Villainess X Villain: They are obsessed with each other!

Chapter 279: Chapter: 278 Seclusion.[1]

A low, raspy groan escaped Kavin’s throat, the sound thick with the heavy exhaustion of a body pulled back from the brink.

When his eyelids finally fluttered open, the blurred shapes above him gradually solidified into the familiar, intricate patterns of the bedroom ceiling.

He lay perfectly still for a moment, listening to the quiet rhythm of the room, before attempting to shift his weight.

He braced his palms against the mattress, intending to push himself up, but a sharp, white-hot flash of agony instantly flared across his upper torso.

He froze, his breath catching sharply in his chest as a cold sweat broke out across his forehead.

The deep, dull ache in his chest suggested that his fractured ribs had finally begun to knit back together under the surface, but his collarbones were a completely different story.

Every minor twitch felt as though jagged shards of glass were grinding directly into his flesh.

Realizing that even sitting up was an impossible feat, he abandoned the attempt and let his head sink back into the pillow.

Unable to move his body, he slowly rolled his head to the side, letting his gaze drift across the bed.

Jasmine was propped up right beside him, her upper body supported comfortably against the carved wooden headboard.

Her attention was entirely consumed by a book resting in her lap, her fingers occasionally tracing the edge of the page.

Kavin’s brow furrowed, his eyes straining in the dim light to track the bold, stylized letters printed across the cover:

"The Bastard’s Good Ending."

He blinked, studying the layout with a growing sense of familiarity. What kind of a ridiculous title was that?

Still, he had to admit the aesthetic was highly striking. The cover art was incredibly attractive, featuring high-contrast, vivid tones and an ornate, elegant border that framed the illustration beautifully.

The male lead portrayed on the front was undeniably handsome, though Kavin silently noted, with a faint flicker of his usual vanity, that the character still didn’t quite match his own standards.

Despite the throbbing discomfort in his shoulders, curiosity won over. The sleek, eye-catching design looked precisely like the digital web novel covers he remembered back on Earth.

"Is it good?" he asked, his voice coming out as a rough, sand-papery whisper from hours of disuse.

Jasmine blinked, her concentration breaking as her gaze snapped away from the pages.

The moment she realized he was awake, the tense lines of worry on her face vanished, replaced by a soft, genuinely relieved smile. She quickly set the book face-down on her lap and leaned over him.

Carefully sliding her arms behind his shoulders, she eased him upward with practiced gentleness, supporting his weight until his back rested securely against the wooden headboard, taking the agonizing pressure off his collarbones.

"I’m not entirely sure yet," she admitted, turning the cover back toward him so he could get a better look.

"The premise is a bit strange. The main character gets suddenly struck by lightning, and through the shock, he somehow absorbs the entire mind and memories of a person who had read a novel about his world. That’s exactly how he awakens." She paused, a slight, puzzled wrinkle forming between her eyebrows as she stared down at the text.

"But this setting... it’s completely different from our world. It’s confusing."

Kavin offered a slow, slight nod, a dull ache throbbing in his temples. From the sound of it, the book seemed to describe a modern world setting, very similar to Earth.

He watched her gently close the volume, making a mental note to flip through the pages himself later on, right after she was finished with it.

The heavy thud of the closing pages sealed the silence between them. Jasmine set the book down onto the adjacent wooden bedside table, then turned her full, undivided focus back to him, her eyes searching his pale, drawn features.

"Aren’t you even going to ask why your whole body hasn’t healed yet?" she asked softly, her tone carrying a heavy undertone of caution.

Kavin let out a slow, measured breath, staring down at his bandaged torso. He didn’t need to ask; he knew his own condition entirely too well.

His body was completely battered, riddled with deep, internal injuries that simple external spells could never fix. His clavicle bones were likely splintered into multiple pieces or completely grounded down.

