Celebrity Lady - Chapter 155

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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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Celebrity Lady
Chapter 155
“Not pretty at all? According to the Crown Prince’s read on your personality, you have a habit of always saying the opposite of what you mean….”
Shane froze at the voice that reached her the moment she turned around.
“…So translated, you mean she’s so beautiful you could die.”
“Are you talking nonsense too?”
Shane bristled, adding her complaint.
“You’ve got nothing to do now, so why do you keep showing up whenever you get a chance? Why don’t you disappear too.”
“Why are you like that? You’d be bored without me anyway. I haven’t been to the Spirit Spring in ages, so I don’t have any close friends.”
A spirit surrounded by brilliance, her entire body glittering gold—Lumiere.
Shane watched her crunch candies from a glass jar on the table and clicked her tongue.
“Not bored at all. It hurts to look at you, so go away. Will you take responsibility if I go blind because of you?”
True to her title as a Spirit of Light, Lumiere shone with her own radiance; staring at her for too long actually hurt the eyes.
Lumiere merely shrugged, as if used to Shane’s sarcasm.
“At least say thank you. I’m telling you, you really do have a twisted personality.”
“What should I be thanking you for? What!”
“The King’s Contractor, of course.”
“That’s enough. I didn’t ask for your unnecessary help.”
What a personality, honestly.
Lumiere shook her head in dismay.
“But hey, Lark didn’t seem to know anything about it.”
Shane, sprawled on the sofa, spoke up.
“He doesn’t. Nobody does. Nobody should. That’s what the King wants, what the King’s Contractor wants, and it’s the best choice for the peace of this empire.”
“But why did you tell me everything? Do you want to get caught by the King and beaten to death?”
“You were worried about me. That’s surprising.”
“I’m saying it because I’d like to see you get beaten.”
“Hmm, you’re not someone who goes around gossiping about this kind of thing. I know that better than anyone.”
“Well.”
“And why are you really asking why I told you? Both you and I are going to live off the benefits of the King’s Contractor for the rest of our lives, so I figured you should at least say a word of thanks.”
“I don’t know any of that!”
“You really are strange.”
“But.”
Shane, draped over the back of the sofa with her neck resting against it, continued.
“Isn’t your King a pushover? Why is he so devoted to that little brat anyway?”
“She’s grown quite a bit since you first met her, you know? Compared to then.”
Lumiere, narrowing her eyes, giggled and poked Shane in the ribs.
“Honestly, you were jealous of the Crown Prince, weren’t you? You seemed to like the King’s Contractor quite a bit.”
“I really don’t understand what everyone’s talking about.”
“You’re not being honest.”
“Shut up.”
Lumiere, chuckling, pursed her lips and spoke.
“What does the King mean to the Contractor? Well, I can’t quite gauge it. There’s all that time he spent waiting, and more besides.”
“….”
“But from what I’ve observed, it seems like a very complex mix of emotions. By way of analogy.”
Lumiere, popping another candy into her mouth, continued.
“Like a parent thinking of their child, or a newborn beast seeking its mother, or siblings caring for one another, or a lover loving their beloved.”
“What does that even mean?”
“I don’t really know. Stop asking. One thing I’m sure of, though.”
Lumiere, rolling her eyes, said,
“The King will never abandon the Contractor.”
* * *
“I greet the Crown Prince! Ah, and the lady too…, hello?”
The reactions of those we passed were consistent as we left the Magic Tower.
They’d greet Lark, then examine my eyes—which had lost their golden light—with curiosity before suddenly looking alarmed.
“We need to get going. Step aside.”
“Oh! P-please excuse me! Safe travels to you both!”
Even the guards stationed in the Magic Tower’s lobby looked at me as if I were a curiosity in a menagerie, and Lark seemed displeased.
“It’s irritating.”
“Just leave it. It’s only natural they’re fascinated right now. The King’s Protection that had lasted for hundreds of years just vanished.”
“Doesn’t it bother you? Are you all right?”
“What do you mean?”
Lark stared at my eyes for a moment, then swallowed a sigh.
“The spirits have been granted freedom, so Wishit could stay by your side. Why hasn’t he come back? Did you only think of him as a friend?”
“Um, does my eye bother you? Do I look shabby without being a Spirit Summoner? I mean, to marry a Crown Prince….”
“What are you talking about?”
Lark flicked my forehead reprovingly.
“It doesn’t matter at all. I just know how much you relied on him, so I’m worried, that’s all.”
“I see.”
Did he think I’d be melancholy over losing a decade-long best friend?
I can’t tell him the truth, but I’m not melancholy.
Because I haven’t lost him at all.
“Haha, I’m fine.”
I smiled and linked my arm through Lark’s, quickening my pace.
“I’m very happy.”
* * *
The Spirit Spring.
And this place was the lowest, darkest cavern hidden within that beautiful paradise.
The spirit Bilkin slowly stepped into this damp place of confinement.
“Ugh, what’s that smell of blood…?”
