Please Leave The Sickly Villainess Alone

I headed towards the garden where I used to stroll with Luka.

I didn’t want to stay there any longer.

The bluish moonlight illuminated the brightly blooming flowers.

Unlike the noisy banquet hall, it was an extremely quiet place. The garden I visited after a long time reminded me of that particularly nice day.

Luka had promised, looking up at the rainbow in the sky, that he would make it so no one could ignore me.

‘Thinking about it again… that guy, he was laying the groundwork even back then.’

He should come back soon if he wants to keep his promise.

If I leave before that, he won’t be able to keep the promise he made on the rainbow.

Thud, thud – now only the footsteps of myself and the man following behind filled the silent space.

I finally turned around sharply.

Enoch, though fully capable of concealing his presence, didn’t do so.

He just stood there, as if waiting for me to turn around.

“Thank you for helping me earlier.”

Although it was an unexpected intervention, it was clear that Enoch had blocked Teniel’s arm that was about to hit me.

Enoch looked at me with bluish eyes resembling moonlight.

Despite being siblings, his atmosphere was completely different from Senia’s.

An expressionless face that gave an overall cold impression, lips without a hint of a smile.

He was a man with an impression similar yet different from Duke Kablos.

“You didn’t follow me to receive thanks, did you?”

Come on, tell me the main point.

I need to listen and then absorb that mark on the back of his hand.

When I smiled and said this to Enoch, he finally opened his mouth.

“Where did you get that red sword?”

“The sword…? I bought it from a weapon shop in town.”

Is that what he followed me to ask?

I remembered the shop owner who hesitated to sell it, saying it was a famous sword.

“In town… It was hidden so close.”

Enoch muttered.

“Were you looking for my sword?”

“Yes. I’ve been searching for quite a while.”

“Why?”

At my question, Enoch stared at me silently with calm blue eyes for a moment before speaking.

“That sword is one of the twin swords of Claire, who was the knight commander of the ancient Greluphien Kingdom. The red sword you have, and the green sword that hasn’t been found yet. Claire killed the black magician Belkin with those two swords and sealed black magic.”

“A sword that sealed black magic…?”

Why was Enoch looking for such a sword?

Was he concerned it might harm his family that deals with black magic?

“From what I saw earlier, it seems the red sword has already recognized you as its master.”

“Master… I wonder about that, haha.”

It heats up its handle at every chance because I don’t summon it often, yet it considers me its master.

“Since I found the red sword first, unfortunately, you should look for the green sword.”

If they’re twin swords, wouldn’t they be about the same?

“I see.”

Enoch smirked.

‘He is handsome… Looking again, he doesn’t really resemble Duke Kablos much.’

I soon shook off my idle thoughts and approached him.

“Young Duke, it seems you got hurt while stopping His Highness Teniel earlier.”

I grabbed Enoch’s hand with a worried expression.

Of course, the hand with the mark on it.

Naturally, there wasn’t even a scratch on his fair hand.

‘If I absorb this…’

Will the memories really return?

No, is it right to make the memories return?

However, I couldn’t ponder for long.

I closed my eyes and let my magic flow to absorb Enoch’s mark.

It was the last mark that came to me after two years.

The mark that finally transferred to me emitted a bright light, unlike when I absorbed Luka’s and Senia’s.

“What is this…?”

The light seemed visible to Enoch too, as his blue eyes widened.

“Ah…”

I felt a warm sensation as if someone was embracing me.

And then, an intense drowsiness came over me.

My legs wobbled and my vision blurred.

“Princess, Princess Laveria!”

Through my blurred vision, I saw Enoch calling me and supporting my body, and then I closed my eyes.

* * *

It was empty.

My heart was empty, my eyes were empty.

I was so empty that any adjective preceding that word wouldn’t seem strange.

In front of me, I could see children playing.

This was the Troy Orphanage.

My young self couldn’t mingle with those children and was crouched in a corner.

My wrist was excessively bony, probably from hardly eating.

I was always alone, having lost even my smile.

‘It’s different from my memories…’

So this was the lost memory.

