The Villainess Does Not Want to Die

Chapter 13: Some time later.

After another idle and exhausting lesson, the Duchess dismissed us.

On my way back to my room, excited at the thought of snacking on some slightly stale but delicious cheese biscuits, Eileen stopped me in my tracks.

“I told my brother to tell you I wanted to talk after class. Didn’t you hear?”

“I did.”

At my response, Eileen’s face turned slightly red, and her whole body began to tremble as if she desperately wanted to express her anger.

“Then you just ignored me and left?!”

“What do you want me to do about it?”

Eileen sneered and puffed herself up as if to flaunt her superiority.

She then grabbed my arm again when I tried to pull away and head back to my room.

Why is she so clingy?

What, is she starving for attention?

Even though she seemed ready to die of adoration for the Duchess.

“We’re going on a family picnic soon, and I thought I’d take you along so you wouldn’t feel left out!”

“Not my problem. You can go do your stupid happy family picnic nonsense or whatever.”

I didn’t mean for my words to come out so harshly, but they did.

Startled, I raised my hand to my mouth.

There wasn’t really anything wrong with what I said.

Maybe it was just that perpetually smiling face of hers that irritated me enough to blurt it out.

I yanked my arm free and continued walking toward my room.

“…I went out of my way to suggest taking you along, and you call it nonsense? You, of all people?”

Angered, Eileen shoved me from behind.

Whether it was because she wasn’t fully grown yet or because she was exhausted from dancing earlier, the push lacked strength.

Even so, I toppled forward, flailing my legs comically, and landed face-first on the floor.

I tried to get up, but my legs wouldn’t cooperate. Maybe I’d hit my head hard enough to make something malfunction.

Every time I pushed myself up slightly, I wobbled and collapsed again.

“Ugh….”

Giving up on standing for now, I decided to at least lift my head.

Using my right hand to steady my slightly spinning head, I looked ahead.

Two servants were cleaning the windows: one holding a ladder steady, the other dusting off the glass from above. They glanced at me but made no move to help.

If anything, their faint smirks suggested they were amused by my fall.

Nice job, Lady Eileen, they must have been thinking.

Put that fool in her place. The one who thinks she’s a noble but is no better than us window cleaners.

As I touched my nose, I heard an unsettling crunch, a sound that shouldn’t come from any human body part.

At the same time, blood began to drip—no, pour—down my face.

With the blood flowing, my body seemed to regain some strength.

I pressed my palms against the floor to push myself up, but they slipped on the blood, and I face-planted again.

God, this is annoying.

My head hurts.

This time, summoning all the strength I had, I managed to stand.

But I was still dizzy and unsteady.

Smearing blood from my nose on the pristine white walls, I leaned against them and staggered toward Eileen.

She looked at me, visibly shaken.

You pushed me with all your might. Why are you looking at me like that?

You should be brimming with confidence, ready to declare, I’ll rid this family of parasitic halfwits like you!

“Eileen, you didn’t do that on purpose, right?”

Eileen flinched slightly, then raised her voice in defiance.

“Wh-What if I did? What are you going to do about it?”

Even at a moment like this, she was trying to keep up appearances.

Maybe she’d been coddled too much growing up.

If the Duchess had taken even a fraction of the effort she spent whipping me and applied it to disciplining Eileen, she wouldn’t have turned out so spoiled.

“Nothing.”

Silence fell.

That stifling, suffocating kind of silence I hated.

The kind that reminded me of moments before my mother had an outburst, when the Proxy Manager lay stabbed and bleeding, or when I was crouched in a corner at the orphanage.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Taking a deep breath, I tried to steady my spinning head.

Though my gaze was fixed on Eileen, I lacked the energy to glare at her properly.

My nose throbbed, my once-white clothes were stained red, and the pitiful girl in front of me was fidgeting nervously, stealing glances at me.

“I-I’m sorry. It’s just… you swore at me out of nowhere, and I got annoyed….”

“…Sure.”

I tried to respond, but pain flared in my mouth, making it difficult to form words.

My mouth tasted faintly metallic.

Ignoring Eileen, I turned and walked in the opposite direction.

