How a Villain Defies Destiny Chapter 162

[Of course, even I couldn’t be certain.]

 

Her voice, which had been so solemn until now, suddenly lightened.

 

[I can’t even begin to guess what Nanna’s scheme is. Besides, I’m just a nameless half-god. The odds of winning against a god who’s existed since the creation of the world are pretty slim, don’t you think?]

 

It was delivered in such a sly tone that it almost sounded like a joke, yet I could tell at once that not a single word of it was false.

 

Just as I was about to ask why she had brought me to this world in the first place, her story continued.

 

[Even so, I couldn’t just abandon the humans who got swept up in a god’s prank.]

 

At present, only Selene fully remembered the infinitely repeating time, but the longer those cycles piled up, the more beings on the ground would gradually come to know of the strange phenomena that had occurred.

 

She added that because Selene was the center of the regressions, Endymion, more than the transcendent beings Kephri, Fenrir, or Huluppu, was the first to recall the memories of the vanished timeline through his dreams.

 

That was because he had been the closest to Selene, and thus had been affected by the regressions the most.

 

The lingering attachment and regret he felt toward her had accumulated until, in this cycle, his divine power finally awakened.

 

[Conversely, the reason Selene’s unique ability activated every time she tried to meet Kephri is the same principle.]

 

As a vessel of a god, he would have immediately noticed Selene’s condition.

 

Of course, given Kephri’s personality, there was a high chance he wouldn’t care in the slightest, but she had carefully set the conditions of the unique ability just in case.

 

[So I threw out a gamble. To catch Nanna off guard.]

 

Even an omnipotent god would never have imagined that a soul from another dimension would be brought over.

 

[Selene was given five years. In that time I hoped you, someone outside Nanna’s calculations—would stir something up.]

 

‘Then you should have at least given me some kind of hint!’

 

Perhaps because I was in soul form, controlling my emotions wasn’t easy.

 

Normally I would have been able to take it more calmly, yet the surge of feeling I couldn’t suppress had me pouring out my anger at her all at once.

 

‘Was it just that you only cared about Selene, and I didn’t matter enough so you left me alone?’

 

I felt oddly resentful for no real reason.

 

From the moment I had fallen into this world knowing nothing, every hardship I had suffered until now felt like it was all because of her.

 

As if dying in my original world hadn’t been enough, even the one I had unconsciously regarded as being on my side seemed to be looking after only Selene.

 

Strictly speaking, my death in my previous life had nothing to do with her.

 

If anything, I ought to be grateful to the one who had helped me live a new life while retaining the memories of my past.

 

I knew all of that rationally, yet once my emotions had come undone, they would not settle easily.

 

Without a body, I couldn’t even shed tears, but a sorrow whose origin I couldn’t place began to swallow my consciousness.

 

[Laura. I am on your side.]

 

While I was steeped in that inexplicable sadness, her gentle voice reached me.

 

And strangely, it felt as though something warm had wrapped around me.

 

Just as she could sense every one of my thoughts, it seemed I, connected to her, could feel her emotions as well.

 

Thanks to that, the heart that had been churning beyond my control grew a little calmer.

 

Yet the resentment toward every sudden event that had unfolded without the slightest regard for my will refused to fade.

 

‘If you were truly on my side, couldn’t you have at least said a word or two?’

 

Even knowing it wasn’t her fault, I still found her heartless.

 

Nanna had conveyed his intentions directly to Selene, so if she had only wanted to, she could easily have told me a few words about the situation.

 

[That… I feel wronged about too…]

 

Her usually bright voice turned sulky for the first time.

 

[It’s because you produced results far beyond anything I expected that I couldn’t even have a conversation with you!]

 

‘What exactly did I do?’

 

I asked back with a baffled expression at her sudden attempt to shift the blame onto me.

 

[To be honest, I thought you’d die several times. But you just wouldn’t die, so how was I supposed to meet you?]

 

‘What?’

 

[Do you remember the scenes I showed you? The times Selene heard Nanna’s voice were when her unique ability activated.]

 

Just as she said, the only times Nanna had made contact with Selene were while time was rewinding.

