The Villainess Whom I Had Served for 13 Years Has Fallen

TLed by NolepGuy

Chapter 3

Olivia’s eyes closed along with a slight headache.

[Viewing will begin in 10 minutes.]

She slowly opened her tightly shut eyes.

A familiar ceiling greeted her.

“Ha….”

A faint, lifeless laugh escaped her lips.

Because she wondered if she had truly gone insane.

A room decorated with a pink curtain, designed like any typical noble lady’s room, and dolls neatly placed on the bed.

It was her room from the past.

Everything was the same.

Even the ceiling covered with photographs of Mikhail.

And the attachment doll with Mikhail’s photograph stuck to the teddy bear’s head—it was all the same as it had been a year ago.

Overwhelmed with confusion, her voice came out involuntarily.

“It’s real?”

She cautiously reached out her hand and picked up the teddy bear beside her.

Her attachment doll, which Ricardo had discarded. The soft texture and musty smell were just as she remembered.

She thought her mental illness must be severe, as the vividness of the illusion felt so real. Though an empty laugh escaped her, she couldn’t entirely suppress the peculiar excitement in a corner of her heart.

Because she was looking forward to the future she would soon witness.

What does it matter if it’s a mental illness?

She was already a crazy woman.

Lying on the bed, Olivia carefully looked at her legs.

Smooth legs. On her knee was a Teddy Bear Bandage Given by Ricardo, adorably placed. Olivia lightly flexed her toes.

‘Should I try moving them?’

Suddenly, she felt afraid.

Her lower body, which she hadn’t been able to move for the past year. The memories of her body not feeling like her own overlapped, and she tightly shut her eyes.

‘They moved…! They’re moving!’

But her worries were unfounded. Olivia’s toes moved well, as if mocking her tightly shut eyes.

Her white toes wiggled slightly.

Olivia abruptly sat up on the bed and stood upright on her own.

‘…!’

She felt like crying.

The sensation of standing on solid ground after so long. Olivia couldn’t hide the smile that crept out.

‘Hehe…’

A foolish laugh escaped her lips.

At this moment, she was glad to be crazy. Even if she were called a crazy woman, it was fine as long as she could feel the joy of walking again, even for a moment.

As a strange sense of fulfillment filled her entire body.

Olivia began to feel certain.

That what she was about to witness would not be a nightmare. How could it be, when she was this happy? She wondered what her past self, unbothered by the butler, would have been like.

Would she have been so ecstatic that she couldn’t think straight?

‘See, I wasn’t wrong.’

-Tick-tock, tick-tock.

The sound of the clock hands moving filled the quiet room.

Olivia turned her head to check the time.

11:59 PM.

Olivia found this date and time familiar.

‘It was probably at the stroke of midnight, right?’

The day she used dark magic.

The time she entered the room.

In truth, Olivia’s memory of that day was incomplete.

She remembered entering the room.

But she couldn’t recall the rest.

All she remembered was something pricking her and the immense pain. Then, she had lost consciousness.

What she remembered clearly was entering the room at midnight, and Ricardo barging in to interrupt her dark magic. That was all she could recall.

Was it because she had been too excited?

Or was it the aftereffect of failing the dark magic?

‘Why did it happen? I’ll know if I see it now.’

The time passed and struck midnight.

[Viewing begins.]

After the blue text appeared.

A familiar voice could be heard beyond the door.

-This is all I need.

A voice brimming with excitement.

A voice filled with happiness, like a child promised a toy by their parents, opened the door and entered.

‘I looked prettier back then.’

Unlike her current dull white hair, her past self had black hair and a radiant smile at the age of twenty. Her smile was confident and full of elegance.

There was a time like that.

She reminisced about the past with a hint of regret in her eyes.

Time flowed quickly.

Lying on the floor, following the black magic book she had obtained from the black market, carving a magic circle onto her body and the floor. Her past self was reckless and filled with endless laughter, and it seemed contagious.

It was pleasant to see.

She couldn’t stop smiling the entire time she watched.

For exactly one hour, that is.

One hour after drawing the magic circle.

Olivia felt goosebumps rise on her forearm.

-Mix the blood of the person you love with my own….

-It’s almost done. It’s all finished now.

-Hehehe….

‘Did I make that kind of expression?’

It was chilling.

Her past self, drawing the magic circle with eyes consumed by madness, looked just like a fanatic.

‘I really looked like that?’

She wanted to deny it.

