The Villainess Whom I Had Served for 13 Years Has Fallen

TLed by NolepGuy

Chapter 200

Ruin wiped the blood flowing from his split lip and sat on the bench.

“Damn.”

He couldn’t shake off the gloomy feeling.

There was no excuse to explain the overwhelming defeat he couldn’t do anything about.

Even after playing his trump card.

Even if his body had been in perfect condition, Ruin thought he still wouldn’t have been able to win. He wiped his face with the towel resting on his head and let out a sigh.

“F*ck.”

Today, the voices of others seemed unusually clear.

-Surrender?

-Was it all just hype?

-My sister said Senior Ruin was incredibly strong, but what is this?

-The pride of the Magic Department? If that’s the pride of the Magic Department, then I must be the pride of the Academy.

The murmurs of the freshmen reached his ears more clearly than usual. The criticism directed at him seemed especially loud.

He couldn’t muster the courage to start over again.

In the past, he would have shrugged it off, thinking he’d win if he just kept going. But now, he didn’t have the energy for that. He felt like giving up on everything.

Sitting on the bench, Ruin hung his head with a dark expression.

“I guess it was all my fault.”

“Hans’ matter, not recognizing Yuria, everything… it was all my fault.”

Self-loathing consumed him.

The wall of pride he had built like an iron fortress crumbled all at once, leaving him alone inside. He felt pathetic and foolish.

He wondered if he had looked down on others with so little to show for it, and the thought that he had acted recklessly with skills that could easily be surpassed kept haunting him.

“Seriously, what am I?”

He felt like a worthless fool.

Unable to shake off his melancholy, Ruin struggled to lift his head, hoping she might be nearby to comfort him.

-You’re hurt again!? Ruin, you’re driving me crazy!

-It’s fine. I won, didn’t I?

-What?! So it’s okay to get hurt as long as you win?

-Why! Yuria can just heal me, right?

-Ugh… I swear, because of you and Mikhail, I’m going to fall apart!

-Hahaha!

Thinking of the happy days of the past, Ruin lifted his head. He wondered if Yuria, who always comforted him, might come looking for him.

With a complicated heart, Ruin raised his head, but unfortunately, his expectations were not met.

“…”

Yuria, who met his gaze, turned her head away.

‘Does she not even want to see my face anymore…?’

The absence of Yuria, who had always comforted him, felt larger than he had anticipated. He thought he’d be fine, that he could make new friends, but after returning from a bitter defeat, her absence, and her usual “Are you okay?” hit him harder than he expected.

He had only wanted to be the best, but now, there was nothing left by his side.

No friends.

No talent.

No honor. Nothing remained.

“Haah…”

Letting out a deep sigh, Ruin dropped his head to the ground and covered it with a towel. He didn’t want others to see his gloomy face, so he buried his head even deeper.

Had three minutes passed?

A short male student approached Ruin, holding a cold drink.

Ruin looked at the boy with a stern expression.

“Why are you here? Did you come to brag about winning?”

“I came to see if you’re okay.”

“…Annoying bastard.”

A clueless guy.

What was he hoping to hear, coming here after being cursed at? Ruin let out an empty laugh as he looked at Mikhail’s cluelessly smiling face.

“Idiot.”

He was annoying, but impossible to hate.

Even his cluelessness was all for Ruin’s sake. Knowing that Mikhail, despite expecting to hear harsh words, came to cheer him up, Ruin swallowed his bitterness and accepted the drink Mikhail offered.

Ruin spoke without looking at Mikhail, who sat beside him.

“You were incredibly strong.”

“No, there are plenty of people stronger than me.”

“Annoying bastard.”

In a voice heavy with exhaustion, Ruin asked,

“Was it really that bad?”

“What was?”

“My magic.”

“…Yeah.”

“F*ck.”

Suppressing the bitterness in his heart, Ruin managed a smile. Still, having a friend by his side seemed to give him strength.

Thanks to Mikhail, the rumors probably wouldn’t spread too far. The talk about him being all hype or the Magic Tower being pathetic might not spread as widely.

Hiding his embarrassment, Ruin quietly said to Mikhail,

“Thanks.”

“For what?”

“Just take it as thanks, you idiot.”

“…”

As his previously uplifted mood began to settle, Mikhail cautiously broached a sensitive question to Ruin.

“Magic… are you going to quit?”

“…”

“Wouldn’t it be a shame to end it like this? Think of it as starting over from the beginning…”

Letting out a sigh at Mikhail’s meddling, Ruin threw the empty water bottle onto the ground.

“I can’t quit. Too many people are expecting things from me… Even if I want to quit, I can’t.”

At Ruin’s words, Mikhail gave a small smile and nodded.

As time passed and his breathing gradually returned to normal, Ruin’s narrowed perspective began to widen.

