The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Married Life in a Former Enemy Country in Her Seventh Loop

Right beside her, Arnold seemed to draw in a sharp breath.
Because he had released her wrists, Rishe could hold him like this.
She wrapped her left arm around his back, her right hand cradling his head, stroking his black hair gently.

“Did you see a frightening dream, Your Highness?”
“….”
The question was childish, something one would ask a small child.

Yet the certainty pressing in on her made her unable to do anything else.
Even if it was rude, even if it took courage, she wanted to embrace Arnold.
She expected him to deny the question.
She had braced herself for that—yet, though he let her do as she pleased, Arnold lowered his gaze slightly before replying.
“—…An old dream.”

His hand moved to rest against her back.
“Thanks to you, it all vanished.”
Not with the force of a true embrace, but barely resting there.
Even so, it felt as though she was being permitted to hold him, and Rishe tightened her arms around him.
“…Forgive me, Your Highness.”

She clung to him all the harder with her left arm, while her right hand continued to softly stroke the back of his head.
“It must have been harder to sleep with me at your side.”
Arnold let out a short breath and said,

“This is nothing unusual.”
Then, in a gentler tone, he told her:
“So it isn’t your fault.”

“….”
Those words brought another night to mind.
At the Great Temple, when she had been injured, she had shared a bed with Arnold.
Afterward, he had told her he hadn’t dreamed anything strange.

For Arnold, a terrifying “old dream.”
Thinking of the past he had revealed, Rishe’s chest tightened.
The brothers who were slain before his eyes?

He had seen in reality what was painful even to imagine.
Or his mother, who despised him…?
The scar at his neck had been inflicted when he was a child. Rishe knew there must be many more such memories beyond those.

But I cannot touch them.
The soft sound of waves filled the room.
It seemed even quieter than silence itself.
Rishe slipped back a little and gazed at Arnold.

His face was almost expressionless, and his eyes bore straight into hers.
Those eyes—more vacant than usual, yet filled with many thoughts—were a fathomless blue.
The moonlight from the window rendered them pale and translucent.
Looking up into that blue, Rishe spoke.
“—…The sea.”

Just as before, she gently stroked his hair.
“It was so much fun, playing there.”
“….”

It might have seemed incoherent to him, even incomprehensible.
There is so little I can do for him now.
She couldn’t know Arnold’s dreams, much less step into them. She had no right to.
Even so, she wanted at least to take his hand and walk with him somewhere far from those dreams.

If those hateful memories will not fade for Arnold—
Then perhaps they could be overlaid with different feelings, even just a little.
If only the dreams he saw hereafter could become ones not so fearful.
Clinging to the memory of the daytime shore, Rishe wished that for him.

Then, without changing expression, Arnold spoke quietly.
“…When I remembered that beach.”
Rishe tilted her head, and he said,

“I thought you might like it.”
“…!”
She blinked.

“To me, it was only a scene.”
Arnold’s tone was steady, as if recounting something trivial, yet clearly speaking his heart.
“But I felt that you would surely call that sea beautiful.”

“…Arnold…”
“Even if I could not understand it myself.”
His hand brushed against Rishe’s cheek.

“…From the perspective of ‘something that would please you,’ I felt I could understand it a little.”
It was almost unbelievable. Rishe blinked again.
“It wasn’t only because you said you wanted to go.”

Under the moonlight, he gave her the answer to the question she had asked earlier in the day.
“I brought you to that sea because I wanted you to see it.”
“…!”

Arnold had once told her—
That he could not feel what she held dear.
That fireflies looked like warfire to him, and the capital’s vistas seemed hateful.
But now, if he had wanted to show her the sea—

“—I was glad you took me there.”
Her voice trembled with the words she gave him, one by one.
“Truly, very, so very much.”

Desperate to convey it, she searched for words to offer him, yet found none.
She only repeated clumsy words again and again.
“…Even now, ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) I’m so happy I could cry.”
“….”

She wanted nothing more than to embrace him again as she looked up at him.
But she was stopped.
Before she could wrap her arms around him, Arnold pulled her into his own arms and held her there.
“Arnold…”

Rishe of course was surprised, but she didn’t push him away.
He tightened his grip, then lowered his head and murmured into her ear:
“…When you’re pushed down or held against your will, one usually resists a little more.”
“….”

Instead, she returned the embrace, wrapping her arms around his back.
“Because I trust that Your Highness would never treat me cruelly.”
Arnold let out a self-mocking laugh.

“So you will insist on trusting me to the end.”
“Of course. …You once said, ‘No one can believe in the substance of something without form.’”
But Rishe could not agree with that.

“I’m afraid of ghosts. Even without form, I believe they exist, and that’s why I fear them so deeply.”
It was embarrassing, but she confessed that weakness—one she could share only with Arnold.
And then she went on:
“As with what we saw in the Domana Holy Kingdom—the people of the Crusheid faith, their devotion is unwavering.”

“….”
Arnold, said to carry the blood of the goddess revered by the Crusheid faith, fell into silence, as if pondering something.
“And your wish to show me the sea—though without form—is something certain.”

As if soothing him, she stroked his hair and continued softly:
“I believe in that feeling. …And because of that, I’ll tell you again and again: I want to grant your wishes too.”
Sometimes, just voicing such a vow could be support enough.
Recalling what Harriet had taught her, Rishe spoke it straight to Arnold.

“Then someday, will you believe me?”
“…Believe in you?”
“No.”

Even if he never believed in her, she didn’t mind.
What mattered more was something else she wanted Arnold to know.
“That you yourself, Arnold, may wish for something from someone.”
“—…”

Arnold exhaled faintly.
And the arm he had wrapped around her tightened just a little more.
“…I have never wished for anything from anyone.”
His voice, spoken into her ear, was roughened only slightly.

“You are the one and only thing I ever reached for and tried to keep within my grasp.”
“…Arnold…”
Her left chest ached, sharp and tight, almost unbearable.
Arnold, unaware of her inner turmoil, whispered:

“Become my wife.”
He spoke it against her ear, as if pressing a kiss there.
“—For now, I wish for nothing else.”

“…!”
It hurt, and she fought not to cry.