The Villainess Whom I Had Served for 13 Years Has Fallen

40 – The Man’s Secret that this Woman Sees -3-

The black spots that covered his skin began to move from Ricardo’s hand.

Arms and back.

Legs and shoulders.

Even to his chest and abdomen.

As the black spots spread slowly across Ricardo’s body, the black spots remaining on my body faded.

“…Is this it?”

I muttered in awe as I watched that sight.

“This is the secret you’re hiding…?”

I felt short of breath.

It was happening right in front of me, just as I had feared. The unsettling thoughts wouldn’t go away.

My hands trembled.

No nightmare, no matter how terrifying, seemed scarier than this. Even the nightmare where I died before. I thought it wouldn’t be scarier than this.

“Ricardo… what are you doing?”

Ricardo tightly hugged me and began to absorb the rampant mana. He gnashed his teeth, shaking his shoulders, while absorbing the corrupted mana.

Dark magic is a convenient magic that produces powerful effects with just one medium.

From Noble mtl dot com

Unlike magic that requires logic, calculations, and mana, dark magic simply produced powerful effects with just a medium.

That’s the purpose of dark magic.

Powerful effects are exerted with overwhelming mana or sacrifice.

Back then, I triggered dark magic using my mana as collateral.

If it wasn’t for my twisted personality, I would have used the immense mana that could have secured me as the next head of the Descendants of Deathmont, just to obtain the heart of one person as a medium for dark magic.

If such immense mana is contaminated and runs rampant through dark magic, it would create a pain akin to a bomb exploding inside your body.

Boom. The inside of your body would burn with intense heat.

Bang. Terrible internal burns would start with excruciating pain. And the necrosis would leave irreparable scars on the burned skin.

Eventually, it would lead to death.

If he wasn’t an idiot, there was no way to not know what Ricardo was doing. No, you had to know.

Like a practitioner of Eastern medicine extracting impure blood, Ricardo was absorbing all the after effects of black magic.

In a situation that was hard to believe, I spoke while looking at Ricardo.

“What are you doing…?”

I tried to stop him by grabbing his shoulder with the intention of making him quit, but the blue window blocked my hand.

[Observer’s point of view. Cannot interfere with the subject.]

I couldn’t reach him.

“Don’t stop me….”

I complained to the oblivious blue window, but as always, it only repeated that it couldn’t interfere.

I bit my lip and spoke.

“Don’t stop me….”

I couldn’t stop that idiot.

I could only watch from the sidelines.

Even when Ricardo shed tears and endured pain, and even when my heart was about to go crazy from pounding so much. I could only watch.

It felt as if my torn heart was being torn apart even more. It felt like a large wound was being added to my heart that had been torn apart by seeing Ricardo’s wounds.

I shouted at Ricardo.

“What are you doing?”

I knew that my voice couldn’t reach Ricardo, but if I didn’t do this, I felt like I would go crazy.

My voice trembled.

My legs lost strength.

My breath became unsteady.

Ricardo’s arms turning black and his complexion turning pale made me feel afraid.

The past me, who had embraced him, buried my face in Ricardo’s shoulder.

-Mikhail.

-…

-Mikhail…. My body is so hot.

-I apologize. I ran here in haste…

“What did I do….”

I hadn’t done anything for him.

Even though I was someone who always knew how to be angry, what was so pretty about me saying that? If it were me… If I were you, I wouldn’t have said that.

If Ricardo were lying on the floor like me, using dark magic, could I do the same as you? No, I couldn’t. I couldn’t.

Tears flowed endlessly.

“So… Jebeal…!”

Stop it.

I wanted to believe it was the remnants of dark magic.

I wished the direct cause, like chocolate on my hands, wasn’t me. Even if it were my fault, I wished I had caused only a minor nuisance like a tiny speck.

If that were the case, maybe I could lift my head a little.

But.

This is real.

– Haah… Haah…

There’s no way to escape.

My legs gave way.

Kneeling in front of the gasping Ricardo, I buried my face in my knees and sobbed.

I couldn’t see.

I didn’t want to see.

Because I knew how painful it must be for Ricardo, seeing himself dying. Even though it was only for a moment, he had experienced that pain, and his body had become like this because of that excruciating torment.

I couldn’t look.

The agonizing sensation of one’s flesh burning away.

The magical circuits breaking down along with excruciating pain as if my whole body was being torn to shreds. I knew it too well.

“Don’t do it, you fool…!”

I crouched down, nodding my head.

“Huuu… Huaaah…”

Ricardo gritted his teeth and endured the pain. He kept talking with a trembling voice while stroking the head of his past self buried in his shoulder.

“Does it hurt a lot?”

“Yeah. It hurts a lot. But right now, it doesn’t hurt much.”

“Thank goodness. Truly.”

I clenched my fists.

I wiped away the tears falling incessantly and the running nose with my sleeve, then bit my lip and raised my head.

I had to see.

I had to remember it with my own eyes, so I could apologize when I returned. My heart felt like it was going to burst, and I couldn’t see because of the streaming tears. But right now, in this moment, I had to face the truth.

So that I can ask for forgiveness and know where it hurts.

Ricardo won’t show it.

Even if I sob and plead, he’ll hide the pain behind a foolish smile.

I clenched my teeth and moved my hunched legs.

I have to get closer.

That’s the only way to know.