She had neither such an unsightly face nor was she someone prone to obsession.

She had thought of herself as just a girl with an unrequited love like anyone else.

But the version of herself she was seeing was too grotesque.

And yet, she couldn’t deny it wasn’t her.

-Mikhail. Mikhail. You’re mine, so you’ll understand, won’t you?

Because of the familiar name that came out of her mouth.

4:30 AM.

The room was shrouded in darkness.

Her past self illuminated the room with her back to the light, gazing at the completed magic circle.

This was all Olivia remembered about that day.

She remembered thinking of Mikhail, channeling her mana, and experiencing excruciating pain. Then, Ricardo barging in and flinging open the door. That was all she remembered.

Olivia clenched her hands tightly.

No matter the process, the time to prove that what she had done that day wasn’t wrong had arrived.

‘As long as the outcome is good, that’s all that matters.’

The picture she envisioned.

Not the one where the damn butler interfered. After a brief moment of pain.

The dark magic would succeed, and she would envision a happy future with Mikhail.

Going on dates, hugging, and warmly calling each other’s names. Thinking about that scene made Olivia’s heart swell.

“Yeah. As long as the outcome is good, right?”

Olivia clenched her fist tightly.

She saw herself standing in the center of the magic circle after completing all the preparations.

-Good, it’s perfect.

The mana flowed.

The magic circle began to quickly absorb her past self’s mana.

-Keek… Kekeke.

A chilling sound echoed.

The sound of the ground cracking.

The magic circle drawn on the floor began to glow black, and the spell formula engraved on her body turned red as it coursed through her veins.

‘Wha… What?’

At that moment, she had a hunch. Something had gone wrong.

-What is this? Why is this happening?

It seemed her past self also realized something was off.

Her eyes widened, frozen in shock at the unexpected turn of events, unable to do anything. Olivia shouted.

Olivia shouted.

“Get a grip, you idiot! What are you doing!”

But now, her voice couldn’t possibly reach her.

Olivia had no choice but to observe.

-What is this? Why is this happening? This shouldn’t be happening! The magic book clearly said it would glow pink!

Her past self frantically flipped through the pages.

She quickly searched and read the pages of the magic book that contained the method for brainwashing someone’s mind.

-There’s not a single mistake. There wasn’t. I definitely did it perfectly… I prepared both Mikhail’s blood and my own!

Her voice grew increasingly desperate.

The confident expression she had worn was long gone, replaced by one of panic.

-I even drew the magic circle perfectly…!

-I brought the blood Mikhail shed at the training grounds too! So what went wrong?

-Swish… swish.

The pages turned rapidly.

-Swish…

-Swish…!

In the vision, Olivia’s past self opened the last page of the book, and her voice gradually faded.

-Huh?

Olivia, who had been reading the magic book over her shoulder, froze when she read those words.

-No way.

(The magic will only activate if the direction of affection aligns, even slightly.)

-There’s no way. Mikhail wouldn’t feel that way about me. I’m Olivia, the flower of society.

Contrary to her words, her head drooped lower and lower.

Olivia’s voice grew quieter.

In the end, her past self buried her face in the black magic book, clenching her fists so tightly that her hands turned pale, repeating that it couldn’t be true.

-Sob… No, it’s not true!

She was crying desperately.

-This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening!

Olivia, unable to do anything, felt flustered.

Everything about this situation felt strange.

Starting with the fact that her magic had failed, to the realization that she hadn’t met the conditions for the magic to activate.

Nothing about it felt real.

‘Did I really act like that?’

Her trembling wouldn’t stop.

Her mind was filled with nothing but denial, repeating, ‘No, no.’

Gradually, black mana began to engulf her past self. Her pale skin turned black, and blood started dripping from her nose.

It was a sign of her dark magic failing.

-Aaaaaaah!

A piercing scream rang in her ears.

Remembering the horrifying pain of that day, Olivia’s arms broke out in goosebumps.

‘Stop it.’

Olivia hurriedly moved her body.

She tried to pull her past self away from the magic circle. She reached out urgently.

But Olivia’s hand couldn’t make contact.

[This is the observer’s perspective. You cannot interfere with the subject.]

Her hand passed through her body uselessly, accompanied by a cold voice.

“Get up, you idiot. Get up! Get out of there! Are you so eager to die?!”

Contrary to Olivia’s desperate plea.

Her past self remained rooted to the spot.

-No. My magic can’t be wrong. I’m sure it worked.

-My magic is perfect.

