I Became the Villainess, But My Beast Husbands Can Hear My Mind?!

”Even if we moved, the Voids could still appear anywhere, since we never know where they’ll show up next.”

Roxanna fell silent for a moment before finally nodding. ”That makes sense. I believe this settlement didn’t have Voids nearby before, right?”

Luan nodded. ”I’m not completely sure, since I’ve only lived here for a year. But from what I’ve heard, that seems to be the case.” He shrugged. ”As long as the Voids don’t appear in the middle of the settlement, I guess we don’t need to move.”

Well, if something like that did happen, it would become a real nightmare.

”But... isn’t there really any way to close the Voids?” I asked softly. ”I mean, without waiting three whole years?”

Luan sat down on a large rock and sighed. ”We’re still trying to find a way... but we haven’t discovered anything yet. Honestly, we don’t even fully understand where the Voids come from in the first place. We’re useless when it comes to that kind of knowledge.”

”No, you’re not useless,” Roxanna said gently as she walked closer. Because he was sitting, their faces were level, and she didn’t have to look up.

”There’s nothing wrong with not knowing something this strange,” she continued. ”Even in my world...”

She paused for a moment. It still felt strange to openly talk about her previous world. But since she had already told Calen about her world earlier, there was no reason to hide it from Luan.

”...it took us hundreds of years to learn about things beyond our understanding. So no, you’re not useless at all.” Roxanna let out a soft sigh. ”You just haven’t gathered enough information yet.”

From what Roxanna remembered of the evil Roxanna’s memories, beastkin tribes preferred to fight each other, whether before or after the Voids appeared.

Instead of working together to learn more about the Voids, they chose to slaughter one another to expand their territory and dominate other tribes.

In the end, the population dropped so much that the beastkins were forced to accept other beast species into their tribes. But even then, tension still existed, and more often than not, it ended in bloodshed.

[Their population has already dwindled, but many of them are still hungry for power and abuse the weaker ones.] Roxanna sighed in her mind. [Well... I guess humans and beastkins really aren’t that different.]

Even humans still killed each other once there were no more laws, returning to the law of the jungle where the strong ruled and the weak suffered.

And unlike beastkins... humans didn’t even have instincts to blame.

”What does your world look like?” Luan asked curiously, tilting his head. ”Is it like ours? Full of forests and nature?”

”Actually, we do have forests, and maybe thousands of years ago, we lived like you too.” Roxanna let out a sad laugh. ”But our civilization became very advanced. Sometimes... I don’t even know whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.”

Her voice softened. ”We hurt nature too much, and in the end... nature punished us.” She looked away. ”By throwing us back into an ice age.”

She truly couldn’t blame nature, because humans were the ones who kept hurting it out of greed.

”How cold was your world back then?” Luan asked gently as he took her hands and pulled her a little closer. ”Did you really suffer that much?”

He already knew the tragedy of her past life, but there was nothing wrong with hearing her talk about it if it helped her feel better.

”The cold was merciless,” she said softly. Her eyes looked empty as old memories crept back. ”I shivered every single night, and... since my ex-husband forced me to sleep in a tiny room, I always felt so lonely and cold. I just wanted someone beside me... so I wouldn’t feel so frozen and alone.”

She took a breath before continuing. ”And then... when he forced me out of the shelter, the cold froze me to death.”

Luan’s hands slid to her waist, pulling her close until he wrapped her in a tight hug. ”If I had been there,” he said in a cold voice, ”I would have killed your ex-husband.”

He didn’t sound like he was joking.

If that man had been standing in front of him right now, Luan wouldn’t have hesitated to press a blade to his throat.

In that moment, Roxanna finally realized that Luan was a little different from her other husbands.

He looked harmless, and everyone saw him as just a cute little cat. But to her, his cat-like nature was the scariest thing about him.

In his cat form, he could silently watch people from the shadows without anyone noticing. Even in his human form, Roxanna could barely hear his footsteps, which meant he often startled her just by speaking out of nowhere.

She knew Luan would make a perfect silent killer, or maybe he already was one. After all, she still knew nothing about his past.

”I wish you had been there too,” Roxanna whispered as she gently hugged his head.

Luan could be unsettling sometimes, but since he had never harmed her, Roxanna never saw him as someone to fear.

He was a little cold, but not heartless. And more importantly, he cared deeply for his family, even if he sometimes picked fights with Calen or Azul. 𝘧𝓇ℯℴ𝓂

”So, Luan...” Roxanna said softly, guiding the conversation back. ”What do you think we should do... to protect our settlement?” Her voice wavered slightly. ”To protect our family?”

Luan slowly loosened his hug, even though it was clear he didn’t really want to let her go. Then he looked straight into Roxanna’s eyes. ”Actually... there is something we can use to drive those demon beasts away.”

He paused for a moment before continuing. ”Not many people know about this. But luckily, I managed to learn about it before.” His voice lowered slightly. ”We can use something called a Black Crystal. You can only get it by killing a demon beast that has dark-type power, like a Demon Fenrir, for example.”