The Villain’s Ending

Chapter 42

Afterimage (4)

Even after Lavin’s death, there were no significant changes in Levina’s life.

She woke up in the morning, reviewed documents, approved them, and sometimes attended meaningless meetings.

Whatever happened in the Church, whatever happened in the family, she merely handled matters appropriately within reasonable bounds.

As if the death of one person were no big deal.

Whether a day passed, a week passed, or a month passed.

Knock, knock, knock.

A knocking sound was heard at the door.

The sound was urgent.

Levina did not answer.But the door was not locked, and soon a male student from the student council burst in, panting.

“P-President! It’s terrible!”

The student’s face was shiny with sweat, and his uniform was disheveled.

He spoke without even catching his breath.

“The Saintess who disappeared, the Saintess… in the building…”

“Yes.”

Levina replied without taking her eyes off the documents.

There was no emotion in her voice.

“A student named Jena from the Knight Faculty, and a knight we brought in as an instructor… right then and there…”

“She’s probably making a scene right then and there.”

“Now the entire Knight Faculty… is confronting her to stop her!

What should we do? We need to inform the Church Order, or the guards, or the professors right now…!”

“Leave her be.”

Levina was still turning the pages of her documents.

The rustling sound of her fingers against the paper felt like the only noise in the room.

“Pardon? But… if we leave her be, the casualties will increase!

Let alone the aftermath, right in the middle of the academy…!”

The student looked utterly unable to comprehend Levina’s reaction.

Only then did Levina raise her head, looked at him, and cut him off.

“I said, leave her be.”

“……”

“Get out.”

The student tried to say more, but shut his mouth under Levina’s gaze.

He stared at Levina for a long time before leaving the room.

Only then did he seem to realize whose doing this was.

The door closed, and once again, only Levina and dust remained in the room.

Levina put down her pen and leaned deep into her chair.

A small, hollow laugh escaped her.

She hadn't expected it to happen in broad daylight, but she wasn't particularly flustered.

After all, she had been the one to instigate such an event.

Now, she had no intention of cleaning up the mess whatsoever.

After Lavin died, Estelle was no different from a living corpse.

She no longer thought.

She remembered the day Estelle came to the mansion, embracing Lavin’s corpse.

Estelle had brought Lavin’s unusually pristine corpse and quietly asked.

Where would be a good place to bury him.

They prepared a suitable coffin and buried Lavin on a sunny hill not far from the main building.

Until the rain stopped and the sun rose, and until the sun set again, and rose again.

Estelle did not move from the grave.

After that, Estelle told Levina.

He died because you chased him away, so you should die too.

Levina did not deny it.

She simply replied calmly.

Didn’t you kill him?

You took Lavin without returning him, and where were you?

As if to prove it wasn't her fault, Estelle began to kill all the priests involved with those who had decided to kill Lavin.

So sometimes, whenever Estelle came to visit, Levina would give her a few names.

Nobles who were an eyesore, and figures who seemed like they would become a threat someday.

She would add that they were connected to the priests, and that they must have played a part in killing Lavin.

Estelle didn't doubt her.

She simply went and killed as she was told.

Everyone whispered that the Saintess had gone mad.

Even though they guessed who was behind it, no one dared to turn an arrow of blame towards Levina.

Who would dare suspect the young head of the Edelgard family, after all?

Just the night before, Levina had told Estelle a few stories.

This time, about Kyle, Seraphina, the librarian, and a knightess named Jena.

She even added that the knightess was the one who first found Lavin at the mansion and escalated the situation.

Because Estelle was an idiot who knew nothing about how Lavin was captured, or how he died.

But for how long could she keep doing this?

‘She’ll die someday if she keeps going like that.’

The thought wafted up like smoke, then vanished without a trace.

It was none of her business.

She rose from her seat and stepped into the corridor.

She walked for a long time down the long, silent corridor.

Outside the window, students were gathered.

And at the center of them stood Estelle, clad in a black priest's robe.

The robe was stained with blood, turning it a dark crimson.

Something in her hand glinted in the sunlight.

It was a chunk of red flesh.

Levina stood rooted in the corridor, gazing at the sight with an expressionless face.

Estelle was like an actress performing her final act on a stage prepared just for her.

A couple more students screamed and collapsed.

