The Villain’s Ending

Chapter 4

The First (4)

Time in the room flowed slowly and heavily.

Or perhaps, it had completely stopped.

The fact that even if I died, I would just return didn't seem to make time something particularly valuable.

I started my day by counting the empty liquor bottles rolling on the floor as soon as I opened my eyes in the morning.

At night, I ended my day by counting the patterns on the ceiling and the stains on the damp wallpaper until I fell asleep, drunk.

That morning was no different from any other.

I woke up with a terrible hangover, and vile stomach acid surged up my throat.

I staggered to the washbasin, turned on the tap, and repeatedly splashed cold water on my face. 

I lifted my face, still dripping with water, and looked into the mirror.A stranger stood in the mirror.

Dark circles stained the area under his eyes, and his cheeks were repulsively gaunt.

An unshaven beard, neglected for days, messily covered his face.

It was a dilapidated wreck of a man, on the verge of death, a state utterly unfitting for the name Lavin Edelgard.

Perhaps this was the real me.

Because until now, I had tried to change my reputation somehow, to look good to my fiancée, and to appease my sister, who disapproved of me and would one day inherit the family, doing all sorts of meaningless things.

At that moment, a sudden thought occurred to me.

If everything was over anyway.

If I was destined to be expelled from both the family and the academy, and left to wander the streets.

Was there really a need to passively wait for the coming ending in this dark and damp corner of the room?

I didn't quite know what the ending was, or what I was supposed to collect.

It was also possible that what I was seeing was just a hallucination.

It was an impulse that originated far from hope or will.

The same kind as when I clutched the revolver in my hand upon hearing from Levina that I had been expelled from the family.

Or a sentiment similar to a condemned prisoner carefully choosing their last meal.

A strangely lighter feeling.

Dragging my heavy body, contrary to my feelings, I took out the crumpled uniform, which had been haphazardly hung on a hanger, and put it on.

The shoulder seams were askew, and a faint musty smell emanated from the clothes.

When I opened the door and stepped into the hallway, the morning scenery of the academy, which I encountered after a long time, was incredibly awkward.

The sunlight pouring through the windows, the lively laughter of students, the bustling footsteps moving through the hallway.

All of it felt like a story from another world, unrelated to me.

I simply walked aimlessly among them, like a ghost.

There was no destination. I simply moved wherever my feet took me.

Numerous gazes brushed past me.

Some held overt disdain, some cheap curiosity, while others quickly avoided me, as if they had seen filth on the street.

There weren't many students in this academy who didn't know my face.

I could pride myself on being a celebrity of sorts.

The idiot who was born into a prominent family, committed every kind of mischief, got expelled to the academy, and then, to top it all off, challenged the original protagonist – or, to put it another way, an arrogant commoner who was merely a little more capable, Kyle – to a duel, only to be ludicrously defeated.

That was the me the world knew.

Unfortunately, it wasn't something I had done.

Because Lavin had done it.

If I had entered this body just three days earlier, no, even just one day earlier, I wouldn't have done such a foolish thing.

Not that I wanted to live here in the first place.

As I wandered aimlessly through the hallway, I was passing by the classroom where the Advanced Magical Herbology lecture was held.

The class must have just ended, as the classroom door opened and familiar faces spilled out.

And among that group was Seraphina.

She had noticeably grown thinner in a few days.

Her golden hair, always meticulously cared for, was dull, and deep shadows of fatigue were cast across her pale face.

Though her azure eyes still shone beautifully.

And that light turned towards me.

Our eyes met.

Seraphina's blue eyes widened.

She parted her lips as if to say something, but then bit her lower lip hard.

Her face was a complex mix of embarrassment, a very faint relief, guilt, and hatred.

Lavin silently turned his body, not wanting to engage in another tiresome argument.

Her voice did not come from behind him.

Because they were no longer on such terms.

Seraphina stared blankly at Lavin's retreating figure, which had glanced at her and passed by.

His shoulders seemed much narrower than before, and his footsteps carried no weight.

He looked like a diseased plant about to wither and die, or a scruffy homeless person sprawled on the street, a sight not much different from a person who had failed at everything.

"Hey, wasn't that person who just passed by... Lavin Edelgard?"

Her friend, Elise, who was beside her, asked, shaking her arm.

Seraphina only then snapped out of her daze.

"His appearance was a mess. He looked like a corpse."

She couldn't say anything.

She merely bit her lower lip.

"Seraphina? What's wrong? You look pale."

Elise contemptuously pointed with her chin to the end of the hallway where Lavin had disappeared.

"Is it because of that scoundrel? You said you were finally breaking off the engagement?"

"......Yes."

Seraphina managed to reply.

