Everyone Was Obsessed With Me After I Became the Youngest Princess Favourite - Chapter 221

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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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A cool silence settled over the Reception Room.
Raezl waited for Lia’s response without even daring to breathe.
And in that moment, as if an eternity had passed in an instant.
Lia suddenly let out a hollow laugh. “Pfft.”
“Raezl, really now. Is this the time to be joking around?”
Watching Lia shake her head in denial as if she hadn’t heard something she clearly had, Raezl’s heart grew equally heavy.
Finally, he withdrew a small piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to her.
“This is my interpretation and translation of the curse the Saint imposed upon the demon.”
At those words, Lia, who had frozen momentarily, slowly extended her hand.
Raezl deliberately ignored how her fingertips trembled faintly.
It was something he had already anticipated ever since he found the ancient text, went into hiding, and deciphered the archaic language.
Of course, he knew all too well how devastating it would be for the child who had been grateful to live a second life to discover that this life too had fallen victim to the demon’s machinations once more.
At that moment, Lia’s eyes, having taken the paper, fixed upon a single point and ceased to move.
“Setikaael is….”
Lia asked.
“The demon’s true name?”
Raezl nodded heavily.
The King of the Demon Realm, the Seducer of Blood, the Master of Demon Beasts….
There were many titles by which the demon was called, but few knew his true name.
In that moment, Lia released a hollow laugh.
〈Outside, call me Kael, not Master.〉
Words she had heard in some distant past surfaced with startling clarity.
She had believed she would never even know his name for the rest of her life, but… she had been wrong.
But what did that matter now?
Lia squeezed her eyes shut once, then opened them and returned her gaze to the paper.
There lay the contents of the curse the Saint had imposed upon the demon.
Setikaael, may you come to love the human you regard so trivially.
And thus may you witness the suffering of the human you love equal to the agony of all those who have perished by your hand.
And when that human’s final breath ceases, may your soul, freed from its seal, become the most wretched in all the world.
As sufficient time passed for Lia to fully comprehend the curse’s meaning, Raezl broke the silence.
“The Saint sought to annihilate the demon, but the prolonged war had already consumed too much of her power, and sealing his soul was the best she could manage. She foresaw that the seal would eventually break. So….”
“….”
“Even knowing that one who wields holy power must pay a price for cursing, she invoked it anyway. Pouring into it her rage, her sorrow, her bitter resentment.”
That was when it happened.
Lia, whose gaze had been fixed upon the paper, slowly lifted her head.
“And so?”
Her voice was flat and toneless, as though she were speaking of someone else’s affair.
“What does that curse have to do with me?”
Raezl was taken aback by the brightness in Lia’s expression.
And before he could even swallow, his throat tightened.
“Raezl, you once said I was Spleshia, killed by the demon’s wrath. And yet.”
Lia’s voice cut through with a coldness that was almost unbelievable.
“Now you’re telling me the demon loves me?”
“Lia….”
“Love? That’s impossible.”
Lia shook her head, a sharp, hollow laugh escaping her lips.
There was a time when I believed the Master didn’t hate me.
He had saved my younger self from dying in the rain, and I had convinced myself his cruelty was born from a desire to make me stronger.
But after discovering that the Master was truly a demon, I had no choice but to accept the reality.
That he despised and loathed me.
And now, of all times….
“Love? He loves me?”
Lia laughed again, but suddenly her breath caught, and she clamped her hand over her mouth in urgency.
The revulsion was so overwhelming that nausea rose in her throat.
Patter.
At the same moment, tears spilled forth.
“Please… please tell me it’s not true.”
That you hate me, despise me, loathe me….
Her expression was so desperate, as if she were begging him to lie, that he almost wanted to grant her that mercy.
But no matter how cruel, the truth could not be hidden.
Raezl spoke in a voice heavy with sorrow.
“We were completely mistaken. Your necklace wasn’t just cracked.”
“Stop….”
“It was completely shattered and then put back together.”
“Please stop….”
Raezl did not cease speaking despite Lia’s protests.
The demon’s soul, sealed along with the Saint’s curse, was destined to be released the moment the human he loved died.
He didn’t want to believe it, but Raezl had no choice but to accept it.
The demon’s seal had been broken without his knowledge.
He was so relieved that he hadn’t had to face that horrific reality that he failed to notice how shaken Lia truly was.
“When you stopped breathing in the past, the demon’s seal was released. And the first thing the demon did after regaining his power was turn back time. To save you, Lia.”
“I told you to stop!”
Crash!
In that instant, a piercing scream tore through the air, and the floor and windows of the Reception Room began to shake violently.
Unable to contain her surging fury, Lia bit her lips and cried out.
“He turned back time because he loves me? You expect me to believe that?”
