The Villainess Doesn't Want Love - Chapter 50

At that moment, the young woman standing behind Karina suddenly rushed forward.

“N-No! That person is mistaken!”

The woman grabbed Karina’s hand, who was standing still, and linked arms with her as if they were close friends.

“She’s my friend!”

“What? She’s not?”

The escapees murmured at the young woman’s denial.

“Whose words are correct? Answer me.”

At the leader’s question, no one in the room could easily open their mouths.

When no one stepped forward, the leader drew his sword.

He pointed the drawn sword tip at the old man and asked again.

“You tell me again.”

“Y-Yes…?”

With the sword at his neck, the old man turned pale and stammered.

“Is that woman really the Duchess or not?”

“Th-That… Sh-She is!”

Terrified that his head would fly off if he didn’t answer, the old man replied in a trembling voice.

“Are you sure? Huh?”

“I-I’m sure. A few days ago, when His Grace the Duke came out for an inspection in the city, I… I clearly heard the knights calling this person the Duchess.”

“Is that so?”

Hearing those words, the leader curled up the corners of his mouth into a smirk, then turned to look at the young woman.

The young woman, receiving his gaze, startled and hurriedly refuted.

“It’s not true! I’m a maid working in the Duke’s household. I see the Duchess’s face often, so I know better. I’m telling the truth!”

“…!”

Karina turned to look at the woman beside her.

Not only the escapees, but everyone in the room focused their gazes on them.

“You say you’re a maid in the Duke’s household? Really?”

“If you don’t believe me, check with the Duke’s household. My name is ‘Jen’. I’m a mid-level maid working in the laundry room of the Duke’s household.”

At the mention of being a maid in the Duke’s household, Karina examined Jen’s face again.

‘Jen, she says. Then is this person the maid I was going to meet?’

Karina turned her head to examine the maid’s face.

But the maid’s face was somehow familiar.

“Huh…?”

A sound escaped Karina’s lips.

Jen and Karina’s eyes met.

Seeing those eyes that she had seen before, a memory from the past before the regression came to mind.

[This is the timeline separator]

One cloudy afternoon when the sun was hidden behind clouds.

Karina was sitting dejectedly on a bench in a corner of the garden, feeling completely dispirited.

A moment later, a young maid approached and spoke to her.

“Excuse me…”

“?”

Karina thought she had found a corner where people wouldn’t easily notice her.

Yet she was a bit surprised that someone was speaking to her.

“Would you like to try these?”

The maid who hesitantly approached her held out some candies wrapped in a white handkerchief.

They seemed to be leftovers from failed candy-making attempts, as their shapes were strange or uneven.

“They say eating something sweet when you’re feeling down can make you feel better.”

Below her round left eye, a distinct tear mole was visible.

When Karina didn’t take them and just stared blankly, the maid glanced at her expression and added.

“They’re probably quite inadequate for the Duchess to eat, but this is all I have right now…”

Even as she said this, the maid’s face looked somewhat embarrassed.

It seemed like she was worried that Karina might be offended by being offered such things.

Honestly, Karina wasn’t upset at all at that time.

Rather, she was struggling to hold back tears that felt like they might burst out at any moment.

She was just biting her lip silently, unable to say or do anything for fear that if she opened her mouth, she would start sobbing.

She felt so wronged and frustrated by the maids who always interpreted her words and intentions negatively and treated her with malice.

She didn’t know what to do and was just vaguely feeling sad.

She was so grateful to this maid who approached her first and treated her with kindness.

“Ah… I’m sorry.”

Misunderstanding Karina’s frowning expression as she tried to hold back tears, the maid apologized and quickly left.

“Ah…!”

Karina wanted to grab the leaving maid and explain that it wasn’t like that.

But she couldn’t because tears were already streaming down her face.

She hurriedly wiped away her tears and looked for the maid again, but the maid had already gone far away.

She thought she would clear up the misunderstanding the next time they met.

But that day never came.

Because Caroline fired that maid.

The reason for the dismissal was that she had deliberately broken the frame decorating Karina’s cherished wedding bouquet, pretending it was an accident, and had been spreading malicious rumors about the Duchess behind her back.

It was only later that Karina learned that the maid who had been thrown out without even a letter of recommendation was the same maid who had offered her candy that day.

‘This child is definitely… that child from back then.’

Karina couldn’t take her eyes off Jen, who was holding her arm.

‘Why is this child…’

Though she didn’t show it outwardly, Karina was inwardly surprised.

It was because the maid Jen’s action of reaching out to her first was exactly the same as in the past.

To this maid right now, she was just the Duchess of the Duke’s household whom she had never personally spoken to.

‘Does she believe that someone from the Duke’s household will come to rescue me, and that’s why she’s doing this?’

Karina’s eyes sank deeply as she was lost in thought.

