The Villainess Whom I Had Served for 13 Years Has Fallen

TLed by NolepGuy

Chapter 91

When I first fell into this place.

I possessed the body of a child in the slums.

A frail, emaciated body.

A weak physique that made my stomach growl with the slightest movement—I opened my eyes in that body.

-What the hell. Damn.

The same face as my previous life.

Except for the hair color, the face was identical to my past self, filled with memories that weren’t exactly pleasant.

Memories of being born to a prostitute and abandoned.

Memories of a miserable death from starvation—I had possessed a body with such a sorrowful past.

At first, I wandered aimlessly and cursed whatever god might exist, demanding that if I were to possess someone, it should at least be a noble. But the survival instinct of a human was strong enough to make me forget such a wretched life.

Possession or not, I decided to survive first.

So, I began to beg.

-Pretty lady! Your future husband is shivering here.

-Hohoho? Did you just call me ‘sister’? I’m over 40, you know?

-Oh, my mistake. You’re not a sister but a young lady.

-Hohohong. You’re quite the funny one.

Though my body was nothing extraordinary, I began to gradually improve my life by recalling my memories of earning pocket money at Seoul Station in my previous life.

Whatever the case, I was experienced.

I lived as if a screw had come loose. I’d laugh at the empty tin cans of shy little beggars, calling them ‘pathetic,’ while showing off my own full tin can like a lunatic.

-What are you looking at, beggars?

Even I thought I was crazy.

When the money I begged for was stolen by some big guy, I’d pick up a rock on a dark alleyway night and pay him a visit.

-Did you enjoy the meal with my money, you orc bastard?

-H-Hey… Let’s talk this out.

-This is Excalibur, filled with the spirit of love, you bastard.

Around the time I had spent a year living in the alleyways.

Naturally, I came to rule over the alley.

I wasn’t some big shot who got involved with groups dealing in drugs or crime, but I did reign as the king of the abandoned slum kids.

-Alright. From today on, call me ‘Boss.’

-But I’m older than you.

-So what? Earn more than me, then.

-…If you make more money, you’re the boss.

I got beaten up a lot, too.

There were times I was dragged off by other vagabonds and subjected to group lynching so severe I thought I might die, but I survived tenaciously and became a hero to the slum kids.

Maybe I was projecting the orphaned past of my previous life onto the kids. Seeing those starving little ones didn’t sit well with me.

It felt like looking at my own difficult past, and I understood better than anyone how hard it was to live as an orphan. For the first time, I think I did something like volunteer work.

And I had to fill my own stomach as well.

Until I met the Young Lady, that’s how I lived. Even until she led me out of the slums, that’s how I had been living.

Begging. Fighting.

Sharing bread with the kids in the evening using the money I begged for, preaching to them to hold on to hope despite the bleak future.

That was the life of the possessor named ‘Lee Minhyuk’ in his previous life.

Then one day.

A silver-haired boy was abandoned on the roadside.

His entire body was covered in bruises.

He looked as if it wouldn’t be strange for him to die at any moment.

-What the hell. Why is he here?

-Do you know him?

-No? It’s our first meeting.

-…?

[Mikhail Lv. 2]

[Occupation: Unemployed]

[Favorability: 50]

[Favorite Topics: Family, Hungry, Not Abandoned, Affection, Pain, Save Me]

-Let’s take him with us for now.

That was my first meeting with Mikhail.

Though he doesn’t remember me.

*

Kyle was looking at me with cold eyes.

Holding a cigarette in his hand, he breathed in the chilly winter air, exhaling white smoke. His blue eyes were filled with an emotion called rage.

“I sent you a letter a year ago.”

“A letter about Mikhail, wasn’t it?”

“You know it well.”

A year ago.

Kyle had sent me a letter filled with anger. He demanded to know the exact circumstances and reasons why the Young Lady had used dark magic. He also instructed me to report everything about Mikhail without leaving out a single detail.

Though it was the Young Lady’s fault, the letter was written out of love for his younger sibling, holding me, a commoner, accountable for ruining a noble.

It was a letter that should have been filled with malicious content about Mikhail.

His relationships.

His weaknesses.

And even the people he held dear—Kyle had ordered me to write down everything.

In response to Kyle’s letter holding me accountable for meddling with the Desmond household, I had sent back a short reply: ‘I’m sorry. I cannot tell you.’

Kyle was now questioning the sincerity of my response.

Though he spoke calmly, the rage of the next head of the family was beyond imagination.

As the silence dragged on, Kyle burned the cigarette butt in his hand with magic, reducing it to ashes. The heavy white smoke weighed down on my shoulders.

“Why didn’t you send me information about that commoner bastard?”

“I’m sorry.”

Kyle spoke to me in a heavy voice.

