I Became the Villainess in an Anticlimactic Novel - Chapter 11

“Please remain courteous to His Majesty the Demon King.”

Despite having Tanma already directly point it out, the man only let out a light laugh.

“Today, it seems the number of bastards following you has decreased from two to one, huh?”

He whispered those harsh words gently. It was a voice so gentle it could enchant anyone who happened to be soft-hearted in an instant. A biting tone, the exact opposite of that, came out of Lecht’s mouth.

“It’s not like you’re unaware of the fact that it’s strictly forbidden to meddle with humans without permission.”

His voice was so sharp that if it had been a knife, it would’ve been leave that man in two.

“What would happen if you had humans come into contact with drugs that even demons can’t tolerate? Fortunately it was diluted, otherwise it would’ve led to nothing but death.”

The starting point of this epidemic was a contaminated well. Lecht confirmed that the well contained a substance that was notoriously dangerous, even to demons. 

So it hadn’t occurred naturally, but had been done intentionally by someone. Since it was a drug that couldn’t be obtained in the human world, Lecht immediately knew that one of the demons had interfered.

The man shrugged at Lecht’s words.

“Ah~ Why is my little brother acting so stiff, yet again?”

The man giggled as if it were amusing.

“You know that a contractor’s request is an exception to that, right?”

Whispering in a voice that seemed as if it were determined to seduce its opponent, he slowly approached Lecht, one step at a time. The five-headed snake also moved in a slither in unison with its summoner. Tanma flinched and attempted to take out a weapon from his spatial storage, but was stopped by a hand gesture from Lecht.

The appearance of the man who was standing in front of Lecht was finally revealed slightly by the rays of moonlight shining from the front of the alleyway. He had hair which was black at its roots and gradually turned white near the ends, along with a lone half-broken horn that protruded from the two-toned hair. And on that skin that was so white, it made one wonder if they were really still alive, was a scar that started from his forehead and crossed over one of his eyes to reach his cheekbone.

“Since my little brother is the great Demon King, shouldn’t I, as the older brother, follow such important rules that we are forbidden from breaking?”

He had only narrowly toed the line, nothing had been broken.

“To think that you would raise such a basic question… Has our honorable Demon King gotten confused about the rules since he’s been away from the demon realm for too long?”

Raising the corners of his lips, he tilted his upper body toward Lecht. If it had been toward a human, just coyly crinkling his eyes would’ve already made them lose their mind.

“So that’s why I told you. I’ll look after that position for you until you come back.”

“You’re going too far, Sir Frody.”

Although Frody’s gaze slowly turned toward Tanma due to his intervention, he was quickly ignored and his attention was once again returned to Lecht.

“It’s just that that seat shouldn’t cool down so much, so I’ll just go and heat it up a bit. What do you think?”

As if it wanted to come over, the fluttering aura of temptation enveloped their surroundings. It was Frody’s unique ability, ‘enchantment’, which was so powerful that even Tanma, who had lived several thousand years longer than them, flinched and had to avert his gaze.

It was when that invisible tail seemed to move gently. Frody’s face stiffened.

“Urk.”

His face gradually distorted, as if he were suffocating.

Slitherrr—!

Noticing the situation, Frody’s summon rushed toward Lecht, revealing its teeth from all five heads.

Bang!

However, it was pressed down to the floor by Lecht’s scabbard. It couldn’t even budge. Both the snake, and Frody too.

“You seem to have forgotten since I’ve been away from that seat for so long.”

Black energy overwhelmed their surroundings and oppressed them heavily. That ticklish energy soon disappeared without a trace.

“Just how exactly I had come to sit on that seat.”

“Heukkk…!”

That white face had now turned red and blue. 

Those calm yet terrifying eyes of Lecht’s wandered in the direction of Frody’s horns on his head. Half a horn which had a rough cross-section that remained there, as if someone had broken it off violently. Lecht gazed it at slowly before looking back at Frody’s face.

“I don’t like to joke around.”

“…”

The meaning behind that simple and clear warning was obvious. There was a long bout of silence.

“Keu—hurk…!”

