Chapter 2
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 2
Chapter Title: Making the Villainess the World's Strongest
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I opened my eyes.
It was a sensation I'd felt before.
The first day of possessing a romance fantasy novel character.
The feeling of finally opening eyes that had been shut for so long was still vividly etched in my memory.
The eerie sensation of a halted world starting to flow again.
Ision opened his eyes amid the déjà vu.
"What, you gonna lie there collapsed like that? Ision! Get up and grab your sword right now!"
This voice.
Where had I heard it before?
Ision squinted, cradling his head quietly.
Soon, a man with a thick beard entered his field of vision.
His head was conversely bald, giving him a striking impression in another sense.
Exclusive Knight Training Commander Macdram.
I never thought I'd see that face again.
Exclusive Knights.
A tradition where promising youths from poor noble or knight families were trained and assigned to the heirs of great houses.
They were called Exclusive Knights, but they were little more than lifelong servants bound to their master.
Still, plenty dreamed of becoming one.
If you lucked out with a good master, you could turn your life around.
Ision Calrad.
The boy he'd possessed was one such dreamer.
He'd entered the training grounds dreaming of becoming an Exclusive Knight to lift his impoverished family.
One flaw: Ision was unlucky.
The man before him had night-sky-black hair like the sea at dusk, a sword pointed at Ision.
One of the sub-male lead candidates.
Airen Morblu.
A boy of exceptional talent, later known as the Azure Sea Knight.
Ision and Airen were fated enemies.
Two boys raised in neighboring territories since childhood.
Ision from a poor knight family.
Airen from the baron's family that those knights served.
Of course, that was ancient history now—both families had essentially fallen into ruin.
So they'd known each other since childhood, but their personalities never meshed.
They'd long been rivals and bitter foes.
Moreover, after numerous trials, Airen would become the heroine's— the Saintess of the Orthodox Heaven's—guard knight.
He was originally slated as the First Prince's Exclusive Knight, but through various twists, that's how it ended up.
Ision, serving the villainess, constantly clashed with him.
I could still see it clearly.
The way he'd screamed with furious eyes when Ision, aiding the villainess, endangered the heroine.
"I'm disappointed in you. I pitied you for thinking you had to follow that witch... but you're no different."
What the hell?
Truth is, our lady nearly killed your lady but ended up saving her life instead.
Typical romance fantasy nonsense.
Misunderstandings and misconceptions were baked-in passives.
But what could you do?
Once you're in the romance fantasy, you can't escape its plot threads.
The lady Ision served became the Witch of Reverse Heaven, while Airen's lady became the Saintess of the Orthodox Heaven.
Their confrontation was inevitable.
The pity was that Ision's talent fell short of Airen's.
He was always compared, and used as an excuse for harsher training.
Ah, the nightmare of days past.
Ision sighed briefly over his life.
Maybe that's why.
Seeing Airen's face after so long stirred something boiling inside him.
And conveniently, a wooden sword was in his hand.
In this final dream, Ision decided to beat Airen black and blue.
"You're up. Let's go again."
At Training Commander Macdram's shout, Ision kicked off the ground.
He let his arm hang low enough for the sword tip to drag on the floor.
The wooden sword's tip smacked the ground repeatedly with dull thuds.
An odd movement.
Airen frowned and gripped his wooden sword tighter, swinging it.
"Do it properly, Ision."
The same opening move as always.
A power-reliant slash from the left.
The old Ision would have blocked or been pushed back.
But this time, Ision casually dodged half a beat late.
Thud—thud—
The wooden sword's tip struck the ground again in repetition.
Airen found the sound inexplicably grating.
If it grated, eliminate it.
Left to right, then low to high.
The wooden sword cut the air with sharp bursts.
The motions were rough but persistent.
Airen pursued Ision relentlessly, swinging his sword.
His arms and shoulders bulged with tension, breaths growing ragged.
Yet he didn't stop chasing Ision, growling in frustration.
Footprints layered thickly on the training ground sand.
And Airen's sword sliced only empty air, as much as those prints.
Failed arcs overlaid new ones, sword paths crossing and clashing endlessly.
Each near-miss vibrated up Airen's wrist from the tip.
Soon, that tremor built like fury inside him.
Finally, uncontrollable rage erupted from Airen.
"What are you doing?!"
"What does it look like?"
The same half-beat delay.
Ision, having dodged once more, was suddenly right in his face.
Before Airen could flinch and evade.
Ision stepped squarely on his foot.
"Urk!"
As he tried to pull back, the pinned foot amplified the shock.
When Airen yanked to free it, Ision casually released.
Weightlessness enveloped Airen.
His body reeled back, balance shattered.
Ision dropped low and spun in like a drill.
He struck Airen's wrist precisely at the angle to unbalance his core.
