The Villain’s Ending

Chapter 76

Delusion (15)

I watched Levina fall forward and stood there blankly for a long time.

And I stared blankly up at the sky.

It was a clear blue sky, without a single cloud.

A shiver somehow ran down my spine, and I clenched my body once, then gripped the revolver tightly.

And I walked towards Levina.

The rustling of dry leaves under my feet sounded unusually loud.

She was lying collapsed, panting, struggling to somehow get up.

A small hole had been torn in the back of her pristine white blouse, and a red stain was slowly spreading around it.

Thanks to the spreading crimson, the hole wasn't particularly noticeable.I approached closer and aimed the gun at her calf.

And I pulled the trigger, firing one shot into each, left and right.

Her body writhed, and faint groans like "Uk-kueuk," "Heueuk" escaped her lips.

Sounds that seemed as though they would never, in a lifetime, escape Levina's lips.

She propped herself up with both arms on the ground, then painstakingly turned her body to look at my face.

Her face, smudged with dirt, was contorted in pain.

Seeing that, I once again raised the muzzle towards her head.

I hooked my finger around the trigger.

But then I let out a long sigh and lowered the muzzle.

"Was it all a lie?"

Levina's voice was cracked and hoarse.

"Not all of it was a lie."

Hearing those words, Levina chuckled

Her laughter mingled with coughs, sounding strangely eerie.

"You're right. I was the one who needed worrying about."

She said that, wiping the blood from her mouth with the back of her hand.

"Did you hate me that much?

Knowing what I wanted, yet acting as if you knew nothing, saying only what I wished to hear, proposing we go somewhere just the two of us.

Is this what you ultimately wanted?"

I moved even closer to Levina, who was speaking so diligently despite having been shot.

Then I lightly touched her forehead with the muzzle.

"Even little kids playing naughty pranks on someone they like wouldn't do the things you did to me, out of fear.

Out of fear of being hated."

"Because you and I are different.

We're not like other people, are we?

You said you understood why I did what I did."

Her eyes were still fixed directly on me.

No matter what she did, no matter what she said, she never averted her gaze.

Always looking only at the other person.

Whether she liked or disliked them.

"What's different?"

"We never grew up being loved, did we?

I just thought people born as exceptional as me were naturally born this way."

She wiped the blood from her mouth once more, then continued speaking.

"But it wasn't. It turned out it was only me.

It seemed like no one else, whether a child of royalty or a high noble, grew up unloved except for us."

Levina chuckled at those words.

"Rather, perhaps because they had so much, they were all people full of love.

They were people who could give much because they had received much."

I thought blood would flow from her mouth after being shot, but seeing her speaking so clearly, contrary to expectations, I seriously considered firing another shot.

"You and I were born among idiotic people, which is why we're like this.

I should have been foolish like Mother, who, despite her age, ran off for love."

Saying that, Levina trembled violently, then bit her lip until it bled.

A drop of blood trickled down her chin.

"She didn't run away; I took her."

Levina made a momentarily blank expression upon hearing that.

Then she asked, "How?" but I didn't answer.

"After all that fuss you made when you were young, and then me being cast out of the family.

You sincerely came to me, thinking it was a good thing."

"When I was young, I didn't know anything."

Levina replied.

I was about to get angry at those words, but stopped.

She exhaled once, then continued speaking.

"The reason you were cast out of the family was so that you, too, would experience some hardship and realize whose side you felt comfortable on."

"And if I came back in a suitably wretched state, you intended to lock me in an annex and raise me like a pet?"

Levina grinned

With the faint trace of blood on her lips, that smile looked horrifying.

"That wouldn't have been so bad, either."

She gasped, taking hurried breaths.

"When I was little, I truly knew nothing.

I didn't know that you were the only one who would ever love someone like me.

No one would like a peculiar and ill-tempered person like me.

Even I dislike myself.

But still, family is supposed to love and cherish each other, isn't it?"