The Villainess Who Accidentally Stole Their Hearts - Chapter 33
Chapter 17.1
Mikarin and Cleas locked me away in an underground dungeon. And as if that wasn’t enough, they even tortured me.
‘The torture of tearing my soul from my body…’
At first, I assumed it was just regular torture because they kept draining my blood until I was barely alive.
‘But they weren’t just torturing me… They had tethered my soul to the prison so I couldn’t escape.’
I became one with the prison while still alive.
The pain was excruciating, far beyond what I could withstand. As I felt my sanity start to unravel, I pleaded for death every single day.
“Kill me… p-please kill me… I was wrong… I’m sorry… for being born… please, just end it…”
I didn’t even have the strength to lift my head, so I just whispered into the dark until I heard a voice.
“Why are you in this state?”
It was a voice I had never heard before.
That was the first time I met Grand Duke Akelos.
‘…How did he get in here?’
Not even the emperor’s first knight could have broken into this prison…
However, my soul was too worn down to cling to hope. I gazed at the grand duke, my eyes hollow and lifeless. There was no way he could save me. I had become a chimera, bound to this prison.
Much less…
‘With a curse that was consuming him so severely.’
A horrific curse wrapped around him, consuming his whole body.
Just like me, he was slowly dying.
The man who had chased after him quickly spoke, his voice laced with urgency.
“Your Highness, hurry and take Petra…!”
‘That man… was Yusril.’
Yusril’s face was filled with urgency, yet the grand duke did nothing but fix his gaze on me.
“Why are you…”
“Please, Your Highness—!”
“I’ll break it. The barrier comes first.”
“How can you break it when you’re already poisoned by the curse?! Even breathing must feel like your whole body is being torn apart—!!”
What he said was true.
He couldn’t even stop Yusril from forcing Petra into him. The grand duke had become that weak.
Thud.
The hand that had been holding my cheek slipped away.
After being injected with Petra, his body lay still, as if completely paralyzed. In that moment, I understood that he hadn’t used Petra to send me a message. Those were the words he managed to say, using every last bit of his strength.
“Find me. No matter what, find me. That way—”
“….”
“You can save yourself.”
It was those words that kept me going. If not for them, I would have given up long ago. Even after regressing, I wouldn’t have had the will to seek revenge or start over.
“Yes, you were the one who told me to come find you.”
‘That’s why I’ll seek you out, Grand Duke Akelos.’
Since you were the one who saved me—
‘This time, I’ll be the one to save you.’
̊ · : * ✧ * : · ̊
It was only a short while ago that I made up my mind.
A quiet groan escaped my lips.
‘Still, Petra isn’t a perfect cure for the curse.’
While it could suppress the curse for a time, Petra’s own poison left the body paralyzed. Was there a way to neutralize Petra’s toxicity as well?
‘At times like this, I really wish I had an all-knowing encyclopedia… wait, huh?’
I flinched, murmuring under my breath.
“My investigative ability?”
Until now, I had only ever used it on people. I had tested it on objects before, just to see, but it had always come back as impossible.
But…
‘Didn’t I receive an unlimited-use pass after what happened with Ulysses?!’
The free pass granted ‘free’ hunting.
Freedom.
Unrestricted by anything, completely up to me.
What if, perhaps…
A little while later.
‘It worked…!’
I hurriedly scanned the words floating in the air.
— Potential: If properly stabilized, it can be refined to affect only designated targets.
“If it’s stabilized, it can be refined to target specific things… meaning it could dissolve only the curse!”
The problem was finding a way to stabilize it…
I checked the message again.
Petra wasn’t just an ordinary poison; it was a product of magic!
‘I could ask the Bethril Marquisate for help… No. They’ve failed to stabilize it all this time.’
Petra had existed as a poison for a long time. The Bethril Marquisate had been studying it for years, yet they had made no real progress. That meant I had to seek out the leading expert in this field.
“Master of the Magic Tower.”
With a smirk, I shut the lid of the box with a sharp snap.
̊ · : * ✧ * : · ̊
The Magic Tower.
Wizards were gifted with extraordinary talents, rivaling even those who wield divine powers. Even among them, only the most exceptional talents of their era were selected to enter the Magic Tower.
The Magic Tower was notoriously closed off, often disregarding visitors… but I was an exception.
“Waaaaah! Welcome, Lady!”
“It’s an honor to have you here, My Lady!”
As I stepped out of the carriage, the wizards greeted me with excitement, and I made my way up the stairs. My destination was the highest floor, the Master of the Magic Tower’s chamber.
“We’ve arrived, Lady.”
The brown-haired wizard grinned, rubbing his hands together eagerly. He then pushed open the door and addressed the person inside.
“The lady has arri—Kuugh!”
Thud—!
An object smacked the brown-haired wizard in the face before dropping to the floor.
‘Is that… a teapot?’
However, something was off. The teapot’s spout wobbled as if it were alive. As expected from the Tower Master’s room. It was no surprise that something extraordinary had appeared.
Just as that thought crossed my mind, a deep voice broke the silence.
“How many times do I have to say it? The sound of a stupid human’s voice annoys me, 125.”
The brown-haired wizard groaned, rubbing his face in frustration.
“You’ve said that exactly thirty-one times now, and for the thirty-second time, my name is Brown, not 125!”
After a brief pause, footsteps echoed from within the room, and a dark silhouette loomed over me.
“Words exist to be understood, not tallied.”
A detached voice rang out from above me.
He was tall, slender, yet solidly built.
His finely sculpted face wasn’t just beautiful; it carried a tense, irritable, and restless energy. Beneath his long, sleepy-looking eye, a single small mole stood out.
‘It’s hard to believe he’s a wizard.’
Wizards were known for spending their lives locked away in their labs, day and night. That was why the typical image of a wizard was one of a sickly, small figure—certainly not a strikingly handsome man with such a sharp, irritable demeanor.
The Tower Master looked down at me with a steady gaze. Then, he slowly parted his lips and spoke.
“You, stupid-looking outsider.”
Haah!
The wizards around me collectively sucked in a breath.
“Ma-Master of the Magic Tower, this person is—!”
With a large hand, the Tower Master shoved the brown-haired wizard’s face aside and continued.
“I have no interest in talking to idiots.”
“Is that so? Well, I don’t fund people who choose to disregard me.”
I smiled brightly.
The other wizards seemed on the verge of collapsing. One of them, despite being a wizard, even drew the holy symbol of the temple, which had been the Tower’s long-time rival.
I couldn’t blame them.
‘The Grand Duchy of Delosif is the Magic Tower’s largest benefactor.’
People often joked that the Delosif family single-handedly funded all of the Magic Tower’s research.
‘In reality, around 60% of the Tower’s budget is covered by Delosif.’
Even sponsorships go through trends. Lately, nobles have found it more practical to invest in nurturing power-wielders rather than supporting magical research that took years to produce results.
The wizards, visibly shaking, huddled around me.
“T-The Tower Master accidentally drank something strange during an experiment yesterday…!”
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