I Will Become the Villain’s Poison Taster

Chapter 3

His cheerful reply was oddly low and heavy. The subtle shift in his tone left me uneasy, but before I could dig any deeper, I sensed movement outside the bars.

“Giselle Rozevin.”

The ominous call was followed by the appearance of a large man. Judging by his voice alone, it was clear he wasn’t the same assassin I’d been talking to moments ago. In his hand, he held a long sword.

“I’ve thought about it long and hard, and I won’t let a witch like you die peacefully.”

“Uh... I’m sorry, but who are you exactly?”

“Ha! I’m the fiancé of the kind-hearted woman you killed!”

I didn’t need more details to understand that this man had a serious grudge against Giselle. From the looks of it, he wasn’t here to poison me. He intended to make this painful and slow. The rage in his bloodshot eyes was terrifying.

“Oh, I see...”

I could understand his grudge against Giselle’s past sins, but just because I was stuck in this body didn’t mean I wanted to pay the price for them.

The prison was small, leaving me with no place to run. All I could do was press myself against the wall, putting as much distance as possible between myself and the man.

He glared at me as I cowered in the corner, then pulled out a key.

Wait. How did he even get his hands on the key to a death row inmate’s cell? What were the guards doing out there?!

“So, even a witch like you is scared of dying, huh?”

He seemed to relish in my terror.

What was I going to do? If he stabbed me with that sword, I’d definitely die. Not just die, but probably suffer through plenty of torture first.

How was this happening? The original story said I was supposed to be poisoned, not threatened with a blade!

“Scream all you want. No one’s coming to save you anyway.”

Judging by the key in his hand, it was clear the guards wouldn’t step in even if they heard my cries.

Without a second thought, I downed the poison I was holding. The sour liquid filled my mouth.

“What’s that? What are you trying to—”

“I drank the poison, so help me!”

My desperate cry made the man pause mid-step. He quickly glanced around, as if expecting someone to emerge. But there was only silence. After a moment of tension, his focus returned to me.

Oh, come on!

I hurled the empty black bottle at him, though it didn’t do any damage.

“You said you’d help if I didn’t die, you lying bastard!”

Who would’ve guessed a scumbag like him wouldn’t keep his word?

“I’d heard rumors that the witch in this cell had lost her mind, but I didn’t think they’d be true.” The man scoffed as he watched me huff. He raised his sword above his head.

“I didn’t say I’d agree, just that I’d consider it.”

Just then, a black shadow wavered from behind the man.

“But I’ll admit, it was intriguing.”

“W-what the—?”

Before the man could react, the shadow surged behind him and swallowed him whole. Enveloped in an instant, the man’s eyes widened in shock as he thrashed wildly, but the dark tendrils moved too fast. The blackness seeped into his skin, leaving it charred and blistered.

As the shadow crept up his neck and finally covered his face, his skin shriveled like a squeezed sponge, withering grotesquely.

“Ugh.”

The sight was so gruesome that I instinctively clamped my hands over my mouth and squeezed my eyes shut.

The sword clattered to the ground with a loud clang, followed by a soft thud.

Given the man’s size, the sound should’ve been heavy and dull, but it was oddly light, as if a straw doll had collapsed.

“For someone who downs poison without any hesitation, you’re surprisingly squeamish about this kind of thing,” a cheerful voice spoke up nearby.

Carefully, I opened my eyes and saw someone crouched over the withered corpse of the man.

The figure picked up the empty poison bottle I’d thrown earlier, inspecting it as if to confirm it was indeed empty.

“Mr. Assassin?”

“Yep. That’s me,” he responded lightly and casually.

He rolled the bottle in his palm, tilting his head slightly, causing his jet-black hair to shift out of place. Unlike other assassins, he made no effort to hide his face. As a result, his pale complexion and striking crimson eyes were fully visible.

His gaze met mine. Even in the dim light, those blood-red eyes stood out vividly.

Rather than fear, I felt a strange sense of relief. After all, this was the first time since waking in this body that someone had looked at me without hostility.

“You’re not gonna check to see if you brought the wrong bottle?”

There was probably at least a drop of poison left. At my question, he smiled, his eyes curving into crescents.

“I didn’t grab the wrong one.”

Finally, an assassin who didn’t test the poison on themselves! I couldn’t help but marvel at the rare breed as I licked my lips. It felt as if the faint aftertaste of green grapes lingered on my tongue.

Come to think of it, it seemed like all the poisons in this world tasted like fruit.

***

Breaking out of prison was absurdly easy.

