The Villainess turns the Hourglass

Editor Group: Liber Reverie

As he had been watching her all the time, he had checked where her gaze had reached, and asked, “I guessed it… because the color of the ring had changed. Is it related to the hourglass?”

‘You really noticed it in the color of the ring.’

She explained, thinking that it was good to confess before it was too late.

“… yeah, I can use my power through the hourglass.”

“I’m sorry, but what is your power? I’ve never heard of using things…”

“You’re hard to believe, but I can… I can turn back five minutes, only once a day.”

“…!”

Asher put his strength on his hands which wrapped around hers. In a shocking confession that she could turn back time to the past, Asher, who was listening to her, did not answer. ‘Who can answer the question of knowing that the time is back?’

The ability to turn back time was more powerful and mysterious than the ability to move through space. It meant that she could dare to correct mistakes against the laws of the world and the rules God had created. For a long time, when Asher didn’t answer, Aria, worried that he didn’t believe her and added,

“… I would like to show you my power, like you, but I think it will be a little difficult now as I have to go to sleep for a day after returning the time. I can’t sleep during the birthday party, and I’ll show you later if I have a chance.”

Unlike Asher, who was free to move, Aria could not specify time, and after using her ability, she had to sleep unconditionally. The explanation changed his expression, and Aria, who quickly recognized it, asked why.

“You know something.”

“… it’s just a guess.”

“What is that guess?”

“… I think you are not a royal family member, and there are serious side effects to your use of power.”

It was exactly because she was not connected to the royal blood, and she was Violet’s granddaughter, who had been recognized as a member of the royal family with the holy water alone, and unlike the real royals, she had weaker abilities and severe side effects. But it was not his responsibility to explain such a cause-and-effect relationship, so he added, except for the story of the lineage, because he did not want her to misunderstand.

“I cannot say that I am accurate because I have seen it through a secret book which has been passed down only to the successor of the imperial throne for generations, but the ability is only found in a few royal families, and rarely appears to outsiders, too. However, it’s very little.”

“So… if the power appears to the outsider who is not a royal family, she will have a severe side effect on her ability use.”

“That’s as I know it.”

Aria smiled inside. It was strange and mysterious that she had the power although she was not a royal family. Her obsession with life and the vengeance against Mielle seemed to have been great, so it would have led to this ability.

She simply confessed her ability not to be wrong with Asher, but unexpectedly she got to know the truth about the power, so she thought it was better to admit it.

“By the way… if you have the ability to go back to the past, you must have regretted something, enough to change the past.”

“… what do you mean?”

As he hit the point, her shoulders trembled as she spoke in a casual conversation, and she asked how he knew it. Then, Asher confided in what he knew.

“I know that this ability varies from person to person in dramatic situations, or in crisis. My ability to move through space is the one which manifested itself in the struggle to escape from the assassin, and I almost lost my life.”

“…”

‘So, after losing my life, did I return to my very young past through the hourglass? Because I could not escape, I had to remember everything and went back to the past and deliver vengeance under God’s consideration.’

“… yes, I regretted it very much, and I had the ability…”

‘This ability appeared at the cost of my death. How much should I tell him? I’ve been a wicked woman in the past? No matter how much I was tricked, I ordered a maid to put poison in my sister’s tea and I was caught and my head was cut off? No, it was also necessary to explain that if I explained it all, I would be thirty years old together with my previous life. Oh, my God. Asher is only twenty now, and he sees me as a seventeen-year-old girl!’

When she reached the idea of dating a ten-year-younger man, she felt a sense of guilt that was beyond her control, more than fooling the past. Therefore, Aria looked anxious and pale, and Asher asked if she was ok.

“Lady Aria? You look… Do you feel sick? Do you want me to call a doctor?”

“Oh, no. Not that…”

Aria stopped him as he was going to call a doctor, but her face was still pale, and his concern did not disappear.

“I think we should call a doctor.”

“No! It’s because I’ve been hiding something else… I haven’t thought about it so much, but I thought I should tell you…”

This time he was really ready to go to a doctor, and Aria blocked him and confessed that there was another secret.

“… Didn’t I tell you that you don’t have to be so nervous? It was all right. I don’t know what the secret is, but don’t tell me if it bothers you so much as your complexion becomes pale.”

“No, I have to tell you.”

It was not something else, but it was about her age that she wasn’t three years younger than him, but ten years older than him. He was a person who she would spend her life together, and she should tell her. However, he did not know her mind, and he firmly said that she did not have to speak about it.

“It’s okay.”

“No, you’ll regret it.”

“No, I won’t regret it.”

“It’s a very important secret!”

“You’re so distressed that I can get over that secret, and now it’s important.”

‘Oh, my God. Are you saying you will embrace all my secrets…?’ As he said this much, she felt so guilty that she would die. Though he talked to her to keep the secret if it was so painful for her to say, she revealed her secret that she had hidden.

“In fact, I… I’m ten years older than you…”

“…!”

He could not even imagine that she was ten years older than him, and he looked at her, immobilized with surprise. He seemed to ask her what it meant. She regretted that she said it in vain, but she could not go back, so she added a small excuse.

“… I didn’t mean to hide it.”

“Oh, but you still look like a girl… I’m sure you were a smaller girl when I first met…”

Asher stammered, not responding to her shocking confession. Rather than being angry or disappointed, he wondered how this little girl could be ten years older than himself.

“Well… it’s right with my outer appearance. I’ve come back to the past with the ability to turn the time, and you can see that I’ve come back to the past with memories of the past.”

“To the past… you came back? Lady Aria?”

“Yes, I was a wicked woman who was worse than rumors in the mid-twenties. I came back to the fourteen-year-old girl, regretting the big incident, with the hourglass. It’s hard to believe this time, but it’s all… true.”

“…”

Maybe he thought she was out of her mind. But it was all real and it was something to say, and she told him straight away.

Fortunately, Asher, who had been staring at her for a long time without saying whether it was true, erased his embarrassed face and regained his original face.

“No, I can believe it. That’s why I was so swayed. I understand now.”

As she looked at him, he seemed to realize something. He had a fact that he had now known the identity of the woman who had always embarrassed him. It seemed pleasant rather than strangely unpleasant.

“… Isn’t it bad? Mr. Asher is twenty now, but I maybe thirty…”

“Well… I’m embarrassed, but I’m not offended, and I thought you were still a year away from being an adult, but I may be glad you’re not.”

And then his expression changed, and now that he knew she was not a girl, he was no longer as caring as he had been.

“I have sometimes felt that you were testing and provoking me… I think it might all be calculated. Am I right?”