I Have 10,000 SSS Rank Villains In My System Space - Chapter 376: Selena Pov

Chapter 376: Selena Pov

Selena POV

Some minutes before Razeal arrived at the Empire

The training hall of the Virelan manor stood unusually quiet.

Selena lay half-slumped against the far wall, her back resting against the cold stone. One leg stretched loosely forward while the other remained bent, forgotten in place. Her head tilted slightly upward, eyes fixed on the ceiling above her. The training hall of Virelan Manor stretched wide and empty around her, its polished floor reflecting pale light from the high windows above. Dust motes drifted lazily through the still air, undisturbed by movement, because there had been none for a long time. The silence had settled so deeply into the room that even the faint creak of wood somewhere in the ceiling decoration sounded distant, irrelevant.

Her eyes remained fixed upward.

She had been staring at the ceiling for so long that the patterns in the stone had stopped being shapes. They blurred into something shapeless, something easier to look at than memories. Her gaze did not waver, did not blink. Anyone watching closely would have noticed the strain in it the way her pupils trembled faintly, the way her breathing stayed shallow, careful, as though even drawing a deeper breath might loosen something inside her that she could no longer afford to feel.

Thoughts and Emotions passing behind that gaze too many, too heavy for someone her age to carry. Regret, guilt, confusion, longing. Emotions tangled together until none of them could be separated anymore.

None of it had an outlet. None of it had resolution. The burden had come suddenly, violently, and without permission, and she had never supposed to get these or given the strength to carry it. Yet it remained, consuming her quietly from within.

Footsteps entered the hall, measured and unhurried.

Marcella entered without hurry. Her presence alone usually demanded attention, but today it changed nothing. Selena’s gaze did not shift or reacted.

She paused a short distance from Selena, following the direction of her gaze up toward the ceiling as if trying to understand what held her attention so completely

Marcella exhaled slowly through her nose, then spoke.

“You’ve been staring at that ceiling for quite some time,” she said, folding one arm behind her back. “I wonder what you’re seeing up there with such intensity.” A faint pause followed, her eyes narrowing slightly behind the square lenses. “Or perhaps… who.”

No response.

Selena did not blink or even shift. If not for the slow rise and fall of her chest, she might have looked carved from stone.

Marcella pressed her lips together again. Selena did not even glance at her as she lay motionless, eyes fixed on the ceiling, her gaze distant and unfocused. Watching her like that made Marcella want to sigh, deeply and helplessly, though she restrained herself as she always did.

It had been nearly two months since Selena told Nova the truth. Two months since Nova, furious and wounded, had left her here as a prisoner. And since then, Selena had barely moved. She did not speak. She did not eat. She simply lay there, staring upward, as if something inside her had quietly gone still.

Marcella had tried to feed her at first. More than once. But Selena never accepted it, and Marcella had eventually stopped insisting. Selena’s holy constitution and blessings allowed her to survive without food; her body did not require it. Still, that knowledge did little to ease the discomfort twisting in Marcella’s chest. Seeing her like this felt wrong.

Maybe because as how well and closely treated selena was by Merisa.. To Marcella too she had never been much different from Nova… or from Razeal. Perhaps not openly affectionate since she herself had always been strict, reserved, sometimes even crude but she had watched over them since childhood all the same. Quietly. Reliably. That alone had made her a soft spot Marcella never acknowledged aloud.

And now, seeing her reduced to this hollow stillness stirred something unpleasant inside her even though it had always been like this since selena had done that and they been taking care of selena after that ever since.. Though this time was different selena looked in more worser situation afterall she even came out with truth.. Making marcella very worried with this situation even if her face revealed nothing.

Marcella stood straight, one hand resting behind her back, posture straight in her Virelan uniform, square glasses catching the faint light. Her eyes lingered on Selena’s profile.

Silence stretched between them for several seconds.

Then Marcella finally spoke again.

“You know,” she said at last, glancing at her from the corner of her eye, “you were right. In what you did.”

The words landed softly, but their impact was immediate.

Selena’s eyes moved.

Slowly, as if the motion itself required effort, her gaze left the ceiling and settled on Marcella. Confusion flickered there first, followed by disbelief. Of all the things she had expected to hear, this was not one of them. She knew what she had done. She knew the consequences. Anyone who understood the situation would call it betrayal, weakness, or worse. She had already judged herself harsher than anyone else could.

And Marcella of all people saying this?

A woman who had raised Razeal since childhood, who valued duty and discipline above sentiment she should have been the last person to say such a thing.

Selena said nothing, but the question was clear in her eyes.

Marcella noticed the change immediately. A faint smile touched her lips, restrained and brief, more an acknowledgment than comfort. She shifted her weight slightly, choosing her next words with care, as though stepping across thin ice.

Marcella’s voice remained even, measured, as though she were laying pieces of something delicate onto a table between them, careful not to let judgment slip into her tone. “The situation you were in… the decision you made it made sense, in its own way.” She did not look at Selena immediately when she said it, her gaze resting instead on the far wall of the training hall, as if the words required distance before they could exist safely between them. “You loved someone who was already promised to another. And you did what you believed you had to in order to keep him.”

