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“My leg! It’s gone! Give it back!”
Give it back? What nonsense is she spouting?
“Give it back to me!” the woman screeches again as she thrashes about violently. She almost succeeds in throwing Gilles off of her, but he somehow manages to hold on. He’s barely keeping her in one place using the full force of his body weight.
“Agh! Agh! It hurts! It hurts! It hurts!”Ugh, she’s so annoying. Her voice is grating on my ears.
“Are you an idiot?” I ask and the woman turns her tear-filled eyes towards me.
Her eyes seem glazed over. I wonder if she even understands what she’s saying.
“I may have taken your leg, but I haven’t done a thing to your brain.”
She freezes and stares at me.
Ah, thank goodness. That incessant wailing finally stopped. I guess the trick to making someone forget their pain is to say something shockingly coldhearted to them. I’ll have to remember that.
And since she’s quieted down, does that mean that everything’s fine now?I notice that Gilles let his grip on her loosen a fraction. He must be thinking that things have calmed down as well.
“You’ve stopped yelling, does that mean you’re okay now? It doesn’t hurt?” I ask her, letting a tiny smirk pull at the corners of my lips.
“Of course it hurts. I’m in unimaginable pain. My leg is literally gone, you know?”
She was completely panicked just a moment ago, but now she seems to be thinking clearly again? I didn’t realize being able to calm down on a dime like this was such an amazing ability.
“You stole my leg……” she says while gazing at her lost limb lying on the ground.
…..Ah, so that’s how it is. It’s not that she’s an idiot, she just doesn’t understand the consequences of leaving necrosis unchecked. And how would she know? The educational opportunities for the people in this village are severely lacking. There’s no way that someone born here could know how to deal with this sort of disease, let alone realize that if the virus is allowed to spread that you’d not only lose your limb but likely your life as well.
“Hey, what’s your name? I’m Alicia.”
“……Rebecca,” she spits out through gritted teeth, her face contorted in pain.
“Rebecca, if I hadn’t removed your leg then you likely would have died.”
“….Died?”
“Necrosis had already set in…… The cells in your leg were completely dead. And while the speed at which those dead cells would have spread and infected other parts of your body varies from person to person, it’s a fact that the disease would have progressed. Over time, you’d be left with even more dead spots and in the end, you most likely would have died from it.”
As I explain, I can see understanding dawn in her eyes.
…..I guess she’s not as dumb as she first seemed.
Lost in thought, she looks down and notices her reflection in the water of the fountain.
“My skin…. It’s….”
That’s right, my spell even made her skin look healthy and beautiful again.
I’ve really outdone myself. I’ve performed quite the service for her.
“Thank–“
“There’s no need to thank me.”
Eyes widening, Rebecca whips her head back to look at me. Gilles, too, is staring at me with wide open eyes.
I’ll be troubled if you mistake me as a good person just because of a line like that, you know.
I’m just stating the facts. Since a villainess only moves for the sake of her own profit, what use do I have for measly words of gratitude? Obviously, I need to receive proper compensation for all of my efforts.
“I’m not some good Samaritan who just helps people out of the goodness of her heart. My services aren’t free.”
Even a saintess wouldn’t save people merely out of good will. She gladly receives compensation in the form of gaining the good opinion of those around her.
‘I want to be a good person.’ ‘I want to be kind.’ She definitely has those sorts of thoughts running through her head.
And, if you were to do or say something bad to her despite her being so good to you, then deep, deep down she’ll censure you. A tiny corner of her heart will be thinking, ‘But I did so much for you…. But I was always so nice to you….’
And even if you don’t do anything bad, if you don’t repay the favor somehow, then she’ll still start having such thoughts. She’ll fabricate these misguided notions that you weren’t thankful for what she did for you. And the best part? You never asked for any of it. Those so-called ‘good deeds’ she did for you were unwanted and unnecessary in the first place.
For instance, you see this a lot, but heroines just love going around and offering to be friends with people who are by themselves…. But consider this. Maybe that person is alone because they want to be. Maybe they like being alone.
They’re all such hypocrites. And not just the heroine. Everyone. All human beings. The only difference is that most people hide that fact away in the deepest recesses of their heart while a select few actually own up to it.
“Rebecca, I’ll definitely have you pay me back for this.”
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T/N: Lol, please let me know if that rant at the end doesn’t make sense. I know it rambles a bit, but I’m not sure how I can fix that at the moment
Also, maybe it’s just me, but the way that she’s talking about heroines’ inner thoughts…. kind of makes me think her desire to become a villainess might run deeper than it seems. It feels like she might have met someone in real life who behaved like a typical heroine and who acted like she wanted to befriend Alicia and then ended up betraying her.
