A Villain's Way of Taming Heroines

Chapter 76  The Devil's Inescapable Shadow - I

It had been less than two months since Seraphina had left the village, yet it felt as if two years had passed.

Everything that had transpired since she was captured by the Count of Red Frost felt like a surreal, absurd dream. The good, the bad, what angered her, what saddened her, what she longed for, what she abandoned... all of it, due to Ansel's words, had become a heartbreaking void. Seraphina Marlowe, toyed with like a jester, yet time and again she had genuinely cared. And that man who never lied to her... heh, in the end, he honestly fulfilled his promise. But in the days and nights after leaving the Red Frost territory, Seraphina wished countless times that he could deceive her forever. Seraphina lost her sister, and also the person who changed her life. She pondered over and over again, wondering why Ansel had to say those things. After the rage subsided, all that was left was an unfillable loneliness and emptiness. No matter how much she thought, Seraphina couldn't find the answer, or rather... she didn't want to find the answer. Because in these past few days, the only answer she could get was... Ansel, was tired of her. He didn't need her anymore, so even though he knew she would leave after knowing the truth, he still told her everything. This was the only thing Seraphina couldn't accept. Because Ansel had said…

"You said… you won't abandon me." The somewhat dazed girl stared at her reflection in the icy lake, murmuring to herself. Seraphina was never a wise person, her departure was simply due to the collapse, anger, and despair of being toyed with. But to let go of Ansel in such a short time was absolutely impossible. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

 "Go to hell, liar." The wolf wiped the weakness and confusion from her face with icy water. Under her wet, snowy short hair, her eyes were dead and cold. The journey home was long yet not long.

With her pace, she returned to the village within four days, but the things she experienced along the way made Seraphina's already closed and cold heart even more lonely. In these four days, she didn't meet any good people. When she left the Red Frost territory, she only took her own things, and all the money she used was ill-gotten. Those "commoners" who robbed on the road, cheated and deceived, drugged the food, poisoned the room in the inn... During these days, Seraphina always remembered the words Ansel said to her during their idle chats. "Seraphina, kindness and wealth have no direct connection." "But often, wealth makes people more calm, while poverty leaves people with no choice." "When you don't put the reasons for wealth and poverty into the discussion, do you think it's more likely for calm people to do whatever it takes, or for people with no choice to do whatever it takes?" Seraphina once scolded Ansel's nonsense, saying that Ansel always confused good and evil, but Ansel just laughed and replied: "I'm not discussing good and evil with you, Seraphina. I'm just explaining to you the choices people will make based on their own situation and position." "But you always look at good and evil from the results of choices, not from the position. This may be right for you, but it may not necessarily be a good thing." "In this way, it's quite like a beast defending its own group, hehehe..." There were many more such words... Now that she thinks about it, Seraphina realized that Ansel had hinted at her many times. But she never listened to his words, not even once. Even now, Seraphina didn't want to think about the troublesome truths Ansel said. "Don't think about him anymore." She whispered these words that she didn't know how many times she had repeated in the past four days, and walked the last stretch of the road home. Seraphina's village was near this icy lake, and she could see it after passing through a forest. There were many paths to the village, and Seraphina chose the longest one, walking slowly and with difficulty. How should she respond to her parents about why she came back? How can she not disappoint them? How would the people in the village view her? Seraphina had already lost enough, she didn't want these last remaining, extremely precious things, to also leave her. Then she really... would have nothing left. Silently passing through the dense forest, the fresh scent of the forest evoked Seraphina's memories, melting a bit of the cold expression she had maintained for some time. She thought of the novelty and joy of her father teaching her to hunt in the forest; the warmth and peace of napping in the sun with her head on her mother's lap; the freedom and happiness of playing and frolicking with friends in the forest. Seraphina thought of many, many... things she missed, cherished, and absolutely couldn't lose.

Seraphina closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and let the familiar vitality to her family and friends reappear on her face. She had never done this kind of thing before, the wolf who always wore her emotions on her face, had instinctively learned to wear a mask. "Growth... heh." The girl sneered, both sarcastically and melancholically. Then, she slapped her face hard, walked briskly along the path out of the dense forest, and as soon as she turned around a towering tree, she could see her village-- Village... village? Seraphina, who had walked out of the forest, stared blankly at the distance. There was no familiar village there. Instead, there was an incredible... small city?

With Seraphina's vision, she could easily see that the originally barren and simple, even rundown small village, was now surrounded by a circle of stone walls, at least five meters high. And those dilapidated wooden houses that she knew should have been covered by this city wall, had all turned into independent villas, very impressive. The towering windmill seemed to announce the rebirth of this village; the irrigation canal that could not have been reclaimed by the villagers' power proved that this ordinary place would flow with extraordinary blood; the wide road extending from the village entrance that had never appeared in Seraphina's memory, demonstrated its destined smooth and unobstructed future. Is this her village? The ordinary poor village where she lived from childhood to adulthood, which can be seen everywhere in the North? What on earth happened here in less than two months?