I Am Troubled That My Fiance Is A Villain Chapter 16

“Why…”

With a pale face, Lila muttered in a daze. Her clenched fists looked painful, to the point that it was turning white.

“U-uhm…”

What's with this situation?

Anyways, this position is no good. For the time being, I should step away from Bern…

The moment I tapped Bern's shoulder, Lila walked bristly up to me and violently grabbed my arm.

And then she pulled on it and forcibly made me stand up.

Eh, what!? What's going on!?

The only thing I could understand in my confusion was that Lila's slender fingers were biting painfully into my soft upper arms.

“Lizisan, I'd like to talk to you for a bit.”

“S-sure.”

This is bad. I can only respond to her like an idiot.

The usually smiling face that Lila dons for some reason feels impatient.

Dragging me just like that, I finally came back to my senses. A voice protested as my other arm was pulled forcibly in the other direction.

“If you wanna talk, here's fine.”

“…This has nothing to do with you, Bernhardt-senpai. Plus this'll be over in a minute.”

As she said that, Lila shows a stiff smile, not letting me take even one step back. I'm pretty sure that Bern doesn't agree with this as well.

No matter how I look at it, Lila's acting a little strange.

But, I've been wanting to have a talk with her.

Stop pulling on both my arms. The way my arms are being pulled reminded me of the Judgment of Solomon, with the mothers and the child.

“Uhm, Lilsan, could you please let me go? Bern too…”

If this keeps up, my jacket's going to rip apart. My upper arms have been really hurting for a while now.

“Then, would it be possible for just the two of us to talk by ourselves?”

I'd like you to at least apologize first!

But if I leave things like this, nothing's gonna happen.

Ah~ But I don't want to. I hate talking to her even more than with Lucas.

I don't want to, but there's no helping it. Forcibly stopping the confused thoughts circling in my head, I nod.

“Okay. But, we're only going as far as where Bern won't be able to hear us, but still be close by. If not, then I won't talk to you.”

For trying to rip apart my jacket, I'm not letting you have your way.

I declared while staring into her eyes. Lila slightly hesitated, and as if accepting that I wouldn't back down, nodded and let go of my arm.

“I'm sorry for being so rough with you…”

“It's fine.”

‘It really hurt, you know!' I said only in my mind.

For the time being, I talked to Lila at the visible end of the meadows. Bern was waiting underneath a tree.

After visually inspecting that Lila had no weapons on her, he told me to shout loudly if something happened and that he'd come save me as fast as he can. If something happened, they'd probably be in trouble. Not me, but Lila.

The pa.s.sing breeze gently brushes through the trees as the bottom of Lila's skirt flutters.

Unsettled, her right hand grasps her left hand tightly.

“Uhm, what did you want to talk about…?”

“…I've had something I've been wanting to tell you for a while now.”

I stared into Lila's intricately light blue and pink colored eyes.

Looking my way with obvious hostility, I unconsciously froze.

“Please stop getting in my way. Can you give Bernhardt back to me?”

“Huh?”

Who's returning who to who?

My ears may have been full of mushrooms just now. In that case, it must have been Bern who did it.

But I'm pretty sure there's no mushrooms in my ears.

So that means Lila just told me just now to return Bern to her?

“Because everyone's mine. It's been decided that way. This world was created for my sake. You know why, don't you? If so, you can give him back, right? Right?”

“What're you saying…”

My throat felt dry.

Lila trembled as she gave an innocent smile.

“Hey, Lizisan. You have memories of a past life, right? Since this is a game, you know about it right? It's bad to deceive others, you know. Because you're not part of the original story. You changed it, didn't you? But I'm not gonna be mad.

Since I'm Lila.

All the love that Lila will get will become all mine. I only accept things that are given to me. There's nothing wrong with that, right?

And yet, things aren't going so well. So I thought about it. It's cause you're in my way.