So easy, it felt anticlimactic. The assassin snapped his fingers a couple of times, and a massive magic circle appeared, instantly teleporting us to a new location. Sure, there were minor side effects—dizziness and a bit of nausea—but that was it.

I had been mentally preparing to fight off guards, sprint through corridors, or crawl through tight passages, so the outcome left me somewhat deflated.

“Want me to put you back?”

“No, it’s not that... I was just thinking about how ridiculously lax that prison is. No wonder assassins managed to sneak in all the time.”

“No need to feel foolish for not realizing it sooner. You’ve officially escaped using dark magic. From here on out, you won’t just get pelted with stones on the street. If they catch you, it’ll be immediate execution. Oh, and they’ll probably slap a hefty bounty on your head, too.”

Was that really something to say with such a breezy smile? I stared at the assassin in speechless disbelief before glancing around.

We were in a narrow alleyway. The buildings, mostly stone, were streaked with filth, with moss creeping into the cracks. The ground was an uneven dirty road, poorly maintained and riddled with puddles of muddy water.

“Ah, not quite what you’re used to, noble lady?”

It wasn’t because I was a noble lady—it was because I wasn’t from this world that I couldn’t get used to the scenery. The setting felt like a movie background, except the vivid stench of reality made it clear this wasn’t fiction.

Not that I need further proof after witnessing him cast black magic. In the world of Poisoned Apple, dark magic was the ultimate evil, the primary weapon of villains.

The character I had woken up inside of, Giselle Rozevin, had conspired using the aid of a dark mage. The final antagonist and last survivor, Wayne Aiore, was also a dark mage. Wayne sought to revive dark magic, gathering other practitioners under his banner and clashing with the male protagonist.

As I pondered this, I glanced at the assassin standing beside me.

In the daylight, I could see he was tall and strikingly handsome. His skin was so pale it might have seemed sickly on someone else, but his good looks turned it into an air of mystery.

It felt unlikely that such a minor character would be blessed with this kind of divine appearance.

But even as I racked my brain, I couldn’t recall any named character in the story with black hair and red eyes.

He wasn’t a protagonist or a key ally. The evil mastermind had silver hair, as briefly described in the novel. If there was a black-haired supporting character near the antagonist…

Wait a second.

“What is it?”

“Ah just... you should be thanking your parents for blessing you with good looks—I mean, that’s not what I meant. Are you a dark mage?”

The assassin simply shrugged in response. Ah, so that was why he reacted so strangely earlier when Wayne’s name had come up.

“So then you’re with Black Clouds?”

Black Clouds was the name of the organization Wayne led—a coalition of all sorts of abilities rooted in dark magic.

Early in the story, their name only appeared through vague mentions like “There are Black Clouds coming.” It wasn’t until midway through the novel that the organization’s true nature was revealed, and I supposed this was that point of the story.

Deep in thought, I asked again, “So, you’re one of Wayne’s subordinates?”

The assassin didn’t reply. He just looked at me with a peculiar expression, which immediately brought back the conversation we’d had in the prison.

Oh no. Had I just declared to Wayne’s subordinate that I wanted to work under Wayne?

“What’s your name?”

“Reniel.”

The name didn’t ring any bells. Was he really just some random extra?

There hadn’t been any supporting characters named Reniel near Wayne, so the chances of him being just a passing side character seemed high.

That was a relief. I hadn’t even figured out my own plans yet; getting tangled up with the central figures of the story this soon would’ve been troublesome.

While the dark mages were part of Black Clouds, they were known for their individualistic nature. Giselle had also worked with a dark mage who operated independently, so it was plausible that Reniel had been hired by someone else to assassinate me.

“Alright, Reniel. About what I said earlier—like I said, those are just my plans. Your boss probably doesn’t—”

“I get it.”

He waved a hand lazily, cutting me off.

From his nonchalant attitude, it didn’t seem like he was planning to report to his superior that “Giselle’s now a madwoman, so you shouldn’t hire her.”

Maybe he didn’t even work closely enough with his boss to say things like that.

“Anyway, are you planning to just stay here?”

“Excuse me?”

“We are still near the tower where you were imprisoned. Search teams will be swarming the area soon.”

Near the tower? Alarmed, I looked around again, this time more carefully. At first, I had been too distracted by the unfamiliar architecture and the overwhelming stench to notice. But now, in the distance, I could clearly see the tall stone tower looming.

Even from the outside, it was obvious. It wasn’t some romantic tower where princesses were kept—it was a grim, ominous prison for the worst criminals.

If you were going to escape using magic anyway, couldn’t you have taken me farther away?!