Raising Villains the Right Way Novel - Chapter 232

Hearing the sudden rush of heavy rain, Seolrang stared vacantly at Lime.

Her expression remained frozen.

As Lime bit her lip nervously, locking eyes with Seolrang, there wasn’t a single trace of deception on her face.

Only anxiety.

That was the only emotion Seolrang could decipher from Lime’s features.

Suddenly, memories of the pranks Lime had played on her in the past flooded Seolrang’s mind.

She used to play all sorts of tricks.

But never once.

Had she ever attempted a joke this cruel.

However, what if she was using this weather as an opportunity to stage a vicious prank?

From what Seolrang had heard, Lime was known to be quite mischievous with others, even if she hadn’t been that way with her.

As her thoughts drifted in that direction, Seolrang remembered the ways she had wronged Lime recently.

Was it because she had snatched the dessert Lime had excitedly purchased upon returning from Ashtalon?

Or maybe it was because she had accidentally broken one of Lime’s favorite plates?

…Thinking back, it wouldn’t be strange for Lime to retaliate with a trick like this, given how poorly Seolrang had treated her.

Feeling a sharp pang of guilt, Seolrang forced a smile.

Sentences began to organize themselves in her head.

It was a prank.

This was definitely Lime’s idea of a joke.

A jest.

Yes, just a jest.

Since Seolrang was the one who had wronged her first.

Lime, unable to endure it any longer, was exacting her own form of revenge.

That had to be the explanation.

But.

“Hey, quit kidding around, Lime—”

Lime’s expression was far too serious for a prank.

“Hey… what are you talking about?”

Without realizing it, Seolrang’s voice trembled at the end of her sentence.

Lime said nothing.

In response to the silence, Seolrang acted even more brightly.

“I know I’ve been a bit harsh lately, but isn’t this joke taking it too far?”

Lime remained silent.

“Huh? Lime? If you want, I’ll buy you a replacement dessert to make up for it!?”

Seolrang shouted, her smile widening.

Her voice shook a little more violently.

Yet Lime remained silent.

“…Lime, I told you, I really don’t like these kinds of pranks.”

When the silence refused to break, Seolrang’s lips went rigid, and she murmured quietly.

By now, Lime should have confessed.

She should have said it was just a joke.

That she was just playing a trick because Seolrang had stolen her dessert.

That was the reaction she needed to hear.

Because this was just a prank.

But since the silence had dragged on long enough,

Now.

She had to say it.

A response.

Seolrang stared at Lime.

Lime kept her mouth tightly shut.

And in her eyes, alongside the anxiety, another emotion began to surface.

…Witnessing that, Seolrang shook her head involuntarily, refusing to understand.

It couldn’t be. This had to be a joke.

It had to be a prank.

Yes, it was just a terribly distasteful joke.

But.

But why.

Why was Lime making that kind of face?

“Seolrang.”

Lime spoke her name.

Then, she parted her lips slightly.

Again and again.

As if speaking was an arduous task.

And then.

Her lips—

“Shall we go buy dessert!?”

—did not get the chance to open.

Before she could utter a word, Seolrang had already seized Lime’s hand.

Her lips curled into a smile.

A smile so forced that anyone could see how unnatural it was.

“That’s what this is about, right? Let’s go get some! It won’t take long! We can be back before Master returns! Let’s hurry and go!?”

Laughing cheerily, Seolrang dragged Lime toward the door.

As if attempting to flee from reality,

She gripped Lime’s hand tightly.

But.

Because it was too pitiful to watch.

“This is not a joke, Seolrang.”

Lime had no choice but to deliver the truth.

Seolrang came to a sudden halt, and Lime felt a suffocating pressure tighten in her chest.

“…Two days ago, the merchant group traveling with the Marquis was ambushed by an unknown man, and only a few survived.”

“……”

“And among those survivors was Sir Evan, the Marquis’s escort knight…”

Lime stopped speaking there.

It wasn’t by choice.

A murderous aura.

A chilling presence began to strangle the air around her.

“Hic…!”

A killing intent so dense it felt as though it could snap her breath in an instant.

It was.

Radiating from Seolrang.

Lime had no choice but to stop talking.

“…Where are they?”

“Huh?”

“The ones who did that to Master. Where are they?”

Lime saw it.

Seolrang’s eyes.

Void of any emotion.

Devoid of even the smallest fragment of feeling.

Her gaze looked as if something crucial inside her had completely shattered and collapsed.

Lime swallowed hard.

“Urk…!”

The first to react to the horrific spectacle beneath the cliff was Penia.

She turned away and dropped to her knees, retching violently.

Rine also knitted her brows, appearing unable to face the scene.

The view below the cliff was devastating.

No, calling it devastating was an understatement—it was so gruesome it could only be described as hell itself.

Alon swept his gaze across the area.

No matter where he looked, all he could see were corpses.

If that were all.

He wouldn’t have considered it this brutal and horrific.

Alon had lived in Psychedelia for over ten years, witnessing countless dead bodies.

Rine and Penia were no different.

