The Villainess Whom I Had Served for 13 Years Has Fallen chapter 70

70 – “If He Wasn’t There…” – Part 2 –

From Noble mtl dot com

The past Hannah stood at the orc’s habitat atop the Hamel Mountains.

Her past self, hiding behind a massive tree, held a crumpled request form in her hand.

It was a familiar request.

A measly job that hadn’t left the boards in six months.

An assignment that among adventurers had garnered pessimistic reviews; veteran adventurers even referred to it as the “task no one with a single life would ever undertake.”

“Please kill the ‘orc’ that murdered my mother.”

Reward: 1000 gold

Features: Wears a necklace made of wolf fangs. / Distinctive light purple skin.]

A wish from the client, disguising an ‘Elite Orc’ as a mere ‘orc,’ seeking vengeance for their mother.

Only an adept adventurer would consider taking on such a request. The pay was outrageously low as well.

Hannah was aware of this deception.

Undoubtedly, her past self knew too.

The fact that an orc with purple skin labeled as ‘elite’ was a common enough piece of knowledge even for novice adventurers.

Her past self had taken the job knowingly deceiving herself.

For solace.

And to gain a pretext of ‘prior action.’

She would have deluded herself into believing that her courage wasn’t meaningless but rather fueled by the desire to avenge a motherless child.

On a birthday marked by rain.

She had deliberated for quite some time in front of this request form herself.

The past self, hiding and holding her breath, murmured softly as she observed the orc separated from the group.

“Found you.”

An orc with light purple skin unlike the usual kind.

Hannah let out a bitter laugh.

“It’s the same one I caught back then.”

The elite orc that could be captured using Ricardo’s map. The orc her past self was targeting appeared just like the one she had encountered before.

Pale purple skin.

Holding a club larger than oneself.

Seeing the orc adorned with a necklace made of wolf fangs, Hanna reminisced about her past with Ricardo.

Back then, with Ricardo by her side, she hadn’t felt frightened, but now it was a chilling sensation.

Because she knew her past powerlessness.

Hanna muttered, “Run away.”

She knew she faced an unbeatable adversary.

She was aware of her past inadequacy. Her hands that held the contract were trembling like bamboo in the wind. Watching the intimidated sight of the orc constantly looking for a way out, Hanna sighed dryly.

Hanna clenched her fist tightly and said once more, “Run away.”

She tried silently to face her past, but she couldn’t just watch herself struggling to break free from the shackles of indifference.

It was pitiful.

She felt foolish.

Thus, Hanna spoke.

“Nobody’s by your side now.”

“Run away.”

She wanted to say, “Put the sword in now, and go to your refuge, where the villain with a perpetually smiling face welcomes you.”

However.

In front of her, she didn’t know of any refuge named ‘Ricardo.’

Unfortunately.

Her past self, with determined eyes, drew her sword and walked toward the orc.

Though she hesitated at the sight of bloodstains on the club’s end.

– I’m proving… I can do this too.

Driven by the desire for acknowledgment, her back propelled her trembling legs forward.

As she caught sight of the orc’s back, she kicked the ground and leaped.

“Aaahh!”

With a shout and her sword aimed at the orc, Hanna could sense it.

The thought: ‘I’m going to die here.’

With determined eyes before the elite orc, it was himself, but regardless of the process, the ending was not as favorable as he had hoped.

The orc’s swing of a club larger than his body was far more powerful than he had anticipated.

At an incomprehensible speed, the orc’s club approached him in mid-air.

Floating in the air, he surrendered himself to the club without resistance, and with a tumultuous noise, he began to tumble to the ground.

-Thud.

A strange sound accompanied by flipping dust from his past self.

Crushed to the ground with terrible pain.

With just one attack, the plans formulated in his mind turned into a blank page, and in his bewilderment, he struggled to get up, tilting his head.

As his legs, devoid of strength, refused to obey, he ruthlessly struck his thigh with his fist.

-Ugh… Grrr… Ahhh! Move… Move!

