Please Leave The Sickly Villainess Alone

As I stepped back from how close he had gotten, he took two steps forward towards me.

His expression seemed so firmly angered that without realizing it, I was about to blurt out an apology for pinching his cheeks, when he let out a heavy sigh and said:

“You’re bleeding from your feet.”

“…Huh?”

Luka promptly knelt down on one knee and checked the state of my feet.

After gingerly looking over the injured soles with his warm hands, he sighed lightly once more and then turned away.

“Get on my back, I’ll treat them.”

“Oh… okay.”

The small room right next to where Luka led me only had basic ointments and bandages.

As I sat swinging my feet on the makeshift bed, Luka scolded me not to move as he searched for the ointment.

He then carefully applied the ointment he found to the injured areas. The stinging sensation was bearable.

Yet Luka’s expression remained unusually serious.

It seemed like more than just concern for me was weighing on his mind.

That’s when I noticed his arms were slightly trembling.

I abruptly rolled up his sleeves.

“…What’s this?”

My voice dropped instantly.

There were bright red marks from a whip on his pale wrists.

“Don’t just say it’s nothing again like last time.”

He had been so strict about treating my injuries, yet so lenient about his own condition.

Luka, who had been looking up at me with those red eyes, seemed to concede as he lowered his gaze.

This time I treated his wounds, sitting in silence as I applied the ointment while he gazed at me intently.

As he stealthily flashed a small smile, Luka looked impossibly mature for being just fourteen, one year younger than me – no wonder he was the male lead, with devilish good looks despite his just-woken-up face.

Luka raised his uninjured left hand and caressed my cheek.

“…Don’t make that face.”

I must have looked as serious as Luka had earlier.

It was clear he didn’t care at all about his own condition.

If it had been me, or any of the other children, we would have cried and fussed over such injuries.

Seeing Luka’s indifference while I fretted made me sigh involuntarily.

And the words that came out were half impulsive.

“I’ve made up my mind. I can’t live like this anymore.”

I spoke resolutely. I had to escape from this hopeless orphanage.

Luka gazed down at me and asked evenly:

“Why, are you going to try escaping?”

Startled by his blunt question, I hurriedly covered his mouth with my hand.

After checking that no one was around outside the cramped room, I turned back to him in relief, only to find his dark eyes staring piercingly at me.

“Take me with you, sister.”

He only called me that when it suited him, despite us not sharing a single drop of blood.

His angelic face belied the ominous words.

“Don’t think of running away alone. I’ll chase you to the ends of the earth.”

I gaped at Luka as he smirked confidently, driving the nail in.

Was that a request or a threat?!

‘According to the original story, Luka was supposed to be rescued from the orphanage by the female lead a year from now…’

But, then again, I hadn’t completely ruled out taking Luka with me.

In the novel I was reincarnated into, I was both Luka’s benefactor who deeply traumatized him with guilt, and the villainess.

When the male protagonist Luka faced a life-or-death crisis at the orphanage, it was me in the story who lost my own legs saving him.

That incident made me Luka’s benefactor, but also served as an excuse for me to drive a wedge between him and the female lead as the villainess.

So if I escaped alone, Luka could face that deadly crisis with no one to save him and actually die.

‘Come to think of it, it might be better to take Luka with me. Keeping our limbs intact takes priority over being constrained by the original story.’

He meant more to me than just the male lead of the novel.

Yes, he was like family.

Moreover, he would surely be helpful in achieving my first plan after escaping.

I nodded firmly.

“…Alright. Since I don’t know where we should go, let’s escape this place together.”

At my reassuring words to trust your ‘sister’, Luka feigned surprise before smiling as if he had been waiting for this.

“Yes, I’ll go anywhere with Ria.”

* * *

It was only after the morning light rose and the children left their rooms that Luka and I could spend the sleepless pre-dawn hours, once we had first cleaned up the living room which was in disarray from the shattered glass shards.

We lay side-by-side on the makeshift bed in the small room, separate from the children’s rooms where they could finally sleep soundly.

Gazing at Luka facing me, I fell into deep contemplation.

As soon as I had agreed to run away, I was suddenly gripped by fear.

Why, the real reason I had left the previous night wasn’t to get water, but to check if there were any passages out of the orphanage that didn’t pass by Miss Layola’s room.

