Disqualified as a Villainess - Chapter 47

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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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#47.

The moment I stepped inside, a lavish lobby unfurled before me—a stark contrast to the monastery’s weathered exterior.
First, the rules of the Night Monastery: gatherings and worship protocols.
Within these walls, during these hours, one was free to do as one pleased.
If desired, one could conceal one’s identity, and nothing that transpired here would ever leak beyond these doors.
Licentious indulgence was a form of disorder, so before departing after indulging in excess, patrons paid substantial donations and received purification from the Night Monastery’s clergy.
I could not fathom the logic that God would turn a blind eye simply because one donated and confessed.
Wasn’t that merely covering one’s eyes and pretending innocence?
Given the nature of this place, and that purification was conducted through physical contact, it was obvious what treatment the clergy here endured.
“Our patrons may select their assigned Priest. We have young, handsome clergy available….”
“Show me every single Priest in this establishment.”
At my command from the velvet sofa, white-robed clergy filed in moments later.
“He’s not here.”
Uriana whispered softly as she examined the Priests’ faces.
I furrowed my brow and asked pointedly.
“Is this everyone?”
“Yes. We’ve brought all the Priests, including those already assigned to patrons.”
I surveyed the exhausted-looking men and waved a hand dismissively.
“I’ll select all of them. Line them up outside quietly. If you send them to anyone else, I’ll blow this place to pieces.”
“You intend to cover the purification costs for thirty Priests?”
“Yes. I plan to spend a sinful evening.”
“Understood.”
I was then escorted to a space as vast and opulent as the Royal Banquet Hall itself.
Within the music played by an orchestra at a frantic tempo, I observed those indulging in pleasure.
The place was packed with people who had heard news of the world’s destruction and descended into varied madness.
It resembled a decadent art installation denouncing a fallen society.
These were surely the same people who normally danced with refined grace at banquets, discussing their nation’s economics while feigning intellect?
“How revolting and obstructive.”
I kicked past one performance artist crawling across the floor in a daze.
“No wonder they need such extensive purification afterward.”
They purified not only corrupted hearts but also bodies and minds stained by depravity.
The wealthy suffered from a hunger that material wealth could never satisfy, endlessly chasing ever greater pleasures.
“This doesn’t suit me. It’s too loud and chaotic.”
As an introvert in this regard, I made a pained expression toward Uriana.
She touched the mesh lace concealing her face and spoke.
“It seems temperament is hereditary. Your family members donate such enormous sums, yet they never visit this place.”
“But my Father met my Mother here, didn’t he?”
Father had never explained the details properly, so I knew little of the full story.
Uriana shook her head with the expression of someone who knew the circumstances.
“I understand that Marcellina and the Ludovisi Representative first met through a patronage arrangement. Within the Temple, it’s known as a romantic redemption—the first patron to propose to one abandoned by God, to one deemed unholy.”
Uriana continued speaking as her eyes swept across the surrounding faces, searching for familiar ones.
“After Marcellina was driven into the monastery, he visited every single day and had himself appointed as her assigned clergy member.”
She quickly added to me, who wore an expression like “Did my father play around in his youth?”
“Until then, he had firmly refused invitations to this place. After donating nearly his entire fortune, he married on the condition that he would continue making donations for life.”
I had only known the story as one where a man who managed armed organizations and loved to indulge eventually settled down for one woman.
“The Holy Temple Society permitted it, citing that the foundation of their doctrine is ‘the redemption of humans born with sin.’ They interpreted it as the Representative bearing the Saint’s sins alongside her.”
Money had reinterpreted doctrine itself.
Even the superstition that brought misfortune and ruin had knelt before a devoted man’s capital.
“For clergy members who could lose their power and be cast out at any moment, it was quite a hopeful story. Even the number of those taking their own lives in the monastery decreased.”
Uriana, her voice filled with emotion, grasped my sleeve tightly.
“Perhaps it’s not wrong to say that salvation exists everywhere.”
“You weren’t saved—you were kidnapped. And you’re scheduled to undergo horrifically unethical experiments.”

Affection increased [+500]

No matter how much I threatened or insisted, human affection could not be stopped.
Suddenly, I recalled the retrospective lines people spoke in the original work after my family’s downfall.

“It was because they accepted the unholy. As a result, a demon was conceived, bringing ruin to the family.”
“Especially those who have lost their sanctity are ominous beings harboring chaos corruption. Why does the Holy Temple Society allow such creatures in our kingdom? They should be sent to distant, isolated islands.”

