The Villain’s Ending

Chapter 61

Afterimage (3)

Seraphina wore a blank expression after hearing Levina's words.

Her voice wouldn't come out properly.

Her vision blurred with tears, and Levina, standing before her, looked like a faint blur.

Whenever she was in front of Levina, Seraphina always felt suffocated by the atmosphere, as if she shouldn't open her mouth unless the great Young Head of the House spoke first.

Today was not going to be much different.

At least, if she hadn't heard that Lavin was dead.

"Killed him?"

Seraphina squeezed out the words with difficulty.

Levina said nothing.She simply stared at the crying Seraphina.

“You’re a stranger anyway. Don’t worry about it, just get out.

And when was it that you were clinging to me, begging to break off the engagement?”

She was still looking at the pile of documents, but somehow, the hand holding the pen was trembling imperceptibly.

But Seraphina did not leave the room.

She couldn't move.

Not until she heard something meaningful.

Seraphina recalled her relationship with Lavin.

There wasn't much of a relationship.

It would be a waste to attach such grand words to a couple who had broken up.

But he was only a fiancé in name; in truth, he was the one and only child who had been with her since childhood, who had grown up with her since she was small, not as the capable daughter of the Beluze family with a decent background, but as the only one who truly saw Seraphina as a person.

That was Lavin.

Yet, at some point, she had come to see Lavin merely as a fiancé, just like any dumb noblewoman.

Therefore, Seraphina decided to deny everything.

Herself, the Young Head of the House before her, and everything around her.

She also wanted to deny the fact that Lavin was dead.

"How... how can I be a stranger to Lavin? We were..."

At those words, Levina raised her head.

She glanced at Seraphina, then picked up her pen again.

But the trembling of her hand did not stop.

She tried to sign something on the document, but the tip of the pen merely wavered unsteadily above the paper.

Finally, annoyed, Levina threw down her pen.

The sound of it hitting the wall and then falling to the floor echoed in the room.

Levina swept a hand over her face, as if washing it dry, and then sighed.

Her eyes were hollow and bloodshot, appearing red.

Her face was etched with exhaustion, like someone who had stayed up for several nights.

“If you’re not a stranger, then what are you?

A fiancé with not a drop of shared blood?

No, not even that anymore. Since you kicked him away.”

"Lavin and I were..."

Just as Seraphina was about to speak, Levina cut her off.

“He might have been special, a child you grew up with since you were small.

Just like a dog you raise from a pup develops an attachment.”

She stood up from her seat and perched on the desk.

"So why did you discard him like trash?"

Levina spoke to Seraphina in a low voice.

“When I was cornering Lavin and trying to control him as I pleased, why did you pretend not to see?

You couldn’t have not known; I deliberately did that in front of you just to spite you.

And yet, uselessly, you’d encourage him from behind, cheer him on, say meaningless things, and treat him like a person.

When you couldn’t do anything at all.”

Levina pressed her eyes, then roughly styled her hair, sweeping it back.

"You're scared of me even now. You must have been back then too."

"Because you're not like a person, Young Head."

Seraphina replied.

Her voice trembled, but her eyes were fixed directly on Levina.

“Your problem is that you’re too human.

A human bundled with nothing but flaws, without a single virtue.

Indecisive, irresolute, somewhat lacking in ability, and you don’t listen even when spoken to.

Even a dog sits when told to, and bites when told to.”

Levina rose from the desk she had been perched on.

And slowly, she approached Seraphina.

The click of her heels echoed on the marble floor.

She stopped right in front of her and spoke.

“Because I was a fucking mess. 

Because I didn’t like it.

Because nothing went my way.

Because he acted on his own whim, I killed him.”

She said it, almost whispering, into Seraphina's ear.

Seraphina somehow felt like the voice was resonating with a dull thrum.

"When I took him to the mansion and tormented him a bit, he jumped to his death, saying it was too hard. His head cracked open and he died, the pathetic bastard."

Levina laughed.

“I just watched, whether he fell or not.

I could have run and grabbed his hand.”

Her laughing lips trembled, and even though her left hand gripped her right wrist, the shaking of her hand wouldn't stop.

