Into the Apocalypse: Saving My Favorite Villain-Chapter 82: Dreamy days

A whole week passed in the blink of an eye—so quickly, so lightly, so quietly that it almost frightened me.

I would sometimes sit in the corner of my room, staring at the window and wondering whether time had truly moved forward or whether everything around me had blurred together into one warm, golden dream.

Perhaps it felt so fast because it had been a wonderful week for someone like me—someone who had never, not even once in her life, tasted something called happiness.

I had never known the softness of living without fear, or the comfort of having someone who cared about me simply because they wanted to—not because they needed something from me.

So for me, a week of real affection... a week of not feeling like a burden or an afterthought... a week of not crying myself to sleep... it felt unreal. Impossible. Like a stolen miracle I wasn’t supposed to touch.

Maybe that was why I didn’t feel the passage of time. I didn’t feel boredom, or loneliness, or any negative emotion at all.

And yet outside that dreamlike villa, this world—this apocalyptic wasteland—was overflowing with negativity, fear, and despair.

Every time the teams went out to search for supplies, the number of injured and dead increased.

Every day, the zombies grew stronger, more violent, more intelligent.

Rumors of mutated creatures and new horrors reached us constantly.

People cried in the streets, starved in their rooms, clung to thin blankets as they prayed for one more sunrise.

But none of that touched us.

Despite the broken cries that echoed through the ruined buildings... despite the poverty and the constant lack of food... despite the maddening fear that plagued the base as the outside world collapsed into chaos—none of it reached us.

Inside our warm villa, we lived like people who had slipped out of reality itself.

We had everything: shelves stacked with food, a kitchen that never went cold, electricity that hummed softly day and night thanks to Cassel’s power, and endless clean water thanks to Joe and Sebastian.

We lacked nothing—not even the smallest comfort.

It was as if the apocalypse outside was just a faraway story someone had told me once, a ghost of a tale that didn’t concern me.

Sometimes, when I leaned against the warm wooden walls or curled up under the soft blanket Cassel placed over me every night, I wondered if all of this was actually real.

Everything felt so unbelievably perfect that I often doubted whether I was truly awake.

Maybe this was a dream.

A long, beautiful dream.

A dream in which I lived beside my one and only villain—the man I had cherished from afar for so long, the man whose name alone had once made my heart race.

A dream I didn’t want to wake up from.

A dream I would never regret abandoning my real life for.

Cassel, my terrifying, flawless villain, spent most days leading the others outside the safe zone to gather supplies.

He stored extra items in his personal space, organized routes, handled negotiations, and coordinated with General Zan as they worked together—quietly, relentlessly—to seize control of the safe base bit by bit from the shadows. Sometimes Cassel went to the general’s villa next to ours and stayed there for hours, sometimes for nearly an entire day.

But I no longer clung to him every moment like before.

I no longer hovered around him like a desperate ghost.

I simply let him do everything he needed to do.

Not because my love had lessened.

Not because my obsession with him had faded.

No—if anything, living under the same roof with him had worsened everything.

My obsession grew deeper.

My affection grew heavier.

My attachment, my longing, my love—they all expanded until they filled my entire chest like a storm that refused to settle.

But ever since I heard that Mary and the others had left the villa, something inside me had shifted.

The tension that had wrapped around my heart—the suffocating dread of Cassel’s destined tragedy—finally loosened.

With the danger around Cassel gone, I became calmer. With the original heroine and hero out of his life, the story could no longer follow its original path.

The fatal knots that tied Cassel to his doomed ending were unraveling before my eyes.

Now that the troublesome pair had disappeared, everything should continue smoothly.

We should be able to live happily ever after.

And despite all the responsibilities a leader should bear, Cassel never failed to care for his lover—who was, of course, me.

Ever since I agreed to officially become his girlfriend, Cassel had been acting strangely... warm in a way that didn’t suit his cold personality at all.

Almost childish.

Almost proud.

He had become a man eager—no, desperate—to show off.

He would walk around boldly declaring, "I’ll take this for my girlfriend," or, "I’ll take that for my lover," as if the entire base needed to know who I belonged to.

Every time he left the villa—especially when I went with him outside the base—he returned with something for me.

Cosmetics, clothes, rare brands that had all but vanished from the ruined world, snacks and sweets that were practically extinct, toys he thought were cute, even mobile phones and tablets simply because I once mentioned wanting to watch a movie.

Anything I thought of—Cassel brought to me before I could even say the words out loud.

For the first time in my life, I felt like a pampered little princess born with a golden spoon in her mouth.

Someone whose wishes became reality the moment she whispered them into the air.

Cassel even brought me flowers yesterday—real flowers, delicate and soft despite the harsh world outside.

Rumors of a beloved canary kept by the strongest man in the base spread like wildfire after that.

People whispered about "the woman who tamed the lightning god" or "the mysterious lover of the strongest superhuman."

Their words made me embarrassed, but also... strangely proud.

Of course, not everyone welcomed Cassel’s growing influence.

Because the four generals sent their men to our doorstep every day to stir up trouble and provoke him, Cassel eventually entered a combat tournament held in the base.

The real purpose of the tournament was to recruit powerful ability users under the generals’ control.

To make participation tempting, the prizes were beyond generous—heaps of food, rare supplies, and various valuable resources.

Our team didn’t need any of it.

We had enough to last for years.

Cassel alone could keep us fed and comfortable indefinitely.

But to keep those annoying people from constantly harassing us, he had no choice but to participate—along with some of his men.

And what he did during that tournament... left the entire base speechless.