The Villainess is a Marionette

Translator: thursdays PR: scarcecrow

The following scenes may depict violence and/or death that may be disturbing for some readers. Reader discretion is advised.

She had never been kidnapped before her return.

Henverton had clung onto her like mud, but so did other men. Cayena only realized how crazed he was after marrying him.

She did expect him to try to harm her in this life, but she didn’t consider that he might attempt something this soon.

‘How come…?’

Henverton seemed to be out of his mind. Was he on drugs?

“Beautiful Cayena.”

Staggering, he walked up to the tied Cayena.

“Finally, you’re in my hands.”

He held Cayena’s face roughly like he couldn’t control his strength. It was disgusting. She felt as if bugs were crawling from his hand onto her.

“You surely are the finest piece in my collection.”

He laughed and lifted Cayena’s chin.

“But you always act arrogantly. We’ll have to fix that habit.”

Cayena trembled.

He said that she acted arrogantly? That he would fix that habit?

Those were words that Cayena heard every day locked in his bedroom.

‘I had been hesitant to get rid of him because he hadn’t done any harm to me yet.’

The terrible memories were clear.

Even at this moment, all kinds of remembrances that she had nearly managed to forget swooped over Cayena. Still, all of that hadn’t happened in the present reversed time.

Truthfully, Cayena had already decided to bring Henverton down. Even if he hadn’t done any harm to Cayena yet, he had already sinned.

She knew of the secret social club that Henverton ran with his friends. She also knew all sorts of filthy things that went on in there.

That was why she had thought to uncover that secret and depose him. She thought that would be enough, that she wouldn’t need to worry about Henverton without the halo of the Gillian viscounty behind him.

She could have lived with that, eager as she was to erase the past.

Cayena had definitely been too complacent. Cayena realized that she had been too moderate as she tried to repent for the many years she had lived as a villainess.

But a villainess was who she really was.

“Should I thank you for giving me this excuse?”

Cayena laughed faintly.

Her body ached from being tied up, but she didn’t mind much. Rather, it was pleasant.

“It makes me relieved to see your base self, Henverton Gillian.”

Her cold eyes crushed over him. Henverton, who received that gaze, looked dazed.

He never thought he would be able to see the princess with this expression.

A shudder ran down his back.

She was still beautiful, but the doll-like Cayena was now different.

Her beautiful eyes burned with a chilling, graphic hatred.

“Hahaha!”

He exploded into madness.

“This will make breaking you in more delicious!”

Henverton bent backward and laughed.

Then, the man who kept checking out of the window said, “It would be good to start moving now. It’s almost dark.”

At that, another man gagged Cayena’s mouth.

It would be troublesome for them if she screamed while they moved her.

“Are there any sleeping drugs left? Wouldn’t it be better to knock her out?”

“Another guy took it before, but he hasn’t come back yet. He’s awfully late for just taking care of the court lady.”

‘Olivia!’

Cayena had hoped the gang wouldn’t bother with her.

Henverton giggled, pointing at Cayena, and said,

“Move her to my carriage.”

The coarse hands of the young men lifted her up.

Clank.

The shackles around her legs made a spine-tingling sound.

They cleaned up their surroundings and turned off the lamps. Then–

“Aghh!”

The man holding Cayena suddenly screamed.

“What is it?!”

One man urgently pulled Cayena away while the others were hit. They screamed.

“We’ve been betrayed!”

Henverton realized that Zenon Evans had stabbed him in the back.

He screamed while flailing in the dark, hard-to-see interior.

“You idiots! Drag the princess over here! Kill them all!”

Cayena struggled with all her might.

She planned to escape during the confusion. If the priest was in his right mind, he would not let things be after seeing her.

‘Please!’

“Ack! This crazy…!”

Cayena kicked a man, and he let her go.

She hit the floor painfully, but she continued to crawl forward. The door was right in front of her.

“Eugh—!”

Then someone grabbed her by the hair.

“I caught the princess! Hurry up and kill the traitors!”

“Argh!”

A gruesome sound rang in her ear.

Cayena shut her eyes tightly. She recalled the sensation from when she had been stabbed and felt faint.

The man who caught Cayena dragged her on the floor.

Henverton fumed and kicked a body.