It seemed he had been eagerly waiting for the moment to deliver the news of a failed rescue.
Thinking of how the hope of those enduring in the Monastery would shatter because of this, my mood darkened.
At that moment, Uriana’s smiling lips, faintly visible through the lace, pressed into a thin line.
“That man is the true master leading the Night Monastery. He inherited the position ten years ago.”
In the direction she pointed, I saw a man who appeared to be in his thirties.
Despite his neat and intellectual appearance—with neatly swept auburn hair, a suit, and silver-rimmed glasses—the parched eyes behind the lenses seemed hollow, as though he found no amusement in the world.
‘I know him well. Hugo Winterford.’
A marquis from the Lucifer Empire, he operated a special alloy company that handled mana transfer used in all military and industrial applications.
As the representative of the largest essential raw materials company on the Western Continent, he was naturally an inseparable connection to my family’s arcane engineering enterprise.
‘Even the Imperial Inspectorate couldn’t touch him carelessly.’
That’s why he could brazenly show his face in a place like this.
The dissolution of the Night Monastery would only become possible after that man suddenly took his own life.
In any case, according to Lothear’s investigation, it was someone else who had spirited away Uriana’s clergy.
Then, a middle-aged man wearing a half-mask approached and spoke to us.
“Ladies, would you care to join me for a drink? Young men are fine, but why not experience the refined taste of a mature gentleman?”
Uriana, who had been staring intently at the man spouting such crude remarks, whispered in my ear.
“He’s Count Hertan. You can tell just by looking at his greedy lower jaw.”
The husband of Countess Hertan, who had been clinging to the Princesses’ side and picking fights with me at every turn.
He was also the same man who had received a shower of drinks from the Admiral.
Through Uriana’s uncle, he had continuously demanded clergy, and he was the true culprit who had spirited away the priest facing execution.
Count Hertan was also of Imperial origin, a nobleman who had naturalized into the Kingdom through marriage.
“Yes, I do like that handsome middle-aged man.”
Even with a mask, his appearance fell short, but for the sake of the operation, I followed him nonetheless.
With Vittore’s help in disguising my voice, he wouldn’t know who we were.
“Where shall I take you, mysterious ladies? I would very much like to see your beautiful faces.”
At this, Uriana lowered her voice ominously.
“Somewhere quiet, where no one else is around would be nice.”

***

In a quiet, isolated room.
Count Hertan, neatly bound with ability-blocking ribbons and prostrate on the floor, wore an expression of distress.
“I… I’ve never done anything like this before…”
“Kids these days play like this. You should learn a thing or two, shouldn’t you?”
Octavia stood with her arms crossed, smiling brightly, though the thick netting obscured her expression.
“Sister, please enjoy yourself to your heart’s content.”
At her words, Uriana, who had been clenching her fists, looked down at Count Hertan as though he were an insect.

“I preserved your position until you became a Saint through my protection, didn’t I? Uriana.”

A plunderer who had exploited souls under the guise of patronage for far too long.

“What’s there to be angry about? It’s just a worthless insect that died.”

Even when a comrade he had rescued from the Monastery perished, even when he had secretly delivered one of his own clergy to a violent patron and had them injured, he felt not a shred of guilt.
“Apologize.”
Uriana ground her teeth as she commanded him.
Even before stepping down from her position as Saint, he had persistently demanded a clergyman with blonde hair and a pure appearance to present to his superiors.
Only now did Count Hertan, sensing something amiss, raise his head.
“Could we perhaps stop this?”
“We haven’t even started yet.”
“I apologize. Please, let’s end this quickly—aaaahhh!”
He screamed upon seeing Uriana lift the heavy armchair.
“I shall split this wretched creature’s skull like the Red Sea and cast him into the wilderness!”
It was a religious curse, roughly equivalent to crushing this bastard’s skull and killing him.
How much time had passed?
“Ugh, aahhh… please… stop… I was wrong… why are you doing this to me…”
Count Hertan writhed in agony, pleading desperately.
Uriana threw down the bent poker, breathing heavily.
“Sister, shall we show mercy now?”

At Uriana’s question of whether they should kill him now, Octavia, perched upon the shattered armchair, glanced down at her wristwatch.
“Count Hertan, you smuggled out two clergy members belonging to the sinner Uriana.”
At the sound of footsteps drawing steadily closer, the Count shrank back in terror.
‘How could she possibly know that?’
“No, I—ugh!”
The sharp tip of her pointed shoe, as she stood with arms crossed in dignified composure, pressed against the carotid artery in his neck.
Click.
Then, seeing a gleaming blade suddenly protrude from the toe of her shoe, the Count was seized by indescribable terror.
“Were you attempting to obstruct our grand plan for establishing order? You seem to know far too much.”
Octavia spoke as though she were a clandestine force.
There was no need for detailed threats mentioning superiors.
People naturally recognize those who instill fear as figures of authority.
Like a cosmic horror, the more ambiguous one’s identity, the more potent the effect.
As expected, the Count succumbed momentarily to primal fear.
‘Who is this woman?’
The Count, who understood all too well that someone’s death could be easily covered up, began begging pitifully.
“Y-yes, that’s right. I only smuggled them out because they had utility as clergy members. I had no intention of obstructing the greater cause.”
“Indeed, you’re creating complications in the new Saint’s ascension scenario. However, since you’re close to Prince Dominic, I’ll give you a special opportunity.”
Octavia pressed down harder on his neck as she continued speaking.
“Hand over the two clergy members you took, and denounce the brother of the Saint who aided you. If that foolish Saint cannot let go of her family, she will become an obstacle to her own future.”
Count Hertan nodded, believing them to be a secret faction supporting Saint Chloe.
“And.”
Octavia withdrew a document and placed it before his eyes.
“A deed transferring the land you purchased through the Holy Temple Society to me under a false name.”
It was the Golden Land that the original Octavia had donated to the Temple as compensation for her crimes.
‘Upon investigation, I discovered it was buried with vast quantities of mithril sand—a strategic resource.’
The people here seemed unaware of the value and applications of mithril sand.
‘With that alone, I can prepare for the massive Chaos Gate that will soon arrive.’
A catastrophe was imminent—countless Chaos entities would pour through the rifts into the Kingdom.
Though the Kingdom’s forces were aware of the enemy nation’s movements, they would not take it seriously, just as in the original narrative.
In a world stripped of prophecy and foresight abilities that distorted the flow of order, only I knew the exact dates and locations of future events.

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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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