Disqualified as a Villainess - Chapter 25

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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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#25.

“Oh… merciful God…”
Saint Uriana, her eyes closed as she murmured her prayer, retreated backward as though rewinding time itself, slipping from the room.
Watching her simultaneously comprehend and misunderstand the situation, I could tell she was quite the accomplished actress.
Click.
After the door closed, a profound silence settled between us.
I smiled brilliantly as I watched the Admiral wipe his face like he was washing away grime.
“Well then… it seems I’ll have to maintain an ‘officially sordid relationship’ with you after all?”
At my words, he—standing there with a vacant expression, cigar between his lips—offered a smile that seemed drawn with precision.
“You’re still garbage.”

Favorability Decline [+1,200]

Having succeeded in tormenting him, I gathered up the torn fabric scraps again.
A wealthy young lady would discard them without hesitation, but if it’s a limited edition, perhaps it’s worth preserving.
If I asked my second brother Vittore—the fastidious one—he’d remake it into a new garment, wouldn’t he?
I recalled the transmutation circle I’d glimpsed when I’d snuck into his research laboratory, the one that restored soiled or torn fabric to pristine condition.
That was the moment.
Whoosh!
The mana stone in my mana stone bracelet flared brilliantly.
A golden circle bloomed around the torn clothing, and I could see the transmutation circle I’d envisioned in my mind materializing before my eyes.
Shimmer, shimmer.
Soon the damaged coat and blouse returned to their original pristine state.
“Oh.”
I gazed down at the perfectly restored garment in admiration.
It was remarkably simple, yet I’d somehow succeeded in autonomous transmutation without warning.
‘I’ve been cramming books and research materials into my head indiscriminately, but I’ve never had equipment or tools containing operational transmutation circles.’
The mana stone bracelet serves as a catalyst, but there’s no medium to connect the bracelet’s mana with the transmutation circles in my mind.
The way the bracelet’s golden light flickered when I was with the Admiral seems related somehow.
‘Could the Admiral have served as the medium?’
When the chaos commander incident occurred, wasn’t I unconsciously activating the power-enhancement transmutation circle within the bracelet?
The Admiral, finally lighting his cigar, regarded me with an expressionless face.
“Would you like to tear them again? Or perhaps I could tear the Admiral’s shirt instead?”
Faced with my relentless inquisitive spirit, he drew deeply on his cigar instead of answering, exhaling a thin wisp of smoke before continuing.
“Leave if you can’t stand the smoke.”
I, who despised cigarette smoke, quickly donned my clothes and exited.

***

After Octavia left, Kelsedny Admiral immediately stubbed out his cigar and gazed out the window.
She crossed through the Annex Garden with a sharp, calculating gaze sweeping left and right, then stopped before a parked automobile and did something to it.
“….”
A bursting sound echoed through the air.
A pointed screwdriver appeared in her hand—from where, he couldn’t fathom.
As the automobile lurched to one side, his brow furrowed deeply.
She grappled with the punctured tire, straining and struggling, before shaking her head and stepping back.
It seemed she had attempted to retry the repair transmutation from earlier.
He watched Octavia depart with dignified steps despite having just destroyed his automobile’s tire.
“That’s my car.”
And it was a newly purchased one at that.
Knock, knock.
As he sat in dismay, a knock sounded at the door.
He had assumed it was the servant he’d summoned earlier, but Saint Uriana entered the room with a flushed face, moving carefully.
“Admiral, I apologize for my rudeness just now.”
She gasped upon seeing blood dripping from the Admiral’s fingertips and approached hastily. It was blood flowing from the finger Octavia had bitten to prevent herself from biting her own tongue.
“Are you all right? Let me heal that at once….”
“It’s unnecessary.”
Still gazing out the window, he fastened his loosened shirt button with one hand and asked.
“What is this about? I’m certain I refused that request.”
Uriana bit her lip and lowered her head.
Ever since she began losing her sacred power some time ago, problems stemming from it had begun to surface. The same was true for Prince Jeriel and Princess May.
“It’s not a request—it’s a plea. If things continue as they are, Prince Jeriel may die. Please, I beg you.”
“Then why not summon the Empire’s saints or holy ones?”
Uriana lost her words and hesitated.
Summoning the Empire’s holy ones without resolving the shadow consumption syndrome would immediately expose her incompetence—she who had been called the Almighty Saint.
At this rate, it was only a matter of time before she was stripped of her position as Saint.
“Admiral, losing the position of Saint means… being forsaken by God. Not only myself, but all the clergy beneath me will face a miserable fate.”
Those who lost their sanctity and were driven from their clerical positions typically lived wretched lives. Even their families refused to acknowledge them as unclean.
She added in a desperate voice.
“The Royal Family are beings who kill those possessing the power of order and chaos to reclaim their abilities. In my death, I shall offer my sanctity to you, Admiral.”
True to the name of the Almighty, the Royal Family were beings capable of wielding any power in the world according to their innate operational abilities.
Even theoretically, it was possible to seize the power of the sealed Chaos Demon God.
“So please place me under your dominion and lend me the authority of an apostle.”
“You wish to enter into a dominion contract?”
A flicker of surprise crossed the Saint’s eyes.
“Yes, to my knowledge, only Arseno has ever dominated a saint of order among the Royal Family. I shall gladly become your instrument.”
Those who enter dominion contracts with the Royal Family can receive power through intimate union.
While it is common to die unable to withstand an apostle’s power, the more one receives such power, the more dimensionally different one’s ability growth becomes—which is why they cannot abandon it.
In exchange, she was willing to accept the fate of becoming the ruler’s possession—an eternal slave who must surrender her life at any moment.
Of course, merely sharing a bed wouldn’t grant her an Apostle’s power or establish a dominion contract. Ultimately, she needed to be chosen by the Royal Family.
This was a fact not widely known to the outside world.
The Admiral felt intense irritation toward his older brother, Arseno, for letting slip information about the dominion contract to Saint Uriana.