“I can’t understand it.”

Letting out another deep sigh, Kyle asked me again in a calm voice.

“I investigated him. From before he was adopted by the Roxanne Nunnery to now, I looked into everything.”

“…”

“It was harder than I thought. Digging into the background of a commoner took quite a bit of money and a long time.”

“You must have had a hard time.”

“Yeah, it was tough… But you know, the more I dug, the less I found. Living as a nunnery orphan before entering the academy—that’s all the information I managed to gather about him in a year. If there’s one last thing I uncovered…”

Kyle pulled out a small piece of paper from his pocket and showed it to me. It was a photograph of children with bright smiles. Above them hung a banner that read ‘Free Meal Center,’ and a red-haired boy with a sullen expression was being tightly hugged by a silver-haired boy with a bright smile.

“That sword-wielding commoner bastard is from the same slum as you. Do you have anything to say about that?”

The silence grew longer.

Kyle, who was waiting for an answer, and I, unable to easily respond.

I didn’t want to talk about the past. It was a somewhat gloomy history.

As the silence stretched on, Kyle let out a deep sigh.

“I don’t think you approached Desmond with malice. If you had, I would have noticed long ago, and Father would have killed you.”

“I had no such intentions.”

“This is what I want to know.”

Kyle’s sharp blue eyes glinted as he asked me.

“Tell me what you know about him.”

“May I ask why you’re doing this?”

“I’m going to hold him accountable.”

Kyle spoke in a chilling voice. The kind and gentle demeanor he had shown us before was gone, replaced by a voice filled with cold revenge.

“I’ll slowly make the people he cherishes wither away, one by one, and hold him accountable for what he’s done.”

“It’s a meaningless endeavor.”

“Are you saying what my brother went through was meaningless?”

Kyle responded to me without backing down.

“That bastard hurt Olivia.”

“The fault lies with us.”

“The conclusion is that Olivia got hurt.”

“Mikhail too, because of us….”

“Whose side are you on right now!”

Seeing Kyle clench his fist and roar in anger, the worry in my heart deepened further.

“Ricardo. Do you think it makes sense for a commoner to harm a noble?”

“No, I just said that because I’m Mikhail’s friend.”

“Friend? I heard you and that commoner bastard didn’t get along at the Academy. Can you even call that friendship?”

“…”

“I hit the mark, didn’t I?”

Kyle spoke to me once again.

“I plan to teach that commoner bastard the weight of the name Desmond.”

“The Young Lady will dislike it.”

“…”

At the mention of the Young Lady’s name, Kyle hesitated. Seizing the moment, I voiced an impertinent opinion to Kyle.

“She was someone you once liked, wasn’t she? Even if those feelings have cooled, I believe the Young Lady would hate it if Mikhail were hurt because of her.”

“How presumptuous. I think she’d rather like it, though.”

I looked toward the third floor of the estate, where the Young Lady would be asleep, and spoke to Kyle.

“I don’t think so. You know it too, Lord Kyle. The Young Lady may enjoy hitting people, but she dislikes killing them.”

“…”

“Even if she were to wish for it…”

I looked straight at Kyle and said,

“I cannot provide any information about him.”

If I were to tell Kyle about Mikhail, Yuria would undoubtedly be in danger as well.

Mikhail and Yuria were already fated to grovel in the dust by the middle of the novel; I didn’t want to subject them to the ordeal of facing a colossal evil like Kyle.

I didn’t care about that bastard Mikhail.

But Yuria was different.

Kyle pulled out a cigarette from his pocket and lit it.

“Ha… as expected.”

Nodding as if he had anticipated this, Kyle took something out of his pocket and handed it to me.

“Wear this until tomorrow evening.”

[I will not lie.]

“A year ago, I would have killed that bastard.”

“…”

“But Olivia seems to have grown a little, so I’ll let it slide with a light warning. If something like this happens again….”

“I will handle it myself then.”

“Didn’t you say he was your friend?”

“He’s my nemesis now. That lolicon bastard.”

“Lolicon?”

“That’s a dangerous statement that could get you arrested by the Imperial Army.”

Kyle pressed his lips together tightly.

“I’ll have to be careful.”

Handing over the wooden signboard and dusting off his hands, Kyle turned and walked toward the estate.

And then.

-Pause.

“Thank you for staying by Olivia’s side.”

He expressed his gratitude to me in a gentle tone.

*

The next morning.

The Young Lady, wearing a sullen expression, looked at the corner of the corridor where she had been punished yesterday and asked,

“What are you doing?”

“Serving my punishment.”

“Was I like this yesterday too?”

“Yes.”

The Young Lady’s expression twisted.

“Eeeek!!! Older Brother!!!!!”

Watching the Young Lady have a reality check, I chuckled softly.