A Villain's Way of Taming Heroines

Chapter 761 Heroes and Mortals - V

"..."

Seraphina's lips quivered, unable to utter a word.

She finally understood why Marlina had labeled her "saving" as arrogance.@@@@

For her sister, truly, from beginning to end... had not loved Ansel because of the curse upon him.

Marlina Marlowe had simply, naturally fallen in love with the young man who had granted her new life and altered her fate.

Or rather... as she had expressed, how could she not devote herself entirely to loving Ansel?

Seraphina realized she should have understood sooner - Marlina had always been acutely aware of Ansel's bewitching nature. She had even warned Seraphina against succumbing to it during their time in Red Frost territory.

Marlina knew and was vigilant about this, yet still loved Ansel unconditionally.

Everyone - Seraphina, Ravenna, Ansel himself, and all others - had assumed that those who abandoned everything for Ansel did so because of his enchanting ability.

They believed that loving Ansel necessitated maintaining one's own convictions and ideals; only then could it be considered true love.

But as Marlina had expressed - for a girl who never aspired to be a hero, who was utterly ordinary, was it so absurd to love someone unreservedly?

Must all love stories be like legends, fraught with heart-wrenching twists and unwavering reasons?

Did a boy like Ansel of Hydral not deserve the wholehearted, unconditional love of an ordinary girl from an impoverished village?

Marlina's critique of Seraphina, Ravenna, and all who thought she needed saving wasn't because they believed her to be beyond redemption.

Rather, it was because they had genuinely forgotten... the possibility that she had simply, purely loved Ansel from the very beginning.

So Marlina joined Shadewell, an organization meant to dedicate everything to Ansel.

But she discovered she had chosen wrong again.

Even Shadewell ultimately moved forward for its own ideals, making her understand that not just lovers, but no one around Ansel was willing to devote themselves entirely to him without reservation. It wasn't that such people couldn't exist, but that Ansel didn't want them to.

"Miss Seraphina, I love reading."

Marlina suddenly changed the subject, her gaze seeming to look past Seraphina's shoulder towards the entrance of this sacrificial core, or perhaps along the long path she had traveled.

"Reading was my only chance to change myself. Knowledge was the free nourishment Mr.Ansel provided for my transformation. Without talent or gifts, I could only study relentlessly, read ceaselessly, to turn my predestined grey life into one full of meaning and color."

"But I discovered that even in reading and studying, someone as ordinary as me struggles to be comprehensive... Mr.Ansel's library is vast, and in his sea of knowledge, I'm but a lost jellyfish, drifting with the currents."

Her voice was a mere whisper, and though her husky tones could never reclaim their former melody, to Seraphina's ears, they were indistinguishable from her sister's voice of old—so gentle and warm.

"It was then I realized that I, in my ordinariness, must make a choice... a sacrifice."

With that tender voice, she uttered words that shook Seraphina to her very core.

"For I am but a common woman, a mere mortal, Seri. Bereft of talent, to gain something, I am destined to relinquish something else."

"You believe... that I am forsaking myself, abandoning my very existence, destined to be discarded by Mr.Ansel as worthless refuse, do you not?"

Not only Seraphina, but all who had encountered Marlina and recognized her true state believed this to be her inevitable end—a disposable entity, not valuing herself, pursuing love as humbly as dust, ultimately destined to be treated as such.

But Marlina... had never viewed herself in this light.

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