‘Whatever the reason, it doesn’t matter.’

The reason why Jen was helping her wasn’t important.

Karina wanted to return even a little bit of the gratitude she had felt back then to this maid who had approached her first and shown her a small kindness in the past.

“One says it’s true, and one says it’s not.”

The leader’s voice pulled Karina out of her reverie.

“Then one of you two is lying right now, right?”

The leader looked back and forth between the terrified old man and Jen.

The other escapees watched the situation with interest.

“The one who lied should die. Right?”

“…!”

At the leader’s words, the old man and Jen’s faces turned pale.

They were visibly trembling with fear and terror.

A suffocating tension filled the room.

“You answer.”

The leader gestured with his chin towards Karina.

“Are you the Duchess or not? The life of one of these two depends on your answer.”

As he said this, the leader gave an unpleasant smile.

A few of his teeth gleamed gold between his shaggy beard.

A heavy silence fell throughout the room.

Karina raised her head and scanned her surroundings.

Besides the escapees who were looking at her with excited expressions, even the hostages were all staring at her.

Especially the old man and Jen beside her were looking at Karina with extremely tense expressions.

Karina read desperation, fear, and anxiety in their eyes.

In the silence so quiet that even breathing could be heard, Karina calmly opened her mouth.

“You say one of their lives depends on my answer?”

“That’s right.”

At the leader’s affirmative response, Karina raised one corner of her mouth and sneered.

“How ridiculous, really.”

“What?”

When an unexpected response came out instead of the answer he wanted, the man called the leader’s eyebrows twitched.

“Didn’t you say earlier that you’d kill one hostage every hour? If you’re planning to kill everyone anyway, why ask me to choose?”

Karina pointed out, repeating what the escapee had said.

“Kuhahaha.”

The man called the leader started laughing obscenely.

“You’re a clever bitch. You remembered that?”

His tone clearly showed that he treated human lives as lightly as fly lives and was just playing around.

Karina calmly retorted to the leader’s words that looked down on her and sneered.

“I’m quite smart. Unlike you idiots who forget even your own words.”

“Gasp!”

The people around them drew in a sharp breath.

They understood who K

“The crazy ones would be you guys. If you’ve taken hostages, you should use them as hostages. What value is there in killing them?”

“Look at how this one talks. Should we rip out that tongue to make it quiet?”

The leader standing in front of Karina threatened her with savage words.

“It’s because of insolent ones like you that we’ve captured so many. To kill them one by one. That’s when they get scared and start listening well.”

“I don’t understand. We’re going to die anyway, so what is there to be afraid of?”

Karina said calmly.

“Oh ho, if you’re so confident, I’ll kill you first. Let’s see if you can still hold your head up high and babble like that when there’s a knife at your throat.”

Even at the leader’s direct threat, Karina continued without trembling.

“Well, I don’t think I’ll be the only one dying. If the Northern Knights catch you, you’ll all die too.”

Karina gave a chilling sneer.

“You’re escaped convicts with nowhere to run, that’s why you’re staging this reckless hostage situation. And in the Northern lands ruled by House Colsberg at that.”

When the word ‘escaped convicts’ came out of Karina’s mouth, their atmosphere changed.

“Wh-What…”

“How did you know?”

The man called the leader barked at the escapees who were stammering in confusion.

“Which stupid bastard was chattering in front of the hostage?”

He seemed to have mistakenly thought that Karina knew about their situation because she had overheard their conversations.

Ignoring the leader’s irritated shout, Karina continued.

“Do you think the Duke’s household will readily comply with the demands of escaped convicts just because you kill the hostages one by one?”

“…!”

As Karina pinpointed exactly what they were worried about, the escapees became agitated.

Especially the leader’s expression hardened.

He roughly grabbed Karina by the collar.

This made it difficult to breathe as her throat was choked.

Nevertheless, Karina didn’t lose her composure.

“Who are you? Answer properly before I kill you.”

To the man growling with a murderous aura, Karina replied calmly with her eyes wide open.

“I’m the Duchess. The new mistress of the Duke’s household who married Duke Colsberg. Is that answer enough?”

“…!”

[This is the timeline separator]

Mikhail returned to the Duke’s mansion after finishing his errand.

‘Huh? The atmosphere seems a bit unsettled?’

Unlike usual, the servants seemed to be buzzing and distracted.

They were also huddled together whispering about something.

But it wasn’t an unusual situation, given that the young master Genon had been murdered just yesterday, followed by a maid being found dead.

Mikhail, not thinking much of it, headed straight to Karina’s room.

“I’m back!”

There was no one in the room.

“Huh? Did she go to have breakfast?”

The errand had taken longer than expected.

Mikhail lit the fireplace to raise the temperature of the cold room.

So that warmth would greet Karina when she returned.

And then he went down to the dining room to look for Karina.