I'm a Villainess, Can I Die?

A night when the moon was covered by clouds.

A man was gasping for breath and making his way through the bushes. The faint magic on his feet showed that he was a wizard.

“Haaa, haaa, haaa.”

Only the rough breathing of the man could be heard in the quiet forest where even wild beasts did not live. The torso of the man, who was engulfed in fear and was running forward with nothing in sight, was staggering mercilessly.

He was short of breath, his legs were wobbly, and there was only one reason why he kept running forward even though he was in a body that looked like he was about to collapse at any moment.

‘To live.’

The man, clenching his chapped lips, tried to concentrate as best he could.

It was because the magic on his feet was unstable due to his shaky state of mind.

Wizards working at the Magic Tower might have laughed at him, but for him, it was a lifeline that made him a little bit faster.

“Let’s live, let’s live, let’s live.”

As if he was talking to his leg, the man repeated those words endlessly and kicked the ground.

If he could live after this, then he would live his life without greed.

He would work normally, have a normal family, not be proud of his magic, and not be jealous of those with better powers.

He just wanted to live that kind of life.

Fearing tears, the man had to close his eyes and then open them. It was a luxury to cover one’s eyes with tears now. A dim light appeared in the man’s eyes as he ran, gasping for breath.

Far away, it must have been the light of a house coming out of the forest.

Like the dim light was a light of hope, the man continued running, soaked with relief.

‘Yes, keep going.’

As the light gradually became clearer, a faint smile appeared on the man’s lips as much as the dim light. However, that smile had to disappear as the light gradually became clearer.

Contrary to expectations that it would be the light of a house, the identity of the light was a middle-aged man.

To be precise, it was a lantern held by a middle-aged man.

His hopes of getting out of the woods had faded a little, but the man still felt relieved that he had gotten out of that terrible place and met someone new. He stood still, catching his breath.

The middle-aged man with a good impression looked at the man who ran from afar with a puzzled face.

“What is it, why are you running through the forest out of breath?”

His voice was so kind that the man could barely hold back the tears that were about to spill out.

He could finally live. He was finally out of there.

Painful memories quickly ran through his head, and the wizard stammered to ask the man for help.

His breath was still hoarse, and his voice couldn’t come out properly.

“That is where… Ha… Nobles imprisoned… Wizards. Tempted to make weak wizards stronger… To kill and have power…”

“No, how could such a terrible thing happen? Is that why you ran away from the Marquisate?”

As the man asked again, the wizard nodded his head hastily.

Then, suddenly, thinking that something was wrong, the wizard slowly raised his head and faced the man.

‘Did I mention the Marquisate…’

The impressive man was looking at the wizard with a worried face. It was an infinitely harmless face.

Haa… Okay. It must have been an illusion.

This strange feeling would be just a simple delusion. His head must have been damaged from running too long.

Contrary to his head trying to comfort himself, the wizard’s body unconsciously wanted to get away from the man.

As he hesitantly took a step back from the man, the wrinkles deepened between the eyebrows as the man looked at the wizard with concern. And on the contrary, the corner of the man’s mouth was gradually going up.

A furrowed brow and smiling lips.

“Why, are you going back to the Marquisate?”

The wizard stopped breathing at the friendly voice that came out of the strangely distorted man’s mouth. In a quiet forest where even breathing ceased to be heard. The man who spat out a great line just stared at the wizard who was drenched in frustration without moving.

Like he wasn’t going to get the wizard.

The wizard’s head was spinning hurriedly at the confrontation without sound or movement.

Should he just turn his back and run away, and what was the true identity of that man… Could he defeat that man with his own power?

But the wizard’s thoughts could not continue.

“Grrrr.”

From somewhere, no, from very close by, he heard the rough breathing of something gigantic.

And that sound became the last sound the wizard heard before he passed away.

Moments later, the man kicked the wizard who was lying on the floor covered in blood with his toe.

The man smiled broadly as he looked at the motionless wizard, then drove a stake into the corpse’s heart once again.

‘I have to take care of any problems.’

Otherwise, obstructions were likely to arise. For example… Yes, that hindrance of a woman.

The man, who remembered Selena’s face, felt angry.

The man put his hands together and gave a deep breath. He was alone. Even if he were to get angry, nothing would happen. Rather than raging on the past, he would rather prepare for the future.

Soon after, the man who found his peace of mind stretched out his hand to the monster that bit and killed the wizard with twitching eyebrows.

“Hrrrr.”

The monster, who approached the man’s call lightly, closed its eyes and made a pleasant sound, like a puppy showing its charms to its owner. The face was smeared with the wizard’s blood.

Perhaps the man didn’t even care about the blood on the monster’s face, as he ran a friendly hand over that bloody face.

“Good job, good job. This lovely thing that will give me an empire.”

