The Villainess is a Marionette

Translator: thursdays PR: scarcecrow

***

When Cayena opened her eyes, it was the next morning.

The sun shone and birds tweeted through the window. It was the most peaceful morning she had spent alone since she returned to this world.

‘By now, Heinrich must have heard that I am staying at this temple.’

A little behind this temple were the slums. By the entrance to the slums was a small inn that was also the contract house run by Archduke Heinrich.

‘Few people would do something as crazy as breaking into the temple, but Yester would.’

Cayena had no intention of returning to the imperial palace today, either. She still had work to do.

‘By all means, put me in danger.’

She slowly raised her body. Even now, she had a slight headache, but it was ignorable.

Ring!

As soon as she pulled the bell rope, there was a knock.

“Come in.”

The door opened, and Jan came in and bowed. Cayena gave her orders.

“Prepare a bath. When I’m done, I’ll eat breakfast.”

While waiting for the warm water to fill the bathtub, Cayena took off her chemise, revealing her white nude body. She gathered her voluminous golden hair in front of her, went to the mirror, and looked at her back.

Her back was flawlessly smooth and white. But if she used magic, an image of a black rose would bloom on this pale back.

Like she had done yesterday, Cayena reached for her new energy.

‘I think this was called mana.’

Her body felt slightly buoyant, and immediately, she sensed the gentle and clear mana.

Cayena instinctively knew what her ability was. She lifted the dress that she took off yesterday into the air.

The cloth hovered for a while before falling to the floor.

Plop.

“How dreadful.”

She thought that with magic, she’d be able to shoot fireballs or make blizzards. Instead, she had telekinesis. The ability was a bit disappointing.

‘Well, I don’t want the power to cause natural disasters. I just need to manipulate some things.’

Cayena shrugged off her dissatisfaction.

Because she utilized magic, a vivid picture of a black rose appeared on her back.

In this world, roses signaled ‘danger.’ Some novels used the color purple or rain to indicate crises. Here, the object that represented danger and crises was the rose.

Cayena had always been likened to a rose, and Bayel was the owner of the Black Rose Garden. They were both involved in the death of the heroine, Olivia.

“With this, have I become perfectly dangerous?”

As Cayena was changing into simple clothes and waited, she heard a knock. It seemed her bath was ready.

She washed her head and roughly wrapped her wet hair in a dry towel. It couldn’t be helped; there wasn’t a maid around to dry her hair.

‘It’s been a while since I did something on my own, without any servants.’

Breakfast was laid out in the room. It was her first meal since she went to sleep without eating anything the day before. After eating, Cayena was left alone again to practice her magic.

How much practice was required for a baby to stand up on their legs and take their first steps? The magic training was just like that.

Before long, various objects inside the room began to float in the air. The dress that Cayena took off stood up as if someone was wearing it. It began to twirl around like a woman holding the hand of her dance partner.

“You’re already becoming skilled at handling your power.”

A man’s voice spoke behind her. Cayena only turned her head slightly to look at the speaker.

“Did you come to see me practice magic? That’s kind of you.”

Bayel stood tall under the sunlight that shone through the window.

Cayena spun her dress round and round until it stood in front of Bayel. She made the dress curtsy like it was greeting a dance partner.

Bayel looked at the dress that was pretending to be a person and said, “It isn’t easy to visualize something like this.”

Magic was about visualization, so the better imagination one had, the more advantageous it was.

Cayena learned many things through various media in the other world, so something like this was easy to imagine.

Bayel annoyedly pushed back the dress and sat across the table from Cayena.

He was contemplating what to say when he saw Cayena’s outfit and asked, “If you’re a princess, why are your clothes like that?”

It was the same yesterday. Her clothes were too humble to belong to the imperial princess.

“It’s because the normal clothes for a princess are too complicated to take off without servants.”

Cayena had prepared a blouse and a long skirt as an extra outfit. The shape of the clothes was simple and did not have many fastenings, so they were easy to put on and take off even by herself.

“Or would you like to wait on me? Think of it as taking a groom’s lesson early.”

“Why would I…!”

“I’m kidding.”

Bayel was so stupefied that his jaw dropped. Cayena didn’t care about that, though.

“My escorts must be outside. Is it all right to yell like that? You may be able to run away with magic, but I would be fairly embarrassed.”

“Don’t worry. I made it impossible for anyone outside to overhear us.”

As expected of the master of the Black Garden.