Once again, when I arrived in front of Ricardo, I took a deep breath. I wanted to capture every detail.

I wiped away the runny nose, vowing to go back to Ricardo and apologize for my mistakes, determined to do better.

“I can do it.”

I saw myself in a pitiful state.

I saw Ricardo’s painful condition too. I promised not to be surprised anymore. I steeled myself.

But then, in the immediate aftermath, I moved my body reflexively as if the film had been cut.

*Cough…*

“What…?”

Blood was flowing.

From Ricardo’s mouth.

As if a dam had burst with a small cough, a thin stream of blood flowed down Ricardo’s chin.

Ricardo’s eyes widened.

Maybe he didn’t expect this to happen to himself, as he continued coughing, his shoulders shaking.

*Cough… Cough…*

I couldn’t control my reason.

“Oh… This is bad.”

Ricardo covered his mouth with his hand. Painfully, he coughed while trembling.

*Cough… Cough… Ah… Haa… Haa…

“Mihael, are you in pain?”

“No… *Cough…* It’s nothing.”

As I tried to turn my head away from the past me, who wasn’t holding him, Ricardo pressed his right hand against the back of his head, burying his face in his shoulder with one hand while covering his mouth with the other, making sure I couldn’t see behind him.

Watching his current self in this state, I desperately grabbed Ricardo’s arm, pressing against the back of his head.

Even if my hand was pushed away.

Even if it passed through his body like a ghost.

I tried to tear Ricardo’s arm off like a crazy woman.

“Let go…!”

[Observer’s point of view. Cannot interfere with the subject.]

“Let go!”

[Observer’s point of view. Cannot interfere with the subject.]

“You crazy bastard, let go… let go… let go… please…!”

[Observer’s point of view. Cannot interfere with the subject.]

“Let go… you son of a b*tch…!”

As time passed, Ricardo’s complexion turned pale.

Trembling like a bamboo in the wind.

Losing focus in his eyes.

If only I could let go of that hand.

If I could let go of the crazy woman who clung to Ricardo’s chest and called Mikhail’s name, I wouldn’t have to suffer like this.

What’s so pretty about it.

What’s so good about me, who only curses and stubbornly… What am I doing like this? It felt like my heart would burst.

There was no visible answer.

“Don’t do it, you fool…!”

Decaying.

The right hand was losing vitality, turning dark.

The spreading black spots left chills all over the body, and Ricardo’s magic circuit was tangled like a messed-up thread.

A deteriorating sight of Ricardo.

It wasn’t a pleasant sight.

I felt so pathetic and stupid, unable to do anything.

I hugged Ricardo and cried. I cried like a madman and cried again.

“Don’t… don’t do it!”

Ricardo bit his lips.

He mumbled in a small voice that I couldn’t hear.

-This hurts a lot.

-It must have hurt a lot.

-I’m really glad I came.

I really couldn’t find an answer.

Words wouldn’t come out as if my head had turned completely blank. I could only cry like a fool.

Every time I saw Ricardo trembling with his hand, as if breathing was painful, I thought of the things he had done in the past.

“You smell.”

“Smell? What do you mean?”

“It’s awful. It’s my rotten scent.”

Not long after my legs gave way, those words turned into a dagger and came back.

“Get lost.”

“I’ll clean up.”

“You’re filthy, commoner.”

I remembered Ricardo, who had been wearing lilac perfume so strongly that it made me dizzy ever since that day.

Olivia clenched her fists as she watched him.

“Ah… So that’s why.”

So, that’s the reason.

The strongly applied perfume.

The long shirts he wore every time.

The reason he suddenly grabbed his wrist and left the room.

It was all because of me.

I knelt on the floor and banged my forehead against it.

I bent my back, tearing at my heart as if I were going insane.

“Ugh… Huuuaaah. Huuua… It hurts… It hurts… My heart hurts so much…”

What is this?

What is this…

I didn’t know it would be so painful.

“It hurts too much…”

I couldn’t lift my head.

“I’m sorry…”

I’m sorry for being so inadequate.

“I didn’t know it would be like this…”

I didn’t know you would be in so much pain.

“I’m truly sorry…”

While clutching my chest and crying, Ricardo’s voice echoed in the room.

A low and quiet voice.

A solitary soliloquy with a hint of doubt reached my ears in silence.

– I can survive, can’t I?

It wasn’t a self-assuring statement.

It was a statement directed at his pitiful and helpless master.

All I could do was cry silently.

***

Bleeding.

My whole body was soaked in blood.

In the past, I slept in Ricardo’s embrace, breathing softly, while he lowered his head and gently stroked my sleeping head.

Blood dripped onto the nightclothes.

My entire body was drenched in blood.

My face was covered in gore.

My lips were as cracked as a desert.

My right hand exposed my bones as it dropped crimson blood.

I said,

“You said you couldn’t bear the pain…”

I said tearfully,

“You said you couldn’t bear the pain.”

Ricardo, who was gently stroking my sleeping self without uttering a single scream, despite the veins bulging as if they would burst, enduring burns from the magical backlash, was so infuriating.

I hated him so much.

“What am I supposed to do like this?”

Ricardo gently poked my cheek as I whispered this, and a small smile appeared on his face.

– I’m glad you’re alive.

With those words, the long nightmare came to an end.

[Reading ends.]