In my previous life, I couldn’t achieve my dream due to a major injury, and that was a pain I couldn’t shake off until I had the bus accident.

And the place where I opened my eyes again was none other than the world of the romance fantasy novel [The Child Loved by Villains] that I had been reading.

There, I became the evil villainess who had to limp for life due to an injury.

I knew because I had read even the side stories.

That the villainess Laveria dies young at the tender age of twenty-one from an incurable disease.

I thought fate was truly cruel.

I had suffered from an injury in my previous life, and now I was destined to lose my leg in this one.

The new life that had formed was not a blessing at all.

That reality was so bleak that young me stopped eating and drinking, couldn’t mingle with the children, and always sat alone in a corner.

The difference from my memories was that Sister Serine, who always took care of me and cherished me, was nowhere to be seen.

‘Why…?’

I slowly stood up from my seat.

My legs were all numb from sitting for so long.

I grabbed a child passing by in front of me and asked.

“Where is… Sister Serine?”

The child opened their eyes wide as if seeing me speak for the first time, then soon said this.

“How do you know Sister Serine? She died from an illness before you came…”

“…!”

This is impossible.

Sister Serine had taken care of me like a real sister from the day I first came to the orphanage!

“No way…”

Could the messenger of God who said she would always be with me have been Sister Serine?

There was no other explanation for this situation.

The child slowly moved away from my face, clouded with confusion.

The word ‘incurable disease’ stabbed me painfully.

A disease with no known cure at all.

Isn’t this a situation that seems to have no hope no matter how you look at it?

It was on a certain day while I was spending such meaningless days.

A boy came to the orphanage.

I could recognize him at a glance.

The male protagonist of this world, Arzenluka.

“This is a boy called Luka. He was abandoned by his parents and became a wanderer. He lost his memory after being chased by forest bandits and hitting his head, so Ria, you take charge and take good care of him.”

Layola slowly scanned the older children of the orphanage, then assigned Luka to me and returned to her room.

When the sound of the door slamming shut was heard, a large boy named Bron approached Luka.

And then he openly threatened Luka even though I, who was in charge of him, was right there in front.

Bron was, as I remembered, a boy with an extremely bad personality.

Only Sister Serine could control him, but now she was gone too.

Bron acted like he owned the orphanage and bullied Luka.

“Why are this guy’s eyes so red? It’s creepy…”

Seeing Jena’s face, whom he liked, turn red at Luka’s handsome appearance, he became even more angry.

The other children watched his mood and avoided the place.

When dinner time came, Bron locked Luka in the storage room and prevented him from eating.

“You have to break their spirit from the beginning.”

For a kid, he’s making quite a grand initiation.

I always ate just enough not to die and left the dining hall first, but today I left without eating anything.

Holding a piece of bread and half an apple.

After leaving the dining hall, I entered the storage room where Luka was locked up.

I unlocked the latch with a clank and went in to find Luka lying still without doing anything.

“Eat this. You haven’t eaten anything since morning.”

I held out the bread and apple to him with an expressionless face.

“It looks like you need to eat more than I do.”

Luka spoke to me while still lying down.

Indeed, I was seriously thin right now.

However, I always had no appetite.

“Stop talking and eat.”

I plopped down next to him and shoved the bread into Luka’s mouth.

“Wh-What are you…”

Luka couldn’t continue speaking with the bread in his mouth.

He tried to sit up as if to protest, but soon began chewing quietly.

He must have been starving not just since morning, but for quite a long time since being kidnapped by Kablos.

“Bron, he always torments newcomers for a week. But if you endure a little, it’ll get bearable. He gets bored quickly, whether it’s people or anything else.”

Luka looked at me while munching on the bread.

“Why… are you helping me?”

“I don’t eat much anyway. It’s a waste to throw it away, so I’m giving it to you.”

“…Thank you.”

“It’s nothing.”

I flopped down on the floor.

Bron will probably forget he locked Luka in here anyway, and no one will look for me.

“I guess I’ll just sleep here tonight.”

The storage room was also my hideout.

I found and covered myself with the blanket I had hidden last time.

“Hey, what’s your name?”