Just seeing corpses wouldn’t have made them flinch or gag.

In a dark fantasy world like this, encountering death was an everyday occurrence.

So what was it that brought such an overwhelming sense of despair?

Alon shifted his gaze to the side.

It wasn’t just corpses that he saw.

There was a mountain constructed of severed heads from various species.

Turning his eyes in another direction, he saw another mound—this one formed from brutally slaughtered bodies.

Right beside it, ‘things’ were ripping apart and mutilating the corpses in grotesquely cruel ways.

And when he turned again, he saw the living being hunted.

There was no other word for it.

The first thing that came into view were non-human species desperately fleeing with their arms restrained.

There were all kinds of races.

Elves and beastkin, whom Alon recognized, and others he had never seen before.

Men, women, children—it made no difference.

All of them had their arms bound in restraints as they ran for their lives.

And the ones chasing them were ‘humans.’

‘No… they aren’t human?’

Alon noticed small protrusions growing from the crowns of their heads.

Their general shape resembled that of humans, but there was something unmistakably alien about them.

Before he could contemplate further, one of these creatures grabbed hold of a beastkin.

Alon witnessed its final moments.

Spears impaling its stomach.

The beastkin let out a tortured scream—one so agonizing that immediate death would have been a mercy.

And those creatures…

They were laughing.

As if they were having fun.

Without any hesitation, they drove the spears in deeper.

They were clearly treating this entire situation as a game.

“……”

For the first time, Alon’s usually calm and emotionless eyes sank deep into darkness.

“Aaaaaaaah—!!!”

“Hiiik—!”

A horrifying scream tore through the air.

At the same time, a white-haired girl, who had been running desperately, tripped on a rock and crashed face-first into the ground.

Dirt filled her mouth.

It had a sickening taste, perhaps because the soil was soaked in old blood.

But she had no time to dwell on the taste or the pain.

She scrambled to her feet and began running again.

Her ankle throbbed as if it might snap from the fall.

Still, she did not stop.

Instead, with tears streaming down her face, she clenched her teeth and ran even harder.

She knew all too well what would happen if she halted now.

But then—

Crack.

“Ugh—!”

As if mocking her desperation, her already weakened legs gave out, creaking like broken gears.

And finally—

Thud!

“Aaaaah!!!”

A sharp, excruciating pain shot through her thigh, sending her rolling onto the ground.

A searing agony consumed her body.

Her mind could only process one thought— It hurts.

“Uuuugh—! Ugh—!”

Even in such agony, she clawed at the dirt, desperately dragging her body forward.

She had to escape.

She had to run.

She had to get out of here, no matter what.

So she could survive.

So she could find her family—

Her mother.

Her father.

Her friends.

“Ugh…!”

She swallowed the pain and pulled herself forward.

The stench of blood filled her nose.

The foul odor of a battlefield soaked with countless deaths tormented her senses.

But then—

“You’re trying really hard to run, huh?”

“…!”

Unfortunately, that was the end of her escape.

A rough hand seized her white hair, yanking her up.

It was the same man who had impaled her thigh with a spear earlier.

Her silver-white hair, now matted with blood and soil, was mercilessly pulled back.

She let out a faint groan as she was lifted off the ground.

The man sneered at her helpless form.

And then—

“KyAAAAAAA!!”

As if it was nothing, he twisted the spear still embedded in her thigh.

Her screams tore through the night as her body convulsed violently.

The man only smirked at her suffering.

“Yeah, that’s it. Scream louder. Cry out like the world is ending. Send your terror to Lord Baarma. You can do that, right?”

He pushed the spear even deeper.

And then—

The girl’s body went limp.

She had lost consciousness from the pain.

Without hesitation, the man yanked the spear from her leg—

“For you, Lord Baarma, I offer this.”

With a bright smile, he raised the spear high into the sky.

His frenzied eyes glowed as he fixated on the girl’s heart, her body still bleeding onto the dirt.

And then—

Her disheveled hair framed her delicate, youthful face, now filled with hopelessness.

She had realized the truth.

No matter how much she struggled, she could not escape.

She would die here.

A single tear slid down her cheek.

Memories flickered through her mind like shattered fragments of light.

Her parents’ faces.

Her younger sibling’s smile.

Her friends.

The people of her village.

All the precious moments she had shared with them flashed before her eyes like a fading dream.

The fierce determination that had burned in her gaze, even in this dire situation— began to fade.

The end was coming.

The man sneered as he raised his spear.

He aimed for her heart.

And then—

Crack.

A tiny, nearly imperceptible sound rang in her ears.

“…Huh?”

She became aware of two things.

One—she was being held in someone’s arms.

And two—

“Are you alright?”

The person who had saved her…

Was a man with an emotionless face.

“Penia, can you heal her?”

“I’m not a specialist, but I can handle emergency treatment.”

The man—Alon—handed the white-haired girl over and immediately turned his back.

At the same time—

Crackle—!!!

From his head, two horns of lightning began to grow.

“……Ah.”

The girl’s eyes fixated on the man’s back.

A divine figure, cloaked in lightning.