I had endured countless agonies, torments, and anguishes until now.
In an environment that relentlessly taught me that pain and weakness were synonymous with evil and stupidity, I had struggled alone not to reveal my fragility.
I had lived a grueling, exhausting life, deceiving myself dozens, hundreds of times, insisting that I was fine.
“And you’re saying all of that was because he loves me? How is that love?”
A bitter taste rose in my throat.
“Should I be grateful to the Demon Beast? For saving my life? For letting me see my family this time?”
Tears streamed down my cheeks.
“Why… why me of all people? Why did it have to love me among so many humans…?”
“…”
“I think my previous life would have been better—dying without knowing anything.”
At those words, Raezl’s chest sank with a heavy thud.
Until now, Lia had accepted the fact that she was inextricably bound to the Demon Beast with remarkable composure.
She hadn’t wallowed in self-pity, nor had she acted emotionally out of vengeance.
Above all, Raezl knew well how deeply attached Lia was to her family and this second life of hers.
So he thought she would endure this as well.
But he was wrong.
The heart of the child who had once been willing to sacrifice her own life for the Saint’s awakening had long since festered and rotted away.
Without wiping away the falling tears, Lia wept with utter despair, her will completely shattered, as she murmured.
“That’s right. Maybe it would be better to just die than receive such love from a Demon Beast.”
“That’s not allowed!”
Raezl cried out reflexively.
If Lia died, the Demon Beast’s seal would break once more.
The Holy Demon War would erupt again, and perhaps this time the Demon Beast’s ambitions would consume the entire Continent.
At Raezl’s cry, Lia lifted her head.
The kind face that always smiled brightly had lost all expression.
As she stared at him quietly, Raezl felt as though he couldn’t breathe.
“Lia…?”
No, it wasn’t just his imagination.
Raezl realized that the mana flowing from Lia had filled the Reception Room and was now churning violently.
In its wake, the glass windows trembled, and objects on shelves and tables began crashing down with deafening noise.
But Raezl couldn’t stop it.
His holy power had been completely depleted by the time he arrived here.
Even if that weren’t the case, the surging mana was already beyond his capacity to control.
The vast mana that had always been under Lia’s perfect control now swirled wildly like a runaway torrent.
That was when it happened.
“I can’t even die as I wish.”
A cynical voice flowed from Lia’s lips.
“If I die, the Demon Beast’s seal will break.”
At the same time, cracks began to form on the glass windows and walls.
“The world might come to an end.”
Even as the chandelier hanging from the ceiling swayed precariously as if it might snap, Lia couldn’t restrain herself.
The sorrow, fear, hatred, resentment, and terror that had accumulated over time burst forth like a collapsing dam.
Rage surged without limit.
“I thought you were a god.”
Lia cried out, her voice trembling with anguish.
“I met my family but didn’t recognize them as family, lived my entire life thinking I was an orphan and died—and the Almighty took pity on me, granting me a second chance at life!”
Crash! Crash! Bang!
The windows shattered one after another, their glass exploding with sharp, piercing sounds.
“How foolish and naive that thought was.”
Lia’s shoulders trembled as she made a sound—whether a sob or a hollow laugh, it was impossible to tell.
“Ah.”
Then, abruptly, she stopped moving, and with eyes glistening with tears, a murderous gleam flickered across them as she muttered.
“If I die, will the demon turn back time again?”
Well, he’s already done it once—surely he can do it a few more times.
At her cold, scornful tone, Raezl realized that Lia had never been more sincere than in this moment.
She had been far more shaken than he anticipated, and he grew anxious that she might make some reckless decision.
He couldn’t predict how the temperamental demon’s heart might have changed in the meantime.
After all, in this very life, hadn’t he allowed her to search for her parents?
What would become of those left behind if you died?
Words to persuade Lia came to mind immediately.
But Raezl couldn’t bring himself to speak any of them.
“What… what is all this talk?”
The aggressive mana that had been raging throughout the Reception Room ceased abruptly the moment someone’s voice pierced through it.
Without even blinking, Raezl turned his head in alarm to see Lia frozen in place.
Beyond the Reception Room door, now broken and useless, stood the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess, their faces deathly pale.
The Grand Duchess, rigid as a doll, asked coldly.
“A second life?”
“….”
“Dead? Who on earth…?”
* * *
It felt as though time itself had stopped.
The scorching mana that had been surging through my heart as if it would burst suddenly froze solid.
Everything that had been ravaging my surroundings came to a halt.
The noise that had been filling my ears vanished.
‘Ah….’
I wish time really had stopped.
“…surely not?”
In the silence that enveloped everything, only Mother’s voice came through with crystalline clarity.
“Mother must have heard wrong, right? That couldn’t possibly be true.”
“….”
“Adriana, you… died?”

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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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