Chap 67-A Boring Woman

 

Class A, Year 1 of Dorothy Academy, was where the geniuses who would shoulder the future of Terra gathered.

The daughters of the five great ducal houses, the scions of venerable noble families, and… very rarely, prodigies from commoner backgrounds.

Lea was one of those rare commoners.

Although her status was common, she had grown up in an environment that was the envy of many.

Her father, in his youth, had greatly expanded his business with outstanding skill, accumulating immense wealth, and in the process, had forged close friendships with several nobles.

Thanks to this, unlike other commoner children who had to devote their lives to farming, Lea had the opportunity to receive various educations from a young age.

And fortunately, she had an exceptional talent for magic, and with that talent, she passed through the narrow gates and proudly entered Dorothy Academy.

Her father had a lifelong aspiration.

It was for his family to be recognized as a dignified noble family.

The path for a commoner to become a noble was arduous.

Simply accumulating wealth was not enough.

One had to become a Mana Awakener and, furthermore, achieve remarkable feats on the front lines and have that contribution recognized by the council.

Her father placed that dream on his daughter, Lea, and spared no support so that she could receive the best education at the academy and grow into an excellent talent.

Expensive magic textbooks, rare magic materials, even private tutors.

Lea, too, didn’t find such family expectations particularly burdensome or difficult.

Rather, it felt like a natural goal for her, a future she could achieve.

Because she had talent.

Even after entering the academy, she always maintained top grades, and the professors’ praise was constant.

But… even so, she was lonely sometimes.

No matter how outstanding her talent or how firm her goals, she was still a girl with emotions.

A childhood spent devoted only to magic training, without a single friend.

Even after entering the academy, the situation was not much different.

Students who subtly ignored her because she was a commoner, or who were wary and jealous of her for receiving excellent grades.

There was no one she could truly open her heart to and talk to.

From a young age, her only comfort and hobby was reading.

In reality, she was a loner, but in books, she could meet countless characters and experience various worlds.

She began to read books indiscriminately, devouring numerous books of various genres.

Tales of knights’ heroism, adventures of magicians, romances of nobles.

But as time went on, she was getting tired of the increasingly similar and predictable content.

The story of a kind protagonist overcoming hardships and defeating the villain.

The story of overcoming everything with love and friendship.

At first, it was touching, but as it was repeated, it now felt too predictable and boring.

Then one day, as if by fate, a novel found her.

<The Villainess Does Not Need Salvation>

Novels with ‘villainess’ in the title were common.

Most were stories of kind girls who were falsely accused and sought revenge, or who regressed and lived a new life.

But this novel was different.

Unlike those common cliché novels, it uniquely depicted the life of a ‘real villainess’ in a stark manner.

The protagonist of the novel was evil itself.

She thoroughly exploited people, did not hesitate to commit any despicable act for her own benefit, and cruelly destroyed those around her who stood in her way, a truly evil villainess from the root.

There was no excuse or room for sympathy in her actions.

In the end, she committed all sorts of evil deeds until everything was revealed, and she was surrounded by those she had destroyed, facing the most miserable and painful end.

And even in that miserable end, she did not regret or reflect on her actions in the slightest.

Rather, she laughed at the world and accepted death with dignity.

Extreme material and content that would have been repulsive or unpleasant to ordinary people.

But to Lea, who was always searching for new and fresh stories, this novel was a delicacy.

Escaping from the boredom of formulaic heroic epics or rewarding good and punishing evil, she was completely fascinated by the story that starkly showed the darkest and most twisted desires of humans.

And without realizing it, Lea became interested in the existence of a real villainess in reality.

Of course, Lea did not admire the evil itself.

What fascinated her was not the process of evil deeds, but the one inevitable narrative that ran through it all, the ending.

Being crushed by the karma one had built up, facing the most miserable and lonely end.

That was the most perfect ending to a story in Lea’s mind, paying the price for one’s choices without any excuses or salvation.

In that sense, Yeon Bennet was perfect as the protagonist of the story that Lea had been searching for for a long time.

Her numerous evil deeds known throughout Terra, being abandoned by her family because of it, and being subjected to all sorts of bullying and contempt at the academy.

Everything seemed like a harbinger befitting the miserable end of the villainess that Lea had been expecting.

A single room that only those who maintained top grades at the academy or came from high-ranking families could use.

Although she was a commoner, she was enjoying this privilege thanks to her excellent grades.

The room was neatly organized according to her taste, and a bookshelf that filled one wall was noticeable.

Entering her room, Lea put down her bag and went straight to her desk.

On one side of her desk, newspaper articles about Yeon Bennet’s various evil deeds were carefully cut out and pasted like a scrapbook.