-It’s perfect, isn’t it? There’s no way I, the top ranker of the academy, could make a mistake.

Her past self gritted her teeth and endured.

-It must be because the activation time is too short. If I hold on just a little longer, it will activate.

Olivia was terrified.

She was utterly terrified of her reckless, moth-to-a-flame self.

“Please, just… come out.”

Even as her flesh began to rot from the dark magic, her past self stubbornly persisted, and it was utterly horrifying.

Olivia covered her ears and closed her eyes.

*

How much time had passed?

A raspy voice broke through the fingers covering her ears.

-Aaaaaaah! It hurts… It hurts so much…!

Her past self was breaking down helplessly.

She looked to be in so much pain.

She looked so agonized that it hurt Olivia just to watch.

Clutching her chest, Olivia cried out.

“Somebody, please help her.”

But no one would hear her.

Her past self had cast a silence magic outside the room to focus entirely on the dark magic.

Her past self screamed hoarsely.

-Aaaaaaah… It hurts… It hurts! Mom… Mom!

“Please, someone save her! She’s in so much pain…”

Her past self was pulling at her hair, sobbing uncontrollably.

Just how much pain was she in?

Watching her was painful enough to make Olivia feel as if she were the one suffering.

“No, this isn’t right.”

Her rotting flesh.

Her skin burning away to ash.

Olivia couldn’t bear to watch the horrifying scene any longer.

What had she been thinking, believing the dark magic would succeed?

Where had it all gone wrong? She had no answers.

All she wanted now was for someone to help her.

Olivia shouted.

“Isn’t anyone there? She’s in so much pain! She’s saying she feels like she’s going to die! Somebody, anybody, help her!”

Her Past Self was no different.

-Save Me! Please Save Me!

Scratching the floor while screaming.

It was utterly pitiful.

The smoke from burning flesh filled the room.

Olivia blocked her nose with her sleeve.

“Cough. Cough…”

-Please Save Me…!

A fading groan.

Her Past Self said this until the very end.

-Mikhail… Help me…

-Mikhail, please save me. I was wrong about everything, so please, I beg you, save me.

Olivia instinctively cursed her Past Self.

“Get a grip, you Crazy Woman──!”

Yet she kept calling out.

-Mikhail, help me.

Around the time she was about to take her last breath.

Her Past Self uttered a familiar name.

-Ricardo. Save me.

[The perspective shifts.]

It was the familiar ceiling again.

Some time seemed to have passed, as the room was neatly organized. The photographs of Mikhail that had covered the walls were gone.

Half out of her mind, Olivia struggled to lift her head.

There was a single frame on the bed.

Olivia let out a hollow laugh.

“Ricardo was telling the truth.”

The familiar face smiling brightly,

was her own.

She must have died.

That Crazy Woman.

She thought she would have been happy if Ricardo hadn’t helped, but she had died.

‘…’

A man sat on the bed, wiping the dust off the frame.

With a lone chrysanthemum placed humbly.

Olivia found that back figure familiar.

The man with red hair she mocked daily as lowly, and skin paler than hers.

He was her Butler.

Ricardo was wearing a white shirt with exposed arms. He kept his head down, trying not to show his expression.

He spoke softly.

“Why do what you were told not to do.”

There was a tremor in his Voice.

“Do you know how much effort I put in?”

He looked like he was about to cry.

Like a child holding back tears.

It seemed like a slight nudge would make him cry.

Olivia stood silently behind Ricardo.

Ricardo stayed by the bedside until dawn.

He kept watch over the bed.

[Viewing is suspended.]

***

Her forehead felt cold.

“What are you doing, Young Lady?”

A familiar Voice was heard.

The Butler with Red Hair holding a Wet Towel to her.

The man her Past Self had desperately sought in her dream had an expression of incomprehension.

“Did you have a Nightmare?”

“…”

“Are you going to stay silent and make me feel awkward?”

“A dream?”

“Yes. You’ve been sleeping all day.”

He placed the back of his hand on her forehead to check her temperature.

Olivia tensed her legs.

Her legs didn’t move at all.

She was back in reality.

A sense of relief washed over her.

Whether it was insanity or reality, she had experienced the worst Nightmare.

It was a Nightmare she never wanted to have again.

Olivia looked Ricardo up and down.

As always, Ricardo wore Long Sleeves and long pants. He smiled warmly at her, as he always did.

“Are you hungry?”

“Shut up.”

Her Butler.

It was Ricardo.