If she had allowed the standard healers from the arena staff to work on him, their immediate medical response would have been to slice his flesh open, cutting deep into his body to manually realign and fix the bone fragments from the inside.

But that standard procedure carried a fatal risk. Those arena healers were entirely accustomed to the resilient, dense, and physically superior physiology of Zlycons.

The moment a surgeon’s blade parted his skin, any competent physician would instantly recognize the fragile, distinctly human structure of his muscles, tissues, and bone density.

To survive in this place, his true identity had to remain hidden. Jasmine had done an incredible job bypassing the arena staff, using her own magic to stabilize whatever she could from the outside.

It meant his recovery would be agonizingly slow and require a vast amount of time, but his body would gradually heal on its own without exposing what he truly was.

Thinking about the long road ahead, Kavin let out a heavy sigh. He raised a trembling hand, rubbing his aching temples to dull the sharp pressure building behind his eyes.

"Can you brew some tea?"

"Sure," Jasmine nodded understandingly. She slid off the edge of the mattress and quietly walked out of the bedroom, closing the door softly behind her.

The room remained completely still for nearly fifteen minutes. The silence was finally broken by the faint, rhythmic clinking of porcelain approaching from the hallway.

Jasmine walked back into the space, balancing a dark wooden tray that held a steaming clay teapot and two shallow ceramic cups.

Moving carefully over to the side of the bed, she set the tray down over the heavy blankets, pouring a fresh, amber stream of tea into a cup for him before pouring another for herself.

Kavin carefully wrapped his fingers around the warm ceramic, bringing the cup to his lips to take a slow, deliberate sip. Neither of them spoke.

The rich, earthy steam rose between them, filling the quiet air as they sat side by side. They took occasional sips, their gazes drifting away from each other to stare blankly into the empty space of the room.

The heavy, contemplative silence stretched out significantly, marking the passage of what felt like an entire hour before Kavin finally set his empty cup down onto the tray.

"We have one year," Kavin spoke, his voice dropping an octave, breaking the long silence with a sudden, gravity-laden tone.

Jasmine’s hand paused mid-air, her own cup hovering just below her lips as she looked over at him.

"This duel has made me realize something crucial," Kavin continued, his jaw tightening as the vivid, brutal memories of the arena floor replayed behind his eyelids.

"What we have right now... it’s simply not enough. We are weak. I don’t mean that in a general sense considering our current ranks, we are formidable. However, in the grand scheme of what we are facing, we are still incredibly weak. It was an absolute nightmare, almost completely impossible, to defeat Masamune. And the reality is, there are two other fighters in this tier who are significantly stronger than Masamune ever was."

A heavy worry settled deep into his eyes as he spoke, the sheer weight of their precarious situation pressing down on him.

"So, what do you suggest we do?" Jasmine asked.

Her brows drew together, a grim, serious expression darkening her face. She didn’t attempt to argue or downplay his words; she knew the stark difficulty of their situation firsthand.

The fourth-ranked spell caster she had just fought in her own match was remarkably strong—an exceptionally powerful woman whose magic had pushed Jasmine to her absolute limits.

Defeating her had been a grueling, desperate struggle, yet the opponents waiting for them in the ranks above were on a completely different level of power.

Kavin remained entirely silent for a long moment, his eyes fixed on his wrapped hands as he weighed their options. When he finally looked back up, a sharp, unyielding hint of resolve burned deep within his gaze.

"We won’t step a single foot outside for ten months," he muttered, his voice steadying with absolute certainty. "As we are right now, we can’t possibly hope to defeat them in a straight battle. If we try, we’ll be entirely dependent on luck, and even if we somehow manage a victory, it will be by a razor-thin margin that leaves us completely broken. And besides that... the upcoming Grand Tournament has spell casters that are vastly more powerful than anyone in this arena."

He let out a slow, deep sigh, the final remnants of hesitation leaving his posture as he looked directly into her eyes. "We will need to enter complete seclusion for ten full months. No exceptions."