The appearance of Bilkin, who had once been the Enchanted Tree rooted at the center of the spring, had changed.
Abundant green hair and golden eyes. As if a beautiful laurel tree had become human….
These arms and legs, finally obtained thanks to the King taking back the duty of upholding order.
“Eek!”
Bilkin, reaching the far end of the cavern, startled badly.
A man kneeling with both arms bound by glowing blue chains lay before her.
“Hey, you! Poze!”
The white-haired man, stained with blood and stripped of his original color, was covered in lacerations across his firm frame.
Coughing up blood at her approach, he lifted his head, though his face was badly swollen.
“Wow, ah…. Looks good, huh? Looks like I lost. Cough! Lost to you, Bilkin.”
“What—how much have they beaten you?”
“A day or two, I’d say…. Without even a second’s rest, they were hitting me.”
“Then why’d you do something worth beating?”
“Hehe. Must be from hanging around humans. Never thought the King could be so humanly brutal.”
“Don’t talk nonsense. Be grateful it was just that. If the King’s Contractor had died, you’d have been annihilated entirely, you fool.”
“If she’d died, the King would still be blind.”
“Watch your tone with me. You want another hit?”
“No. It hurts. Please….”
“Tch.”
Bilkin clicked her tongue, sat herself down on a rock in the corner, folded her arms, and asked.
“So what happened? How did you grow like this?”
“I don’t know. Cough. I guess the King figured if I stayed a kid, he couldn’t really hit me….”
“Why would the King bother with that? He knew perfectly well your mind was thousands of years old, even wearing a child’s skin. Did he think he couldn’t beat you for that?”
Spirits each took on different forms according to their intelligence and nature.
The reason all the highest-tier spirits, unlike lesser ones, had human forms was precisely because they possessed high intellect and emotion.
The reason Poze had appeared as a child was….
‘Because he was the purest among us.’
Bilkin clicked her tongue again.
Blank purity sometimes brought terrible consequences.
Poze had been easily consumed by rage toward humans, and toward a King who offered inexplicable devotion to such creatures, he felt a deeper sense of betrayal than any other.
“Pitiful and foolish thing.”
So Bilkin pitied Poze in a way.
There were others besides Poze who had resented a King devoted to humans….
But unlike Poze, they had not dared to defy the King.
“How did things turn out?”
“What?”
“You know what I’m asking….”
Bilkin, glaring at Poze with half-lidded eyes in displeasure, finally spoke.
“Coexistence with humans became a choice. Those who wanted to stay stayed, and those who wanted to return came back.”
“I see.”
“The King’s Protection bestowed on the bloodlines of Deccard and Diolus remains. Younger bloodlines not yet of age to contract, and new blood yet to be born, still retain the potential to awaken as Spirit Summoners.”
“So now spirits choose humans?”
“That’s how it became. If one enters the Spirit Spring and is not chosen by a spirit, they will lose the King’s Protection and leave.”
Bilkin looked at the silent Poze and added,
“In the end, things went the way you wanted. Are you satisfied?”
“I suppose.”
Poze let out a short laugh, then grimaced at the pain. His split lip throbbed.
“I was surprised. The King’s Contractor….”
He recalled her face.
In that final moment, Poze had also heard her Final Wish.
“Don’t make any more contracts with humans. Just live doing whatever you want.”
“I hope you… become free.”
Poze never imagined the King’s Contractor would use her Final Wish that way.
“There was still one wish left, and it was one second before that human’s head came off. I can’t fathom what she was thinking, wishing for the King’s freedom in that moment….”
Poze still could not understand Rubetria Diolus.
Had she known her spirit was the King?
Even if she had known, she probably wasn’t confident her own life would be spared.
It truly was a thoughtless act. Truly….
“Why would the King be so fond of that human? It must be because she was someone capable of doing that much.”
At Bilkin’s words, Poze slowly lifted his eyes to look at her.
“She chose the latter between her own life and the King’s freedom?”
“…Yes, that’s right.”
Poze was confused.
Humans are foolish, selfish, and greedy creatures. The greatest reason Poze had loathed them all this time.
Yet in the moment he witnessed Rubetria’s incomprehensible choice—wishing for the King’s freedom at the very brink of death—something solid that had been firmly built within him crumbled to pieces.
“Now I understand why you’ve grown.”
Bilkin, observing Poze’s bewildered expression, murmured.
“Why?”
“You, who despised humans, felt something in that moment when the King’s Contractor made that incomprehensible choice—”
Bilkin, mid-sentence, suddenly felt a crushing pressure.
At the same moment, Poze also lifted his head, which had been drooping from exhaustion, and smiled faintly as he gazed past her shoulder.
“….”
Bilkin stiffly turned her head.
There stood the King, Wishit, who had appeared without warning. The dark cavern was now filled entirely with radiant golden light.
“Uh, um. Are you here to hit the kid again?”
As Wishit approached Poze, Bilkin quickly stepped aside and asked.
Wishit, stopping in his tracks, raised his eyebrows and turned to look at her.
“No.”

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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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