Beguiling the Enemy’s Patriarch - Chapter 49

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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 49
It was an absurd question. Was he asking if I wanted to return to South Korea, the land where Eun-seo originally lived? Unfortunately, that option didn’t even exist in my choices. I answered with a heavy heart.
“If I go back, I’ll be in far worse condition than I am now…”
A ninety percent probability of death. A nine percent probability of becoming a vegetable. And the remaining one percent probability of becoming disabled. That was the fate of Eun-seo’s body.
There was no way around it—the accident I suffered was a complete rollover where the bus flipped entirely upside down. On top of that, I fell head-first… No matter how I thought about it, hoping that Eun-seo’s body would survive was unreasonable.
Opening my eyes in this book by the skin of my teeth was a miracle among miracles. I shook my head firmly.
“I don’t even know how to return, and even if I did, my body would already be dead. At least here, I’m still breathing…”
[Then, child.]
Raulus cut off my words and interjected abruptly.
[How about you become my priestess?]
A priestess…?
It was a proposal that made my eyes snap wide open and my ears perk up. I lifted my head sharply and looked up at the ceiling. Raulus continued speaking.
[I’ve been watching you all this time, little crumb. That body you’re wearing now is definitely one I’ve blessed.]
“That’s because it’s a baptized body…”
[Exactly. Which is why what hasn’t been granted is your soul.]
That was a fact I already knew. Wasn’t that precisely why I became magically incompatible?
[I wish I could bless your soul as well and grant you ‘permission,’ but since you’re not a child of the world under my jurisdiction, it’s impossible. However, if I make you my priestess, if you’re granted the authority to act on my behalf on the mortal plane…]
I sat with my mouth hanging open, listening to Raulus’s voice. Raulus concluded with remarkable clarity.
[Then at least you could grow from a crumb into a small pebble, don’t you think?]
“Wow.”
In other words, while he couldn’t grant me permission to truly seep into this land, he could at least bestow enough divine power for me to sustain myself. Not a consumable method requiring recharging whenever the divine power depleted, but a far more effective approach…!
“I’ll do it!”
I shoved the mirror aside and jumped to my feet.
“I’ll do it right now! Please make me your priestess!”
[But there’s a problem, child.]
Raulus laughed brightly.
[To grant you divine power as my priestess, I need to descend to the mortal plane.]
“And…?”
[I can only come down to the mortal plane once every ten years.]
What? Ten years? Ten yeeeeears?
This time, I genuinely wanted to faint on the spot. A shriek burst from my lips.
“I can barely survive five years, so what’s this nonsense about ten years!”
“Your… Your Highness…!”
At my shriek, Marienne, who had been watching me, burst into tears and rushed from the room.
I was about to scream further when I stopped and looked around with a dazed expression. The handmaidens waiting anxiously outside the door all seemed to be swallowing back tears.
“Our poor Princess…”
“…”
I laughed awkwardly a moment too late, but all that came back were sorrowful gazes.
I pressed my fingers to my brow.
* * *
In other words, Raulus’s proposal was nothing but a pipe dream. It couldn’t be implemented immediately, so it was little more than false hope—a cruel form of torture.
Raulus had said that the last time he descended to the mortal realm was when Auredhian Belgot ascended to the throne. That was five years ago, so even if it wasn’t the full ten years, I still had to wait another five years.
I lay draped across the fence in front of Bellirook Palace like laundry, doing nothing but sighing.
“What good are ten years or five years when I’m struggling to survive day by day…”
My mood plummeted back into the depths of despair. I didn’t even know what kind of dark magic was afflicting Bellirook Palace or how it worked. And the promise that I could escape this sunfish-like existence once I became a priestess in five years? If that wasn’t an empty check, then what was it?
My thoughts circled back to the beginning. The cursed Bellirook Palace, and myself—clearly in some sort of deteriorating condition.
Should I ask to change palaces? I stared dejectedly at the white onion-shaped structure before me.
I felt a prickling sensation across my skin again. I couldn’t tell if it was real or merely my imagination.
If Auredhian Belgot were at the Imperial Palace, I would rush over and call him through the window. But of all days, he had to be away. My luck was absolutely abysmal. Sighs escaped me in waves. I wondered why the earth hadn’t swallowed me whole with all this sighing.
The withered wildflowers scattered beneath the fence felt like my own reflection. A melancholy murmur escaped my lips.
“Here we are in spring when flowers bloom, and yet you and I are both wilting away. How pathetic.”
