Living As the Villainess Queen

Alber chuckled. “You’re still curious?” she asked. “It must have been hard having to suppress your curiosity all this time.”

She wondered how a child like this could be her descendant; she was so interested about everything. When she entered the dream, she didn’t know what to expect. Alber thought that it would be enough to have Anika Jin listen to what she had to say, but this was completely unexpected.

The young woman wasn’t just trying to understand everything, it seemed like she had already been trying to uncover the truth for quite a while. She had asked things that Alber had to actually think about before she could answer. She was to know that she was giving away information that seemed to be useful.

“What if you start with the questions you think are most important?” she prompted. “We don’t have a lot of time, but I do want to tell you things that make sense for you to know.”

Eugene nodded. She considered all the thoughts that were rushing through her mind. Ever since she came into this world, her values had shifted. The moment she jumped into that dark hole, the old Eugene who would have sacrificed everything for her family had disappeared: she was determined to put herself first this time.

So, she said, “I want to learn magic.”

“Magic?”

“Yes,” Eugene confirmed. “I know that it’s hard to get that knowledge from the Muen family, so I’d like for you to teach me instead.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

“Why not?”

Alber clasped her hands in front of her and sighed. “I can teach you theory, sure,” she said. “But the best way to learn magic is to practice it. No matter how much I explain ideas and concepts to you, you’ll still have to learn how to actually do it. If you really want to learn things, you can ask the monster, but it would definitely be a different kind of magic from what you would learn from the Muens.”

She watched as the girl’s face turned to disappointment. It was the same look she had when Alber had told her that the Muens wouldn’t be able to teach her. Out of curiosity, she asked, “What is your reason for wanting to learn magic?”

Eugene’s eyes widened at the question. My reason for wanting to learn magic? The more she thought about the question, the stronger the realization seemed to hit her. She didn’t want to learn magic just out of curiosity, she wanted to learn it so she could understand what had happened to her and why.

But that doesn’t mean I have to learn it, she thought. I could just ask someone… someone like her.

She looked up at the older woman. Alber was essentially a piece of living history. She is probably the closest Eugene could get to a master of magic. She would definitely have some kind of answer to Eugene’s question.

But she’ll need to know everything. I have to tell her everything.

She realized that she trusted Alber now. She now knew that the woman had sacrificed herself for the future of her tribe and all her descendants. It was even better to know that she was intelligent enough to keep a level head even during difficult times.

So, she told the whole story.

She started by telling her about how she had been kidnapped when she was younger, just as Kasser had told her. Then, she talked about how her soul had been exchanged with another’s, how she had gone to another world and lived there before she finally returned.

She told Alber everything, from start to finish, all that she knew and all that she understood. As she did, the older woman’s expressions changed. She asked a few questions in between the parts of Eugene’s story, but she didn’t pry so much that she disrupted the flow of the story.

Eugene knew that if she hid any details or avoided talking about something, Alber wouldn’t be able to give her accurate answers to her questions about her situation, so she talked about the novel that she wrote as well. She had never told anyone about that before, not even Kasser. She was afraid that even he would think she was crazy if she did. The novel was about how the world had been thrown into chaos, how everything had fallen apart. It didn’t make sense to tell anyone she knew because it all seemed so outlandish.

When she was done speaking, Alber remained silent for a moment. She looked like she was in deep thought, her expressions shifting between certainty and doubt. She would nod one moment then frown the next. Eugene waited patiently and quietly, afraid that she would disturb Alber’s thoughts.