Because Bernhardt is the cool, hidden character, I figured I didn't have to do anything, since he's also supposed to fall in love with me, right? He was supposed to love me. But…

No, he'll definitely come to love me. That's right. I mean, that's supposed to happen, right? Right? His Highness, Alois, and Johann as well have already told me they love me. That's what they all said! But even so, whywhywhy… whywhy… Haa…”

Uhuhuhuhuhu.

Wh-what should I do, Lila looks crazy…!

I mean, is it okay to reveal those things to me!?

Let's see, Lila has memories of her previous life, and knows about “My Lilac.” And because of that, she noticed that because of me, the story has changed. Furthermore,  Bern was the hidden character…

Ah, I'm not surprised that Bern's the hidden character… I thought I'd be more shocked at that, but I'm a little more shocked at how she said all of that in one go. Huh, it hasn't hit me yet?

Well, I mean, it's because he's handsome, he's also a character who won't lose to the other love interests, since he's handsome.

I mean, that's fine for now. Let's think about that later.

The problem right now is that Lila thinks this world is exactly like the game and views me as a nuisance.

Just now, only saying “why” over and over again near the end, I have a feeling Lila can't hear me. It even sounds like someone's name now…

Even now, Lila's face is covered, and she's been grumbling under her breath.

I could at least understand that the Lila I'm looking at right now did a complete 180, as if she's a completely different person.

I wonder what happened to her so far to end up like this.

She's acting weird and looks impatient compared to a week ago. Exactly right after she was pushed from the stairs. She's never acted bothered by my closeness with Bern until then…

Don't tell me that something else happened that day aside from Lila being pushed down?

I nervously put my hand on Lila's shoulder and said as gently as I could.

“I'm as you said, I have memories of a past life. But I didn't use that to get closer to Bern, so I never planned on getting in your way. You got the wrong idea, I'm sorry…”

“That's a lie.”

But it's not.

Actually, the moment I realized that this was the world of an otome game, I thought of living without disturbing the main characters of the game. But because of that, I became engaged to Bern, got along well with Katerina, managed to meet tons of people, and understood a lot.

And that day during Thanksgiving, I noticed my slanted view of this reality as the game world. For the first time, I managed to face Bern head on and noticed that I fell for him.

It's not because I have memories of a previous life, that I'm a character that never appears in the game, or that I had a hunch of Bern being the hidden character.

It's because I'm just trying to live as Lizia Rietberg.

“Hey, Lila. I know this place really looks like the game. But we're not inside of one. It's not a world inside of a tv that someone's producing. You, me, and even Bern are all our own selves. If you're not able to understand that in the very least, I won't think badly of you.”

I became aware of it, one way or another.

You may be Lila, but you're not the protagonist Lila. You're also not Lila that's a proxy for players playing the game.

I prayed that she'd see that and waited for her words as she sank into silence.

Please…

“…up.”

“Eh?”

For a moment, Lila pushed off my hand to cover her own face and had an evil look.

“Shut up. You're just a mob, aren't you? Don't act like you're above it all, since you're stealing what's rightfully mine. The one who he should be hugging right now is me. Me!

I mean, you know why. If I don't raise my likability points with Bernhardt, I won't be able to enter the others' routes. If I can't raise my likability with him, I…!”

For a moment, Lila looked helpless, like a lost child. But like an illusion, it quickly disappeared, and she let out suspicious smile.

“So give him back. This was supposed to be my memory. Not yours.”

I felt something snap.

At that moment, I felt an uncontrollable rage well up from the inside of my stomach, and for a moment, Lila looked either confused or scared.

A gus.h.i.+ng noise resounded from within me, my blood boiling.

“Someone like you…”

I clenched my teeth in anger and squeezed out the words from the back of my throat.

“Someone like you has no right to deny my memories with Bern!”

That was the first time in my whole life I've ever used rude words towards someone.

I didn't know that I had this kind of fury inside of me.