Then, as if suddenly tired, Estelle sank among the corpses.

She raised her head and looked this way.

Her eyes met Levina’s.

Estelle waved her hand like a child, as if greeting her happily.

Levina showed no reaction.

Soon after, Estelle threw herself at Kyle, a commoner who might one day become a Sword Saint, grabbing his head and fighting him as if playing a game.

After being hit a few times by Estelle’s fist, his body burst apart, and then his head was ripped off while he was still alive.

Levina wasn't particularly fond of cruelty, so she shook her head at the sight.

TL Notes: Now that’s funny, not being fond of cruelty my ass

About ten minutes passed.

Finally, Sword Saints, various celebrities whose reasons for coming were unknown, knights, priests, and professors from the academy began to gather at the scene of the slaughter in the middle of the capital.

They rushed at Estelle as if she were an enemy who had killed their children.

By then, she should have fled.

The Saintess was acting as if she had chosen her place of death.

Dozens of blades, arrows, and magic spells pierced her body.

The sight of her holding her spilling intestines was grotesque.

She called me a rag, and seeing her body literally become a rag, a smile somehow crept onto Levina's lips.

What a foolish woman.

She lived from the bottom, and then by luck became the Saintess, so she knew nothing about how the world worked.

A pathetic bitch who had no education and only relied on her strength to push her way through.

If it weren't for her, Lavin would still be alive.

If it weren't for her, Lavin would be staying in my annex right now.

Before Lavin died, she heard he called for her.

He called for his sister.

In his final moments, he called for family.

Although he also called Estelle’s name, that wasn't very important.

Therefore, that woman killed Lavin.

Estelle slowly, very slowly, fell.

She faced numerous powerful individuals alone, yet she showed no sign of being intimidated.

She was smiling.

Very brightly.

And she wasn't looking at the enemies in front of her.

She was staring blankly into the empty air, as if talking to someone.

Gazing blankly at someone invisible.

But why did she look so beautiful?

She was seen muttering something with her lips.

It seemed she was probably calling Lavin.

Levina didn't watch her die.

It seemed she would die soon anyway.

Before long, priests who sang of protecting the Saintess might gather and heal her.

As she turned her back, a faint smile appeared on Levina's lips, then vanished immediately.

This whole thing was starting to become tiresome.

Levina turned around and headed back to the mansion.

She used to feel comfortable inside the mansion.

A quiet space perfectly isolated from the world’s noise.

But now, she no longer felt even that comfort.

Even more so after Lavin disappeared.

Was that child such a significant presence in her life?

He was precious, but had he occupied such a large space in her heart?

She didn't know.

At least, it felt less like a hole had been torn in her heart, and more like it was somehow rotting away and dissipating.

She felt that every line written in novels was nothing but a lie.

It was dinner time.

Only three people sat at the enormous dining table: her father, her mother, and Levina.

It was the first meal they shared since Lavin died.

One empty chair stood at its place.

She tasted nothing from the food served by the servants.

She simply chewed and swallowed the food according to the set order.

In the silence, only the sharp clinking of cutlery resonated.

It was her mother who broke the silence.

“The capital has been noisy lately, hasn’t it?

It’s truly a relief that that unruly boy is dead.

Don’t you think so, Levina?”

Her mother’s voice was elated.

She spoke to her father, but her gaze was directed at Levina.

“It seems peace has finally returned to our household.

While that vulgar commoner’s child was alive, a corner of my heart was always uneasy.”

Levina’s mother believed that Lavin’s mother had stolen her husband’s love.

Levina thought that it had never really been her mother’s to begin with.

In truth, it seemed like there was more to her intense hatred and occasional fear of Lavin than just that reason.

“If only that child hadn’t existed, everything would have been perfect.

Our family, your father, and even you.

What family brings in a bastard child and raises him in the main building?

Now, everything has returned to its rightful place.”

Her father looked down at his soup plate and spoke softly.

“Dear.”

He seemed to find it difficult to accept the fact that his beloved son had died so tragically.

Her father resented Levina and his legal wife deeply, but it wasn't a situation where he could show it outwardly.

“Yes.”

“……”

“That child, Lavin, deserved what he got…”

When her father looked at her mother, her mother gritted her teeth and continued quietly.