‘The Villainess Who Summoned Contamination’, ‘Yeon Bennet, the Shame of the Family, Finally Abandoned’, ‘The Villainess’s Endless Fall’.

Along with the sensational titles, a portrait of Yeon was vaguely drawn in one corner of the article.

Lea quietly stroked Yeon’s face in the portrait with her finger.

Cold and arrogant, but with a somewhat empty look in her eyes.

It overlapped with the image of the ‘real villainess’ that she had been so fascinated with in the novel.

But not anymore.

“…You’re less interesting than I thought, Yeon.”

Lea muttered to the portrait.

She had expected that when she asked for an autograph, Yeon Bennet would throw the book on the floor with a contemptuous expression and say, “Why should I give an autograph to a commoner like you?”

That was the image of the ‘real villainess’ she had imagined.

But… the real Yeon Bennet just had a blank expression and obediently gave her an autograph as she asked, like a real pushover.

It was the same today.

Even though a lowly commoner made unreasonable requests one after another, asking her to buy desserts and bring forks, she showed signs of annoyance but eventually did everything she was asked without saying a word.

And the fact that she was surprisingly close with Lina, the Saintess Candidate who was known to be kind, even though they bickered.

Everything was far from the image of the villainess that Lea had expected.

In fact, Lea had expected it to some extent.

Yeon Bennet, whom she had been observing since the beginning of the semester, was very different from the real villainess she had wanted so much.

If she were a villainess, shouldn’t she have gathered her followers in the academy like the protagonist in the novel, engaged in all sorts of political maneuvering to show off her power, and despised and bullied commoners like herself?

But she had no followers, and she rarely spoke to others first.

She spent most of her time alone, and Lea remembered her always eating alone at the most secluded spot in the cafeteria, away from others.

Of course, she had never seen her bully anyone first.

She only reluctantly reacted harshly when other students picked a fight with her, but she never took the initiative to cause a commotion or bully others.

Of course, because of her ominous reputation, even such passive reactions caused people around her to whisper, but when Lea looked at it, she couldn’t help but wonder if she was really the villainess in the rumors.

And this time, as she became directly involved with her while working on a group project together, Lea became convinced.

Yeon Bennet was not the existence with the overwhelming charisma of evil that she had admired.

She was just… a slightly clueless, somewhat clumsy, and easily swayed woman.

“Haa… How did a woman with that kind of personality get involved in such terrible incidents…”

Lea sighed and muttered.

Should she say she’s more exemplary than she thought?

No, unlike her academy life, which was just lacking in presence, the incidents she was known to have caused in the past were definitely real.

Summoning Contamination, endangering the family and the academy… And recently… even such an unspeakable… incident…

As she thought of that incident, Lea’s face flushed slightly without her knowing it.

Well, she could roughly guess how it happened.

There must have been forces behind the scenes who took advantage of that stupid and innocent, no, pushover-like woman.

They approached Yeon Bennet, aiming for her background and unique abilities, fanned her foolish desires appropriately to use her as they wanted, and quietly slipped away when things went wrong.

It was an obvious scenario.

Just because she was used didn’t mean her sins disappeared, so she didn’t feel particularly sympathetic…

It’s just that, after realizing she was a fool, all interest faded away.

She could no longer feel the charm of the ‘story’ she was looking for in her.

Lea picked up the newspaper article with Yeon’s portrait on it from her desk.

And she was about to throw it in the trash.

Because she thought there was no need to pay attention to this fake villainess anymore.

“…….”

But right above the trash can, her hand paused for a moment.

Lea looked down at the portrait in her hand, as if contemplating for a moment.

Then she chuckled.

“Hmm… Still, she’s decent looking.”

She muttered that and ended up not throwing the portrait in the trash, but randomly inserting it between her thick magic theory books.

…

In a musty smell of mold and the sound of creaking floorboards.

Like another world, a completely different scene from the splendid single room.

In Yeon’s newly assigned dusty, abandoned dormitory room, only the faint moonlight seeping through the cracks in the window barely illuminated the darkness.

And under that moonlight, an unbelievable sight was unfolding.

There, Professor Emilia, with bloodshot eyes, was kneeling right in front of Yeon Bennet.

“T-That… Professor…? You don’t have to go this far…”

As Yeon panicked and didn’t know what to do, Emilia suddenly began to bang her forehead hard on the hard wooden floor without saying anything.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

“I’m really… really sorry, Miss…!”

A dull sound broke the silence and echoed in the room.

“No, it’s okay! You’re bleeding on your head! Stop it! Aaaah!!!”