“That’s great. As for me, I can use my telekinesis in exchange for half of my life.”

‘Normally, she shouldn’t be able to move this many things this quickly.’

It was relatively simple to lift up objects in a bunch and make them move in one direction. However, moving each object independently like Cayena was doing showed great aptitude.

In particular, the dress that had been bothering him moved subtly, like a real person.

Bayel thought she was a very weird princess. It was strange for a member of the imperial family to act so easygoing.

Even if Cayena knew a lot about him, the master of the Black Garden, she should be upset about his insouciant treatment of a princess. She could even take the temple hostage and try to make him kneel.

Of course, it was impossible for humans to capture him, a transcendental being.

‘No one could say anything if she burned down the temple because it’s a place that hid a magician.’

That was the attitude that the average person of the ruling class would take, but Cayena was different.

‘I don’t think she cares, no matter what I do.’

She pretended to be calm, but she looked pitiful. It was unnerving.

Cayena, who lowered her long eyelashes down and let loose her wet hair, had an unusual atmosphere.

‘Is everyone in the imperial family born like this?’

Bayel mentally traced her smooth white skin, unmarked by makeup, and a beautiful red mouth with his eyes.

Bayel clicked his tongue at Cayena’s addictive beauty. Beautiful women like this usually did not have happy endings.

‘That’s why she wanted the power of the Black Garden.’

“How is your body?”

Cayena looked as if she had heard something unexpected and gave her habitual smile.

“It’s fine.”

There was no way it was. Even if a lifespan was shortened by only 10 years, there were extremely severe cases in which the person had to watch out for little ailments the rest of their life.

Cayena’s lifespan had been cut in half. A single drop of Elixir couldn’t recover all the damage her body had received.

“Your lifespan was cut in half in an instant. That doesn’t just mean that you live half a lifetime less.”

Whether it was immunity or energy, it must have declined quite a bit.

A body that was weakened by a severe blow would have to properly recover over a long period of time.

Just because she felt a little better now didn’t mean she was really fine.

“You’re worrying a lot, but I receive all sorts of precious things in the imperial palace. I’ll live much healthier than others do.”

She brushed it off like it was insignificant. Cayena’s thoughts remained unchanged.

‘I have no way to protect myself unless I have magic.’

It was a cold, rational judgment.

Bayel noticed the chill in Cayena’s words.

Strangely, he had been caring about Cayena since yesterday. He couldn’t erase the image of her forcing herself to maintain consciousness from his mind.

‘Maybe I’m misunderstanding, but…’

She looked like a person driven to the edge of a cliff.

“You seem to be in a difficult situation. But if it’s someone like you, wouldn’t you have many people who can help you?”

Someone to help her?

Raphael came to mind.

She smiled bitterly as she recalled the man who comforted her when he delivered the news of Madame Elivan’s death and how he had reached out to her, once again.

Cayena was no different from someone with a time limit. She didn’t know how long she had left to live. She couldn’t drag down Raphael, who had a prosperous future in front of him. Besides, she decided to take on the throne. She couldn’t involve him with this mess.

“Who knows?”

Cayena avoided answering by making her dress bother Bayel again.

Bayel tried to pull down the dress with a displeased expression. Telekinesis was a low-level magical talent, so it could be disrupted with a bit of power.

Even so, the dress didn’t budge. It continued to pester him.

‘What is this?’

Bayel felt confused. He tried to block off the telekinesis.

Telekinesis was, in simple terms, the ability to lift objects as if one was controlling a puppet with an invisible hand. If the energy was blocked, the dress should not be able to move.

Yes, it shouldn’t have.

But it still gently swayed about.

‘Is it not telekinesis?’

If it wasn’t telekinesis, how could everything in this room be floating right now?

Like the area was being controlled…!

Bayel’s eyes widened, and he quickly turned to look at Cayena.

‘Is it domain control magic?’

That was absurd. It wasn’t an ability a human could possess.

‘If you can utilize domain control to its maximum, you can even stop time.’

For example, one could edit the domain by cutting and pasting it.

Bayel reached out his hand to find out Cayena’s exact ability.

The moment Cayena looked back curiously, Bayel felt a strange presence and looked toward the door.

“…Someone’s coming.”

Bayel disappeared like smoke, without telling Cayena what he wanted to say. She blinked in puzzlement when she heard it.

Knock, knock.

As Bayel said, someone knocked outside.

~~~

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