The Villainess Does Not Want to Die

Chapter 48: A Vile Confession

What should I have done?

No matter how much I replay it in my mind, an unrelenting sense of self-loathing consumes me.

It seems my plan to raise Marisela into a child universally despised by the world has succeeded all too well.

Even when I screamed into the emptiness of my room, desperate to stop midway, I had already gone too far. I raised that child in a way so abhorrent it was beyond repair.

Not only did I cruelly abuse and distort a child who had just lost both parents in the slums, but I did so willfully.

And the one responsible was none other than me.

Calling this “raising a child” would earn the outrage of every parent in the world, but I can’t think of another word for it.

Back then, I convinced myself that ruining Marisela would be the perfect revenge against the woman who stole my husband’s love.

Perhaps I was mad.

Tormenting that child brought me nothing but a crude sense of satisfaction. Nobody else was hurt—only the child suffered. I knew that fully well.

And I wasn’t wrong. The mere thought of someone hating me so much after my death that they would ruin my child filled me with horror.

Even so, I know it’s meaningless to wonder now why I did it. I can’t undo the twisted, shattered state that child has become, and I’ve long passed the point of regret.

If I must offer an excuse, it’s this: the child looked just like her mother.

Her mother, a mere commoner, possessed a beauty and grace that exceeded that of most nobles, and the child inherited it all. Even though she had grown up in the slums, she stood firm and dignified.

I hated it. Every time I struck the child, it felt as though I were striking her mother instead.

There was no one to point a finger and call me vile and despicable. If anything, I was the one who turned the child into a vulgar, filthy, lowly parasite who didn’t know her place and crawled her way into the mansion.

Even my husband entrusted the child to me. He had no grounds to object to how I treated her.

He occasionally offered me warnings, but I always responded the same way:

“If you gave me even half the love you gave that whore, I could raise the child as my own.”

He never had an answer for that.

At some point, though, the hatred I felt toward the child began to wane, replaced by a growing self-loathing. Eventually, I wanted to stop it all.

I think it was the day I found myself in a dim room, illuminated only by the eerie glow of candlelight. 

A stiff rod in my hand, the child cowering beneath me, begging for forgiveness. I looked at the mirror and saw the grotesquely twisted expression on my own face.

No, that wasn’t it. I still enjoyed tormenting the child then.

It must’ve been the moment I struck her, and she neither apologized nor screamed. She didn’t even tremble in fear. I shoved her hard in frustration.

Her arm bent in a direction it shouldn’t, her leg broke, yet she made no sound. Instead, she sat down as I’d taught her, waiting silently for me to speak.

That must’ve been when I realized it.

When hatred and anger are directed at the wrong person, they cannot endure for long.

I thought I could hate the woman who stole my husband’s love for all eternity, even to my death.

Even if I choked her to death with my own hands.

Perhaps it wasn’t guilt that came to me later. It was disgust—disgust at the wretched creature I’d become and a desperate desire to restore myself to what I once was.

Before I fell for the Duke of Vitelsbach.

Back to when I was a young girl dreaming of a simple life filled with love, even if it wasn’t grand or luxurious.

Back when I thought love could transcend class, and I dreamed while reading romantic tales circulating among the common folk.

That foolish, naive young lady from a merchant family was gone, replaced by the vile, grotesque Duchess of Vitelsbach, who arrived with heaps of money and little else.

Whenever Marisela broke some rule of etiquette, I whipped her calves or arms, not lightly enough to leave faint red marks but so fiercely her skin bruised purple.

After each blow, I questioned myself—was it right to treat such a young child this way? Was it okay to twist her into something so warped?

But I silenced my conscience by telling myself it was the only way to cope.

I began to see the filth of her mother in Marisela and convinced myself that tormenting her was justified.

Marisela was no longer Marisela. She was Lize—the filthy, vile, despicable whore who stole what was rightfully mine.

I hit her under the guise of teaching her table manners. If she used the wrong posture or held her utensils incorrectly, I slapped her face or struck her fingers with the rod.

Once, she vomited while eating, whether from indigestion or stress, I couldn’t tell. I made her eat it again.

When she cried, screaming that she didn’t want to live this way, I slapped her and called it whining.

Whenever she failed to memorize a passage I assigned her, I struck her for every mistake, no matter where it was.

Even as other children came and went between the capital and the estate during the social season, I left Marisela behind, calling her too filthy to be seen in public.

I tormented her relentlessly under the guise of education. I made the servants fear me, driving away anyone who tried to stay by her side.

Her life was devoid of companionship, filled only with medicine to dull the pain.

In the end, I couldn’t even think of a way to restore her soul to a normal state.

Marisela—no, the child—had no memories of her abuse. It was as if she had erased them herself to survive. 

She believed she had naturally learned all the etiquette I forced upon her through pain.

She had become adept at table manners, yet she claimed she had always known them.

When she began to speak back, saying things that pierced my heart, I realized she saw through me completely.

She told me my husband chose her mother not because she was more beautiful but because she was a better person.

She called me pathetic, a fool who took out her frustrations on a child because she had no one else to blame.

She was right.

And, like all irrational people hit with the truth, I threw the rod and shoved her away.

Her frail body twisted as her bones broke.

But even then, she simply stared at her crooked limbs with vacant eyes, sat back down, and resumed her studies.

I couldn’t bring myself to strike her again after that. I was afraid—terrified, even. I couldn’t accept that I was the one who had created this wretched being.

She was just a child. How could I have seen such an innocent girl as no different from that vile woman?

Whether it was delusion or madness, I don’t know.

Now, Marisela has become exactly what I feared—so twisted she doesn’t care whether she lives or dies.

I destroyed her soul so thoroughly that not even I could piece it back together.

And so, I spend every day atoning, knowing forgiveness will never come.

When I die, the Almighty Isten will cast me into the fiery pits of hell, and I will deserve every moment of it.