Whispering a voice that was more affectionate than the touch.

***

The languid evening sunlight spilled onto the bed on which I was lying. It was the same color as yellowish, ripe rice, perfect for autumn.

Ah, I guess it would be better to describe it as wheat now. The staple here was wheat, not rice.

While thinking useless thoughts, I rolled over and lay down staring at the ceiling. Then, with one finger stretched out, I drew a human face in the air.

‘Mother, Father, Brother.’

When was the last time I had seen everyone’s faces properly? I thought I had eaten with my family for about a week after returning from the capital… After that, it became difficult to see their faces properly, let alone to eat.

As they went out every day, all I could see were the backs of my family riding in the carriage or their tired faces as they entered the house.

All I could do was look out the window of my room alone, so as not to get in the way.

“I don’t have time.”

“Yes, Miss?”

“Just talking to myself.”

Jane immediately smiled and continued her job.

Anyway, she was a smart kid.

I continued my thoughts by repeatedly stretching and bending my thin fingers.

‘One, two, three.’ About three years? That was the life I had left.

I blinked my eyes slowly.

The limited time did not wait and was passing by meaninglessly. It was only now that I was barely shaping what happiness was, and the time I spent with my family who made me aware of it was fading away day by day.

What would happen if the monsters were not resolved within three years?

Should I close my eyes while embracing this vague happiness? If that happens, should I have said that Eunji’s wish came true or that it didn’t?

Oh, it must have been hard for my family, too.

Should they deal with the monsters or take care of my funeral? I hoped they wouldn’t cry too much.

I slowly closed my swollen eyes. And I blamed God.

It was my fault that the monsters came into being, so I wasn’t quite resentful. I had a conscience, too.

My resentment to God was not about the appearance of a monster that kept my family busy, but about the limited time given to me.

To be more precise, my resentment for having my death fixed in place so that my actions could not change it, while other things were easily changed by my actions.

In the original story, Selena’s death was death from an illness.

External factors could be twisted, but how could I prevent the disease that occurred inside humans?

I was not God.

‘Selena’s disease was a rare disease.

In fact, her illness began even before she entered the prison, but by then she was already known as the villain of the century.

She didn’t notice that she was sick, although she had no one around her, and she thought that she herself was a little sick from the fever.

It was only after she was imprisoned that her illness worsened, and she eventually died a lonely death alone.

As expected, she was destined to die this time, no matter what her purpose was.

The end of a villain was always disastrous.’

Well, I guess it went something like this… Even if I tried to think about it, it seems that the author put these words together because they wanted to kill Selena. So they committed it first and somehow justified it afterwards.

In any case, whether it was a far-fetched justification or something else, the bottom line was that Selena, or I, was destined to die of illness.

The third-person omniscient point of view in a novel was no different from a God’s, so was there any more evidence than this?

Again, what a dirty personality. Originally, the higher up you were, the dirtier your personality was.

Suddenly, the face of the former company manager passed by. As the doubt was about to change to certainty, it dawned on me that my family was, in a way, the head of the territory.

I quietly just erased that doubt.

Narrow thinking was dangerous. Yes, no way.

I raised both hands that had been hanging loosely and lightly placed them on my stomach. Lying in this position with my eyes closed, I felt as if I was experiencing some kind of end-of-life experience.

Three years… Would the monster calm down within three years?

Or would I die first?

Thinking of this breathtaking race, I immediately raised my upper body… And lied down again.

Ah, such postural hypotension*.

T/N: when you lose your blood pressure or when you sit/stand too quickly

I grabbed my bobbing head and blinked my eyes a few times. I didn’t even close my eyes, but my vision, which had turned dark, gradually looked for its color.

“What do you need, Miss?”

Jane stopped what she was doing and approached me, perhaps finding me strange for suddenly getting up and lying down.

I waved my hand and sent her away.

Yeah, this was nothing. I was going to die in a few years, so I was wondering if I could somehow deal with these monsters before then.

When I thought about it, I couldn’t die before the monster incident was resolved.

Would those who would be left behind be able to endure that sadness, and in the midst of that sadness, they would have to deal with things calmly, but was that possible?

In that situation, if monsters attacked… I forced the bad imaginations away. They were good people. They are people who want to live a long, happy life.

So, the monster must be dealt with before I would die.

Well, actually, this was what I was saying, but I didn’t have a great plan.

Walking around was tiring and exhausting, so where could I stand at the forefront to deal with monsters?

It was nonsense.

Rather, it would be more plausible to say that the Earth was, in fact, a square.

It was not good to be treated as a lump of an obstacle.

What I was going to do was try again what I had given up on after trying several times from the capital.

Somehow, racking my brains, trying to remember which of the realities I had changed that made the monsters appear.

Originally, most cases were closed when the cause was dealt with.

Yes, no way. So… Rewind, memory!