Now it was time to observe the matches of the juniors. Since there was still plenty of time before Mikhail’s next match, they could relax together.

Ruin shook out his sweat-soaked hair and lifted his head.

“What, is that the next match?”

Looking at the opponent Ruin pointed to, Mikhail replied in a low voice.

“Yeah… that’s right.”

“What’s with that face? Damn, I should be the one making that expression.”

“…”

“Is it because you didn’t get a rematch for last year’s loss? Suck it up. You’re a third-year, so you can’t have a rematch.”

Ruin patted Mikhail on the shoulder and said,

“You’re going to win this time anyway.”

“…No.”

“What?”

Ruin raised his head and looked at the female student stretching her wrists below the arena.

“You’re saying you can’t win?”

“Yeah.”

“F*ck. What kind of Academy is this…?”

The opponent Ruin pointed to.

Histania Hanna.

The prodigy of the Swordsmanship Department, who hadn’t missed first place in last year’s Academy ranking tournament, was calmly warming up with a composed expression.

Ruin looked at Hanna with a bitter smile.

“Crazy woman.”

Ever since Hanna started hanging out with Ricardo, their senior-junior relationship had soured rapidly, and Ruin had come to dislike Hanna.

“Hey, I told you not to hang out with that bastard.”

“Don’t interfere.”

“Don’t interfere? Just because you’re my junior, you think I’ll let this slide…”

“Get up to the arena. I’ll kill you. And if you call him ‘that bastard’ one more time, I’ll sew your mouth shut. Senior.”

“You used to follow me around calling me ‘Senior.’ Damn it.”

Having lightened the emotional weight from his conversation with Mikhail, Ruin looked at Hanna with a dark expression.

“I hope she gets beaten badly.”

And at that moment.

‘What is this?’

A chilling sensation crept over him.

Ruin slowly lifted his head and looked at the face of a male student standing across the arena.

The male student, with a complexion as pale as a corpse, exuded an odd sense of dissonance.

‘It’s definitely a familiar face.’

Just as Ruin’s doubts began to linger, the booming voice of the female narrator shattered his thoughts.

“The next match features the Academy’s Rising Star, who claimed first place in every ranking tournament last year, Histania Hanna, versus the Magic Department’s rookie, Hobbes!”

“Will Hobbes become the signal flare to end the Magic Department’s recession…?”

Ruin quickly stood up at the mention of Hobbes’ name. The professor who had made a strange proposal to him last night had a disciple, and that disciple was none other than Hobbes from the Magic Department.

He had forgotten.

Consumed by the feeling of defeat, he had forgotten his own mistakes—the time he was nearly consumed by Dark Magic and the fact that he hadn’t reported the existence of a spy within the Academy.

Ruin raised his head to look at Hobbes.

“Heh heh heh…”

‘Is he laughing?’

Something was going terribly wrong. Ruin had a hunch as he looked at Hobbes’ face. A hunch that something was about to happen in this match.

“I have to stop it.”

“What?”

“I said, I have to stop it.”

At that moment, the narrator’s booming voice rang out, not waiting for Ruin.

“The match… begins!”

Amid Ruin’s wavering vision, Chartia’s urgent figure came into view.

Like someone searching for something, Chartia was frantically scanning the audience and pointing toward the very front row, shouting.

“Over there─ ── ────”

Chartia’s voice was drowned out by the murmurs of countless students.

Ruin calmly followed the direction of Chartia’s pointing finger, and there, sitting with a subtle smile, was Professor Shulia.

‘What the…’

Professor Shulia was smiling.

She was smiling eerily, staring at Hanna as if waiting for something.

Just as Ruin was about to shout, driven by the thought that he had to stop this.

-Crash…!

A deafening sound of air splitting broke through Ruin’s thoughts. It was the sound of sword and magic clashing. A massive friction sound and the roar of Fire Magic colliding.

Ruin steadied his mind, which felt like it might fly away, and looked toward the arena.

“Die!”

On the arena, where Hobbes’ malicious shout echoed, nothing was visible. Only the silhouettes of two figures moving rapidly amidst the thick dust cloud could be seen.

“Mikhail!”

“Huh?”

“Get up there and stop it.”

“What are you saying?”

At Ruin’s words, Mikhail responded with a flustered expression. No matter how much he disliked Hanna, interfering in a match was unacceptable.

Thinking this wasn’t the time to worry about such trivial matters, Ruin grabbed Mikhail’s hand and shouted again.

“Stop it! That bastard is a Dark Sorcerer.”

“What did you just say…!”

Before Mikhail could finish his sentence, a thunderous explosion, accompanied by a massive vibration, erupted from the arena.

The vibration was strong enough to be felt from the audience seats.

Just as Ruin was about to climb into the arena, thinking he had to stop it himself.

“Ugh…!”

With a scream, a silhouette emerged from the dust cloud and fell.