In the end, after Frody’s hand clutched at Lecht’s collar urgently, only then did Lecht’s energy, which had dominated their surroundings, ease up.

“Cough! Cough!”

Frody hurriedly took a step back before coughing his lungs out. Lecht also removed the sword that had been holding down the snake.

Slither—!

His minion hurriedly shrunk from its enlarged state and slithered up Frody’s legs, clasping tighter to his waist. It was survival instinct. 

Although he was doing nothing but clutching at his exhausted neck, Frody waited for a long time before his breathing went back to normal. 

Frody, who was barely able to breathe again and had his waist bent, raised only his head up to stare at Lecht. Although the light in his eyes was full of life, Lecht only added with a calm expression, as if he were already used to such hateful emotions.

“Don’t make me regret my first act of being ‘merciful’.”

Lecht left the alleyway, leaving only heavy words behind him. Even after he left, however, the traces of the Demon King still remained in the alleyway.

“Bastard. You’ve been doing well by yourself.”

Frody grinded his molars together, forcibly ventilating the remnants of Lecht’s energy with his own.

‘Damn it. If only I had discovered her first at that time.’

What happened a hundred years ago was still lamentable.

The necklace on the neck of Frody, whose breathing had returned to normal, suddenly hummed. His contractor seemed to be looking for him. Frody held the necklace in his hand and stared coldly in the direction Lecht had disappeared into.

“Let’s see how long you can turn your nose up and look down on me for.”

He had not yet accepted the outcome of the fight a hundred years ago.

***

The ‘relief’ for the village took longer than expected. Just that night was enough to cure the epidemic. It was all thanks to the efforts of the three priests who had sworn to me to believe in them. 

However, the reason the village’s ‘relief’ took a long time was because of what happened after that. The wounds which were left by the skin disease as well as the heartburn that was caused by the vomiting of blood all ended up being the sole responsibility of the village doctors. 

There was no helping the fact that it took a long time, since there were only two doctors in the village. In any case, since I wasn’t doing anything by myself, I conscientiously went to go help the doctor. 

The treatment continued for three days, and after running around with the doctor both day and night, I finally got to rest on the fourth day. And slept for twenty four hours. I slept so heavily I didn’t even think I dreamed of anything.

“Whine…”

Perhaps Kelber had stayed by my side the entire time I slept, since he came up to me as soon as I got up and gently wagged his tail.

“Mm, I’m awake.”

A hoarse voice flowed out of my mouth.

“Gosh…”

“Hing. Whine.”

“I’m not sick. I’m just hungry.”

I stroked Kelber’s cute head and crawled out of bed. Even after wasting a full day, I still felt tired.

‘I really hate being sick…’

I let out a moan because of my stiff shoulders and legs.

‘I’m not going to do anything anymore.’

I helped the doctors since I couldn’t leave and say, ‘Then, I’ll leave the rest to you!’, since I had watched the situation break out. But the situation had now calmed down.

‘I just hope those fanatic priests didn’t talk about me…’

The more harrowing a situation was, the stronger the obsession with religion became. Especially if all of them had been ‘saved’ by the priests of Lunarism. Gratitude and affection in moderation was appreciated, but obsessive love was burdensome.

‘Haa, this won’t do. Working my body to the bone and all that for the safety and peace of other people didn’t suit me at all.’

Clicking my tongue, I got out of bed and hauled my heavy body outside. My shoulders jumped as soon as I opened the door. I was proud that I didn’t let out a scream in surprise.

“Everyone… what are you doing here?”

There was a swarm of people right in front of my door. Lecht, who was leaning against the wall opposite to the door. Butler Tanma who was right by his side, standing tall and upright. Even Linden, who was squatting down next to him.

“Woof!”

Kelber, who had come out of the room with me, pushed me towards Lecht’s direction. However, before my body which had been pushed could reach Lecht, someone blocked my way.

“Meliara!”

Linden jumped up from where he was and grabbed my shoulders.

“Are you okay? You’re not sick, are you?”

“U-Um… I’m fine except for the fact that I feel sort of off for sleeping for so long.”

“Really? You’re sure you don’t have a fever?”

