The Villain’s Ending

Chapter 101

Afterimage (12)

I somehow managed to bring Levina back to the mansion.

Carrying her on my back, I kicked open the mansion's front door.

The door opened shortly after.

The servants' faces turned stark white when they saw me, drenched in blood, and Levina, whom I carried on my back.

Their eyes were filled with horror.

Several shrieked briefly and stumbled backward.

"Yo-young master! Young Mistress!"

A man who appeared to be the butler approached me in horror, trying to support me.

I roughly pushed aside the servants who clung to my side."Get out of the way. Go fetch a priest from a nearby church immediately."

My voice was hoarse, like metal scraping.

I entered the drawing-room, still carrying Levina. With my arm, I roughly swept aside the teacups and cutlery on the table.

Silverware and porcelain crashed to the floor with a clatter.

I laid Levina down on it. Then, slumping into a nearby chair as if collapsing, I pulled out a cigarette from my pocket.

I put it in my mouth and tried to light it with my fingertip.

But the cigarette, soaked through with blood, wouldn't light.

Sizzle.

Only the faint sound of wet paper burning could be heard.

Unnecessarily irritated, I threw the cigarette to the floor.

"Bring me alcohol! Anything!"

I screamed outward. My head spun in a somewhat hazy daze.

A servant frantically rushed over and handed me a bottle of strong liquor.

I didn't even think to pour it into a glass; I just took several gulps straight from the bottle. A sensation like my throat was burning spread through my entire body.

And then I let out a long sigh. Holding the bottle in my hand, I merely idly tapped it; I didn't drink. My reflection in the bottle didn't look human.

I don't know how much time had passed.

A priest, who looked quite young, entered the room. His face had a somewhat naive expression.

"H-how did you end up so injured?"

He stammered, looking back and forth between Levina and me.

"I got hurt hunting around here. Just hurry up and treat her."

I replied dismissively, as if annoyed. The priest hesitated, not daring to touch Levina's body. I tried slapping Levina's cheek, but she still couldn't open her eyes.

But she didn't move.

I roughly lifted the front of her reddened blouse, which still bore marks as if bitten by teeth. As the gruesome wound was revealed, the priest finally seemed to begin gathering something into his staff, which was engraved with the Church's symbol.

A faint light blossomed from his fingertip. However, the light had a slightly reddish hue.

Watching Levina's wound slowly heal, I asked.

"Which village did you grow up in?"

"Huh? I-I just grew up near the capital…"

"Near the capital, where?"

"I-it was in a se-secluded place, so precisely…"

The priest tried to gloss over it, unable to give a proper answer. His eyes looked suspicious.

They resembled the eyes of the villagers I had just seen.

Instantly, he swung the staff he was holding towards me. The corner of the symbol at the tip grazed my forehead.

My right eye's vision momentarily turned red, perhaps from blood flowing. After swinging his staff, the priest stopped, looking helplessly back and forth between Levina and me.

I gripped the bottle I was holding upside down and swung it directly at his face.

With a dull thud, the priest collapsed to the floor. I stared at the fallen, unbroken bottle, then poured the remaining liquor onto his head.

"There's not a single person around me I can trust."

I muttered softly. I instructed a servant to lock the priest in the basement or some other suitable place.

"I'll hand him over to a priest in the capital, so prepare a carriage immediately."

The servants all looked at me with frightened eyes, yet they moved as instructed. By the time I carried the unconscious Levina out to the mansion garden, a carriage was slowly approaching.

I put Levina in the carriage and told the coachman, who was holding the reins, to get down.

"Y-young master? Then who will drive the horses?"

The coachman asked in a fluster.

"No need to worry about it."

I pushed him aside, sat in the coachman's seat, and took the reins. And then I drove the carriage towards the capital.

I felt like I was going to die from sleepiness, but I somehow clung to my consciousness. The cold night air gnawed at my wounds.

Abandoning the carriage just anywhere, my last memory was carrying Levina and walking all the way to the church in front of the Academy's back gate.

****

When I opened my eyes, the sun was shining brightly. Sunlight streamed through the window, illuminating the room brightly.

My body felt incredibly light. The fatigue and pain had vanished as if by magic. My clothes had also been changed to clean ones.

As I sat up, a voice came from beside me.

"Oh, you're awake?"

It was Estelle. She was sitting in a chair, reading a book.

"I certainly didn't expect a brother and sister, drenched head to toe in blood, to show up in the middle of the night."

She said, closing her book.

"Where's my sister?"

"She woke up a while ago."

Estelle replied.

"Wait a moment."

She said that, left the room, and returned shortly with something to eat. Though it was just an apple.

She tossed me the apple.

I casually wiped the apple once with the blanket covering me, then nibbled at it. The crisp texture and sweet-and-sour juice spread through my mouth.