The blackened wildflowers offered no answer, as was only natural. How sorrowful.
Moreover, the eerie sensation of my body being pricked seemed to intensify, which only deepened my despair. My limbs felt strangely numb.
“…Sigh.”
I mourned both my own fate and the brief lives of these wildflowers, pouring water generously over the dead blooms.
In any case, I couldn’t spend the night in the garden. Marienne wrapped her arms halfway around me with the most sorrowful expression on her face.
“You’ll catch a cold, Princess. Especially given how delicate you are…”
“Aha, ha…”
I was dragged back into Bellirook Palace against my will. There was no point in arguing—if I caught even the slightest cold, I would surely be at death’s door.
“I’ll extinguish the candles, Your Highness.”
Instead, I stopped Marienne from leaving to blow out the flames. I had absolutely no intention of falling asleep. Even if I couldn’t remember the nightmares, now that I knew they were Soleia Elad’s doing, I never wanted to experience them again. I steeled myself with determination.
“I can’t sleep.”
If I fell asleep, I would taste hell itself. With this firm resolve, I kicked away the soft blanket and sat at the table. I even blew out the sleep-inducing candle that Marienne had lit for me.
Just hold on until tomorrow somehow! And the moment dawn breaks, I’ll rush to the Imperial Palace to send out an SOS!
And yet, despite burning with such determination, I fell asleep in less than five minutes with a soft thud.
* * *
You see, when a person falls asleep, they first close their eyes, then drift through the darkness that billows up around them, occasionally catching glimpses of vivid illusions, and before they know it, they slip into the unconscious. Then they dream, toss and turn…
That’s what proper, healthy sleep is supposed to be.
[You’re the one who agreed to raise Eun-seo!]
[When did I! I only said I’d look after her for a bit!]
I stared at the black shapes before me in bewilderment.
“What is this?”
I rubbed my ears, but the cacophony of voices continued unabated.
[Don’t change your story now!]
[I don’t need even a pittance of an inheritance, so just take her away!]
This felt different from when Raulus sent me his voice. These voices were vivid, as if I were witnessing the conversation directly before me.
So… I had fallen asleep, it seemed. The entire process between closing my eyes and drifting off had simply vanished.
Yet my fierce determination not to sleep remained unbroken—my mind was remarkably clear, exactly as it had been before I dozed off.
[Then just let her live alone. Fifteen is old enough to fend for herself.]
I watched the black shapes bicker amongst themselves, arms crossed. Something about this felt familiar—this must be the true nature of the nightmares that had been tormenting me all along.
A deep sigh escaped me.
“How old was I when that happened…?”
It was an event from ten years ago. The day of my father’s funeral—a man I’d seen only twice a year at most. That day, the relatives surrounding me spoke in exactly those terms.
‘It’s not as big a deal as I thought.’
That was the extent of my impression. Truth be told, I’d found it rather tedious. I’d been dreaming that dream around high school, yet here I was at twenty-five, dreaming it again.
I shook my head and turned my back on those dark masses. Over the past fortnight, I must have turned away countless times at dawn. Though I retained no memory of it.
But today was different. Abruptly, a face materialized in my peripheral vision as I turned.
[Eun-seo! Where are you going?]
“Gasp.”
My heart plummeted to the depths. I swallowed my breath in panic. The face before me was one I had no memory of. Yet I could not fail to recognize it. It bore an unmistakable resemblance to Eun-seo’s own face.
My parched lips fell open of their own accord.
“Ah… Mother….”
[You said you could manage on your own. Couldn’t you?]
A pallid woman with sunken cheeks seized my shoulders and thrust her face close to mine. Her light brown eyes were suffused with bloodshot veins.
[Couldn’t you?]
She asked again. It sounded like a hushed whisper, yet also like a piercing shriek.
[Answer me!]
“Gasp….”
That sensation arose purely because my heart was pounding wildly. Thump, thump.
I clenched my lips. In this moment, there was only one thing I could comprehend. This—this was dark magic. Magic that commanded the spirits of the already dead at will.
My mind grew cold and lucid. It was not merely confined to the physical aspect of manipulating corpses.
After all, weren’t spirits nothing more than the insubstantial souls of the dead? Infiltrating human consciousness and manipulating the mind was also a form of dark magic.
Then was Soleia Elad slowly attempting to torment me to death with this ‘nightmare’?
If so, Soleia had miscalculated.

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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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