we should be able to handle it somehow.”
The Great Spirit said this while bending down and placing both hands on the magic circle on the ground.
Immediately, an incomparably more powerful force than before exploded outward.
It naturally merged with the divine power Ruellian was generating through his stigmata.
“Thank you.”
Ruellian bowed his head toward the Great Spirit in gratitude.
The darkness that had been writhing like a living thing trying to devour us gradually grew smaller.
Like an eclipse ending and the sun’s form returning, it slowly shrank from the edges.
Is this what devouring means?
I reached out my hand while watching this miraculous sight.
“Grace!”
Grace’s body, which had nearly been dragged into the darkness, was pulled back into my hands.
Since an old person’s bones are fragile and could cause serious problems if even slightly broken, I embraced Grace and rolled once.
But at that moment.
A sharp scent from this small old person brushed past my nose.
‘This is…?’
My head spun.
Grace smelled of medicine again. The drug that damaged nerves to prevent speech.
But there was one more thing.
It also seemed like some kind of medicine smell, and it had permeated Grace’s body from carrying and taking it for a very long time.
‘Something like asthma medication?’
As these two exquisitely mixed scents penetrated my sense of smell, something suddenly flashed in my mind.
Like how smelling sweet cotton candy brings back vivid memories of the first school trip.
Scents can automatically trigger impressive memories remaining in the mind.
This unique combination of medicine smells that I had never encountered elsewhere summoned a scene buried deep in my memory.
When I first visited Grace, the medicine smell had already triggered an incomplete memory once.
This time it was completely revived.
-Did you see?
Someone was pressing young me.
-Did you see what just happened in there?
The owner of that voice was Grace. Her eyes were glowing fiercely in the darkness.
I was frightened by her terrifying attitude.
-I didn’t see anything!
I tried to deny it for now, but what had just happened was clearly recalled in my head.
I had been secretly hiding in the Imperial Palace Garden to see Aldensis, when I witnessed a tall man carrying a limp woman, jumping down from a high window and disappearing into the darkness.
‘Oh, how amazing!’
The acrobatic-like sight made me momentarily forget about Aldensis.
The location of the window the man had just jumped from was the fourth room on the third floor.
‘What’s happening in there?’
Driven by curiosity, I entered the building.
Through the secret passage that noblewomen who visited the palace in the old days supposedly used for secret meetings with the Emperor, I climbed to the third floor without anyone knowing.
There was no one in the corridor.
‘One, two, three, four.’
I found the fourth room and carefully peered through the crack in the door…
My body seemed to freeze instantly.
I could see someone collapsed on the floor. Both hands were trembling uncontrollably as if experiencing severe convulsions.
‘…Gasp!’
I covered my mouth.
Though I was young and immature, I could tell I had seen something I shouldn’t have.
Seized by fear, I escaped from that place.
Afraid that running would give me away, I trembled while carefully moving my steps, when suddenly someone appeared and blocked my path.
It was Grace.
“…”
Her eyes glowed terrifyingly, and a very distinctive medicine smell came from her body.
I was too young to understand then, but now I could tell.
Grace had been suspicious of me at that time.
I thought I had lied well, but I couldn’t fool an adult’s sharp eyes.
“…I didn’t see anything!”
A brief silence followed my answer.
I don’t know what Grace was thinking during that short time.
Anyway, after a moment, a small rattling sound came from her pocket.
Thinking about it now, it sounded like a bottle cap closing.
For some unknown reason, Grace had tried to damage my tongue but stopped.
Also, she didn’t tell Tesseud that I seemed to have witnessed the scene.
Instead, she spoke to me in a terrifying voice.
“Be careful. Ghosts roam the palace at midnight. If the Young Lady saw something here, it was all the work of ghosts. So forget everything that happened today. If the Young Lady speaks of what she saw, the ghosts will come for her immediately. Understand?”
“Y-yes, I understand!”
Terrified, I fled from that place.
Everything was too frightening. Muttering to myself like self-hypnosis, ‘Forget it. Forget it. Let’s forget it,’ I returned home in the Duke’s carriage that had been endlessly waiting for the thoughtless young lady.
I immediately fell ill and suffered for quite a while.
After the fever subsided, I completely forgot about that incident. I started living earnestly again, chasing after Aldensis.
But the memory of that night always remained sunken heavily in the depths of my heart like a rusty anchor.
Then suddenly, without warning, it surfaced.
It was during the spring ball this year.
“Oh, come to think of it, Young Lady, you’re afraid of ghosts, aren’t you? But do ghosts really exist in this world?”
At some young lady’s words, who was gently provoking me hoping to see the villainess lose her mind, I flared up.
“Of course they do! There are ghosts right here in this Imperial Palace! I saw them!”
“Really? I’ve mistaken curtains for ghosts before, but…”
“No! When I was young, I came to a ball and saw it clearly with my own eyes! Right here in this Imperial Palace, a ghost killed a maid, and another ghost carried the corpse and jumped out the window to escape! You’d better be careful if you don’t want to end up the same way!”
After shouting like that, drunk on alcohol, my heart sank.
I shouldn’t have said this.
I couldn’t remember well what I had seen that day anymore, but one thing remained clearly in my mind.
“If the Young Lady speaks of what she saw, the ghosts will come for her immediately. Understand?”
It was that terrifying voice that had warned me.
I felt extremely uneasy. I regretted my slip of the tongue.
But it was already spilled milk.
I’m only guessing now, but what I had blabbered about at the ball that day must have reached his ears through Tesseud’s loyal followers scattered everywhere.
He had already been watching me closely.
Since he was thorough enough to kill even the Lacroix Couple to cover up the incident, he would have quickly discovered that I had been lurking around the scene that day.
He must have continued watching and staying vigilant, until he finally obtained confirmation that I was a witness.
He had to eliminate me. Because he never knew when I might start blabbering again.
The attempted poisoning of Serene happened at just the right time, and the fact that I was confined must have felt like a golden opportunity to him.
With the intention of committing the perfect crime, he used Windfearer, which he had painstakingly recovered, to kill me.
‘…That’s what happened.’
The memories that had been blown away from my mind due to the shock of death finally came back to life.
Stab.
Before I could even call for help after discovering the suspicious man, a sharp sword pierced through my chest.
That mysterious sword destroyed life without leaving a single wound. And it immediately became contaminated with sin and disappeared, perfectly destroying all evidence.
‘It hurts…’
I couldn’t breathe because of the pain. The energy of life rapidly drained from my body. The study’s scenery reflected upside down in my vision that had turned murky.
“W-wait…”
Sound leaked out between my tightly clenched lips.
“I can’t die like this. I can’t like this…”
The murderer Tesseud looked down at me and slowly bent his body.
His cold fingertips briefly touched my neck before falling away. He was confirming that there was no hope.
‘N-no… I absolutely can’t just die…’
As the villainess of the Empire and the tenacious one of the Duke’s Family, I reached out and firmly grabbed his arm.
As if a disgusting bug had attached to him, he immediately shook off my hand.
But…
A red light flashed and disappeared from where my hand had touched.
‘Ah!’
I was startled while recalling the memory.
‘That’s right! That’s what happened!’
I absolutely wouldn’t die obediently like this. Even if I had to go, I would definitely take the murderer with me.
With that single-minded determination, I secretly left a dying message before that person could flee.
Right on the perpetrator’s body!
That was probably when my brain was working the fastest throughout my entire life.
Considering everything, it was a pretty decent choice.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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