Chapter 138
“What is she doing here? And Number 8?”
Having noticed the number on the prison uniform first, Viviana muttered in dismay.
Grandis ground her teeth with a vicious snarl, wrinkling the bridge of her nose.
“You thought you and your damned lover could sell me out and live happily ever after? And you killed Theo, didn’t you? You won’t die peacefully!”
And just like that, the allegations that Viviana had committed adultery, fraud, murder, and now human trafficking were confirmed as established fact by Grandis’s arrival.
I pointed at Enoch who was trying to slink away to avoid being implicated as an accomplice, and shouted:
“Number 6, Enoch Mare! You’re the same kind of accomplice, aren’t you? Trying to dump everything on Viviana and slip away alone? Whatever happened to the ‘love you chose’?”
The color drained from Enoch’s face as every hostile gaze in the room converged on him.
His high rank meant the prisoners wouldn’t treat him unfairly, but I needed to plant prejudice against Viviana.
Her charm ability didn’t work on people who harbored deep-rooted biases.
Besides, this would drive a wedge between the two of them. I covered my mouth and laughed wickedly.
***
After the war-like labor hours ended, it was evening.
“Vivi, I—”
At Enoch’s shameless voice, Viviana turned to him with a wounded expression.
“While I was being framed, why didn’t you say a single word?”
“I didn’t step in because I didn’t want to make things worse.”
What utter b******t. She silently chewed on the expletive.
The coward sitting there with his mouth clamped shut in front of the top-ranked prisoners, and now he has the gall to make excuses.
“Honestly, how petty and pathetic. Now I understand why Kido doesn’t miss you.”
Viviana had never before directed such blunt, vulgar language at him. Enoch felt the impact as though he’d been struck over the head.
“What? Since when do you talk like that? Have you been secretly looking down on me all this time too?”
“Yes! I held my tongue all this time just to prop up your precious young master’s pride! You only liked me because I was sweet enough to cater to your ego, didn’t you? Then why don’t you give a damn about my pride? The most miserable thing for me was the silence and the indifference from someone I trusted!”
Left with nothing to say, Enoch could only move his lips soundlessly.
Unable to stand the sight of him any longer, Viviana left. She spat out the blood that had pooled in her mouth and scowled.
“Ha. My fatal mistake was arriving here later than her. I never imagined she’d already turned everyone to her side through propaganda and fabrication.”
Earlier, when Number 8, Grandis, had suddenly appeared, a fierce physical fight had broken out between her and Viviana. It was only brought to an end when a guard intervened, telling them to finish work first and fight later.
Gazing at her wrecked reflection through a window, Viviana let out a sigh.
“She’s not even a good person.”
Viviana recalled the past, when she was constantly compared.
‘Mother, but I’m a kinder child than Kido.’
‘Kido held a bazaar for the orphanage children and donated her own belongings, I hear. Isn’t that admirable?’
‘She’s just pretending to be kind. Kido is a bad person, I’m telling you.’
Kido had been calculating, shrewd, and selfish from childhood.
As a young girl, Viviana couldn’t understand why the self-centered Kido was the one who earned the adults’ recognition.
Her parents, Count and Countess Laurent had always lamented their inability to adopt the orphaned Kido into their family register.[1]
Kido predicted the flow of money as if she were a prophet, effortlessly winning the favor of those in power. Thanks to her, her guardian Marquis Farsene had risen to become the most powerful figure after the imperial family, amassing an enormous fortune.
Even though Viviana had Awakened her abilities before Kido, the Count and Countess refused to acknowledge her.
‘Viviana. You were only slightly ahead. Kido will surely Awaken soon too.’
Even when Kido’s Awakening was delayed, they held up other comparison targets, endlessly measuring Viviana against someone else.
‘You succeeded at intermediate mana manipulation? But I hear Grandis’s mana control is already at the high-tier ability user level.’
‘Viviana. What good is a mental-type ability that can only play a support role? You must obtain a Grace. The next family head must come from House Laurent. Right now, Kido Beatrice hasn’t even Awakened is being discussed as the heir. So is Grandis, a high-tier ability user.’
Her parents’ relentless comparisons bred greed. That competitive drive mutated into obsession, warping into something deformed.
‘You have failed to meet our expectations to the very end, Viviana.’
In the end, she was never acknowledged by the Count and Countess, not until the day they died.
Just as people learn to navigate life by observing and imitating others, Viviana’s natural model became Kido, the very person her parents had always compared her to.
Using their close familial relationship as a pretext, Viviana followed Kido to every social gathering and party, subtly copying her clothing, her food preferences, her manner of speech, even her tastes.
Perhaps it could be seen as a twisted form of admiration directed at Kido.
The Viviana of today was closer to the end result of striving to emulate the very qualities she despised.
Like a plant that had grown grotesquely bent toward the sunlight, she had warped herself, aiming her resentment, blame, and hatred at a single target.
Along with the realization that being good wasn’t what won. The world says the virtuous always triumph, but in reality, they’re just easy prey for the wicked.
What remained was a self-centered human who plundered from others, killed the people they cherished, lied without a shred of remorse, and betrayed without hesitation.
At the end of Viviana’s twisted gaze stood Kido.
“That’s right. I’m not kind.”
Viviana, who had been muttering to herself, smiled thinly.
“So I’ll have to become an even greater villain than you.”
Cunning and capable villains are loved.
The world is full of villains, and since they’d trample you before you could blink, why not strike first?
As if mocking Viviana’s distorted values, a low laugh reached her ears.
“Your face is simply brimming with sinister malice.”
Viviana spun around at the low murmur.
A strikingly handsome man with radiant golden hair, amethyst-like purple eyes, dressed in a white uniform was smiling at her.
Translation Notes
[1] ↩
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