Everyone Was Obsessed With Me After I Became the Youngest Princess Favourite - Chapter 236

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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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It was utterly ridiculous.
The Saint had surely hurled that curse upon me to inflict suffering.
And yet, despite paying such a price, the curse’s result amounted to this.
Just as Setikaael, having inadvertently taken revenge upon the Saint, was about to withdraw his hand without bothering to hide his smile.
〈…!〉
A small hand grasped one of his slender, elongated fingers.
Setikaael held his breath, his eyes unblinking as he gazed down at Lia.
The infant, acting on instinct as she gripped his finger and blinked her eyes, looked up at him and broke into a bright smile.
〈…How foolish.〉
Setikaael regarded the infant—so fragile that a single twitch of his finger would steal her breath—with eyes as chillingly cold as frost, before he shook her away.
The warmth of the infant’s small body, seeping into his fingertip in that brief moment, filled him with revulsion.
〈You are the human who will break my curse, so I shall not kill you just yet.〉
The curse would be unsealed only when the life of the human he loved came to an end.
But there was a condition attached: he would have to witness that human’s suffering.
Setikaael wondered whether Lia would come to be grateful to the Saint for the curse that had saved her life.
Or whether she would come to resent it for the agony she would endure until her final breath—and with that thought, he cast an illusion to conceal his true appearance.
And to the child who would grow up confused, never knowing her true hair and eye color, he spoke.
〈I earnestly wish for your noble and pure soul to become hideously twisted and darkly despairing.〉
I shall trample and destroy you myself, so please, fall endlessly into the abyss.
Setikaael sealed his demonic love with a kiss upon the infant’s forehead, then bound Lia’s soul to his own soul stone and carefully placed a seal upon her heart.
When Lia suffered and grieved.
When she writhed in terrible loneliness and despaired.
And when she finally faced death, his seal would be broken—or so he anticipated.
It was only later that his subordinates learned Setikaael had not made Lia a sacrifice, but had abandoned her somewhere, and they were greatly bewildered.
Though they dared not question his decision, it was evident they thought it would have been better to coerce Grand Duke Bellus into offering the Magic Swordsmen Corps and the Magic Tower as sacrifices.
Some even whispered that it might not have been a bad idea to raise Lia himself, for perhaps he could one day use her to devour the Bellus Duchy.
But regardless of what his subordinates murmured, Setikaael had no intention of keeping Lia by his side.
The reason was that each time he faced that pure soul, he felt such revulsion that he feared he might kill her before she had suffered enough.
However, Setikaael did not realize that keeping Lia near would only make it easier to torment her.
It was the result of turning away from her, knowing he would eventually fall in love, yet fearing to love a human.
After that, change came to Setikaael’s monotonous days, which had consisted solely of creating Demon Worshippers and gathering sacrifices to restore his power.
〈…How weak. Crying again, it seems.〉
At first, each time Lia was hurt, each time she was afraid, and each time she finally burst into tears, he felt the seal’s power weaken, and he was consumed with pleasure.
He often sneaked to the Tessar Orphanage just to witness it himself.
He savored the sight of her gaunt body and limbs visible through her tattered clothes, the wounds upon her skin, and her dejected expression marked by fear—as if it were a form of entertainment.
When Duke Elrad came to the Tessar Orphanage searching for his daughter, he did not hesitate to brainwash Lia and the other children into abandoning him, unwilling to forfeit this pleasure.
But as Lia inevitably made her way to the Capital City where he dwelt and began living as a street beggar, Setikaael found he could no longer watch over her with the same willing heart as before.
〈That bread you so desperately desired to eat, wasn’t it?〉
For he had discovered a boy offering Lia bread in front of the Academy.
Setikaael recognized the boy’s identity at a glance.
When had he ever raged so wildly?
It was laughable—this boy, merely reincarnated, couldn’t recognize Lia standing right before his eyes.
But that amusement was fleeting.
Setikaael grew increasingly displeased.
Without acknowledging that his own petty jealousy and possessiveness fueled his anger, he convinced himself it was merely distaste at observing these repugnant humans.
He briefly considered casting a mental magic spell on Lucio as he had done to his father, but abandoned the idea.
Though rare, he feared that tampering with a human possessing strong mana resistance might trigger something troublesome—like the recovery of memories from their past life.
So it was on a day when, having endured indifference for some time without seeking Lia out,
〈Why are you—… Wait, M-Master!〉
During a meeting to arrange the sacrifice in preparation for the next full moon, he felt the sealing power bound to his soul stone weaken in an instant.
Setikaael burst through the door without a moment’s thought.