Thumping sounds as he fell towards himself, the orc rushing toward the fallen him.

His pupils widened significantly.

Hannah, lying on the ground, grabbed the fallen sword. In a staggering and strenuous effort to rise, Hannah clenched her fists.

‘It’s okay… I expected this.’

Before receiving Ricardo’s guidance, Hannah knew her own abilities, and she could anticipate the future that would follow.

‘It’s okay…’

Because she had expected it…

-Swish!!!

I am weak…

-Swish!!!

I am…

-Aaaaargh!!!

If there were no master…

-Aaaaargh…!! Stop… Stop it…!

Comforting herself in the empty place, Hannah gradually stiffened as she saw the floor spreading with exhaustion.

It was dreadful.

The image of herself being torn apart by the club.

The image of herself deflecting the orc’s club with slender hands felt agonizingly desperate.

Hannah was in despair.

Was this the extent…?

If there hadn’t been a caretaker….

I…in that way…

The intensity of the emotions that I could see with my eyes and the ones I could feel with my thoughts were different.

Blood splattering on the face.

An expression soaked with despair.

And oneself desperately calling for father with a fierce voice.

It was cruel and terrifying.

Because I knew that no one would come to save me.

Tears began to flow from Hanna’s eyes.

Because of the emotion called fear.

If there hadn’t been a caretaker, I felt afraid of the fear that I would have experienced such a thing and the desperate sight of myself searching for father.

– F…father…

Hanna ran towards the orc.

Filled with the emotion to make it stop.

But.

The blue window did not allow it.

[Observer’s point of view. Cannot interfere with the target.]

Hanna sat down on the floor as if collapsing.

She could only watch herself silently collapsing.

The past Hanna, barely standing with a sword, stared at the orc in front of her.

A disfigured face.

Legs barely holding up.

With eyes soaked in fear, she struggled to speak.

-I have to be acknowledged…. Now even I…

With those words.

The orc’s club sliced through the empty air.

And the small fragile body flew into the sky.

[The point of view changes.]

With rough breaths, the perspective flipped.

“Cough…cough…”

She stood in the dark cave.

With a heavy heart, Hanna looked around.

Drip. The moisture of the cave gathered, forming droplets in the damp and dark cave. Through the pitch-black darkness, moonlight was seeping in.

Hanna knew this place.

It was where she had rested during her training with Ricardo.

A shallow cave, not too deep.

Hanna sighed in relief, now that it was all over.

“Ah… ah…”

Looking at her battered body, she couldn’t help but wear a despairing expression.

Her past self stared at the cave entrance with empty eyes, leaning against the cave wall.

The past self gasped for breath.

Worried that a monster might enter, she tightly gripped her sword.

Her body was in shambles.

Legs twisted grotesquely from the battle with the orc, and wounds covered her entire body.

Hanna clenched her fist.

Relieved that her past self was alive, but that relief gradually turned into despair.

The inscription on the blue window had clearly stated she would die.

In a moment of ominous thoughts, unable to utter a word.

The voice of her past echoed in the cave.

“Fortunately…”

In the midst of a desperate situation, her past self looked at her hand and laughed. With a faint smile, as if her broken leg was perfectly fine, she softly murmured.

“Lucky that my hand is unharmed.”

She was uttering foolish words.

The past self, with hands full of small wounds, hugged herself and gazed outside the cave where moonlight seeped in.

“Now, all I have to do is wait.”

In the darkness, she waited for her father.

No matter how abandoned a child she was, she firmly believed that he would come to rescue her, the one who had disappeared.

Two days had passed.

-Drip…

Rain fell outside the cave.

His past self embraced his body in the chilly air. Bluish lips and a pallid face hinted at the end of a harrowing nightmare.

The past self gazed blankly at the entrance of the rain-soaked cave and muttered.

“Why hasn’t he come…”

“It’s too cold…”

“I should apologize for running away.”

“Could it be… he’s not coming?”

“Hmm… No, don’t think gloomily. Dad would scold me if I cry. Let’s not cry.”

