Deadline Is Raining in the Status Window - Chapter 235
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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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#Seian Crowell’s Longest Day
I’m going to destroy Evan Laef’s life.
Seian Crowell lay sprawled across the couch, muttering his dark fantasies about Evan’s downfall, while Mecala Countess’s Daughter sat beside him, meticulously documenting his ravings on her consultation notes. From their first meeting, Seian’s mental state had struck her as remarkably unstable, so she’d diligently studied and obtained a civilian psychology counseling certification.
“Your Majesty, when did you first feel the urge to destroy Evan Mitchell’s life?”
“There’s never been a time I didn’t!”
Seian flared up, but Mecala Countess’s Daughter remained composed, methodically recording his state. She’d concluded he must have harbored feelings for Evan Mitchell far longer than memory could reach. She adjusted her approach with a new question.
“Most recently, when did such an impulse strike you?”
“The wedding! That bastard’s wedding!”
Watching Seian’s hands tremble, she nodded thoughtfully and continued her notes. She mused that if she compiled her consultation records with Seian into a formal report and submitted it to state institutions, she might just obtain her official psychology counselor certification. Seian was certainly a challenging patient.
“I received that invitation as well. It must have been quite a shock for you.”
“Ha! Why would I be shocked?! That woman! Whether she marries once or a hundred times, it’s none of my concern!”
Clearly, it was very much her concern. She analyzed his words and wrote them down.
“So it doesn’t concern you, yet you wish to destroy Evan Mitchell’s life?”
“Of course! That woman—how much she humiliated me! How much shame she brought upon me!”
“Shame, you say?”
“What’s it to you?!”
Seian let out a piercing shriek, and she clapped her hands over her ears. She shouldn’t have touched that nerve. She silently reproached herself for her lack of finesse.
“Well then… in what manner would you like to destroy Evan Mitchell’s life?”
“I want that woman to never know a single moment of happiness without me!”
Is it acceptable for her to be happy in your presence? She wrestled with the question before deciding it was necessary for analyzing Seian’s condition and asked it anyway. If enduring his wrath meant improving her patient’s mental health, nothing could be more rewarding.
“That statement sounds rather like you’re saying she may be happy as long as she’s by your side.”
“Uh, um, ahem.”
Seian grew flustered and lost his chance to protest. Truth be told, if she’d simply agree to stay by his side, he’d tolerate quite a lot. Perverse behavior, stalking, breaking into her home to clean and steal her undergarments—he could endure it all, so long as she didn’t laugh and carry on with other men.
I’ve already made concessions and confessed my feelings. And that woman wants to marry a lizard? Don’t make me laugh. Even if dirt filled my eyes, I couldn’t bear to witness such a sight. If she’s made others weep, she should be prepared to shed tears of blood before me.
“Just wait. I’ll make that woman cry her eyes out too.”
So Seian had been weeping. The Countess’s Daughter could only interpret it that way from context, and she dutifully noted in his chart that he’d shed tears from heartbreak. Simultaneously, she reflected that if this continued, it would damage his mental health, and she’d keep being summoned for his counseling sessions.
Honestly, she had too much work at the Orchard to keep being tied down to Seian like this. If she missed the watering schedule, the entire year’s harvest would be ruined. Before the season passed, she needed to thin the flowering branches, prepare for a bountiful yield, and apply fertilizer.
As the eldest daughter destined to inherit Mecala’s agricultural legacy, she decided on a drastic solution and posed a question to Seian.
“You’ve been saying you want to destroy Evan Mitchell’s life. Have you actually conceived of a specific revenge method? Have you thought through concrete steps?”
“Huh? Um, uh…”
Seian stammered before finally answering in the smallest voice: “No.” The Countess’s Daughter wasn’t disappointed—she’d anticipated as much.
“Don’t you know anyone who specializes in ruining people’s lives? Wouldn’t it be wise to seek their counsel?”
“Is there really such a deranged expert…?”
Seian started to say no, then clamped his mouth shut. Come to think of it, there was one. A blood relative who was an absolute specialist in sending people’s lives into ruin.
“I don’t want to go to Cecilia.”
“That person employs rather cruel methods. I’d advise against approaching her, as she tends to trigger Seian Crowell’s trauma.”
The female informant, well aware of Cecilia’s excessive affection toward Seian Crowell—her beatings, her restraints, her overall threats to his chastity—had previously prescribed that Seian avoid meeting with Cecilia for his own peace of mind. Following this advice, Seian Crowell had been spending relatively peaceful days lately, neither speaking to nor making eye contact with Cecilia when they crossed paths.
If they met, Seian Crowell might panic again from sheer terror, and she dreaded what methods Cecilia might employ to “help” him once she learned of it. When asked again if there was anyone else he could consult, Seian Crowell pondered for a moment before uttering the name of someone he visited frequently.
“That bastard Sunbird might actually have a clever solution.”
“You mean Aten Polat? Certainly, his underhanded schemes are quite reliable.”
Though he was an obedient sort who wouldn’t even step on Sera’s shadow, Sunbird’s cunning in systematically burying anyone who interfered with or intruded upon Sera’s affections—or even hinted at liking her—was something everyone found absolutely chilling.
Only Sera herself and a handful of her close friends remained ignorant of this. Anyone else in Sunbird’s orbit trembled at the mere mention of his name.
