Chapter 34 : Chapter 34
Volume 1
Chapter 34 : The Truth Behind the Prophetic Dream
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[At this moment, how deeply, deeply pained I am.]
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[I loved you so much, so why did you do those things?]
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[You changed.]
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[So I can only purify you with my own love.]
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[Do not worry. I still have so much love left.]
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[Accept my love.]
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[Young Master Muen.]
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“Haa... haa...”
Muen jolted awake from the nightmare, gasping for breath like a fish stranded on shore by the tide.
“Was I... dreaming again?”
“No, that was the prophetic dream.”
“The person in the dream seemed a little clearer this time. She seemed to be...”
“Who was it?”
Muen shook his head and tried hard to remember.
He always felt that he was only one step away from learning the identity of the person who would carve him into a thousand pieces in that prophetic dream, yet he always fell just short at the very end—close enough to yearn for it, but never close enough to grasp it.
“Damn it, my head hurts.”
As Muen struggled to think, fragments of memory began pouring into his mind, accompanied by a sharp pain in the back of his head.
“Right, what happened before this...”
“I remember now. Ann tried to drug me.”
“But I saw through it.”
“And then... she used force and knocked me out?”
The violent pain, together with the tearing sensation brought by those returning memories, made cold sweat break out all over Muen’s body.
He instinctively curled up and tried to struggle.
Clang.
Accompanied by the harsh scrape of metal, the attempt failed. Instead, it only brought a cold ache to his wrists and ankles.
“This is...”
Muen turned to look beside himself.
Cold shackles tightly locked down the little freedom his wrists and ankles had left, forcing him to keep his arms spread wide, like Jesus nailed to the cross.
Fortunately, the person imprisoning him had shown one final scrap of mercy, allowing Muen to sit fully on the ground so that this captivity did not become a punishment every waking moment.
“But imprisonment itself is already punishment, all right?!”
Muen yanked at the shackles and shouted furiously,
“Who did this? Let me go! Do you even know who I am?!”
“Oh my, Young Master, you’re awake.”
A familiar voice sounded in front of him.
“Seeing that you are still this lively truly puts my mind at ease.”
“You... Ann?”
Muen raised his head and looked at Ann, who was still dressed in her maid uniform and still wore that dignified expression.
In an instant, the bitterness of betrayal and the rage of imprisonment flooded his mind all at once, making him struggle even more violently.
“Why are you doing this, Ann?!”
“Why did you betray me? Why did you lock me up?”
“Did someone tempt you? Or were you a spy planted in the Duke’s household from the very beginning?!”
“Betrayal? Tempted? A spy?”
Ann looked at Muen, a trace of puzzlement surfacing in her eyes.
“What are you talking about, Young Master Muen? How could I possibly betray you? I am your utterly loyal personal maid.”
“Utter nonsense! What kind of utterly loyal maid knocks out her own master and then imprisons him?”
“Did I not already say this before? There was no other way. If only you had not been so clever back then, Young Master, and had obediently drunk the black tea, you would not have had to suffer this much.”
“And then what? You would have drugged me and imprisoned me anyway?” Muen sneered.
“Mm, the ending probably would have been much the same. But all those things you guessed at—betrayal, temptation, being a spy—none of them exist at all.
“I have always, always been your personal maid. From ten years ago, when I first came to your side, when you were eight years old, it has always been this way. I exist for your sake alone, Young Master.”
“Then why?!”
“Ah, so you forgot what I said not long ago.”
“What did you say?”
“What I said before I knocked you out...”
Ann suddenly knelt down in front of Muen and wrapped him in an intimate embrace.
Her soft, delicate body pressed against him, and that faint floral fragrance lingered around them.
The exquisite sensation made even Muen lose focus for an instant.
Leaning close to Muen’s ear, Ann breathed softly and whispered,
“I said that everything I am doing is to pull you back onto the proper track, Young Master.”
“What... proper track?”
“Why, of course...”
Slurp.
Ann suddenly ran her tongue across Muen’s cheek.
That sudden warm, wet sensation made Muen instinctively try to retreat, but with shackles binding him and the wall at his back, where could he possibly run?
“Of course, it means making you belong to me, Young Master—forever and completely, inside and out, from head to toe, from flesh to soul. Every strand of hair, every drop of blood, every trace of scent... all of it, mine. That is the proper track.” A flush spread across Ann’s dignified face as she spoke in a soft voice, like a shy maiden confessing to the one she loved.
But there was not the slightest sweetness in the meaning of her words.
“What—”
Muen’s mind went blank.
In the space of only a few short minutes, his brain had suffered too many shocks.
For a while, he completely froze, unable to process any of it.
Just then, that faint floral fragrance slipped into Muen’s nose again, stimulating his nerves and jolting him back to clarity.
But Muen only wished he had not come to his senses.
Because he remembered that scent.
“Why did I not notice sooner?”
In that prophetic dream, the murderer who would carve him into a thousand pieces had always had a blurred face and voice for some unknown reason.
Except for one thing that had never changed.
The mysterious floral fragrance that always lingered around her, though he had never known where it came from.
And that fragrance was exactly the same as the scent now coming from Ann.
Realizing that, Muen could not help slowly turning his head to look at Ann, who was so close to him.
Ann, who had always presented herself as dignified and composed, was now holding Muen tightly, greedily inhaling his scent, and from time to time licking his cheek or neck, only to reveal an expression of satisfaction, as though she were savoring some exquisite delicacy.
The unhealthy flush on her face had not faded once since a moment ago.
And only now did Muen finally realize what the emotion hidden deep in Ann’s eyes—yet never truly concealed, always leaking out bit by bit—actually was.
It was possessiveness, deep and bottomless like an abyss, enough to swallow a person whole!
“So... that is how it is?”
“The truth behind the black book’s prophetic dream.”
“Ann, who stays by my side day and night as my personal maid... is actually a yandere?”
Now that he had pieced everything together, Muen could feel his teeth chattering.
Plenty of people liked reading about yandere scenarios in novels or watching them in anime, certainly, but liking that sort of thing from afar and actually being targeted by a yandere were two completely different matters.
Especially a supreme yandere who knocked you out and imprisoned you at the slightest turn.
That was the kind that could truly get you killed.
Makoto’s head was still up there in the sky watching, for heaven’s sake!
“No, this is very wrong. Extremely wrong!”
“Ordinarily, is this not the sort of yandere plot that should happen to the protagonist?”
“I am only a mere blond villain. What possible merit do I have to deserve this?”
“Where is the protagonist? Come save me already!”