Whoosh—
The wooden sword flew high into the air and stabbed into the sand.
Airen was already on his rear.
The training ground fell silent.
Not just the trainees—the commander too.
Airen's skill was long proven.
Talent enough that assignments as the future emperor's— the First Prince's—Exclusive Knight were being discussed.
Scarce were his peers who could cross swords with him.
That's why Airen always picked Ision as his sparring partner.
Others feared facing him and dodged, but Ision was different.
He'd avert his eyes upfront but glare slyly from behind.
Of course, Ision always lost their spars.
So naturally, everyone expected the same this time.
Even Airen himself.
Rage and confusion.
Airen stared blankly at Ision, emotions tangled in disbelief.
The Ision who'd normally look away.
But now, he brazenly stared down without shame.
"How do you even swing a sword so stiffly since we were kids?"
Airen's eyes widened slowly.
The most insulting thing you could say to him, who always wielded his sword ridiculously.
Regardless, Ision turned and sauntered off.
"Commander, training's done for today, right? Mind if I head out first?"
"......Yeah."
Even Macdram couldn't yell at Ision today.
Ision walked out of the training grounds with a calm face.
Soon, his steps quickened.
His expression shifted with them.
'This isn't a dream, right? No matter how I look, it's not.'
Not some deathbed flashback montage.
This place was reality.
What the hell happened?
Didn't I die taking my lady's wound in her place?
I wouldn't say zero regrets, but it was a pretty good life overall.
At first, I cursed my fate being assigned to the villainess doomed for a bad end.
But our lady was spirited, and far kinder than expected.
Sure, she was wildly reckless at times, impossible to rein in, but a fine lady through and through.
Yet somehow, I'd returned to the past.
To the exact day of possession.
The day I'd gotten beaten senseless by Airen's sword right after possessing.
I'd trained daily, plotting revenge against that humiliating thrashing from a kid.
But all it confirmed was the genius's cheat-level talent—a miserable era.
Back to that time.
Maybe possession resets to this point on death?
The thought flashed, but Ision soon considered another possibility.
"......My lady's stigma."
A stigma was a wound bestowed by the gods.
With one, a person gained special abilities.
His lady's stigma: Reverse Heaven.
Reverse Heaven could rewind time.
Ision hurriedly checked the back of his hand.
There, he spotted an unusual pattern etched as a stigma.
Thin lines rippling upside down.
Like waves not crashing on shore, but the sea devouring itself.
Ision's face naturally froze.
No doubt.
The stigma he'd confirmed countless times on his lady's hand.
Reverse Heaven's stigma.
'......Why is this here?'
The question arose naturally.
He'd used Vicarious Sacrifice countless times before.
But the stigma had never transferred.
A stigma wasn't a mere skin wound—it was a concept infused into the body.
Vicarious Sacrifice couldn't claim it.
Yet now, Reverse Heaven's stigma was etched on Ision's hand.
Soon, Ision hit on a possibility.
'My lady's stigma was wounded by the Saintess of the Orthodox Heaven.'
The power the Saintess wielded to block her lady's regression.
Reverse Heaven's stigma had been damaged too.
Incomplete state.
Vicarious Sacrifice judged even that flawed Reverse Heaven stigma as "wounded."
It devoured and brought it along.
Ision finished piecing together the hypothesis and shut his mouth.
Of course, this was utterly unforeseen.
Even reading the novel back in his old world, he hadn't known.
Now it happened right before his eyes—his mind reeled.
He'd regressed in his lady's place.
Ision stood quietly there.
His lady had called regression a curse.
Lamenting her fated path to villainy.
During her regressions, Ision never shared them.
He always saw only the aftermath on her.
Fifteen years serving her.
To Ision, this world had long ceased being a mere romance fantasy.
He'd read the novel himself, but it was just one of countless books.
Not the author—just a reader, prone to mixing up character details and names.
He knew only the broad strokes.
Ision had focused solely on surviving at his lady's side.
But now was different.
Ision clenched his fists tight.
At her side, he'd heard her laments through countless regressions.
He was the only one she could confide in about Reverse Heaven's stigma.
He might not know the novel's full story, but he remembered every one of her laments.
Plus, he'd lived this world firsthand.
Her goal never wavered.
To triumph over Leharion Perzan—and win his love.
She'd lived solely for that.
"......The latter's a tall order."
I have zero intention of granting that love.
Our lady was too precious for a guy like Leharion.
Rather...
No, that's selfish greed.
But the former? That, I will make happen.
A world with no ties, no friends, no homeland.
Here, only she had been family, staying by my side.
To Ision, empty without a thing, she was the sole companion from childhood till now.
Even if she fell to become the villainess.
To him, his lady was this world's only sanctuary—his everything.
He resolved.
Not the world's number two.
This life, I will make our lady the undisputed number one.