Chapter 136
I turned to face Viviana and Enoch with an irritated expression.
“What could someone with no abilities possibly be hiding?”
At Enoch’s mockery, I placed my hand over my chest with a dead-serious expression.
“I can actually use an ability, you know.”
“Don’t tell me you Awakened?”
“It’s no ordinary ability.”
I filled my lungs to bursting, then bellowed at the top of my voice.
“JOHANN! ENRIQUE!”
My shout echoed far beyond the facility walls.
The new inmates, Viviana and Enoch included, wore bewildered expressions.
Viviana asked, looking baffled.
“…What are you doing?”
I could see several prisoners from the 30s and 40s blocks, the survivors of the Winner’s Tournament, quietly making their escape.
I flashed them a grin.
“Summoning.”
My summoning ability was calling forth two loyal subordinates bound to me by mutual interest: the two greatest Wielders in the world.
Number 40, who had grabbed my hair again, snarled viciously.
“If you think you can escape with such a low-level trick—”
BOOM!
The sudden thunderous crash made everyone whip around.
“What?”
Beyond that low voice, a massive slab of metal stood embedded in the ground. Beside it, Johann and Enrique were casually dusting off their hands.
I’d wondered where they’d vanished to right when they were supposed to make a perfectly timed entrance. It turns out they’d gone to fetch materials.
Everyone, Viviana and Enoch included, stared at the two in shock.
Eliza, freed from the encirclement, ran toward me and started patting Number 40’s arm.
“Let go of her! Grabbing a lady by the hair is a terrible thing to do! You’re really going to be in trouble!”
Though the ones doing the punishing would be Johann and Enrique, not Eliza.
Sensing the danger, Number 40 quietly released my hair.
“Number 1, Number 2. Number 49 dared to call you by name, but please forgive her.”
Viviana sprang to her feet and began tattling, pointing at me.
“As her cousin, I’ll make sure to properly educate her, so please show mercy and don’t kill her.”
Enrique smiled at Viviana and tilted his head.
“My lady, how exactly would you educate her?”
“She should be worked like a lowly slave and treated as less than human. Worse than the rotten potatoes served in the prison cafeteria. Feed her insects and dead mice instead of meals, and force her to do backbreaking labor day and night despite her half-dead body, then she’ll repent and become a good girl.”
That canteen to the skull must have knocked loose the partition between her innocent persona and her actual vicious nature.
With every word, crazed euphoria spread further across Viviana’s face.
Did she really hate me that much?
I didn’t think I’d ever actually wronged her first.
Enrique blinked, then turned to me and asked.
“Are you this blonde lady’s parents’ mortal enemy or something? She seems to harbor a deep grudge.
Johann, who had been listening in silence, poked me and sighed.
“This time, you were in the wrong. At least offer a token apology.”
Mistaken for someone’s parents’ mortal enemy, was it really that bad? I tied my mussed hair back up as I spoke.
“No. She’s the cousin who had an affair with my fiancé. If anything, I’m the one who should hold the grudge.”
“Ah.”
Johann let out a short exclamation, looking back and forth between me and Viviana.
Then he stared at Enoch with an expression of complete incomprehension.
“Why?”
“Excuse me?”
Thrown by the sudden question, Enoch stammered in reply.
Johann put his hand on his hip and shook his head slowly.
“I don’t get it.”
“What don’t you…”
“Why would you cheat on her? To my eyes, she’s the most normal-looking one here.”
‘The most normal-looking one’ was me.
I appreciated that he was trying to take my side by forcing out words he didn’t really mean, but couldn’t he have complimented me properly?
Something like ‘so beautiful the stars in the night sky would explode with jealousy,’ or ‘nearly blinded by the most stunning beauty in the world.’
But the effect of ‘the most normal-looking one’ was devastating.
Viviana, who had grown up constantly compared to others by her parents, blanched and widened her eyes in horror.
She couldn’t stand seeing others do well, and being compared was both her deepest insecurity and her rage trigger.
Growing increasingly agitated, Viviana poured out her words at a rapid clip.
“Do you have any idea what outrageous things she said? She claimed the two of you adore her, and treated you like well-trained dogs who follow their master. But please understand, she’s always been prone to delusions of grandeur and compulsive lying.”
Johann watched her with an expressionless face, then slowly nodded as if confirming it.
“Dog, that’s right. And she’s the master I serve.”
‘What kind of insane thing to say was that?’
Enrique had never explicitly said he’d be my dog, but he nodded along as though it were already a given.
“How could I not adore her? I literally cannot live without that lady.”
He had elegantly repackaged the fact that he would die from a rampage without me into something romantic.
“That’s… that’s absurd… The lowest-ranked prisoner in the entire prison, and she’s just some villainess…”
Viviana’s face went white, then twisted into something savage.
[Faint Killing Intent Detected: Viviana Laurent]
“Ugh…….”
So Viviana had been holding back her killing intent all this time because she perceived me as beneath her. That’s how it was.
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