The Villainess Makes Amends

Chapter 2

The Villainess Returns

“Lady Kiana…? Lady Kiana!”

Someone was shaking me awake. I sprang up immediately, looking wildly around the room. I was in a shabby student laboratory, surrounded by cheap experimental equipment…

What? But I was just inside a prison…!

“You can’t sleep here. I know you’re obsessed with your thesis, but please keep to your own lab hours.”

The voice of the student who had woken me droned in my ear.

Wait. This guy…

He was the one who, despite his lack of skill, kept having his name appear as a co-author alongside mine on my work because he was related to the dean. I was in such a daze that I instinctively gave a typical, timid response.

“You’re just a doctoral candidate! How dare you criticize me? Get lost before I use a pendulum maneuver to beat your epithelial cells!”

“Uh, I’m not a doctoral candidate… You must still be asleep.”

The junior student clucked his tongue before departing from the lab.

What is happening?

I quickly checked the lab coat I was wearing.

Wait… This is the coat I wore while I was still working on my doctorate.

Oh… I shouldn’t have mocked doctoral candidates just now. Blinking heavily, I looked over at the newspaper tossed in front of the door. Immediately, I saw the headline and fell into a state of shock.

[Breaking News: Melissa Freley Renounces Her Last Name and Applies to Become a Saint at the Erloa Monastery. She vows to spend the rest of her life in service to others.]

“Wh-what’s going on?!”

Most astonishingly, the newspaper was dated to one year earlier than my last memory.

“I’m going to turn back time. I will take all of my memories with me and go back to one year ago. Then, I’ll go to a monastery right away and leave all of House Freley behind. I won’t die a meaningless death!”

I was at a loss for words.

What? Did Melissa actually turn back time?

Still not believing what had happened, I immediately sent a letter to the monastery for Melissa.

[Hey, are you really going to become a saint and stop being a Freley? What’s going to happen to our family afterward?]

I tried to keep the letter as brief as possible, in case it was used as evidence against me later when we were accused of treason.

But I used the word “afterward,” so she’ll probably figure out that I also have all of my memories.

I figured that would be a big enough hint.

She’ll be surprised just by the fact that I sent her a letter. I’m sure she’ll understand what I meant.

After I sent off the letter to the monastery, I locked myself in my dormitory. I needed to come up with a plan for what to do next.

So… All of that happened because of Prince Heaton?

I decided to wait for Melissa’s reply before making any moves, and started considering all the possibilities.

A few days later, while I’d been holed up in my room looking like an utter wreck and formulating yet another plan, I heard a tapping on the window. Something small and yellow was hovering in the air.

“Hmm?”

I looked over my glasses, past the scribbled notes littered across the room, and peered through the window.

“Wait, you’re…”

I was surprised when I recognized the source of the noise.

“Chirpy!”

It was Melissa’s summoned creature, the yellow lark. She held an envelope in her beak. As soon as I took it, she flapped her fluffy wings and zoomed around the room, chirping enthusiastically.

“Kiana, I’ve brought Melissa’s lett—”

I gave Chirpy a warm greeting and said, in a friendly manner, “Can you shut your beak for a moment? I need some peace and quiet. You can chirp all you want after I read the letter.”

“Hmph…!”

I forced Chirpy’s beak closed and opened the envelope.

[Kiana, it has been so long! You were always so mean to me, but I guess you’ve cared for me all along.]

What in the world was she saying? I scowled.

Something’s strange about this. What is she talking about, saying “it has been so long?” And “cared for her…?”

[Everyone called you rude and a jealous noble brat, but I always believed there was a tiny bit of good in you… Even if your last words to me were, “Next time I see you, I’m going to make you remove all the seeds from my strawberries.”]

I quickly moved on to the next part of her letter.

[One morning, I suddenly woke up and realized that I should become a saint and enter a monastery. It must have been a message from the gods!]

Huh? Hadn’t she been the one to declare that she would enter a monastery to survive?

[Now, I’m going to leave with the other saints and wander the world, giving service to others. I won’t be in contact for a while. Goodbye!]

That was the end of her letter, but there was a postscript.

[P.S. I greatly admire the manifestation of the tiny bit of goodness I recognized in you all along. In celebration, I have enclosed a meaningful gift.]

My eyes grew wide.

A meaningful gift?

Was it, perhaps, a notarized document saying that she bequeathed every last possession she had to her “good-for-nothing” cousin Kiana? I hastily turned the page.

“Ta-da!”

Chirpy, who had kept quiet as ordered, suddenly flapped her tiny wings and hovered in front of me.

“I’m the gift, Kiana!”

Somehow, she had even wrapped the messy ribbon from my desk into a bow around her tiny neck.

“Melissa is no longer a Freley and thought that she didn’t need a summoned creature anymore. So she sent me to you instead!”

