About Becoming My Ex-Husband's Mistress - Chapter 174

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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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Chapter 174. The Cursed Eclite
Eclite himself was caught off guard by a thought he had never even conceived.
I had never stepped forward before Priscilla. Yet that didn’t mean I had never seen her at all.
I had heard plenty through portraits and physical descriptions. Once, I had even snuck away to catch a glimpse of her.
Recalling that moment and looking again now, I noticed that Priscilla and Priscilla’s physical builds were remarkably similar. In fact, Priscilla’s silhouette had appeared to be Priscilla herself.
I suddenly understood how Priscilla had survived, and why Luderne Sellen had been so obsessed with Priscilla at the Raber Salon.
‘They deceived me. How dare they be so audacious.’
I ground my teeth in frustration.
That was when Priscilla turned around.
I quickly feigned ignorance, looked ahead again, and quickened my pace.
There was no benefit in letting her know I had caught on.
‘I will repay them in due time.’
I decided to return to my cabin first and use a spatial displacement scroll. I needed to go to the Imperial Palace and discover which fiefdom the title Priscilla had received belonged to.
That was when it happened. My vision grew dim and heavy.
Fatigue suddenly washed over me.
I clenched my jaw, growing even more resentful of Luderne Sellen and Priscilla. The fact that I had been deceived by them seemed to be causing considerable stress.
In any case, I would feel better after some rest.
As a result of retiring so early, my mind felt refreshed when I awoke in the night.
Wanting to catch a breath of night air, I went outside.
While wandering the deck, I encountered a woman.
The woman, who had an air of considerable intellect, bowed respectfully the moment she saw me.
Despite her knight’s attire, she recognized me.
Her identity became unmistakable.
“What is your name?”
“I am Anne, Your Highness.”
Eclite and Anne exchanged brief pleasantries.
From what I heard, she was a maid of Count Veloda Genoma.
So far, so good. I even considered keeping her company for the tedious night.
Yet as I observed her further, her manner of speech and bearing differed slightly from that of an ordinary maid.
It was rather like observing an attendant of the Imperial Palace.
When I probed further into her origins, she mentioned she was a citizen of the Doorban Empire.
I immediately harbored a different suspicion.
‘Is she one of Luderne Sellen’s spies?’
That was when it happened.
Anne’s face appeared distorted before my eyes. A strange, peculiar, and repugnant sensation seemed to envelop my entire body.
My eyes burned.
I rubbed my eyes briefly.
“Your Highness, are you all right?”
At the sound of Anne’s concerned voice, I opened my eyes again and caught my breath in shock.
“Yes, but why… why are you here?”
His words came out in a stammer.
It was truly bizarre.
I was clearly conversing with a maid suspected of being Count Veloda Genoma’s spy for Luderne Sellen.
Of course, her clothing was identical. The location was the same, and her voice was the same.
Yet her face was different.
No matter how many times I looked at Anne’s face, it appeared to be Hilda Arde’s.
Even when Eclite rubbed his eyes repeatedly and looked again, it remained so.
Then a mysterious scream pierced his ears.
“Aaahhh! Stop this! Please!”
It was the voice of an unknown woman.
A voice gasping in agony followed in succession.
“Ugh! What is this!”
Startled, Eclite covered both ears with his hands. Yet the anguished screams still echoed within them.
“P-please save me! Your Majesty!”
Though he pressed his ears shut more firmly, the sounds persisted. They were screams that made the situation unmistakably clear.
The number of men and women he had seized, violated, and murdered was beyond counting.
Because he liked them, or because he didn’t. Because his mood was good, or because it wasn’t.
Some days, simply because. Out of boredom. As a jest.
Commoners meant nothing to him—a prince could do as he pleased with them.
Then Anne approached Eclite.
Anne’s face, which had been Hilda Arde’s, had returned to its original appearance.
When Eclite understood what Anne was saying, he removed his hands from his ears.
“If you’re feeling unwell, shall I call someone?”
That’s precisely what she said.
Yet a different woman’s voice reached his ears.
“You killed them. Do you think the world won’t know?”
Anne’s face appeared as Hilda Arde’s once more.
Bewildered, Eclite gritted his teeth and suddenly shouted at Anne.
“What is this! What are you! Luderne Sellen’s dog?”
“I, that is, that…”
Anne, startled, fidgeted helplessly.
Seeing Anne unable to deny it, rage surged through Eclite.
This woman must have been the one who revealed his existence, so carefully concealed among the knights, to Luderne Sellen.
“How dare you play spy!”
Eclite seized Anne by the hair. Then he began beating and trampling her without mercy.
“Ahhhhh! Your Majesty! Why are you doing this!”