“Darn it! Useless bastards! “

The man threw Cayena next to the corpse.

“Bro, this isn’t what you said that it’d be! Money won’t cut it for something like this!”

Henverton swore, enraged by Zenon’s betrayal. “I’ll give you any amount of money, so shut up and do whatever I say!”

Cayena was nauseous from the sickening smell of blood. Even so, she managed to endure it.

Everything would really be over if she lost focus now.

‘There’s no way Heinrich wouldn’t act.’

She was restless. Please, someone, come aid her. Anyone…

“Who’s outside?”

The atmosphere in the room turned stiff at the words.

Was anybody else supposed to come here? Henverton, holding a knife in his hand, dragged Cayena over and covered her with a blanket.

His eyes flashed as he warned her.

“If you make a sound, you die immediately.”

He handed the knife over to the man next to him, saying that he could kill her if necessary.

It was getting harder for Cayena to breathe, especially from the moment she felt a cool sensation against her throat.

Click.

Yellow light poured into the room.

Henverton’s men quickly blocked the entrance. The person who trespassed into the annex trod in.

Henverton recognized who it was and yelled at him like he was going to chew him up.

“Sir Raphael Kedrey.”

Cayena was shocked by the unexpected name.

‘Why is Raphael here…?’

Raphael was the one who had entered the room.

“What’s this about? This is the annex that I borrowed from the temple through donations.”

Henverton growled at him, showing his hostility.

“You think you can bring the knights here to a non-aggression area?”

Raphael composedly listened to him, then opened his mouth.

“You made two mistakes in your words.”

Henverton’s eyebrows twitched. It was because Raphael was speaking down to him.

“First, you should call me Your Excellency or Lord, not Sir Raphael.”

“…What?”

While Henverton was confused, Raphael continued speaking in a calm tone.

“Secondly, I was the one who rented this place.”

“What bullshit are you spouting?! I rented this place!”

Raphael looked down at the screaming Henverton.

“Don’t you know that the annex will be transferred to someone else if they pay more money?”

“…That’s contrived! This is a non-aggression area!”

Raphael wasn’t feeling very well.

No, he felt terrible. His uncontrollable frustration from the moment Cayena was kidnapped heightened to a peak when he saw Henverton’s face.

“Really, I should have killed you.”

Raphael grabbed Henverton’s head and slammed it against the wall.

Bam!

“Aaaagh—!”

He threw Henverton, who screamed when his forehead was cut, onto the floor.

Then he gave an order to the knights.

“Take them in.”

Pow! Pow! Pow!

The fully armed knights were dominating the fight. At that time, the man who took Cayena hostage shouted,

“Stop!”

Raphael saw Cayena, gagged and disheveled.

He felt such fury that he could barely get a hold of himself.

“If you don’t withdraw, the princess will die. You probably don’t want that!”

He should have taken care of this when he received Jeremy’s report. He had kept watch for nothing and let such an incident happen.

Raphael ordered the knights,

“Step back.”

As they passively stepped back, the expressions of the thugs in the room brightened.

There was a snapping sound the moment the knights moved away, and they heard a whistle through the air.

Thwump!

The man who was holding Cayena fell to the floor, his head pierced by an arrow.

The knight outside the door had prepared a crossbow just in case.

As soon as Raphael confirmed it, he ran to Cayena and held her in his arms.

Up close, Cayena seemed pale, but she didn’t seem to have been hurt.

Raphael said, “Arrest them!”

As if the knights were waiting for the command, all the kidnappers were seized and hauled outside.

Raphael released the gag around Cayena’s mouth and her bindings. She was so quiet that it was odd.

He had to find the key to release the shackles on her feet. None of his attendants were present in the room.

He paused and asked,

“Your Highness, we should go now. Is it all right if I carry you?

“…Why. Why… are you here?”

Cayena looked up at him.

“Why did you… I…”

She couldn’t finish her words.

It was because Raphael gently lifted her in his arms.

He consoled Cayena, who was trembling, barely able to recognize herself.

“It’s all right now.”

Cayena closed her mouth.

“You’re safe now.”

The moment she heard that, her nerves diminished.

Ah… She couldn’t stand it anymore.

The world quickly became dark.

~~~