“And the lie you told…” Marcella continued, pausing just long enough to watch the reaction that flickered across Selena’s face the tightening of her jaw, the brief closing of her eyes before she forced them open again. Marcella neither softened nor hardened at the sight; she only observed. “It could have worked. In truth, it almost did. He was still a young boy then. You spoke of redemption. You said you were willing to marry him despite everything.” Her tone remained calm, factual, as though recounting strategy rather than sin. “At most, he would have faced punishment. Perhaps even under the empire’s most severe legal interpretation. And I am certain you knew that before you acted.”

Her eyes shifted back to Selena now, sharp behind the lenses. “You must have read. Prepared. Understood exactly what such an accusation would lead to. You were confident it would not hurt him beyond recovery.”

Marcella exhaled slowly, her shoulders lowering just slightly as her gaze drifted away again. “And considering your families… the history between them… and the way both of you grew up, bound together since childhood.. it was a calculated move.” A faint, almost reluctant smile touched her lips. “Clever, even. I will admit that much. For someone your age to look past the fear of doing something so irreversible… to take that kind of risk, knowing it could stain your own name permanently too…” She shook her head once, slow and weary. “That is not something most people could bring themselves to do. Not at that age. Not even many women far older or far more composed then you.”

“That takes a certain kind of strength. Or desperation.” A brief silence followed. “Not to say… the kind born from wanting someone badly enough to gamble everything.”

The faint smile disappeared entirely.

“Actually it really would have worked,” she said quietly. “If not for that one problem. You were simply unlucky that Lady Merisa had something… something that turned it all into this.” She sighed, the sound soft but tired, carrying exhaustion rather than blame. “This ugly result.”

Selena heard every word. None of them surprised her, and yet each one seemed to press deeper into something already bruised raw. She kept looking at Marcella, her expression unmoving at first, but the stillness began to crack at the edges. Her lips parted, then closed again, as if she needed to force the words through something lodged in her throat.

“No…” Her voice came out thin, strained, barely steady. She shook her head weakly, eyes lowering for a moment before lifting again, stubborn despite the exhaustion in them. “It doesn’t matter. Don’t say that.” She swallowed, the motion visible in her throat. “It was wrong. I was… a brainless fool.” The words seemed to hurt her as she spoke them, each one dragged out with effort. “And the mistake I made… cost someone I loved dearly.”

Her voice faltered near the end, losing strength, the sentence breaking before she could finish it. She couldn’t bring herself to say it aloud.. to name what had happened to him because of her choice. Even thinking it felt unbearable. The image alone was enough to make her chest tighten until breathing hurt.

Marcella listened without interruption. When Selena fell silent, she only nodded once, slowly.

“I understand why you are saying this,” she replied after a moment. “But you may be misunderstanding yourself.” Her tone softened, not in pity but in restraint, as though she were trying to reach someone standing too close to an edge. “You are throwing yourself into a pit and burying yourself with your own hands. It was a mistake. You were a child. And now you are destroying yourself over it, imagining what kind of evil or ugly person you must be.” She paused, watching Selena carefully. “You are not.”

Her voice lowered slightly. “Give yourself a chance. You are a good-hearted person. You..”

“No.”

The interruption came sharp, hoarse, cutting through the air before Marcella could finish. Selena’s head lifted fully now, and for the first time there was force in her voice, even if it trembled beneath the surface.

“No… it wasn’t that.” Her breathing grew uneven, words pushing out faster, rougher. “I’m not saying this because I think I’m childish or because it was just a mistake. No. That’s not it.” Her hands tightened against the floor, knuckles paling. “I know why I feel like this.”

Her gaze dropped briefly, as if she could not bear to hold eye contact while saying it. “Because it was my fault. I was selfish. I only thought about myself… about getting him.” The admission came out raw, stripped of defense. “I even question myself now… whether I was ever worthy of being a saintess. Whether I even loved him in the first place?”

“Because if I really had loved him… I would have thought about him first. I would have asked myself whether this could hurt him. Whether there was even the smallest risk.” Her lips trembled faintly, frustration and grief tangled together. “That’s what people who love someone do. They protect them. They don’t gamble with their lives just to make them stay.”

“I told myself he would be fine,” she continued, the bitterness in her voice turning inward. “That he had family. That it would only be a small punishment. That everything would settle afterward.” Her head shook slowly, disbelief directed at her past self. “How could I not think that it wasn’t only about me? That it was about him too?”

“What if something worse had happened to him because of my lie?” she whispered. “That thought alone should have stopped me. Right there and then.” Her fingers trembled, curling tighter as if trying to hold onto something solid. “But it didn’t. Because I was… ugly. Because I just wanted him.”

The last words barely came out.

“And I… I just…”

She couldn’t finish. The sentence dissolved into silence, her eyes filled with a quiet, crushing sadness that no longer tried to hide itself.

—-