Then, I got up and stretched.

"I heard you encountered heretics. Lucky you made it out alive."

"Yeah, barely."

"Levina went to that village with our paladin-uncle."

"It seemed the priest from the nearby church there was a heretic too."

"Ah, I'll let them know to check that too."

Estelle replied. It felt like the matter had grown far larger than I had anticipated.

Lineta might have already been like that, the village was in such a state, and heretics might have already infiltrated the church.

In fact, it might be that I, not they, had mistakenly thought a benevolent priest was a heretic and bludgeoned him with a bottle, but even if I went back to that moment, I'd probably do the same thing because of that peculiar, ominous sensation that pricked my skin.

"By the way, why did you specifically come to this church, where hardly anyone visits and there are no priests?"

Estelle asked.

"It's just that this was the only church I remembered."

"Really? A larger, more bustling one would have been better than this. You were lucky I was here, at least."

I looked at Estelle and said.

"Thank you."

Estelle's face flushed slightly, but she still approached me.

"If you're grateful, then first, like usual, your lips… like usual?"

Estelle wore a confused expression.

Her eyes wavered.

I let out a hollow laugh at the sight.

After smashing Lineta's head with a stone beyond recognition, Lineta, whom I had depended on so much, I barely returned, only to find Estelle before me, unable to remember but with lingering memories in her body.

Somehow, each time, time repeated itself, I felt a sense of emptiness in aspects I hadn't even considered initially. At least, it wasn't agony yet.

Though it felt like it wouldn't be long until it became agony.

Yet, the Estelle before me was clearly that Estelle, the one who, without falsehood, showed me with her entire being that she was there for me and that she loved me.

I took a step forward.

And then I approached Estelle, who was blankly confused and blushing profusely, and kissed her. Her lips were soft and warm.

Estelle's eyes widened, and though she was extremely flustered, she didn't push me away. Instead, she hugged me tightly with great familiarity and intertwined our tongues.

After clinging to each other for a long while and then separating, Estelle stammered.

"T-this… this suddenly, not just lips, but t-tongues…?"

"Pervert. Seems like you're used to it?"

I said teasingly.

"N-no, it's just my body acting on its own! And you're the pervert!"

Estelle shouted, her face flushing red.

"Thanks for your help. I'll get going."

"......Uh, mhm. Okay."

****

And so, I spent a few days as if nothing had happened, living normally. Levina also checked once to see if I was alright, then, seemingly swamped with work, spent all day holed up somewhere, only looking at documents and rushing frantically back and forth across the estate.

Since it was revealed that the priests hired by the church were actually heretics, the repercussions were bound to be immense.

I didn't know if Levina had diligently spread the word that I was the one who uncovered that village as a heretic village, or if she had made some public announcement, but it seemed no one was unaware of this incident or me.

Seraphina, even, with a serious expression, came to find me and stuck by my side all day, asking if I was alright.

Such things didn't matter to me.

I was enjoying my lunch, quite deliciously, tucked away in a suitable corner of the dining hall.

That is, until Kyle, whose impression wasn't very good and whose face looked somewhat deranged, and a female knight whose name I couldn't even remember, sat down opposite me.

"Every time I see you, you're always with a woman."

I spoke first.

"I came because I have something to ask."

Surprisingly, Kyle spoke seriously, without annoyance. I roughly crumbled the bread I was eating into the stew and stood up.

Kyle was not someone I wanted to converse with. And the feeling was likely mutual.

At that, Kyle stood up and began to follow me. I put my dish in the designated area for leftovers and walked to my room, but the two of them kept following.

I sighed, stopped, and asked.

"What do you want to ask?"

"I heard that you were the one who identified the village I used to live in as a gathering place for heretics…"

"Yes. You heard. And then?"

As I walked, I saw a suitable bench, so I sat on it. I took out a cigarette from my pocket, naturally conjured fire at my fingertip, and inhaled the smoke.

The female knight beside me looked slightly surprised, but perhaps due to the atmosphere, she didn't speak.

I slowly exhaled the smoke and said.

"Yes. Though it's a bit different from 'identifying'."

"Lineta… there was a girl in the village who looked two or three years younger than me."

Kyle's voice trembled slightly.

"Ah, yes, she was there. She was. And she was even working in my mansion."

Kyle gritted his teeth. I smiled, watching him.

No matter how I looked at him, he was truly infuriating, despicable, envious, and frankly, a piece of shit.

"But what can you do? I don't know what kind of relationship you two had, but she was a heretic, first and foremost."

"Still, if it's Lineta…"

I cut Kyle off.

"And what does that matter to you? Heretic or not, if I say she was a heretic, then she was a heretic."

And then I muttered, as if to myself.

"Because I killed her. That girl."