He even placed the back of his hand against my forehead, as if he didn’t believe my words.

“Except for the fact that I’m hungry, I’m really fine.”

“Does someone who normally feels fine sleep for this long?”

“That’s…”

I didn’t know that news of me sleeping would spread this much…

“I was already tired all the time because of motion sickness, but I guess this must have happened because the incident developing without a chance for me to catch my breath.”

Come to think of it, it was a very dynamic ten days. After I had my engagement broken off and got disowned by my family, I left the house and met Lecht and Linden and happened to stop at a village where an epidemic broke out due to my motion sickness. As if that wasn’t enough, there was even the sudden point of priests appearing. After that, I ran around the village with a doctor to treat the people with the disease. It was as if the incident had raged on without rest for not even an hour, or a day of rest.

‘It’s amazing that I didn’t pass out even earlier from being overworked.’

If I alone had done it without the priests coming to heal the plague, I might’ve even suffered from a nosebleed. My shoulders trembled at the terrible image.

‘Oh right, Linden.’

My trembling was felt by Linden, who was still holding my shoulder.

“Look, there’s clearly something wrong with you.”

Linden looked at my complexion with a tearful expression on his face. To be honest, his pale complexion was more of a concern than mine was.

“It’s you, not the people who will be taken care of.”

He muttered in a sorry voice.

“It would’ve been nice if I had known how to do healing magic…”

I quickly shook my head in the face of the look of depression that seemed as if it would fall into a hole in the ground.

“Forget it, what healing magic?! I’m tough!”

I raised both my arms to show off my non-existent biceps. 

Healing magic was one of the types of magic that Linden had deliberately not learned. He had thought that if he knew that he had a talent for magic earlier, he would’ve been able to learn healing magic and save his poisoned mother. That incident completely twisted his mind.

Instead of hurriedly learning to be proficient in healing magic to prevent such things from happening in the future, he turned a blind eye to healing magic in order to erase the anger he had felt at not knowing such an easy thing in the past. 

In any case, she hadn’t been able to survive. That was how that child had consoled himself. Those were words that dug at his own weaknesses and wounds, so I hurriedly comforted him.

“If it was needed, the doctors and priests would have already taken care of it, right?”

I couldn’t trigger his trauma just because I was having a hard time.

“That’s…” 

“It’s just fatigue. Don’t you also get tired from working too much? It’s just like that.”

I explained again and again that I was never sick. Nevertheless, Linden still had an unsatisfied expression on his face. The expression on his face was so convincing that I started to get confused over whether this was to trap me further into his scheme or whether he was actually serious or not. Just like that evening when he had begged me to show him a little more of my divine power.

‘He’s simply too good at acting…’

When I had read it just as words on a page, I had found it strange and thought, ‘People fall for this? All the while being aware that he’s simply using his beauty?’, but now I understood. It was just his beauty, but his eyes, facial expressions, gestures, everything about him completely and perfectly captivated me and dragged me into his scheme.

“I’m fine. Really, I’m serious.”

I, who was about to encroach into his domain, sneakily pushed him away from me to talk. However, his hand didn’t seem to have any thoughts of leaving my shoulder. I raised a hand to separate us, but a hand suddenly grabbed my wrist.

That warm hand simultaneously removed Linden’s arm from me and pulled me toward them. Although the force behind it wasn’t very strong, my body still naturally tilted in the direction the man was pulling, like flowing water.

Plop—

And fell into a scent I liked. The embrace that held me warmly was large and cozy, making it more comfortable than any blanket I had ever used. A deep voice that was sweet enough to melt away all my fatigue whispered.

“Don’t overdo it.”

It was not an unusual phrase, but at the same time, those words that were full of warm feelings flowed softly into my ears.

“If it’s hard, complain.”

Thump thump thump thump thump. 

My heart rate quickly broke through the roof in an instant and soared like crazy high into the sky.

If it’s too hard, it’s okay for you to complain.

In fact, it was actually a phrase that I had always wanted to hear since I was very young, yet no one had said that to me.

“Even if it’s you, it’s okay nonetheless.”

In that moment, the tears that I couldn’t bear to hold back suddenly came pouring out.