She was saying something behind my back, but I didn’t pay attention.

Maybe my head was too full of long-buried feelings to focus.

“You’re hurt! Where are you going? You need to see a healer first!”

Wounds heal with spit.

Seriously.

It just takes a while.

I approached the servants by the ladder. They tensed and swallowed nervously as I got closer.

To reassure them, I smiled.

In return, they offered back an awkward and somewhat frightened smile.

From behind me, I could hear Eileen shouting something as she approached. I turned and kicked the ladder with all my might.

The servant at the top screamed as he fell, tumbling off the ladder and crashing down onto the one holding it steady below.

“If your master gets hurt, you’re supposed to rush over and help, not just laugh about it like it serves them right.”

I stood there, looking at them for a long moment, before spitting the blood pooling in my mouth onto their faces.

Gross, maybe, but imagine—spit mixed with the blood of a beautiful girl? A reward, even for worthless servants like them.

…Or maybe that was too far.

After all, I’m no better than they are.

Not here, anyway.

“What are you doing?!”

Eileen yelled as she rushed over, shoving me lightly—too lightly, likely remembering how her earlier push had sent me sprawling.

I looked at her.

She was breathing heavily, staring at the servants on the floor with a confused expression. 

She looked angry at first, but when her gaze shifted to my disheveled state, her anger seemed to dissipate completely.

It wasn’t that she wasn’t as bad as I thought.

It’s just that normal people feel guilty when they hurt someone who hasn’t done anything to harm them.

Why, even my mother, who nearly strangled me in a fit of rage, had apologized afterward.

Of course, a week later, she’d said something like, Maybe it would’ve been better if you’d never been born.

And the day after that, she told me she loved me again.

It’s funny how pain seems to sharpen your thoughts.

My mind raced, thoughts cascading faster than I could keep up with.

“Why? Does watching someone like me treat servants like trash suddenly fill you with sympathy? I’m just some half-wit, bleeding all over the place. What does it matter?”

“That’s not it…”

“Then what is it?”

I stepped closer to one of the servants, who was clutching his shin and writhing in pain.

“Tell me, Eileen. Just like you said, someone like me can’t do anything. I’m the idiot you always call me. And all I can do is this.”

I stomped down lightly on the shin he was clutching.

The servant screamed.

Covering my ears briefly from the noise, I quickly uncovered them again.

“It’s just lashing out because I feel bad. You do it to me, and I do it to them.”

“I… I’ve never done anything like this!”

Whether it’s cutting with words or hitting with fists—what’s the difference?

Honestly, I’d have preferred to be hit instead.

When I heard whispers about how I might not even carry my father’s blood because my mother was a prostitute, I had to come up with dozens of reasons to stay silent.

Who got her kicked out of her home?

If they hadn’t met and indulged themselves, I wouldn’t have been born into this wretched place to endure such humiliation.

I’d clench my teeth and remind myself that doing anything would only make it worse.

Even though my hands and feet trembled.

They probably thought I was just scared.

“I bet.”

Eileen seemed startled—perhaps she’d never seen someone writhe and cry in pain before.

Leaving her frozen in place, I turned and began walking away.

Click.

Click, click, click.

The sound of my heels echoed through the hall.

“These damn shoes.”

I slipped them off and hurled them in some random direction.

Everything hurt—my feet, my face, my broken nose.

Healers? Forget it.

The servants in this house would probably celebrate if I got injured, maybe even hand me poisoned water while calling me filthy and stupid.

Better to ask Alina for some painkillers and medicine.

She’s the only one I trust.

The only one who’s ever cared for me since I got here.

I entered my room, tossed aside my top, and poured the leftover tea over my face to wash away some of the blood.

Then, I pulled the bell cord.

The familiar sound of the bell echoed, followed by footsteps climbing the stairs and crossing the hall.

I didn’t even wait to hear a voice before opening the door.

Alina gasped at the sight of me.

“Ah, my lady! You need to be treated—”

“Hug me. Just hold me and tell me everything will be okay.”

Alina hesitated briefly, then wrapped her arms around me.

She patted my back gently and murmured soothing words.

“Everything will be okay.”