How Could the Villainous Young Master Be a Saintess?

“What are you doing now?” Milian couldn’t understand what Vinny was doing. Even at a time like this, he was still messing around, and she couldn’t help speaking up.

“Obviously I’m trying to stand up.” Vinny answered as if it were the most natural thing in the world, breathing hard. Ever since arriving in this bizarre world with an incomplete soul, he felt utterly exhausted from even the slightest movement. His brain and body both seemed overloaded, urging him to stay still and behave.

“It won’t work. I’ve tried a lot of times already. I can’t stand up.” Milian shook her head. “We’re probably going to be trapped here for the rest of our lives.”

“No wonder they say death isn’t the scariest thing. The scariest thing is ending up in a place this horrifying, unable to live and unable to die.” Milian’s voice was full of despair, carrying a tender sob. A pampered little princess who had always been doted on by her elders—when had she ever gone through something this awful before??

It was as if she could no longer control her emotions.

“I shouldn’t have followed you down here in the first place! Great, now look what happened. My sister, my home... I’ll never see them again!”

[Virtue +100.]

[Current Virtue: 6249.]

“...”

Vinny said nothing. He just listened quietly to Milian’s complaints without a word.

Milian’s lips trembled, and tears fell in strings like pearls. Even crying seemed exhausting for her now, as if she had already become an incomplete person.

A soft touch brushed across the corner of her eye, gently wiping away the tears welling there.

Milian raised her head and saw Vinny had taken out a silk handkerchief and was silently wiping the tears from the corners of her eyes, like a parent soothing a child in the middle of a tantrum.

“...I’m sorry.” Milian pressed her lips together. The colorless tears had reddened the girl’s eyes. “I shouldn’t have blamed you. This was obviously my own choice, and you ended up in the same situation as me. You took care of me the whole way even while I was dragging you down, and in the end I still blamed you just because I was throwing a fit.”

“I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I didn’t mean to hurt you with what I said.” Milian choked out through a sob.

“Milian, it looks like you really did take what I said earlier to heart.” Vinny didn’t mind at all. If anything, he sounded genuinely comforted.

“Hm? Me?”

“Right. I told you to be more honest with people, to face your own heart, and to stop letting your mouth run faster than your brain and blurting out a pile of unpleasant things all at once.” Vinny spoke softly, like a gentle mother educating a child.

“Now you’ve started thinking about other people’s feelings and emotions. Milian, you’ve already taken the first step. You’ve grown.”

“Me?” Milian stared blankly at Vinny, then at her own hands, and fell silent.

[Virtue +60.]

[Current Virtue: 6309.]

“But it’s useless to say all that now.”

“How is it useless? It’s always useful.” Vinny tried again, and this time, he finally managed to stand up with difficulty. “See? Try a few more times, and it becomes useful, doesn’t it? Didn’t I just stand up?”

“Milian, everything is like that. Don’t give up so easily. When you’re in despair, that’s when you should be looking even harder for hope.” As Vinny spoke, he held out a hand toward Milian. “You remember what I promised you before, right? Come on. Give me your hand.”

“I’ll take you back.” Vinny said it with absolute certainty.

“You...” Milian raised her eyes and stared blankly at Vinny as he smiled at her easily, as though encouraging her.

Even in a hopeless dead end like this, one where turning things around should have been impossible, he still looked calm and unhurried, as if he really could do it.

Elves were deeply emotional creatures. They were easily moved by feelings, easily infected by them, and Vinny’s composure at this moment infected Milian too, dragging her out of despair and the low point of her spirit and making her genuinely start to believe that maybe he really could get her out.

[Virtue +80.]

[Current Virtue: 6389.]

“You really...” Milian pursed her lips.

“What about me?”

“Nothing. I was just going to say... you’re really amazing.” Milian buried half her face in her knees. “You’re brave, and steady. I’m not like you. I’m actually a coward... I’m afraid of everything.”

“Forget something this serious, where life and death are on the line. I can’t even handle plenty of ordinary little things in daily life... Someone like me just drags people down, right?”

“You were right. I really am an idiot. A complete idiot.” Milian buried her head in her knees again.