‘Escape’ was considered an unforgivable, grievous sin in this place above all else.

I had heard this cruel orphanage was over 30 years old, yet there had only been a single successful escape case in all that time.

Aside from being adopted, there was no way out of the orphanage. But typical nobles had no interest in an institution located in such a deep forest.

So once the children of Troy Orphanage turned fifteen, they were sold off to Duke Kablos’ criminal enterprises lurking in the seedy underbelly of the Empire, doing all manner of villainy.

According to the novel, the supposed benefactor and true owner of this orphanage was an underling of Duke Kablos, cultivating these children into future criminals.

Layola would repeat endlessly with a dry mouth:

-The world is so dangerous and corrupt that parentless orphans like you could be snatched away without a trace?

She never specified who she meant, let alone admitting it was herself.

That’s how we had been trapped here growing up under the pretense of ‘protection’.

The dozens of henchmen appearing whenever villains showed up didn’t materialize out of nowhere.

This place utterly failed to align with an orphanage’s purpose of helping children find new guardians.

And now that I had turned fifteen, I was due to be sold off as one of Duke Kablos’ underlings.

Gazing up at the cobwebs hanging from the ceiling shrouded in darkness, I mentally composed a letter.

To my family in the other world I longed to see.

‘Your daughter has become X…’

* * *

I still vividly remember that day from my earliest childhood, when I was loaded into the rear compartment of a cold carriage, relying only on a thin blanket as I was taken somewhere.

As a three-year-old child, with no consideration given, I repeatedly lost consciousness from the jerky motions of the carriage before finally arriving, utterly spent, at this very place – the Troy Orphanage.

-Don’t let this child out until she turns fifteen. After that, send word and I will come retrieve her.

Even in my dazed state, that cold voice rang clearly.

One of my worst memories was opening my eyes to Miss Layola’s horrific face peering into the small cradle I had been placed in after the man left!

Without a care for scratching me with her sharp nails, she abruptly lifted me out and flung me towards the oldest-looking girl among the dozens of children gawking at us, before heading back inside.

‘Just what is this situation?’

If I was bewildered, the girl must have been even more so. I glanced up at her… and for the first time since reincarnating here, I saw a warm smile.

“Oh child, you’ve forgotten your memories from before coming here? It must have been quite a shock, I understand… Your name is Ria. It’s such a lovely name.”

That girl – Serine – spoke to me dozens of times a day with a gentle voice.

Constantly disoriented, I gradually found stability thanks to her kindness.

I never imagined my life would be so short-lived.

With exceptional athletic ability, I had won numerous youth kendo tournaments from a young age, and as an adult was highly regarded as a potential national representative.

What allowed me to persevere through the sudden injury and shattering of my lifelong dreams was solely my family’s support.

That most precious bond, more valuable than anything in the world – I passed away without a chance to even say goodbye to them.

Among the passengers on that bus, I wondered if anyone else survived? The massive accident made it impossible to identify survivors at the time. Violently thrown onto the cold asphalt, I closed my eyes while beautifully surrounded by the first snowfall of the season.

Is there anything after death? People posit myriad plausible answers to that fundamental question, but in reality we know so little.

Perhaps all those seemingly reasonable answers arose from forcing logic within the confines of common sense.

Everyone subconsciously believes the world only operates within the limits of common sense.

But the actual world, no, the entire universe, was far more insane than that.

Gazing at my unrecognizable reflection in the mirror, I suppressed a sigh.

Sister Serine would tell the children my silver hair and green eyes made me look mystically elven.

‘Should I consider being alive now a miracle, or ask God if a world like this actually exists in reality?’

The orphanage housed infants, but they were solely the charges of sister Serine and the other children who appeared around her age.

The orphanage director Layola only showed her face early morning or late night, never leaving her room otherwise.

With sister Serine’s help, after my cat-bath I received praises for politely eating the potato soup with floating carrot pieces at breakfast without being a picky eater.

“Ria is so well-behaved!”

‘Just how old am I, though? And this name Ria, I feel like I’ve heard it somewhere before… Ah well, I probably just mixed it up with some hamburger joint name.’

At the time I brushed it off as insignificant.

Unaware of the future that awaited.