"Don't make that face because of trash like him.

You should be celebrating! You're finally free from that scoundrel!"

Words of congratulation.

They were the words she had so desperately wanted to hear.

Yet, now that she was hearing them, why did she feel such a lump in her throat?

Instead of the relief of being freed from a tiresome entanglement, an unnamed emotion filled Seraphina's heart.

The events of that day, Lavin's expression, wouldn't leave her mind.

When he heard her say she had prayed he would die, his eyes showed neither surprise nor anger.

He had merely stared blankly at her, as if completely uninterested.

"Look at him. He's become a complete wreck.

I heard he's going to be expelled from the family soon too, so it seems he has nowhere left to go. Serves him right, I guess."

Seraphina couldn't respond to her other friend's words.

In her eyes, it wasn't the image of a drunken, staggering scoundrel, but the blurred figure of her childhood friend, whom she had always had to look after.

She could no longer focus on her friends' conversation.

She stared blankly at the end of the hallway where Lavin had disappeared.

Throughout that afternoon, Seraphina couldn't concentrate on her classes.

The professor's voice passed her ears like a buzzing noise, and the words in the books appeared as mere sequences of meaningless symbols.

As soon as classes ended, she declined her friends' dinner invitations and headed to her dormitory.

The moment she returned to her room and closed the door, her held breath burst out.

She sank down, leaning against the door.

Everything inside the spacious and luxurious room felt unfamiliar.

'It's over, isn't it?'

She thought she had ended the tiresome relationship, and finally gained freedom.

Seraphina opened a drawer.

Inside were faded letters and a withered lilac flower, a single bloom she couldn't even remember when she had received.

She stared at them for a long time.

****

Meanwhile, Lavin pushed and shoved his way through the students crowding the hallway, walking aimlessly through the labyrinthine corridors.

He didn't even know where he was going.

All he wanted was to escape from this place, this dreadful place.

Everywhere he looked, there were these idiotic bastards in idiotic uniforms.

What was so happy about it that they walked around laughing like that?

While someone else was desperate to get out of here.

After walking for a long time, he found himself standing in front of an old tower, located in the most secluded part of the academy.

It was the very spire he had once stared blankly at from his room window.

It had been unused for so long that ivy grew like scars on its walls, and its entrance was firmly shut.

He looked up at the tower.

Then, without hesitation, he grabbed the firmly shut doorknob and twisted it with all his might.

With a creak, the rusted hinges shrieked.

As the door opened, the smell of dust and mold, trapped for a long time, wafted out.

Inside was dark and cool.

A narrow spiral staircase stretched endlessly upwards.

He began to climb the stairs, one step at a time.

With each step, the wooden stairs, which felt as if they might break, creaked.

Occasional beams of light streamed in through narrow gaps in the wall, illuminating the dust motes suspended in the air.

How long had he climbed?

Finally, the stairs ended, and a small wooden door appeared.

As he opened the door, a fierce wind, along with an open sky, unfolded before his eyes.

It was the very top of the tower, a space encircled by a narrow railing.

He approached the railing and looked down.

The entire view of the academy came into sight.

The complex buildings he had just been wandering through, the plaza where students moved like ants, the distant dormitories and library.

He had wondered where the landscape painting Seraphina had gifted him long ago was painted, and it was probably from here.

The wind fiercely ruffled his hair.

He took a crumpled cigarette pack from his pocket, and lit the last remaining cigarette.

The acrid smoke was carried by the wind and scattered instantly.

He stood before the railing, looking down for a long time.

[Collect the Ending. 1/?]

[Reward: Return to your original world.]

Even seeing the message floating before his eyes, seemingly telling him to die right away, he didn't particularly feel like jumping.

After all, he would fail anyway, so there was no need to repeat painful actions.

And while he didn't mind dying, he was a little afraid of heights.

From the top of the tower, he looked down for a long time.

It was a quite decent view.

Like a god, looking down at the students moving like ants and the buildings that resembled toys gave him a strange sense of liberation.

Of course, that sense of liberation didn't last long.

Because his cigarette had already burned down to the end.

He stepped on the creaking wooden stairs, and slowly began to descend the spire.

The world was still there, unchanged.

Leaving behind the darkness, dust, and smell of time, when he stepped back into the hallway, the sun was already setting in the west.

He had to return to his room.

If he didn't drink, he felt he wouldn't be able to endure the headache that threatened to split his skull, or this tiresome reality.

He headed towards the dormitory, cutting across the secluded paths of the academy.

It was a rarely used shortcut.

Just then, several students blocked his path.

He stopped.

There was no need to even confirm their faces.

The scent of cheap perfume and low-quality tobacco wafted from them.

They were very familiar faces.