A Runaway Villainess, Now Healing In An Enemy Country - Chapter 69

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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【Chapter 69】

As soon as I heard Coco’s statement, I shot up from my seat. The place I found myself in was the training ground connected to the dining room attached to the kitchen…

A tree that had been standing majestically was now lying sprawled across the middle of the training ground, its roots exposed.

Actually, the sight itself wasn’t shocking.

This training ground was rented by a knight’s order that had a trio of idiots, so even if all the trees were uprooted and scattered around, it wouldn’t be surprising.

But still.

“So you’re saying… you really did this yourself?”

“Y-yes… I’m truly sorry…”

Marisa bowed her waist and apologized repeatedly.

Even though her illness had been cured, there was no way muscle or flesh could immediately attach to a body that had been weakened by long pneumonia. Could she even properly hold a fork with those hands?

But what do you know. She had knocked down a tree.

“Mom just lightly touched it with her fist, but the tree cracked and split before falling over. I-it’s really true.”

Coco, who was beside her, explained as if defending her.

“Why… did you punch it?”

“She was showing off her punching since she said she was all better…”

But you shouldn’t use a tree like a punching machine, should you?

She’s rougher than she looks.

I slowly understood as I looked at the fallen tree.

Right, mom has definitely gotten too strong…

“Why did she get stronger…?”

She said she gained superhuman strength after being healed by me.

Did I unknowingly bless her to become stronger while healing her? I’m not sure, but good things are good things… right?

“I don’t really know either… I’ll definitely compensate for the tree.”

“Hey, I was watching earlier.”

I was about to dissuade her saying it wasn’t necessary, when Nishe suddenly appeared from behind me and spoke to Marisa.

Ever since he became the leader of the knight’s order, he had been practically living in the training ground, making a living out of tormenting the squires who had joined the knight’s order without knowing what they were getting into.

Though buried by the tree, even now in one corner of the training ground, squires who had been worked over by him lay sprawled with pale faces.

“You have talent.”

“Ah.”

Startled by Nishe’s sudden appearance, she stumbled and her feet got tangled as she staggered. Soon her slender legs wrapped in her skirt regained balance.

Bang!

With a vibration, the ground cracked. I even felt the sensation of my body floating for a moment.

She apologized in horror, almost crying.

“Huk, s-sorry…! I didn’t mean to do this!”

“…”

“E-ever since Lady Irene healed me, I can’t control the power inside me…”

What did I do to an ordinary kid’s mom?

I’m afraid of my own power. I stared blankly at the hands that had emitted divine power, but regardless, Nishe made another proposal with admiration.

“You really have talent. Want to join the order?”

“What? I’ve never even held a sword…”

“You can start holding one from now.”

“I-I’m also old…”

“Then I should die tomorrow.”

He must be crazy.

For the sake of the troubled Marisa, I grabbed Nishe’s arm as he was charging ahead and confronted him.

“What’s wrong with you? This might be a temporary side effect of healing.”

No matter what, it looked like he was forcing someone who had been sick until just a while ago, and it was problematic in many ways.

“Who cares? I’m tired of teaching those misfits too.”

Nishe pointed behind his shoulder with his thumb in annoyance. It was in the direction where the zombie-like squires were.

“How is it that there isn’t a single useful guy? But here one appeared. A talent who will raise our knight’s order.”

Ugh, that damn Black Sea Knights.

When they put out recruitment announcements for squires, applicants did gather, but there wasn’t a single person who satisfied Nishe.

But wasn’t it already a miraculous miracle that about ten people came in the first place? …If I said that, he’d probably explode.

I was trying to stop Nishe, who seemed to have gone a bit crazy over discovering talent, when Marisa cautiously asked.

“Am I… talented?”

…She’s interested.

“In my hundred-plus years of living, it’s the first time I’ve seen talent like yours. You’ll probably manifest an aura soon too.”

“Then I could become a knight…”

Her cheeks were flushed, showing she was very interested.

Then Nishe, seeing the possibility, listed the benefits of joining. You can live in the castle with your daughter, if you become the Duke’s knight you get paid for life, you can beat up anyone, etc…

‘…This is getting weirder?’

I suddenly became like a duck egg in the Nakdong River between the one trying to recruit and the one about to be swayed. Coco quietly approached me and spoke.

“Mom has always wanted to beat up bad guys. She says those kinds of people need to be hit to come to their senses.”

“Really…?”

