The Villainess Lives Twice

Chapter 298

24. 24. On the way back

When she opened her eyes, it was dawn.

Artizea wiggled her feet in the duvet. Her ankles were sore. She wasn’t sure if it was moving properly.

She then tried to move her hand.

There was pain in her index finger. Artizea tried to wipe the part with her thumb. The finger where she felt pain was empty.

“That was not a dream.”

Her voice cracked, but it came out well.

Her last memory was that of a blue pillar of light from the magic circle rising over Cedric’s shoulder.

Moonlight leaked in through the window. The person who was sitting by the window stood up.

“You woke up?”

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“…… Miss Lysia.”

Artizea called her, as if in her dreams.

The moonlight fell on Lysia’s hair that looked faded. It was as if at least 15 years had passed.

“Long time no see.”

Lysia smiled.

Artizea really thought it was. It was only last year that Lysia had left, but it had been a decade since they had really met.

They knew each other had old memories.

She picked out the news Artizea wanted to know and wrote it in the letter. She wrote it down every time that she could, which was good.

When she wrote that things are going well here, underneath it were the words that she was alive and that she was not in pain.

But in the end, a letter is a letter.

She was able to rewrite and choose words. She adequately covered up the old things and put forward the new relationship.

She thought of the day they would meet again. Then, she thought about how to hide her bare face.

However, there was never a time when that moment was materialized in Artizea.

Because her thoughts have always stopped at “If they meet again-.”

Artizea lowered her gaze, not looking straight into Lysia’s face.

Then, she saw that her own hair, which had been messed up on the bed, had turned white.

“Don’t try to get your body up. The trauma has healed, but it’s not just injuries.”

“Yes…….”

“You lost your finger forever. No matter how much healing power I have, I can’t create something that isn’t there.”

“Yes…….”

Artizea answered calmly. It didn’t matter at all.

“Your ankle will continue to be a bit uncomfortable. Because the magic circle dug into your ankle……. It wasn’t a physical problem. But still…….”

Lysia said softly,

“Now, everything is fine. It’s over.”

Artizea raised her head and looked at her.

She didn’t always believe everything Lysia said was fine.

More often than not, when Lysia said that, it was another expression of ‘I could still stand it, and I could work harder’.

But Artizea now knew.

Lysia was really fine. After she went through all that, she was fine.

What was looking down at Artizea wasn’t the Saintess who was holding out exhaustedly. She wasn’t even a dying woman.

She was still only twenty years old, and she was a young and strong person that Artizea did not know well.

And she survived all the misfortunes, and she was now a better person.

When she realized that, tears rolled down from Artizea’s eyes.

“Huh, sniff…….”

“I told you. I’m fine. And I forgave you.”

Lysia reached out and stroked Artizea’s hair tenderly.

“And you will be fine. Lord Cedric is fine now. It’s all over now.”

Artizea took her hand and sobbed.

* * *

The embankment was unharmed. A few people were injured in the fire, but not many.

The wildfire did not spread. Now, the forces in each village, the security forces in the City of Kader, and the Western Army are working together to search for explosives that may have been left in other places.

Most of the bandits led by Lawrence were captured. There were cases where internal strife arose between them and they were killed and injured while infighting.

Some of the capital nobles followed Lawrence. Some were caught and some managed to escape.

But that wasn’t a big deal either.

After all, they couldn’t do anything anymore. They would have to live on the list of traitors and be pursued.

And Lysia said,

“Treat yourself. Live the rest of your life carefully, cherish your life.”

Artizea wiggled her nervous fingers under the blanket while she paused for a moment.

The memory of arms bursting inside the magic circle was vivid. It was so unrealistic that it felt like a dream.

Her heart was beating like it was going to explode.

“Your life is not yours now.”

“Yes…….”

It was a magic circle that should have operated by accepting Artizea’s life as a price.

But Cedric intervened and took part.

Artizea was alive thanks to Cedric’s vitality.

And at the end, Lysia suppressed and closed the magic circle that ran rampant with her enormous power.

“Cedric said so. You once said you turned back time by magic.”

When Lysia ran up and put her hand on it, there were obviously two magic circles there.

One of them was aiming tenaciously at Artizea without any function.