"I don't know why he smiled so relievedly when he left my embrace, dying."

She took another step closer.

Right up to Seraphina's nose.

“But you, what didn’t you like so much that you discarded Lavin?

You weren’t going to pick him up again anyway, so why are you saying you’re not strangers?”

Seraphina couldn't say a word.

She merely sobbed.

Levina gently stroked Seraphina's cheek.

Cold fingers brushed against her tear-soaked cheek.

"When I killed Lavin, you just watched, you pathetic fool."

As soon as those words ended, Seraphina stopped sobbing.

The tears didn't stop, but no sound came out.

She breathed roughly.

It felt as if her lungs were burning.

She looked at the pen on the floor.

It was the pen Levina had thrown.

Levina walked past Seraphina, bent down, and picked up the pen.

The cold sensation of metal was felt in her hand.

Seraphina's lips curled slightly upward.

Somehow, a trembling voice escaped her.

"I see. I wasn't the only bad one."

Levina did not respond.

All sorts of thoughts tangled in her mind.

The fact that Lavin was dead.

The fact that Levina had killed him.

The fact that she herself had been holed up in her room, believing Lavin had abandoned her.

Levina toyed with the pen, then turned to look at Seraphina.

Seeing her with her lips slightly curved upward, she smiled faintly.

"Perhaps the reason I hated you was because you and I are exactly alike."

"You're not one to say such things."

Seraphina said.

"I didn't want Lavin by your side, and I didn't want anyone else by his side either.

I see. Looking at you, I think I understand."

Levina murmured.

"But you're siblings."

At Seraphina's words, Levina shrugged, as if it wasn't a big deal.

"But I wanted him."

"Was that why? All this time?"

"I don't know."

Levina took out a handkerchief, wiped her hands, and put it back into her pocket.

"Still, in the end, he stayed with me."

She said, staring blankly out the window.

In her profile, Seraphina suddenly saw Lavin's face.

More precisely, it overlapped with the expression on Lavin's face she had seen in her nightmares.

The dream where he hanged himself.

The dream where she went to his room and found the Young Head simply embracing Lavin, who lay collapsed, bleeding from his head.

All of them were nightmares, yet perhaps they weren't nightmares, but things that had actually happened.

With a feeling that everything was becoming a jumbled mess, Seraphina's eyelids fluttered.

Still, it was clear that this madwoman was undoubtedly the worst kind of human.

This woman had stolen Lavin, then couldn't even keep him properly by her side and let him die.

As soon as that thought struck her, her hand moved as if possessed.

Seraphina unconsciously reached out her hand.

Towards Levina's back.

A tiny bit of magic gathered at her fingertips.

The air vibrated subtly.

Levina seemed to notice something amiss and slowly turned around.

Her eyes widened.

But it was too late.

The magic, having left her hand, sliced through the air like a beam of light.

And it precisely struck Levina's chest.

The sound of it piercing flesh was strangely clear.

Levina's body staggered violently forward.

A faint sound of breath escaping her lips was heard.

She looked down at her own chest.

A transparent spear of magic had pierced through her body.

Red blood rapidly spread across her white blouse.

Levina, as if unable to believe it, turned her head back to look at Seraphina.

As the spear of magic vanished, her body went limp.

Thud.

Levina's body collapsed to the floor.

Red blood slowly spread out from beneath her body.

With the sound of a magic explosion, the door burst open, and student council members rushed in.

They stared blankly, stopping dead at the sight before them.

They merely looked back and forth in confusion between Levina, fallen on the floor, and Seraphina, standing before her.

Seraphina stared blankly at the fallen Levina.

She couldn't grasp what she had just done.

In that moment, thoughts of her family and her noble house flashed through her mind.

Her father, who had made her break off the engagement with Lavin despite her saying she disliked it and wouldn't accept it.

The face of the man she couldn't understand, why he had let her spend time with Lavin since childhood and even arranged their engagement, if he was going to do that came to mind.

Somehow, she felt a sense of perverse satisfaction.

A ridiculous feeling made her burst into choked laughter.

Students approached to subdue Seraphina, but she did not resist.

She merely smiled and allowed herself to be led away docilely.