A Fortune-telling Princess - Chapter 171

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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“Noooo, Mommmmm….”
“You’d be far more beautiful if you smiled. What a shame about that expression.”
I wanted to apply this liquid while you were beaming with joy.
Count Orleans raised his brush toward the child’s face with evident disappointment. He’d waited until the very end, but once again, failure. His chest ached.
“Hah.”
“…!”
In that moment, an unfamiliar laugh echoed through the space.
“It’s been a while since I’ve seen such a refreshingly mad fool.”
Count Orleans’s face hardened rapidly. An unexpected voice had reached him in this secret space where no one else should exist.
Only he was supposed to be able to enter this chamber.
“W-who are you!”
He spun around quickly and saw a man leaning casually against the window frame.
Though a gray mask obscured his face, the bloodstained smile visible at his lips drew the eye irresistibly.
“Me? I’m someone who came to fulfill a commission.”
“A commission?”
The masked man took a large step toward him.
Though he felt no immediate threat, Count Orleans found himself instinctively backing away in haste.
The man’s tone was exceedingly polite, yet his instincts screamed at him. This one is dangerous!
“The parents of the abducted children commissioned me. They asked me to find their children. And… to inflict suffering far worse than death upon whoever took their sons and daughters.”
“That’s impossible!”
Count Orleans cried out in outrage. Every child he’d brought here came from the lowest stations in society.
Some were orphans, others had parents, but it made no difference.
Even if a child vanished, that would be the end of it. Not a single household had the means to dwell on such a loss.
They were all too consumed with scraping by day to day!
“But a commission…!”
Another smile spread across the masked man’s lips.
“Poverty does not make parents abandon their children so easily. Many stake their entire fortunes and very lives to find them.”
As the man stepped closer, a wickedly sharp dagger had materialized in his hand.
Though it was merely a dagger, the sight of it sent Count Orleans into a panic of mortal terror.
“I-I gave them new lives! Far more beautiful and noble lives than their wretched existence!”
The man’s smile grew even wider.
“Yes, I’ve heard quite enough of that nonsense.”
Thunk!
“Aaaaagh!”
The dagger, thrown with casual ease, embedded itself directly into Count Orleans’s foot.
His backward retreat halted abruptly, replaced instead by a horrific scream.
“Don’t worry. Since the client made a specific request, I won’t kill you so easily.”
“M-mercy!”
“…?”
“Divine mercy!”
“…Divine absolution?”
“I, I have an indulgence!”
As the man faltered, Count Orleans seized the opportunity and raised his voice even higher.
“That’s right! An indulgence! I purchased divine absolution for as many children as there are here!”
“….”
“You cannot punish me for merely bringing that child here!”
The man let out an incredulous laugh.
“I’d heard rumors about it, but is it really true?”
Divine absolution. Otherwise known as an “indulgence.”
This document, sold by the Temple, was a form of certificate given to those who had committed sins. A system where one paid a certain sum to the Temple and received exemption from a single transgression.
Of course, it wasn’t officially acknowledged, and only high-ranking officials within the Temple knew of its existence.
Yet here Count Orleans was brazenly invoking this “indulgence” as though it were his shield….
‘The Imperial Court might truly be involved in this.’
There had been whispers circulating recently among those with considerable wealth.
“I have already received forgiveness from God! Who would dare punish what God Himself has pardoned! I am innocent of all charges!”
Those who had received this so-called “divine absolution” could commit any crime, be arrested, and the Imperial Court would quietly make it disappear.
The count raised his voice even louder, as though deeply wronged.
With divine absolution, one could commit any sin and still enter heaven—or so the priest he dealt with had assured him.
The priest had even promised to secretly extract him should he ever be captured.
“How impressive.”
The masked man spoke with genuine admiration.
“To have purchased indulgences for the lives of all these people. The Temple must have been delighted.”
A radiant smile played across the man’s lips.
“But there’s a problem. I have no intention of bringing you to trial.”
“Wh, what?”
“Didn’t I mention it just now?”
The man leaned his face closer to the trembling Count Orleans and continued in a low whisper.
“To make it as agonizing as possible.”
“…!”
“To make you die in the most gruesome way imaginable—that was the contract I accepted.”
“Th, that’s…!”
“Dying by trial isn’t painful at all, you see.”
Count Orleans stumbled backward, attempting to flee. But the man’s hand was faster.
“Gahhh!”
The man swiftly drew the dagger embedded in his boot and plunged it deep into Count Orleans’s chest.
“Perhaps I should purchase an indulgence myself?”
As the man spoke with playful amusement, Count Orleans lost consciousness.