“He’ll definitely come… definitely.”

His body drenched in cold sweat, he looked outside with eyes clouded by fear.

Immobile legs.

Sweat poured like rain.

As the hot fever embraced his body, Hana lowered her head at the sight of her past self groaning in pain.

She thought he had died in a fight.

That was the ending she had envisioned, the least miserable outcome.

But.

Even after two days, her father did not come. Hana’s face began to pale.

Even if she was a discarded daughter.

Even if she had run away.

Wouldn’t he worry?

Even a little effort to find out where I went would reveal something.

Even if he went to the adventurer’s guild, he could find out what quest I took.

‘Why… isn’t he coming.’

Hana looked at her past self, lonely and desolate, with trembling eyes.

She was alone.

No one by her side.

No one to comfort her.

She was enduring her tragedy alone.

The sight of her laughing with her seemingly fine hands.

If her father were to see, he would have praised her, but to Hannah, it was like a horrifying movie.

Like that.

A week passed.

As Hannah clung tightly to the sword her father had given her as a child, she called out her father’s name until her breath was gone, and her own fading figure came into view.

Hannah bowed her head.

The despair of being abandoned.

Accepting the terror of death.

Her silent figure, only staring outside the cave… it would have been her fate if not for Ricardo.

– Ah… I… I miss you.

Her voice was drowned out by the sound of pouring rain.

– I’m sorry…

The ending she hated the most finally came to be.

Watching her breath fade away, Hannah bowed her head.

And thus, three days later.

Her father embraced his now lifeless body, sobbing.

– Hannah…

– You have to wake up. Daddy is here.

– Whatever it takes, whether it’s Dalian or something else.

– You have to wake up…

While making a foolish expression as she spoke.

Hannah couldn’t bear to see that appearance.

Because she loathed it.

[The narrative shifts to one year after Hannah’s death.]

The last prank of the Blue Window unfolded before her eyes.

– Can I call you father?

Her father smiled warmly at the familiar face of the woman.

He was affectionately stroking the woman’s hair with a gentle touch, a smile that she had never seen before.

A woman with beautiful looks and pink hair. The most popular person in the academy and a talented healer.

Yuria.

Yuria looked up and asked, “Why are you being so kind to me, sir?”

Her father smiled faintly and replied, “Because you remind me of my youngest daughter… you keep overlapping in my thoughts.”

Tears began to stream from Hanna’s eyes.

It seemed as if, even in death, she wouldn’t see her father.

[Reading has ended.]

The heavy feeling lingers.

Tears flow from her eyes.

A breath trembles with fear and anguish.

Feeling resentment towards the father projecting her own death, Hanna shuddered at the regret transforming into her father’s death.

What should she say?

What expression should she wear?

Unable to express her current suffocating feeling, Hanna wiped her face in despair.

“I… really… tried so hard.”

Hanna, who endured the pain of shedding her flesh and struggled to be recognized, found it bitterly ironic that she was acknowledged through her own death. Frustrated, she pounded on her constricted chest.

She wanted to give up.

On everything.

As she was about to prop up the bed with despair-filled eyes and leave, a familiar voice asked, “Are you crying?”

A woman with a chubby face, chewing on muddy chocolate, looked down at herself with a puzzled expression. Olivia, with white hair, put her hand on her forehead and said, “Why are you crying…?”

With a chubby face, Olivia broke the chocolate in half with a worried expression.

Offering it with trembling hands.

“Do you want to eat…?”

Olivia, who seemed reluctant to give, displayed a face full of worry.

And.

“Miss, just a small token like this would be sufficient, wouldn’t it?”

“This…! It’s mine!”

“Consideration. Respect. Chocolate. Everything is a bribe for the future.”

“But… even so…”

Ricardo, taking the chocolate from Olivia’s hand, spoke with a gentle smile.

“Don’t cry.”

“I feel sadder watching you.”

Hannah looked at Ricardo with teary eyes.

And.

She sorrowfully wept in his embrace.