Fatal Temptation
That was close.
She'd offered to pile every crime I'd ever committed into one sentence and let me rot in prison for the rest of my life...
Bella's fatal temptation had nearly reeled me in.
The mere thought of one mistake sending my entire life plunging into the abyss—of spending the rest of my days miserably locked away—sent a mad, ravenous impulse surging through me. I wanted to make that "mistake." I wanted it badly.
It would have been nothing like the two months of boring, childish incarceration I'd already endured...
Every day, sitting on a freezing prison floor, chewing dry, chalky scraps of bread and gulping down flat water while endlessly calculating inside my head.
How many hours of torture will I get today?
A place where no one treated me like a human being. Locked in there, barely able to breathe properly, watched every second—while eating, while sleeping, always watched.
A life that never granted me even a moment of freedom. Eyes following me wherever I went. Tracing the iron bars of a solitary cell with my fingertips, living with the faces of people who wanted me gone floating through my mind.
Originally I'd planned to cause even more chaos in there, to properly burn the villainess image into everyone's minds...
But I'd gotten excited.
Hehe...
Maybe it was because I'd been so severely pent-up for so long?
Even a simple fantasy like this had turned me into a pathetic, easily aroused masochist.
Still, I hadn't gotten wet down there, so maybe I wasn't a completely hopeless piece of trash just yet...?
I was currently on my way with Bella to find a carriage.
The vigilantes had permitted us to enter the village on the condition that if I caused any trouble, Bella would take full responsibility and stop me.
But the problem was...
"Um... Senior? Do we really have to go like this?"
Bella had my wrist crushed in a grip hard enough to shatter bone and was literally dragging me along.
Even so, I felt good.
Being restrained this forcefully was exactly my kind of thing.
So I put on an even more shameless, deliberately annoying expression and muttered,
"Senior~ You're being so rough~ Couldn't you treat me a little more gently~?"
Bella made a face like she'd just witnessed something truly revolting and yanked my wrist even harder—hard enough to satisfy me.
Khh~
I fought to hide how thrilled I was and let myself be dragged along, pretending to be perfectly well-behaved.
"Get out of our village!"
A sharp voice rang out.
I turned my head.
It was a child.
Fists clenched tight, eyes brimming with tears.
In one small hand, a single egg.
What, is it my birthday today?
Gulp...
I really can't hold back.
I swallowed hard, squeezed my eyes shut, and waited, savoring what was about to come.
Honestly, dodging an egg thrown by a kid who hadn't even Awakened would have been trivial.
But what kind of idiot masochist would throw away a golden opportunity like this?
Splat.
Viscous liquid slid down my face.
Cold yolk trailing through my hair, down my cheek, dripping from the tip of my chin.
The rough grit of eggshell.
That awful fishy stench.
I simply stood there and slowly felt every bit of it.
What were people thinking as they watched me take an egg to the face?
Were they afraid because a village child had struck a noble?
I'd rather they sneered at the sight of a lofty young lady getting egged by a mere commoner.
I slowly opened my eyes.
Naturally, the scene I'd hoped for wasn't there.
"I'm so sorry... Young lady!!! Please, spare her just this once!"
A woman who looked like the child's mother had a firm hold on the kid and was on her knees apologizing to me.
I looked around.
Eyes full of worry for the child.
Sympathy for the mother.
And a faint hostility directed at me.
I turned my head.
Bella, clearly expecting me to explode, tightened her grip even further and stared at me with desperate intensity.
"Haa... You said if there was trouble you'd throw me back in prison."
"Huh...? Huh?"
"Let's go already. I want to get out of this disgusting village."
Bella looked surprised, then eased her grip slightly and started dragging me again.
Clean streets without a scrap of trash.
Houses that weren't luxurious but looked cozy enough.
This place has come a long way too.
A year ago.
When I'd come to treat Annie's mother, the village had been decent enough, but it had still carried the air of a slum.
The village near the mansion where I'd stayed when I first arrived here.
And...
The place where most of the servants who'd died because of me—and their families—had lived.
The ducal house had paid ample compensation. Anyone who wanted it had been given the chance to move to a better district, and the village itself had been developed.
But...
None of that could ever replace a human life.
So they had every right to be furious with me.
I wore a bitter smile and lightly flicked the eggshell stuck to my fingers.
I'm someone who deserves far worse treatment than this.
The one who should have been on her knees begging for forgiveness wasn't that woman. It was me.
But I couldn't do that.
If I did whatever I wanted here...
Their deaths would become meaningless.
I was someone who didn't even have the right to apologize.
Haa... I want to be alone.
I just wanted to shut myself in an empty room, train my ability by myself, and forget everything.
Maybe she was nervous about what I might do.
The moment Bella borrowed a carriage, she didn't even bother finding a driver. She took the reins herself and drove us straight out of the village.
She didn't say a single word, racing forward with her face tightly packed full of suppressed rage, eyes locked on the road ahead.