“But she was weak, so she had no choice but to live kindly. Lady Irene cured her illness and fulfilled mom’s wish too.”

Thank you so much.

I listened to Coco’s thanks in a daze and thought about whether Winter Castle only attracted peculiar people, or if people became peculiar after coming to the castle.

* * *

“Such a thing happened…”

Lishie blinked her wide eyes.

I had escaped from the training ground where an almost hastily arranged initiation ceremony was taking place and immediately sought out Lishie’s room.

Lishie, who had been freed from surveillance with my guarantee, had become a guest of the castle, so her room now had proper furniture and wasn’t as barren as it had been initially.

I told her the absurd story of how someone I had healed suddenly gained superhuman strength.

“It’s strange, isn’t it? I don’t understand the principle.”

When I grumbled, Lishie calmly asked back.

“What’s strange about it? Since Older Sister is practically a god, you’d naturally perform such miracles.”

“…You’re really blinded by favoritism.”

“I’m serious. Older Sister’s divine power is Older Sister’s life force, right? That means ultimately—”

She seemed ready to give a whole speech with her over-interpretation, so I waved my hands dismissively.

“What kind of god am I when I’m this inadequate?”

If I were really a god, my divine power would have been complete from the moment of awakening, and I wouldn’t have struggled with being unable to purify Davuer’s magi.

At least the current me isn’t some god, just someone at the level of a divine power awakener. No matter how great my soul might be, my body is merely human with clear limitations.

What’s certain right now are four things.

First, a god fell in the past and became an evil god.

Second, though thought to have died in the holy war a hundred years ago, he desperately survived and is now threatening the world’s existence by writing a fate like the ‘original work.’

Third, using his only remaining power, the ‘Voice,’ he can brainwash or control people.

And…

“When you healed people, did anything like this happen?”

Lishie smiled awkwardly.

“No. As I mentioned, my divine power was rather…”

“False healing, right. I just asked just in case.”

Fourth, the essence of the evil god’s divine power is absorbing the life force of those he touches, and he gains strength from it.

This was a fresh story I heard recently.

Lishie, who had regained her senses, rambled to me about the ‘Voice’ and his divine power that she knew about, but to summarize the key points:

“So he absorbs others’ life force with his divine power while pretending to heal on the surface? That sudden volunteer work was also to gain power.”

Come to think of it, Lishie might lose control of her body like that day, but she wasn’t brainwashed. Could it be because that ability doesn’t work on the host?

As I fell into such thoughts, I suddenly heard Lishie’s sobbing voice.

“If Older Sister gets hurt because of me, that would be terrible.”

Oh right.

The reason this child kept acting like this whenever she got the chance was because of what happened long ago during the hunting competition, when she had healed my injuries using sanctum.

She was worried that her life force had been drained and she might die young because of it.

Most of the critically ill patients she had treated with sanctum in the past had died within half a year, so it wasn’t a baseless worry. However.

“It’s fine. My life force is cockroach-level.”

After all, I possessed tremendous life force that made even evil gods tremble in fear.

They had gotten so worked up about how I’d be reborn even if I died. So there was no way I’d die young from receiving a bit of that.

“Don’t say cockroach, say something pretty. Like an elf or something…”

“Is that really what matters to you?”

Lishie nodded her head vigorously. I naturally patted that head of hers while letting out a sigh.

Among all the complicated matters weighing on my mind, Lishie’s situation was also giving me a headache.

Unlike what Giselle thought, I had originally planned to send Lishie back to the Empire regardless of whether she could purify Davuer’s magi or not, once we got results.

However, Lishie had now lost her sanctum. If she returned, she wouldn’t be treated well…

Knock knock.

At the knocking sound that broke my contemplation, I quickly looked up. Davuer was standing crookedly by the open door, looking at me.

“I wondered why you weren’t coming back to the study.”

“Were you waiting for me? No, if you were going to open it without waiting for an answer, why did you even bother knocking?”

He silently approached me, removed my hand from Lishie’s head, then personally placed a document in my now-empty hand.

“You said you wanted to try purifying.”

Skimming through it, it was a document about griffin variant offspring, high-level vermin living in the mountains, showing strange behavior.

“They’re scheduled for subjugation anyway. I thought it would be good if you joined.”

Despite having demanded that I rest more just moments ago, he readily made this suggestion.

It was such an unexpected statement that I asked back uncertainly.

“…You’re not going to stop me?”

“How could I stop you.”

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