Clang.

And Levina put down her fork.

The fork made a sharp sound on the plate.

Her mother’s words stopped for a moment.

“Please shut your mouth.”

Levina’s voice was low and quiet.

But it was enough to freeze the air at the dining table.

“…What did you just say?”

Her mother looked as if she doubted her own ears.

Her face stiffened.

It was the first time she had heard such words from her always obedient daughter.

Instead of answering, Levina picked up her wine glass and emptied it in one go.

Her temples throbbed.

She thought of the female knight with a hole in her stomach, and the commoner whose head was ripped off fighting Estelle.

For a brief moment, she wondered if she should have said those words to Estelle instead.

But soon, her mind went blank.

Everything felt meaningless.

“I told you to shut your mouth.”

“You seem to have forgotten whose grace you sit in that seat by.”

Her mother’s voice grew lower.

Her face flushed with anger.

“If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t be acting as the young head of the family like this.

Inheriting this family, everything!

How could you do this to me, after how I raised you?”

Her mother raised her voice.

It was as if she wanted to assert her position as the lady of this mansion, as Levina’s mother.

“That child with common blood should never have entered this house from the beginning.

Your father insisted, so we had no choice but to accept him, but what happened in the end?

He didn’t know his place, ran wild, and died a fitting death, didn’t he?

How dare you speak to me like that…”

Levina met her mother’s eyes.

And spoke softly.

“Mother.”

Her voice was still quiet.

“They say many wives of the Edelgard family have strangely fallen off terraces and passed away, having been intoxicated by wine.”

Her mother’s mouth fell open.

No sound came out.

The blood drained from her face.

Levina no longer looked at her.

She simply gazed down at the empty plate.

“Levina.”

Her father opened his mouth softly.

“I’ll take my leave first.”

No one stopped her.

Levina left the dining room without looking back.

Returning to her office, Levina opened a drawer.

She saw a hairpin Lavin had bought for her when they were children, after hearing from his fiancée what Levina might like.

It was a crude item, simple and studded with a small gem.

Levina held it for a long time, then gathered her bangs and neatly styled them with it.

It was a crude and poor quality hairpin that a child might barely afford with saved money… but it was something Lavin had given her, nonetheless.

Her reflection in the mirror was unfamiliar.

Then, from the back of the drawer, she took out something wrapped in black velvet cloth.

She placed it on the desk.

As she unwrapped the cloth, Lavin’s right hand appeared.

Clutching a revolver tightly.

Thanks to a skilled mage, decomposition had not progressed.

Even warmth remained.

Like the hand of someone who had been alive just moments ago.

Levina gently massaged and touched Lavin’s rough hand.

She could distinctly feel the calluses and scar marks.

Then she opened the revolver’s cylinder.

Two bullets were lodged in two of the six chambers.

She didn't know why, but a scene flashed before her eyes.

The afterimage of Lavin trying to shoot himself with this gun.

Something she couldn’t distinguish as memory or imagination flashed before her eyes.

Estelle, who had been gazing at something, and looked incredibly beautiful, flashed through her mind.

And then another hallucination overlaid it.

Lavin, before her eyes, putting that revolver to his head and pulling the trigger.

The horrific sight of his head bursting open with the gunshot.

She was kneeling, holding Lavin as he fell backward, sitting blankly for a long time.

What kind of feeling was that?

She didn't know. All she saw were afterimages.

Whether it was real or not, Levina saw the afterimage and somehow blankly clutched Lavin’s hand tightly.

And then she brought the cold muzzle to her glabella.

The first trigger pull.

Levina squeezed her eyes shut.

Click.

Nothing happened.

Only a mechanical sound broke the silence in the room.

The second trigger pull.

She closed her eyes once more.

Click.

Still nothing.

Taking a deep breath, Levina once again put strength into her finger.

Trembling.

The third.

Bang.

A bullet fired.

Her body twitched violently for a moment.

The tension in her shoulders released, and she slowly slumped back against the chair.

A red flower bloomed on the wall behind Levina.

Blood flowed from her glabella, down her cheek.

As her head abruptly dropped, blood splattered onto the desk.

The young head of the Edelgard family, unable even to close her eyes, clutched Lavin’s hand tightly with both of hers, as if it were something very precious.