「Keldi, do you need the Saint as a subordinate? She seems useful until she’s completely broken, and I already have two Saints under my command. I’ll retrieve the sacred power whenever you want.」

His cold, murderous eyes turned toward the Saint as he recalled the Emperor’s playful letter.
“Well, you shouldn’t have committed the sin of disorder.”
It meant that losing sacred power was the consequence of committing such a sin.
Saint Uriana’s eyes widened in alarm for only a moment before she quickly returned to her docile expression—she lacked the audacity to defy the Royal Family without her Saint’s mask.
“No matter how capable a Mage Engineering Family daughter that incompetent woman may be, she’ll be useful for nothing but amusement. She shows no signs of awakening whatsoever, just like her mother who lost her sanctity and was expelled from the Holy Temple.”
“Useful?”
“I understand that the Admiral is in quite a difficult situation. I might be able to resolve it.”
The Admiral, who had turned his back again and was tracing the window with his finger, responded with a scornful tone.
“How am I in difficulty?”
Saint Uriana’s face hardened as she felt fear at his composure instead.
But it was nothing compared to the misery of being dragged from a revered existence to the bottom.
“Your ability core has been damaged from excessive use of power, or so I’ve heard…”
Before Saint Uriana could even finish speaking, a circular transmutation circle materialized beneath her feet.
“Kindness ends here.”
The moment the Admiral, standing with his arms crossed, tilted his chin, a sharp crack spread across the floor beneath her.
“Kyaaaaaaah!”
Crack!
The floor where she stood collapsed, and she plummeted downward.
The Admiral looked down into the gaping hole below and stroked his chin.
Behind his shoulder, on the window he had been tracing with his finger, there was a transmutation circle drawn in blood.
“Her intentions were impure.”
After personally executing the transmutation that Octavia had attempted on the car earlier, he discovered that she had tried to amplify the explosive force of the tire burst to completely destroy his vehicle—and failed.
He sighed and left the room.

“Cough, cough.”
Below, Saint Uriana brushed away the collapsed debris and dust as she rose to her feet.
Fortunately, she had deployed a protective barrier just before the fall and remained unharmed.
“He’s truly insane, just as I heard. Where did he even acquire transmutation abilities?”
Did that commoner woman sacrifice a Mage Engineer on the verge of death from overwork as an offering?
The Saint trembled with indignation as she brushed dust from her clothes.
“If Prince Jeriel shows no mercy in this ceremony either, then I….”
Her trembling soon transformed into anxiety as she began biting her nails.

***

Ravishi Residence.
Uncle and Camilla wore expressions of resignation upon seeing my return.
“Have you all been well?”
Uncle and Camilla, no longer able to resist me, sighed and departed like defeated soldiers.
I swept up little Noel, who was floundering about, unsure where to escape.
“Noel, my precious one. Did you miss your sister?”
“Yes. Ah, no, I did miss you.”
Noel, whose true feelings had slipped out, startled and shook his head frantically.
After our embrace, Noel bowed respectfully and scurried away.
On my way out after stopping by Uncle’s Laboratory to confirm Prince Jeriel’s ceremony schedule, I encountered my cousin Cedric.
“So you were cast out of your home and came crawling to our house?”
Cedric, who had experienced a mental breakdown for the first time during the last mission and was still recovering, glared at me with a frown.
Since I had left before possessing this body, he had never experienced my corrective lessons, and he approached me with a menacing expression.
“What, trying to climb the social ladder by catching some noble man?”
I gazed at him with a pleased smile.

Disfavor increased [+20]

It was because he was giving off a terrible impression.
“Your father’s the Cinderella who married a noble as a commoner and climbed the social ladder, isn’t he? Stop with the insults about people’s families.”
At my rebuttal, Cedric’s face flushed crimson.
“A useless maggot with nothing but a mouth! I needed somewhere to vent my frustration, and this works out perfectly.”
When people have nothing left to say, they resort to violence.
“Are you planning to hit me?”
I asked, watching Cedric clench his fist in a threatening manner.
“If you beg me right now, I might just beat you moderately and let you off. You won’t have anywhere to report being hit by me, will you?”
One of the various aftereffects of mental collapse was violent tendencies.
Of course, he had a fundamentally broken character to begin with.
“Securing justification.”
Of course, I didn’t possess the strength to defeat a Grade 4 ability user.
My transmutation ability had manifested by chance, but after testing it earlier with the Admiral’s car, I discovered it wasn’t an ability I could control on my own.
In the end, I couldn’t determine the principle behind its activation.
‘But in all engineering, the volume of knowledge is talent itself—and superiority.’
I mentally catalogued the transmutation circles, formulas, and mage engineering knowledge I’d carefully stored away, wondering if any of it might prove useful.
Along with an extensive arsenal of modern military weapons knowledge.
‘If that’s the case, I can simply push forward by applying all this knowledge through high-performance equipment.’
If I hit a wall, I’ll simply find another path.
I am a human who can create nuclear weapons in this place without being an ability user.
The Mage Engineering Family environment suits someone like me perfectly, so I had sufficient materials and facilities.
I assessed Cedric—a sturdy body combined with Grade 4 electrical discharge ability.
In another light, he was merely a walking collection of advanced electrical equipment.
‘If I shift my perspective, isn’t an ability user the highest-performance equipment and energy system, combining mobility and efficiency?’
It was worth researching.
I smiled with the mad gleam of a mad scientist.
“Perfect timing—I needed an experimental subject.”

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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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