“Treating people like objects and believing that you'll get anything you wish for, who do you think you are, G.o.d? I may just be a normal mob, unlike you, who's cute and exceptionally smart. But for me to fall in love with Bern, to be friends with Katerina, and to get angry at you, this isn't a program…! This isn't a game!”

My breath was strained.

Lila could only look at me in bewilderment as I answered back.

Ah, why did I agree to this?

A hollow sadness immediately painted over the anger in my heart, spreading like water.

The corners of my eyes started feeling warm bit by bit, and my vision warped.

For a while now, Lila's only been bewildered, which makes me sad.

When I noticed, Bern who was supposed to be underneath a tree was suddenly at my side.

With a blank look on his face, he got in between me and Lila.

I couldn't see Lila from behind Bern's big back. As if waiting for this, a warm teardrop fell from my right eye.

“Bernhardt-senpai, I-I…”

Lila called out to Bern in a pained voice.

Maybe to say, ‘I didn't mean to make Lizisan cry.'

‘Eh, is that so?' I'll say back. Because I didn't mean to cry either.

“Sorry, but I've been listening to your conversation since halfway through… To be honest, I didn't really get what you guys were saying.”

Ah, I shouted the words ‘game' with all I had… What should I do if he asks for an explanation later?

I tried to stop my crying by frantically controlling my breathing. I was strangely calm.

“Senpai, senpai, you li–”

“Lila Carneille.”

As to cut off her desperate clinginess, he said.

“I've given all that I am to Lizzy, so I have nothing else to give you. I'm sorry.”

Lila caught her breath.

Although Bern's voice was calm as usual, it was quite the opposite, with it showing just how indifferent he feels towards Lila.

“Sorry, but can you leave? If you hurt her anymore than this, I can't promise that I'll be of good judgment.”

For a short while, the only noises that could be heard were the rustling of the trees and the breathing of three people.

Just how much longer is this going to take? It's only been thirty seconds, but after a terribly long silence, light footsteps treaded on the gra.s.s and got farther away so that you couldn't hear them anymore.

With Lila gone, as if finally breaking, tears spilled from my eyes.

Why am I this annoyed and sad?

It's probably because that somewhere in my heart, I wanted to be friends with Lila.

Actually, it's not that I wasn't suspicious that Lila was a bad kid, but if we both had memories of a past life, I thought that we could talk about them…

From her calling me a mob, I knew that she didn't think we were equal. No matter what I do, it still hurts.

As I cried, Bern said nothing and rubbed my back. He stayed by my side as I cried more and more like an idiot.

Seems like the main story's going to be ending in probably five or six more chapters.

I was getting so angry translating this, but after some time, I just felt sorry for Lila cause she was going crazy.

But anyways, Bern and Lizia are above confessions, here they are being devoted to each other. Gotta get on their level. AND I KNEW THE HIDDEN CHARA WOULD BE IMPORTANT BUT I DIDNT THINK IT WAS BERN. Well, I kinda guessed it could be him because Lizia didn't know who it was in her previous life. And as she said twice, he's handsome.

E/N: Eh, personally, I don't really feel that bad for Lila. She was too self-absorbed. Sure, she was having a ma.s.sive breakdown, but her att.i.tude didn't really change. She just got angrier and crazier instead.  There seems to be a couple chapters left so I hope she gets better.

Honestly, I completely forgot that there was even a hidden character aspect until I read this chapter.  On another note, go Bern! Show your love!

E/N Edit: Okay, earlier, I had skipped over the reveal, and now that I've read it, I'm thinking that Lila might've recalled her past memories after the fall from the stairs. She was acting rather differently after all. But I may be wrong, what do you guys think?

Name's Erika. For some dumb reason, I decided to major in Physics. I'm stuck in this major now. I used to translate manga and light novels a few years back, left, then came back cause I found some good novels to read. I'm the only TLer on my site, so rip. I'm apparently also good at drawing, and I also like kpop (BTS, I mean, I have Hobi as my pic). I don't bite, so feel free to chat me up on here or on NU @adorkablehiko.