I watched her with interest for a while, then shrugged and opened my mouth.
"Hey... We're going to be traveling by carriage for at least a day. Aren't we buying any food or camping gear?"
At that, Bella clenched her teeth and glared at me like she wanted me dead.
"How about reflecting on your own behavior before you start criticizing other people? That's why you end up getting egged in the middle of the street."
"Come to think of it... Isn't a knight escort supposed to stop things like that? You deliberately didn't block it, did you? Just to mess with me."
"If I'd known you weren't going to dodge..."
Bella stared at me blankly.
"I would have stopped it."
"Ha. Don't say things you don't mean. You felt pretty good about it too, didn't you? Watching someone like me take an egg to the face and get properly humiliated must have been refreshing."
"…"
Bella didn't answer.
But I didn't miss the subtle flinch in her fingers.
"So you really didn't stop it! I saw that flinch just now!"
"Shut up, Yeon Bennet."
Bella yanked hard on the reins with one hand and snapped.
The carriage lurched. I lost my balance and tipped toward her.
"W-Whoa!? Could you drive a little more carefully? That's dangerous!"
"I'll consider it if you shut your mouth and stay quiet."
"Don't wanna."
I deliberately pressed right up behind her and spoke in a deliberately grating voice.
"Aah~ I'm hungry. What do we do? We didn't even prepare for camping."
"…"
"And where exactly are we going, anyway? Is this even the right direction? We're not lost right now, are we?"
"Please shut up."
I could sense her patience reaching its limit.
Oh? Could this be...
Thwack!
Bella clenched her fist and gave me a light knock on the head.
A faint wave of pleasure trickled down through my skull.
Yes! That's it.
I felt a little bad for teasing her so hard, but I'd saved her life, so I was allowed to collect this much payment, right?
I suppressed my excitement, clutched my head, and glared at her with a look of pure injustice.
"How dare you? A mere baron's daughter, striking a duke's daughter?"
Bella snorted and answered coldly.
"A good-for-nothing abandoned by her own family. A criminal who was locked in prison. And also an Academy student."
Ahem. She really knows how to shut me up.
Bella let out a truly sincere sigh and continued, as if trying to soothe me.
"Haa. Just endure it for a day. Staying there any longer wouldn't have been good for you either. You're an Academy student—one day shouldn't be a problem."
I fixed my gaze on a certain part of her and answered with a lecherous grin.
"Fine, I'll let it slide 'cause of the boobs."
Bella clenched her fist again...
And once more I got to savor the pleasure flowing down through my head.
"Haa... Finally quiet."
Bella let out a deep sigh as she looked at Yeon, who had fallen sound asleep inside the carriage.
Asleep, she had the youthful face of a girl her age.
If she'd just keep her mouth shut, she'd be nothing more than a cute junior.
The world called Yeon Bennet a villainess without blood or tears, and the press painted her in the most negative light imaginable.
But after spending a full day with her firsthand...
She was a little different from everything Bella had known.
Rather than a cruel villainess, she was simply short-sighted, rude, and arrogant.
Not quite the kind of evil that deserved every finger in Tera pointed at her.
Of course, if it was true that she had truly laid hands on Contamination, then she was garbage who deserved to be punished.
But...
She didn't look like that kind of child.
That bitter smile she'd worn looking at the kid who'd thrown the egg and the mother apologizing for it.
Why did she push people away so hard?
Bella gazed quietly at the sleeping Yeon, then carefully stroked her hair.
A small, delicate head.
Cool skin, light breathing.
In that instant—
Yeon's eyes snapped open.
"Senior, I can sense monsters nearby. Looks like we... need to get ready to fight."
Her gaze turned ice-cold in a heartbeat.
Bella instinctively felt a chill run down her spine.
Monsters? Here?
This was within the range of a Saintstone.
A place where monsters shouldn't appear at all.
Ordinarily she would have dismissed it as nonsense and ignored it, but Bella immediately rose and began scanning their surroundings.
But...
She felt nothing.
No stench of Contamination, no sense of wrongness, no hostility.
Strangely, absolutely nothing registered.
Bella looked at Yeon with a face full of doubt, but the girl simply continued watching their surroundings with unwavering focus.
A few minutes later.
Only then could Bella sense the presence of monsters approaching from far away.
She detected the monsters far earlier than I did?
Bella glanced at Yeon again.
She was supposed to be nothing more than an incompetent villainess...
Bella's current level was six.
A veteran who had been fighting on the front lines ever since graduating from the Academy.
It wasn't a lack of real combat experience, and her senses hadn't dulled.
And yet Yeon Bennet had detected the monsters' presence several minutes before Bella.
Come to think of it, back at the prison too...
The girl who had slipped so effortlessly past prison security and reached her destination.
If she had truly been the incompetent villainess people claimed, that would have been impossible.
I'll have to look into this properly once we get back to the Academy.