“What?”

I almost dropped the letter in shock. All members of House Freley had the ability to call a summoned creature. The power manifested in each family member at around age eight, and every summoned creature had different abilities, all meant to assist their masters.

Everyone except me.

For some reason, I had been the only one unable to summon a creature, which had been another part of the reason I had banished myself to this rural academy. But that wasn’t important right now.

Melissa threw away her last name and her creature? Isn’t that a bit excessive?

Chirpy kept chirping.

“It’s very difficult to turn back time using holy power. Well, I’m sure everything will be as Melissa wanted!”

I was still bewildered, and Chirpy used the opportunity to slyly hop onto my bed.

“I happened to be touching you, Kiana, when it happened… I guess something went wrong. Melissa lost her memories, while you and I were able to keep them.”

“My goodness…”

“I don’t know that much about holy power, but that’s what I think happened.”

I blankly recalled everything that had transpired. Chirpy had been unconscious by Melissa’s feet, and I had been shaking Melissa by the shoulders… I guess, somehow, Chirpy and I had been touching each other.

“Then, what about Melissa?” I asked.

“She doesn’t even realize that she has come back in time. I think the vow that she would renounce the Freley name and become a saint stayed with her,” Chirpy explained, flapping her wings. “As soon as she woke up, she immediately decided to enter a monastery.”

Now, I finally understood Melissa’s incoherent letter. She had no memories about anything before she had come back to the past, and she simply believed that she had woken up and “realized” that she was meant to become a saint. We had probably returned at the same time, but clearly, Melissa had been busy while I had still been unconscious.

“Chirpy, you didn’t tell Melissa the truth?”

“No.” Chirpy confidently shook her head and added, “Melissa is no longer a Freley, and summoned creatures do not owe loyalty to anyone outside of House Freley. It’s better to go to another member of the family, even if they are worse.”

It felt strange to be recognized as a Freley by none other than Melissa’s summoned creature. However, it was the act of summoning one’s creature that was truly important. Even if Melissa had transferred her creature to me, it did not mean that I had summoned a creature myself as a legitimate Freley. I sighed.

Chirpy tapped the bed with her small wings and muttered, “Wow, this bed is terrible, and this whole room smells musty. Did you really cause that big scene at sixteen years old and leave the duke’s estate just to come to this crummy place?”

Chirpy sure had a way with words. I kindly decided to educate her on how she should address her new master.

“Chirpy, you must not lie down and fall asleep in front of your master. Sit up at once.”

“Oh, trying to boss me around already, are you? I knew it.”

Chirpy wasn’t one to take things lying down.

“Frail Chirpy is so exhausted after coming all the way to the countryside. I need to rest, even if it’s on this terrible bed…”

It seemed that this would be a relationship of equals, where neither one of us would give in to the other.

That mouthy little feather ball…

Regardless, I was now starting to understand the situation thanks to Chirpy enlightening me. Only the two of us knew what would happen in the future. And in that case…

“Kiana, what’s all this?”

Chirpy glanced around at the walls covered in notes while I was busy thinking.

“I’m getting dizzy just looking at it! You have a really messy room.”

I gave her a look and replied, “These are all my thoughts and plans on what I should do next.”

“What? Thoughts and plans?”

“At this rate, House Freley will end up being at the mercy of Prince Heaton again, and I’ll be sent to be executed once more,” I explained.

“So what?”

“It’s up to me, the cunning and intelligent one, to save my poor, pathetic family from its doom.”

“Oh, but… You made this many plans?”

Chirpy looked around the room, taken aback.

“Yep. I’m a very diligent person.”

“Oh… Well, okay… But can you really save your family, Kiana? You’ve been stuck out here in the country and know nothing about what’s happening back home. All you know is one person who’s behind it. You have a really long road ahead.”

“You’re right. I don’t know anything, as you’ve so unnecessarily pointed out,” I agreed serenely. “I was really at a loss as to what to do, but now, a pretty good solution has revealed itself.”

“A solution?” Chirpy tilted her head quizzically.

I smiled.

“You know everything that’s going to happen in the empire, right? You were by Melissa’s side the whole time and saw everything.”

“What? Wait, don’t tell me that your solution is…”

“Now,” I said, taking out a new notepad and a pen. “Tell me everything you know, down to the tiniest detail. I’ll add every single thing to my notes and analyze the situation again. It might take… hmm, maybe two weeks?”

“What?” Chirpy’s beak fell open in shock. “Two weeks?! Kiana, are you crazy? It’s like you’re made out of obsession—”

“Chirpy,” I cut her off with a serious expression.

My major had been magical engineering, which was based on science and mathematics. I couldn’t stand those kinds of comments.

“I’m made out of cells.”

Chirpy fell silent.