The Villainess Does Not Want to Die

Chapter 50: Conversation

After meeting Raphael, I returned to the mansion immediately.

The duchy was enveloped in a heavy, suffocating atmosphere, as though it would sink underground at any moment.

Libian was sobbing uncontrollably in front of the coffin, Eileen had cried herself into exhaustion and collapsed, and the Duchess sat silently, staring intently at the portraits of the Duke and his eldest son.

With the Duke and his son gone, it was no surprise that the mood was gloomy. My presence would likely only deepen the despair.

But honestly, I didn’t feel much sorrow.

I could count on one hand the number of times I had exchanged words with the Duke, and I had never spoken to the eldest son beyond simple greetings.

I couldn’t even remember his name.

We had never approached each other—never even tried to.

In that sense, he was likely the person in this household with whom I had the least strained relationship.

He was the only one I didn’t dislike.

Dressed in a black mourning dress, I gazed at the Duke’s portrait. 

He had always seemed tired of life, his manner often tinged with dry humor.

He preferred actions over words, expressing himself by pulling money from his pockets to buy something instead of saying how he felt.

I placed a jewel he had given me when I first arrived at the mansion atop his coffin.

After the Duke and his son were laid to rest, Libian became the new Duke.

By next year, he would likely entrust the duchy’s management to someone else and plunge into society, where women would flock to him like moths to a flame.

Even after the funeral, life at the mansion remained mostly unchanged.

Unlike in the capital, the servants here saw me as beneath them. 

Meals began arriving that looked fine on the surface but were secretly rotting, infested with insects, or riddled with mold.

I ate to fill my stomach, but the pain afterward forced me to smoke opium heavily. It was the only relief.

How many more years would I live like this?

Perhaps my lifespan would be just as it was in the original story.

For some reason, before I attended that ball, I hadn’t wanted to die.

There’s rarely a clear reason for not wanting to die. Most people live simply because they were born, enduring the pain of existence.

That’s what I told myself, anyway—a convenient excuse.

I believed I had a role to play.

I thought that if I met Olivia or the important figures in the Imperial City, I might finally understand my purpose.

As the protagonist, I had naïvely believed that everything would somehow work out if I met the right people.

That’s why I spent the entire social season clinging to them, talking, listening, trying to grow closer.

In hindsight, it feels like a complete waste of time.

Unlike the original version of me, I didn’t slap anyone at the ball or hire thugs to threaten Olivia.

If anything, I was the one being targeted.

Maybe I should’ve just played the role of a petty, hateful character, letting people scorn me until I was cast aside and killed.

I joined the family for dinner for the first time in a while.

Libian sat at the largest chair in the center, the Duchess and Eileen to his right, and I to his left.

There was little conversation during the meal. The atmosphere was far too heavy for idle chatter.

By the time sherbet was served as the final course, I noticed something odd—the head butler was nowhere to be seen.

Had he followed the Duke and his son to their deaths?

After finishing my sherbet, I rose to return to my room, but the Duchess called out to me, leading me to the guest parlor for tea.

Eileen tried to follow, but Libian stopped her, leaving only the Duchess and me in the room.

“What tea would you like?” she asked.

“Hydrangea tea,” I replied.

She nodded, brewing the tea and placing it in front of me. Years of practice had made her tea exceptional, even if little else about her was.

Neither of us spoke.

We weren’t close, and the silence made my hands tremble slightly, leaving me in no mood to break it.

“I always thought time would fix everything,” the Duchess eventually said.

Her tone invited me to ask, so I obliged.

“What do you mean?”

“Everything—my relationship with my husband, my own ugliness, my immature children, and you, who have been broken beyond repair.”

“Broken? I’m perfectly fine.”

“…A normal person doesn’t spend their days clinging to tobacco—especially not the kind laced with powder.”

“You make my body ache just by being near.”

“Of course. This house must feel familiar to you.”

“Why did you call me here?”

“Marisela…”

Her voice trailed off as she stared blankly into her cup, looking lost, as I sometimes do when I face my reflection sober.

“My life… was meaningless. I loved, but was never loved in return. I raised children who would’ve grown fine without me.”

Her voice cracked as she continued, more to herself than to me.

“Everything I’ve done—everything—has only ever ruined, broken, and twisted what it touched.

I was never someone meant to be loved. Who could possibly care for such a wretched woman?”

She looked intoxicated by her own misery as she drained her teacup.

I couldn’t think of anything to say. My lips quivered as they started to move, then stilled.

“Marisela, I’m sorry.”

“What good does apologizing now do?”

“Nothing.”

“You taught me everything I needed, didn’t you? Every rule and etiquette drilled into my body so deeply that breaking them triggers fits. Isn’t that enough? Or should I crawl over and lick your shoes?”

Don’t cry.

Don’t sob.

Look at me with those bloodshot eyes you used when you used to beat me senseless.

Don’t grieve.

Just be angry—yell at me, demand to know how I dare to speak to you this way.

Tell me to know my place.

Tell me I’ll become nothing more than a pathetic prostitute.

Hit me, if you must. Just don’t look at me with sadness.