Chapter 5: The villainess can never know

We confirmed each other’s feelings. 

Of course, it was clear that the feeling in our hearts was not love, but hate, and it was not something any two fiancés would normally share. And now, we were staring intensely at each other. It was a look that would make anyone misunderstand. However, in this case, the stares were somewhat unique in that they did not express love, but contempt.

She glared at me. I also glared at her.

“Is this a rematch after that thing with the teacup?”

“…”

She answered my question with her persistent stare. Of course, it was also my gaze that answered her gaze again.

It was a very strange relationship. The two fiancés competed over sound they could make with teacups, and now they were having a staring contest. I didn’t know that I would possess a character in a novel and do childish things like this with a villainess. Perhaps even young couples had never looked at each other as passionately as we were doing now.

We continued to stare at each other like that without saying a word. Some time passed. Eventually, my eyes began to hurt. I am sure that was the same for Shael. Still, the sore eyes didn’t matter to Shael and me. Because there was something more important. The important thing was to win, and the reward was the opponent’s resentment. It would be such a sweet reward. So I couldn’t give up!

“Why don’t you just give up?”

“That’s what I want to say!”

I said it, and the villainess answered. But neither of us gave up.

Time passed again. The tea I was drinking lost its heat and cooled down. Now I had worked my eyes so hard that I had tears in my eyes. I was thinking that it would be nice if the other person quit. But there was

no way anyone would give up. 

As the cool tea was getting cold. Tears began to flow from Shael’s eyes. What was strange was that it was the first time I had seen the devil’s tears. Of course, even though the reason for the tears was somewhat peculiar.

“To make a lady cry, what a mean man I am.”

“Even your… tears are flowing.”

“Is that so…?”

It might look a bit funny. Two twenty-year-old men and women were crying while having a staring contest.

My eyes were half closed now. Of course, the villainess was still staring at me with her eyes wide open. As expected, the villainess we indeed poisonous.

“Open your eyes fully.”

“…”

“Or, you lose.”

That’s what the villainess told me. I couldn’t help but open my eyes completely again. Now my eyes were stinging. Even though we were already in tears. Then silence reigned. Because I couldn’t afford to concentrate on talking. I just endured while imagining a future where I would harass the villainess.

Knock-tock-tock!

What ended the silence was the sound of someone knocking on the door.

“Come in.”

That’s what I said. Because the villainess was paying all her attention to the staring contest. Then the maids came in. It was for more dessert, which was nothing out of the ordinary.

It’s just… the maids’s expressions were different from usual. Because they saw something.

“…!!!”

The silent clamor of the maids began as soon as they saw Shael’s tears.

Ah, Shael had never shed a tear. The tears of the villainess were hard to see and very precious. Of course, there was no way a villainess would easily show tears to others.

Of course, now it had become cheap tears that could only be seen in a stupid staring contest.

The maids went out with quick steps. It was a look that made me want to smirk right away. Tomorrow, everyone in the ducal family would know of this.

“Now rumors will circulate that you shed tears to hold me back, Shael.”

“…”

The villainess still didn’t answer. It wasn’t because of the rumors that were going to spread. It was because the fight was still going on, while shedding tears. Is this really the vicious villainess in the novel, or is it because of my mood that I’m thinking like that

What disrupted my thoughts were the desserts brought by the maids. It wasn’t because it looked delicious, but because something strange was in it.

My search magic had detected poison.

Looking at things like this, she was definitely a villainess. To try to poison me at home by poisoning the food.

If you think about it, not only the protagonists in novels have to face trials. The villainess, Shael, also had to face many trials.

Of course, the book didn’t give the content that much importance. In the first place, this was before the original work even started. In the novel, the villainess’s past was not properly dealt with.

That’s why the book only mentioned things like the villainess, Shael also had to face this and that, but dealt with it alone like a vicious villainess.

In the original work, the villainess must have avoided this poisoning in some way. It was highly likely that the method she used was poison detection magic like I did just now.

But what do I do now?

If I didn’t get rid of this dessert, Shael could be found dead tomorrow.

Unlike in the original work, I will have to intervene. Furthermore, since I was the fiancé of the villainess, her death would have great influence on me as well. Perhaps the villainess in the novel sensed this through magic like me, but… not now.

She didn’t know how to use any magic. I even heard the Duke Jespen himself say that she had never been taught any magic. Then it was clear what I had to do. It was to prevent poisoning and eliminate the culprit.

I’m trying hard to rehabilitate the villainess. ‘So I can’t let this go.’

I immediately brought the dessert in front of the villainess to me, and I had to close my two sore eyes.

“It’s my win!”

Of course, she was a villainess who was still pursuing her own victory.

“Yes, it is.”

“…”

As expected, it was time for the villainess to curse at me. But my expectations were wrong. She just asked me in a questioning tone.

“Why did you take that?”

“Oh, because it looks delicious.”

“…”

Shael stared at me in bewilderment.

To take someone else’s dessert just because it looked delicious? It was surely an inelegant act that even a villainess wouldn’t do. Normally, she would have begun to insult me by now, but the villainess just stared at me. But why was the villainess not doing anything? It wasn’t the time for me to think about that.

It was natural. It was because I had to find out who was trying to kill the vicious villainess with poison. Once I find them, I would have to decide what to do with them.

“I’m going somewhere for a moment.”

I held the poisoned dessert in my hand. Then got up from my seat.

Drrr!

As expected, the sound of the chair showed how hurried I was.

***

Shael saw the dessert. It was the dessert the maids put in front of her. It was something she always enjoyed.

It’s just she felt something strange. It was through poison search magic.

It was the only magic that she had learned on her own. Because for her, learning magic was something annoying. She used to think that it wasn’t necessary for her to learn magic in order to survive. But she had no choice but to wake up.

It was because she had already eaten poisoned food several times.

Apart from the perpetrators, no one in the duchy knew about that.

It was because she overcame it alone. Even the poison was the same for Shael, who did not report her wounds and hid them. The terrible villainess did not tell others about her own suffering.

At first it was a weak poison. Of course, it was enough poison to kill a person. But she overcame it. As she endured her pain, she secretly took all sorts of medicines.

The reason she was able to hide her pain without revealing it was probably because she was a villainess who was more toxic than that poison. And she finally apprehended the criminal. Of course she didn’t get help from anyone here either. It wasn’t something hard for the villainess to chase away a weak maid.

After that, there were several attempts. Of course, the villainess was more poisonous than those poisons. She overcame all poisons. After being poisoned so many times, she learned the poison detection magic herself.

In a way, it was natural. Because she also had the Azbel family’s blood flowing through her veins.

So when Eran took her dessert, she was really surprised.

‘Will you really eat it?’

Of course not. Her fiancé also knew the poison detection magic. It wasn’t something unexpected that he, a master of swordsmanship, would this type of magic.

The only thing that surprised her was why Eran was helping her. Even though they said that they hated each other and even had a strange contest he was helping her.

So even though she beat him in the staring contest, she didn’t feel like she had won. It was the same last time. The same thing happened when the teacup broke. Even then, as she was fighting her strange contest with him, Eran healed her hand.

Was it pity? It never was. It wasn’t because he liked her either.

But she couldn’t figure out why.

So it was inevitable that the villainess would secretly follow her fiancee.

It was because the villainess had to know.

---

Goblin: I’m busy with my exams at the moment, hence the lack of a schedule. There will be a proper schedule once I’m done with my exams.

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