“That’s not true, Milian. You’re brave, and you’re kind.” Vinny’s voice remained calm and even.

“You’re lying. Where am I brave??” Milian clearly didn’t believe him. “Even if you want to praise someone, you could at least not make it sound this ridiculous, right?”

“If you weren’t brave, then why, back there, when I was about to be pierced by that black spike, did you shove me away and save me by sacrificing yourself?”

“That was because...” Milian froze, suddenly unable to continue.

“Milian, it’s not that you lack courage. You just keep telling yourself that you can’t do it. Why not try telling yourself, just once, that you can?” Vinny asked. “Then believe it with conviction, and carry it through with conviction.”

“You make it sound easy. Someone like me can’t do that.”

“How do you know if you don’t try? Just like right now—if you give up, then it really is over.”

“Be brave. Stand up, Milian. No matter what the scenery ahead looks like, I’ll walk through it with you.” Vinny smiled as he encouraged her.

“.....” Milian opened her mouth, but no words came out.

At this moment, not even half of that rude, villainous-young-master image Vinny usually wore remained.

He was like a gentle, considerate girl next door, and at the same time he carried a kind of calm emotional steadiness and easy control that made people feel safe, made people feel drawn in, as though as long as he was here, everything would be all right.

The contrast hit Milian hard. He was obviously brave, outstanding, kind, gentle, patient, and emotionally steady, yet in ordinary times he insisted on acting like some frivolous villainous young master. Once he set that mask aside, the intense contrast transformed into an equally intense charm.

Especially in an environment like this, where she had fallen into despair and had no one else to rely on, the effect was overwhelming.

[Virtue +120.]

[Current Virtue: 6509.]

“Or what, Milian? You can’t walk anymore? That’s fine. Climb on.” As he spoke, Vinny turned his back to her, shook out his body a little, and crouched down.

Milian looked at his shoulders. There were a few faint tremors in them. Her lips pressed together.

Obviously he felt just as awful as she did, yet he insisted on pretending that it didn’t matter, pretending he hadn’t been affected much at all.

Because he knew that if he showed even the slightest bit of negative emotion, it would only make her sink even deeper.

Seen that way, really, she was the only one here who was a child constantly needing someone else to take care of her.

A stupid, childish child who only caused trouble for other people.

[Virtue +150.]

[Current Virtue: 6659.]

Milian didn’t refuse. She draped both arms over Vinny’s shoulders and rested her head on one shoulder, but she truly had no strength left.

Vinny grabbed her limp legs, took a deep breath, braced himself, and stood up.

“You’re tired, right?” Milian’s voice was filled with exhaustion, but beyond the exhaustion, there was also a trace of relief.

“I’m not tired.”

“And you say you’re not tired.” Milian puffed out her cheeks, sounding a little dissatisfied. “You tell me to be more honest, but a lot of the time you’re not honest at all.”

“Milian, after spending a few days with me, the skill of that sharp tongue of yours has improved by leaps and bounds. I’m starting to lose arguments to you.” Vinny teased.

“And whose teaching do you think that is?” Milian leaned against his shoulder and clicked her tongue.

It seemed that after Vinny comforted her, she really wasn’t afraid anymore.

But whether she was afraid or not, only she herself knew.

The Milian of now had clearly learned something the Milian of before had not: adult strength was, most of the time, something people forced themselves to wear like a disguise. They didn’t want others to see it, and they didn’t want others to worry.

Just like Vinny. He didn’t want his negative emotions to infect her.

And Milian didn’t want to cause trouble for Vinny by dumping her own negativity onto him either.

The golden-elf girl’s hair, like strands of golden silk, spilled over Vinny’s shoulder. A few strands brushed across his cheek, and he caught a scent from her like wheat, sweet and full.

It smelled like sunlight and rain.

Vinny carried Milian on his back as the two of them kept silent, wandering aimlessly through this absurd land, leaning on each other and supporting each other.

Feeling each other’s body heat, seeing each other’s faces, relying on one another like this really did lessen their loneliness and slow the rate at which their sanity was dropping.

“Hey, hey.” After a long time, Milian called out and stopped Vinny.