After hearing that declaration, Artizea looked at Lysia, and then she lowered her eyes again.

“…… yes.”

She sacrificed her life for the first, and dedicated her soul to the second.

Therefore, the second magic that blocked the embankment functioned and ended after eating some of Artizea and Cedric’s vitality.

However, Artizea had to die for the first magic circle to turn back time to end.

Divine power and vitality are homogeneous forces. So Artizea regarded the words sacrificing life and sacrificing divine power as similar.

If it’s not possible to cut and use others’ life with her divine power, there’s no other choice but to kill and sacrifice herself.

But the magic couldn’t be that simple. It was true that the first magic would be completed only when she died.

Because of that, the magic circle remained unclosed. In the term of magic, it has penetrated the now lost time and space and has been connected to the present.

That must have been the reason why there were still returners.

Artizea felt that the oracle that God had bestowed upon her took on another meaning.

“Until Miss Lysia forcibly ended the spell with your power, it remained.”

“Yes.”

said Lysia. And as she looked at Artizea’s gray hair and lean face, she struggled to speak in a bright voice.

“Now that I have healed your injuries and replenished your damaged vitality with divine power, your body will recover little by little over time. Not to mention a strong person like Lord Cedric. Lord Cedric is not going to die. Never.”

Perhaps, before half a year has passed, his hair will be all black again, Lysia said as if scornfully.

Artizea smiled softly without realizing it. Lysia followed her and smiled.

And she said,

“But I don’t know how much vitality the magic took in return, or how many of those years Lord Cedric replaced. We don’t know how many years a person’s lifespan is in the first place.”

Perhaps, Artizea would live long, and perhaps she would die tomorrow.

And maybe Cedric died a week later.

It wasn’t a health issue.

Cedric didn’t want to say this to Artizea. But Lysia thought that she should tell her.

Even to make her cherish it.

Artizea stifled a smirk.

“That too…… It’s a game of probability.”

“Yes.”

“If Lord Cedric is okay with it, that’s it.”

Artizea said so.

At best, the Emperor who had barely built the Empire by the conspiracies in the small room should not have died prematurely.

But the man who loved her gave her his precious life.

In front of his tears, Artizea could no longer say, “You can’t do that.”

She didn’t even want to.

Now she could not say that she would take responsibility alone. Cedric has already endured everything with her.

But how could he waste his life?

For a long time, Artizea, conscious of the heart beating in her chest, pondered about life.

After waiting for her to accept the whole story, Lysia spoke one last time,

“And there was something I wanted to tell you.”

Lysia said so, and she took Artizea’s hand.

“Tia, divine power is the power to believe. That power comes when you believe that this can change the world in the right direction.”

Most of the forms of the divine power are limited because the users believe that it is their own divine power gained after the first time they have expressed the most strongly prayed for it.

If Lysia hadn’t returned, if she hadn’t finally changed, she would have thought she had received healing powers from God.

“You naturally learned to use the powers, but you never developed any powers. Because you believed nothing.”

Artizea did not believe that she could change the world for the better.

All she believed was that the power needed a price. So, in that way, she can spend her life and pay the price with her body.

Lysia did the same. Her divine powers acted as healing powers at first.

So she believed that healing would be the way to save the world. So she continued to use that power, and she couldn’t use any other power.

It was when Lawrence began installing explosives in the Abba River that she realized otherwise.

She suddenly noticed the true use of divine power.

When she desperately wanted to kill by tying her life and Lawrence’s life together, a power in a different direction emerged.

Still, Lysia persevered.

She wouldn’t let Lawrence destroy her. She might have been able to die with him once, but not anymore.

While she was imprisoned, she studied divine power and refined the use.

It was not a force in the direction God wanted it to be. This is because it was not the power to make the world right, but the power for one’s own desires.

That’s why it uses vitality instead of divine powers.

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But Artizea was the opposite.

“I have seen your divine powers manifest.”

said Lysia.

She saw clearly.

The light from above the hill changed from white to green.

It meant that Artizea had the right heart and moved in the right direction.

“You didn’t calculate the profit back then; to grant favors or remove grudges, or to exercise some of the odds to fight for power. You did it because you thought it was the right thing to do.”

“Miss Lysia…….”

“So……You have obeyed the will of God.”

Lysia said kindly.