Chapter. The Black Stone
“Have you heard about Count Orleans?”
“I saw it myself in the Plaza!”
“You said it was absolutely horrific?”
“At first, everyone thought it was a newly erected statue.”
On the final day of the Festival of Abundance, the Capital was thrown into chaos by the discovery of Count Orleans in the center of the Plaza.
He knelt on both knees with a sword driven through his chest, his body hardened rigid like stone.
“I heard he was still alive when they found him.”
“That’s right. Despite looking like that, he was still breathing!”
Everyone who saw the Count—not a single part of him intact—was horrified. His expression was far too grotesque.
His mouth curved in a bright smile, yet his eyes bulged wide open, and his face was twisted in agony.
Covering his body were papers densely inscribed with all the crimes he had committed, plastered across him haphazardly.
What shocked people even more was that Count Orleans was still breathing despite all this.
Of course, not long after being discovered, his breath finally ceased.
“Quite the commotion.”
“….”
“What?”
“It was you, wasn’t it?”
“What was?”
“You know it was you.”
Listening to the chatter of countless people in the Cafe, Jainer’s hand froze mid-sip of his coffee.
But only for a moment—his eyes, gazing at Camilla seated across from him, narrowed with a subtle smile.
“Why would you think that?”
“Because you weren’t in your room that night.”
“You came looking for me at that hour?”
Jainer’s smile deepened, clearly pleased that Camilla had sought him out so late.
“Dorman said you were gone.”
At such a late hour. Wondering if something was wrong, I waited through the night, but you never returned.
It seemed you came back at dawn, and that very morning Count Orleans was displayed in the Capital Plaza, causing all this uproar.
“Dorman?”
“That…!”
…Dorman, I’m sorry. You’ve been caught again.
Though his lips still curved in a smile, Camilla clearly saw his eyes narrow dangerously in that instant, and she silently offered a prayer for Dorman’s soul.
It seemed Dorman’s quick action in reporting his whereabouts to someone else had displeased him.
“It was you, wasn’t it?”
“Possibly?”
He finally admitted to what he had done.
“What happened?”
“A commission.”
“The one you mentioned before?”
When Jainer first appeared at the Sorpel Estate, he had mentioned something in passing.
That he had received an urgent commission recently, and since traveling back and forth across the Empire was difficult anyway, the timing worked out perfectly.
“You said he was a villain?”
At that time, he’d made it clear—this wasn’t an ordinary murder contract. It was a request to punish an evildoer who had committed crimes.
“The parents of the missing children filed the request.”
“He was certainly evil.”
From what I’d heard in passing, the number of children Count Orleans had abducted was staggering.
They said the statues discovered in his mansion were enormous.
“Why display it in the middle of the plaza?”
“Because they asked me to kill him in the most agonizing and cruel way possible.”
So I made sure to grant him death as slowly and painfully as I could.
“When you’ve killed so many people, you learn which spots inflict the most excruciating agony while ensuring death doesn’t come easily.”
The blade I drove into Count Orleans’s chest struck precisely such a place—one that wouldn’t sever his life but would cause unbearable, continuous suffering.
With the blade still lodged there, I carefully applied the same petrifying liquid he’d used on his victims, coating him thoroughly.
“He seemed to want to become a smiling statue, so I granted that wish too. A final kindness, if you will.”
Before his face could fully harden, I personally shaped his mouth into a smile.
The result was a grotesque statue, to say the least.
“It was fitting enough to mark the festival’s finale, wouldn’t you say?”
If I’d had more time, I would have applied the liquid more generously and carefully to make it a solid, permanent statue. But there was no helping it.
Watching Jainer smile brightly like a child seeking praise, Camilla could only sigh repeatedly.
“It was certainly effective at extinguishing the festival’s joy.”
“Haha.”
“I heard some children survived.”
“They’re currently being treated at the Papal See, I’ve heard.”
“Can they be treated?”
For the first time, Jainer’s smile faded as he shook his head slowly.
“It’s difficult, apparently.”
Of all those statues, only three children still had breath in them. But one of those three lost their life during treatment.
“The remaining two are struggling as well. They’re barely clinging to life, but there’s no way to restore flexibility to their hardened bodies.”
“What exactly is that liquid?”
“It’s extracted from a plant that grows in the Desert, and there’s no antidote for it.”
The children’s bodies remained petrified. Unable to even lie down properly, they were living in agony worse than death itself.
“I should have killed him more mercifully.”
I’d thought Count Orleans’s death was sufficiently gruesome, but now it seemed he’d died far too easily.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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