Ruin clenched his fist, preparing for the worst.

Even if he had to face everyone’s criticism, he resolved to reveal the truth. People would think Hanna had suffered a fatal injury in the match. He decided he had to expose the truth.

Ruin swallowed hard as he stared at the silhouette falling out of the dust cloud.

‘Damn it…!’

Ruin was certain the falling silhouette was Hanna. No matter how much of a prodigy she was in the Swordsmanship Department, he thought there was no way she could withstand an attack that caused such a massive vibration.

-Thud…!

Holding his breath, Ruin watched as the falling silhouette hit the ground. He made a foolish expression and muttered in disbelief.

“What? Why is it you falling…”

The person who had fallen was not Hanna.

It was Hobbes, trembling in fear with his wrist severed, staring up at the arena.

“Cough… Monster…”

Hobbes had intended to inflict a fatal injury on Hanna. After tasting a bitter defeat in the last ranking tournament.

To repay the humiliation of being defeated in just one second without any mercy, he had prepared by tampering with things he shouldn’t have touched.

“Kill him.”

“What…?”

“I gave you power, so you should repay me, shouldn’t you?”

“I don’t hate her that much.”

“You don’t want to? Then I’ll just take it back.”

Even though he had used magic with the intent to kill, he had fallen without being able to do anything.

Hobbes was overwhelmed by Hanna’s sword. The gaze that had fixated on his hand and swung the sword was terrifying beyond words.

“She’s a monster… How am I supposed to beat that…”

He was too scared to stand up.

Ruin frowned at the stench of Dark Magic emanating from Hobbes’ hand.

“Are you insane…”

And then, looking at Hanna, who was staring coldly at the fallen Hobbes, Ruin let out an empty laugh.

“She really is a monster.”

Just as Ruin sighed in relief, thinking the situation had safely come to an end.

-Boom!

A massive explosion echoed from the audience seats.

The sound came from the spot where the Disciplinary Committee had rushed to at Chartia’s signal.

Through the thick dust cloud, the silhouette of one figure fighting against several students became visible.

And then.

“Bothersome.”

With a small gesture from the woman, a thick scent of blood began to emanate from the dust cloud.

In the blink of an eye.

A silhouette emerged from the dust cloud, falling helplessly toward the arena.

“What is this?”

With a ‘thump,’ a female student fell onto the arena floor. Amid the chaos in the audience, the screams of students rang out.

With a trembling voice, Ruin looked at the bleeding female student and spoke.

“The Student Council President…?”

Coughing up blood, Chartia spoke in a trembling voice.

“Run away…”

“What?”

“Everyone, run away!”

Dark clouds began to gather over the circular arena.

A dense dark cloud, thick enough to obscure everyone, began to cover the arena where the ranking tournament was taking place.

As Ruin gazed at the darkening sky, the figure of a woman descending gracefully began to form before his eyes.

The lady, wearing a faint smile, was walking toward Ruin. She approached slowly, neither too fast nor too slow, while glancing at Mikhail, Chartia, and Hanna.

Mikhail spoke in a trembling voice.

“Professor?”

“Yes~ Mikhail.”

Professor Shulia responded with a smile.

“I didn’t expect to be discovered this quickly.”

She looked at everyone and, with a radiant smile, opened her mouth to speak.

“At this point, wouldn’t it be better to just kill you all?”

It was overwhelming malice.

A malice unlike anything they had ever felt before.

Ruin thought to himself.

That he wanted to run away.

*

At the same time.

Hans was fidgeting nervously as he looked at me.

“Do you think the students can defeat the Archbishop?”

I set down my teacup and answered.

I didn’t want to respond to Hans’s obvious question, but I figured he would keep asking if I didn’t give him a definitive answer.

“Of course, they can’t.”

“What…?”

“How could they possibly win? He’s a dignified Archbishop, after all. Hans, even you would struggle to handle an Archbishop on your own, wouldn’t you?”

“It would be strange if they won.”

Hans looked at me, puzzled by my calm demeanor, and asked what I was thinking by orchestrating such a situation.

“Shouldn’t I go instead?”

“Why would you do that? You’re a former Archbishop yourself. Besides, if Hans goes to the capital city, the Imperial Army will definitely capture you.”

“…”

Spending time with someone as kind as me must have made Hans’s heart soft as well. See, being too kind can be a problem.

I chuckled softly and said to Hans.

“It’s fine to leave it as is. My disciple is there, after all.”

“Your disciple?”

“Yes.”

I smiled, cheering on my disciple’s growth. Though they wouldn’t win, I thought of my disciple, who was capable of stalling for plenty of time.

“They’re incredibly strong.”

I smiled.

*

-Clang…!

Hanna swung her sword without a moment’s hesitation.

Her target was Professor Shulia’s neck.

She wanted to achieve merit and fulfill her wish.