“What is it?” Vinny asked.

“Nothing. I was just thinking, you really are a strange person. Before, you said you’d gone through things even more terrifying and ridiculous than this, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m really curious what exactly you went through.” Milian huffed.

“Me?” Vinny’s lips curved upward. “Milian, you wouldn’t want to know.”

“Why are you so sure I wouldn’t want to know?” Milian sounded dissatisfied.

“Because the things I went through are probably things you wouldn’t even dare imagine.” Vinny said.

“Like what?”

“From childhood until now. All of it. The things from when I was little, and the things after I entered Carillian Academy too.” Vinny answered.

“From childhood? You mean you started going through those ridiculous things when you were a kid?” Milian’s tone was full of disbelief.

“See? I told you, you can’t imagine it.” Vinny shook his head. “But that’s normal. You’re a little princess raised in a warm greenhouse with every advantage. It’s only normal that you can’t imagine the childhood of an unlucky bastard like me.”

“Your... childhood?” At that moment, Milian remembered it too. Vinny’s childhood could no longer be described as merely unfortunate. It could only be called utterly awful—so awful it was hard to accept.

And it was precisely because of those similarly awful experiences that Shicodale had resonated with Vinny so strongly, and why Vinny understood Shicodale better than even Milian, who had grown up alongside him.

That was right. Vinny and Shicodale lived under the same roof.

And at heart, Vinny was that kind of gentle, kind person. Anyone who had fallen into hardship, elf or human, as long as that person wasn’t rotten to the core, he would help.

At first, Milian had thought Vinny was getting close to Shicodale because he had some impure motive. The same for all the help he gave Shicodale—she had thought it had to be for some purpose.

But now...

Her thinking had completely changed.

After realizing just how childish and stupid her past self had been, Milian began rejecting many of the thoughts that past self had carried too.

Her old self really had been self-righteous. In reality, she had just been a complete idiot.

Little Shicodale was much smarter than she was. How could he possibly not know who treated him well and who treated him badly?

Only Milian had been taking things for granted the whole time, convinced that she alone was the one acting for Shicodale’s sake, and that no one else was—especially not those humans.

But that kind of goodness had only been her own wishful thinking.

Come to think of it, little Shicodale really was lucky. After enrolling, he had met someone who looked after him so carefully, someone sincere with him and genuinely concerned for him.

Milian lay against Vinny’s shoulder and breathed in that cheap cologne on him, now dampened by sweat. For some reason, that smell—something she once would have found cheap and irritating—now made her feel incomparably grounded.

For some reason, her chest turned a little sour too.

Little Shicodale, in a certain sense, made her a little envious.

But maybe only someone kind like little Shicodale could draw in someone equally kind and gentle like this.

Not someone awful like her.

Milian thought silently.

Has he already started to dislike me?

Well, that couldn’t be helped.

Compared to little Shicodale, she was disobedient, not gentle, not thoughtful, not sensible, not smart, and constantly blurted out hurtful things without thinking. The very first time she met Vinny, things had gone badly, and she had even cursed him out without knowing the full story.

How could she possibly compare to little Shicodale??

At that thought, Milian’s grip on Vinny’s clothes loosened a little.

“Hm? What is it?” Vinny sensed the change in her and asked.

“Nothing. I was just... kind of curious how much you went through as a child to become the way you are now.”

“That’s a strange way to ask it, Milian. Nobody wants to become mature. It happens because there’s no other choice. Reality forces people to. It forces them to become mature whether they want to or not.” Over the course of this year, as Vinny had grown at high speed, he had felt that truth keenly.

“I... kind of admire you.” Milian rested limply against his shoulder.

“What do you admire? That my parents died early, and I had no one to rely on as a child? Or that when I was little, I never knew where my next meal was coming from, and I was always getting bullied by the other kids around me?” Vinny laughed. “Milian, don’t be blind to the blessings you have. Out of the two of us, you have more reason to make it back alive than I do. You still have family. You still have a home.”

“As for me, Vinny... I don’t have anything left.”

“......” Hearing that, Milian pressed her lips together softly, but said nothing.

[Virtue +100.]

[Current Virtue: 6759.]