 

‘So in other words, the reason I couldn’t meet you is that I still haven’t used my unique ability even once?’

 

[Exactly! I really thought that, no matter how late it was, you’d at least die by guillotine after the trial.]

 

Yet contrary to her expectations, I had passed the trial safely and crossed over to the Holy Kingdom.

 

[Do you know how anxious I was then?]

 

‘Of course I don’t.’

 

[I was so worried about you, my heart was in my throat, and yet the you right now who doesn’t even acknowledge that is so mean!]

 

Her complaints that burst out like a broken dam soon turned into something that sounded like a child throwing a tantrum.

 

[When you first possessed the body, the reason you could regress together with Selene was that Nanna didn’t know you existed. Do you have any idea how worried I was that Selene might die first and you’d get ejected from Laura’s body?!]

 

She then began to recount the early days of the possession that I had never known.

 

The period when, determined not to get entangled with the original story, I had desperately avoided the Oannes barony’s party.

 

Selene had found it strange that I didn’t appear at the banquet, but waiting five years without awakening as a saintess had been the far greater concern, so she hadn’t thought deeply about the problem concerning me and had simply drunk the poison.

 

[Nanna, limited by the pact between the gods in how much he could observe the surface world, also didn’t think much of my sudden behavior change.]

 

But after I met Selene at the Oannes barony and even Nanna, who was linked to her, learned that I had received a god’s blessing, the situation changed.

 

Because the only one who could manipulate time was Nanna.

 

‘If Selene had died and we had regressed, what would have happened to me?’

 

It was a worry I had occasionally entertained for a long time.

 

The question was what would become of me if time rewound because the problem hadn’t been solved.

 

There had even been times I trembled with fear that my very existence might vanish, so I took the chance to ask.

 

[No. You would never disappear. You simply wouldn’t be able to go back in time together with Selene.]

 

And if that had happened, she said she would have given me a choice. Whether to return to my original world and reincarnate, or to reincarnate in this one.

 

Hearing her list out concrete alternatives in such a calm tone finally let me feel at ease.

 

It was clear she truly had been worried about me, and that she had carefully considered my safety in her own way.

 

Once I understood her considerations, the remaining resentment naturally subsided.

 

After the emotional storm passed and reason returned, embarrassment washed over me at the same time.

 

Earlier I had thought she sounded like a child throwing a tantrum.

 

Looking back with a cooled head, the complaints I myself had poured out felt even more childish.

 

Feeling awkwardly embarrassed, I changed the subject.

 

‘But why wasn’t I affected by the regression?’

 

According to her claim, I shouldn’t have been able to perceive that time had rewound either.

 

[As I’ve said repeatedly, you received my blessing. That’s why even when Selene’s unique ability activated, you were able to preserve your memories completely.]

 

Thanks to her rather detailed explanation, the thoughts that had been scattered in confusion began to settle little by little.

 

[Well, that’s the end of my explanation for now. Is there anything else you’re curious about?]

 

‘Why was it me, of all people?’

 

Honestly, that was the part I wondered about the most.

 

Please Take Care of the Saintess! had by no means been an unpopular game.

 

Among the countless players, why I of all people had ended up possessing this world was something my head simply couldn’t find an answer to.

 

[Because you answered my call.]

 

‘Me?’

 

[Yes. Among the countless players who played the same game as you, you were the one who agreed.]

 

‘To what?’

 

[To save Selene.]

 

‘What?’

 

[It’s true. Well, if we look a little more carefully there were other reasons as well… but you just happened to meet every one of those conditions.]

 

‘What kind of conditions were they?’

 

The rapid-fire questions might have been annoying, yet unexpectedly she answered me readily.

 

[The first is that you had to have seen every ending of the game. The second is that you had to be dead. Only then could I bring just the soul.]

 

And the last, she said, was that you absolutely had to help Selene.

 

[The reason you took all the unfair things Selene did to you so calmly is because of that as well. In your previous life, you liked Selene.]

 

That wasn’t wrong.

 

I had liked, as a person, that kind-hearted girl who couldn’t be found in reality.