Outside, torrential rain poured down, and Lia lay pathetically on the street like discarded refuse.
The sight of a small child motionless in the rain seemed to Setikaael no different from watching a tiny insect die.
Yet unlike usual, the brilliant radiance of that soul—which always shone with an irritating luminescence—was gradually dimming.
Setikaael sensed it instinctively.
The child was releasing the life she had barely managed to sustain of her own volition.
She was yearning for death itself.
The seal truly seemed on the verge of breaking.
It had been such a long wait.
Even for one grown numb to the passage of time, it had been tedious and interminably long.
〈….〉
And in that moment, Setikaael reached out toward the motionless child, as though her breath might cease at any second.
With a body of extraordinary mana affinity, his mana was accepted like life itself, and the healing effect manifested instantly.
He cradled the child, now breathing peacefully.
With only bones remaining, she was impossibly light.
〈…Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad if I inflicted the pain directly myself.〉
After all, until now he had merely cast her into a torturous environment and watched—he had done nothing with his own hands.
Of course, he recognized the illogic of such thoughts at the very moment the seal was about to break, but Setikaael deliberately ignored it.
That day marked when Lia entered Terenthium and came to believe in him as her savior.
After that, time passed with astonishing swiftness.
Setikaael, driven by his resolve to inflict hellish suffering upon Lia, subjected her to brutal training and relentlessly isolated her to leave her no refuge.
Yet simultaneously, he was growing soft toward her.
No—it was far more than mere softening.
When he witnessed Lia’s unease at the sight of a large man who reminded her of the Orphanage Director, he impulsively relocated headquarters from the tavern to the cafe, so desperate was he to treat Lia with boundless tenderness and shower her with affection.
Though he knew her capabilities intimately from having trained her himself, he refused to entrust her with anything remotely dangerous.
It was becoming increasingly unbearable to suppress these feelings.
For a Demon, such emotions were neither permissible nor should exist.
Even when Lia cultivated Spleshia and gifted him an antidote, he could neither rage nor destroy it……
It was around this time that Setikaael himself began to recognize that something was amiss with his condition.
〈Master. To your eyes, do I appear to have brown hair?〉
〈….〉
Lia stared directly at him with eyes of striking clarity that contrasted with her pale pink hair, holding up a portrait drawn with brown hair and brown eyes as she asked.
Unable to answer, he grew embarrassed and lowered his gaze, his cheeks flushing crimson.
Like a freshly bloomed pink rose.
Beautiful and radiating pure light.
My fists clenched involuntarily with a sharp sound.
A chill ran down my spine at the realization that I alone knew Lia’s true form.
An impulse suddenly seized me—the desire to tell her the truth.
Of course, my intentions were far from pure.
Even now, I kept information about Bellus Duchy and the Temple hidden, blinding and deafening her while making her gaze only at me with blind devotion.
But if I told her that only I could see her true self, she would have no choice but to depend on me even more.
Setikaael realized that had Lia not fled the scene like an escape, he truly might have spoken those words—and now he understood he could never let her go.
〈I wish you could feel a despair so wretched that the terrible pain and suffering you once endured would seem like mercy in comparison.〉
〈….〉
〈But I also hope you remain by my side, knowing nothing, forever.〉
Setikaael whispered softly as he watched Lia sleep, drunk and rambling after the executives had given him alcohol to celebrate his coming of age.
Torn between hatred and tenderness, contempt and affection, mocking himself for his inability to choose, Setikaael turned toward the entrance to the Demon Realm once more as the full moon rose.
And the moment he was about to offer a sacrifice at the altar.
〈…?!〉
Without warning, a violent force suddenly surged through his heart, filling it completely.
Though he denied it fiercely, Setikaael already knew—he could no longer feel Lia’s soul.
His seal had been completely broken as well.
In that instant, black wings unfurled from his back.
His crimson eyes rippled with immense fury.
〈I have never granted permission for death. How dare you….〉
He had never imagined Lia would die so easily.
Even as he had always weighed her life in his hands….
It was merely a matter of resolve—he had always believed he would kill her with his own hands someday….
When he came to his senses, Setikaael was already heading toward Elrad Duke’s Mansion.
And by the time he arrived.
* * *
“You had already stopped breathing.”
At Master’s words, I swallowed hard.
Seeing my reaction, Master let out a soft chuckle, but my expression only grew more rigid.
It wasn’t enough that I had to hear how Master regarded me all these years—now he was speaking of my death, and there was no way I could laugh.
I was desperately curious about what happened after that.
Reading my expression, Master slowly twisted his lips.
“You should have seen the faces of those bastards standing beside you at that moment.”
〈…!〉

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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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