Anne screamed, unable to move, as she was struck. The commotion drew people from the vicinity.
Among them was a knight who knew Eclite’s true identity.
“W-what is the matter?”
At the knight’s question, Eclite lifted his head with a sneer.
In that instant, Eclite’s eyes widened at the sight of the Knight before me.
It was the face of the Emperor, Fleit Doorban.
Moreover, it was the most recent appearance I had witnessed—his complexion looked haggard and fierce.
“The Former King… how could you be here…?”
“Pardon? The Former King, you say?”
The Knight standing before me tilted his head in confusion. Simultaneously, a thunderous voice erupted in my ears.
「You ungrateful wretch! Did you think I wouldn’t know what you’ve been doing?」
It was not the Emperor’s voice. Yet it was unmistakably an elderly man’s voice I had heard somewhere before.
“Eeeeek!”
Eclite’s entire body erupted in goosebumps. I released Anne’s hair and scrambled away from the spot.
Along the way, I encountered several more people.
They were dressed as Knights, Sailors, Servants, or Maids. But their faces twisted grotesquely before transforming into different visages.
They became Hilda Arde, or Fleit Doorban, or people I had once killed.
“What is this?! This insane situation! It makes no sense!”
The voice echoed in my ears once more.
「You killed me and lived comfortably all this time?」
It was the same voice as before.
I felt certain I had heard it somewhere, yet the memory eluded me.
「Prepare yourself, you shameless creature. From now on, you won’t find peace.」
Eclite clamped both hands over my ears. Yet the mocking laughter continued to resound within them, dripping with malice.
「Do you know? The moment you return to the Empire, you’ll face capital punishment.」
My heart raced wildly. My breathing became frantic and ragged.
But all I could do now was flee to a place where no one would find me.
Once I reached an empty space, the surroundings finally fell silent. The sound that had been ringing in my ears vanished as if it had never been.
“Haaah…”
Eclite bowed my head and buried my face in one hand, catching my breath. Only then did I realize my entire body was drenched in cold sweat.
‘What on earth is happening?’
I couldn’t comprehend it.
That was when it happened.
“Your Majesty? You haven’t retired yet?”
Eclite lifted my head at the familiar voice.
Count Veloda Genoma stood on the Deck, his appearance haggard and worn.
And the moment our eyes met.
「You killed me. You killed me.」
A sinister voice resonated in my ears once more.
「You must die too. You won’t have an easy death.」
Count Veloda Genoma’s face contorted before transforming into someone else.
It was a face I recognized.
Eclite gasped involuntarily.
“This… this can’t be real.”
My words tumbled out involuntarily, trembling on my lips. I remembered who owned that voice.
Menglow Breeze, the Curse Scroll Mage.
Though it wore Count Veloda Genoma’s body, the face was unmistakably that of the Old Woman.
The moment I saw her visage, I began to understand the origins of this nightmare unfolding before me.
‘Could it be… that I’ve been cursed?’
The question gnawed at me.
Who had cursed me, and when?
Then it struck me—after the tea party ended, Priscilla had been standing behind me.
An unsettling feeling crept over me. Could it truly be coincidence?
And immediately, a far more troubling question arose.
Where in the world had that woman obtained such a scroll?
As I grappled with my own question, I recalled the Emperor’s words about granting her a title of nobility.
‘Wait… if she received a title of nobility…’
That meant she had visited the Imperial Palace.
Only then did I remember that Luderne Sellen had also gained access to the magical scroll storage vault.
Among the unmarked scrolls, curse magic surely existed.
I had once searched through them for curse magic myself. If I could use curse magic against Luderne, everything would become simple.
But no one knew which scrolls contained curse magic, nor could anyone identify which ones possessed identical effects.
So I had relied on fortune and experimented with an unidentified scroll.
Since I didn’t know what would happen, I had the Imperial Court’s mages conduct experiments and report their findings.
The results of using an unmarked magical scroll arbitrarily were catastrophic.
The spell’s effect was self-detonation.
Everyone within a meter radius of whoever tore the scroll perished, their bodies reduced to mangled chunks of flesh.
It had been so long that the details escaped me—had there been ten mages in the Imperial Court’s research division, or twenty?
I had even forced them to participate against their wishes.
After that accident, many mages had fled the Imperial Palace in terror, and those who remained avoided me entirely.
‘After that, I couldn’t even attempt it again.’
As these memories surfaced, my strength drained away.
Somehow or other, I suspected Luderne Sellen had managed to identify the curse scroll from among them.
Of course, this was merely my conjecture.
Yet somehow, the pieces seemed to fit together perfectly.
Then Count Veloda Genoma, wearing Menglow’s face, stepped forward with deliberate strides.

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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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