“He’s sharp-minded, certainly, but I wouldn’t say he’s underhanded to that degree, would you?”
“There are things you don’t know, Seian Crowell.”
The female informant, declaring that Seian Crowell needn’t ever learn about Sunbird’s fifty shadowy facets, suggested he consult with Sunbird in detail before handing off the matter entirely. She donned her sun cap with a flourish.
Watching her leave, Seian Crowell rose from the couch and bid his nominal fiancée farewell.
“Even if you marry several times over, Evan Laef isn’t the sort to be bound to one place! Don’t give up until the very end, Your Highness Seian Crowell!”
The Countess’s Daughter cheered him on with a “Fighting!” before departing for her territory. Seian Crowell felt no gratitude whatsoever.
Living under the same roof as Sera, Seian Crowell confirmed that neither Sera nor Sunbird was in the Academy Residence before heading to the East Wing. If they weren’t here, they’d be there. Their whereabouts were predictable enough that he made straight for the Club Room, and sure enough, both Sera and Sunbird were there.
“Seian! It’s been ages since you’ve come to the East Wing! What brings you?”
“Go study.”
“Ugh.”
Seian Crowell dealt with Sera—who was rapidly preparing her thesis for graduate school admission—with blunt facts before seeking out Sunbird.
Aten Polat was no longer his former self. Some change—whether of spirit or health—had transformed the man who used to clutch his stomach and groan constantly into someone radiating tremendous vitality. His skin looked better, his temperament more positive, and where he once would have sat beside Sera helping with her thesis, he now lounged in an armchair, plucking away at a ukulele with carefree abandon.
“…What are you doing?”
“Oh, I thought I might try learning an instrument or two.”
Sunbird laughed, saying that since he was a Dekarucha member himself, he couldn’t spend his whole life just playing triangle and castanets. Something had clearly shifted in his heart, though Seian Crowell couldn’t fathom why.
“I’m going to destroy Evan Laef’s life. Is there any way to sabotage the wedding?”
“Wow, that’s quite the formidable challenge.”
First asking him to smooth over not attending the coronation, then demanding he prevent the wedding—the couple made reckless requests as a matched set. Sunbird, thinking they were indeed perfectly suited to each other, answered lightly while playing a sparse rendition of a romance on his ukulele.
“Haha, how about you both wear white, stir up some trouble, grab the bride’s hand, and run away?”
A runaway bride—quite the classical approach, Sunbird joked, but Seian Crowell seized the man’s shoulders and shouted eureka.
“Yes! That’s it!”
“These two really do the same things.”
“What do you mean?”
“Evan Laef and Seian Crowell are identical.”
“Don’t insult me, you little bastard!”
“Ahhh!”
Seian Crowell, infuriated and humiliated by the comparison to Evan Laef, beat Sunbird senseless. Yet consulting with Sunbird had been the right call. He truly was Sera’s strategist. Who knew such a brilliant solution existed?
“That’s right! If I just step in as the groom, what can that lizard possibly do!”
He’d stride in wearing a tuxedo, declare himself the groom, and if the lizard objected, he’d simply grab Evan Laef’s hand and flee. Could there be a more intense, exhilarating, direct, and decisive way to sabotage a wedding?
Moreover, if such an annoyingly persistent man remained attached to Evan Laef, the lizard might lose all affection for her. If she wanted to avoid being entangled with such a troublesome human for life, she’d have to abandon him first.
Seian Crowell was supremely confident. With supreme confidence, he ordered a wedding tuxedo using Sera’s wealth, insisting on the purest white color.
And having generously ordered a bouquet of roses on Sera’s card as well, the man applied a facial mask while waiting for the wedding day. He would defeat the lizard and become the true protagonist of the wedding. The man’s heart swelled with dreams.
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The Neftis Annex overflowed with guests on the wedding day, and crowds of onlookers gathered outside as well. Despite the chaos of the dragon’s intrusion, people remained captivated by House Neftis, and curiosity about what spectacle might unfold today compelled them to attend.
Among the guests was Apet, the ex-husband of Evan Laef. The great nobility of the Empire and those holding key positions were present, as was Emperor Cecile himself. Everyone anticipated something momentous might occur, yet the ceremony proceeded without incident until the vows began.
Evan Laef’s wedding dress was exquisite, and the groom Gerth, though a demi-human, was remarkably handsome. There was some murmuring about whether he was the Serpent King himself from the earlier incident, but it amounted to nothing more than idle speculation.
Just as in Evan Laef’s first wedding, the Common Professor stood at the altar, and the bridal march sounded as the bride made her entrance.
The upheaval came when the groom was meant to enter. A man suddenly pushed past the demi-human Gerth and strode forward with absolute confidence. He was tall with delicate features, possessed long hair black as ebony, wore pristine white ceremonial robes from shoulder to hem, and carried an enormous bouquet of roses in one hand—a striking sight indeed.
Seian Crowell snatched the bouquet from Evan Laef’s hands and tossed it aside, then thrust his own flowers into her arms and declared with fierce conviction:
“Marry me. Marry me instead!”
The guests held their breath in stunned silence. Only Apet, delighted by the spectacle, spoke aloud.
“Ha! So I’m that woman’s ex-husband, am I?”
What had once been anguish had long since faded, and now the old man possessed a story he would boast about for the rest of his life.
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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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