Everyone Was Obsessed With Me After I Became the Youngest Princess Favourite - Chapter 239

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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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My eyes snapped open.
It felt as though someone had called to me, and I jolted awake from the slumber that had stolen over me unaware.
The surroundings were shrouded in profound darkness, suggesting I had slept far longer than intended.
‘How much time has passed now?’
My heart pounded erratically, refusing to settle, and seized by an inexplicable anxiety, I rose from the bed with a troubled expression.
Drawing near the window by the faint light filtering through, the moment I drew back the curtain, I gasped sharply.
The illusory magic that had made the Lake shimmer like stars even in darkness and the tranquil Forest landscape had vanished without a trace.
In the pitch-black sky, all the stars had disappeared, leaving only the full moon hanging solitary above.
Before I could even process what had transpired,
the door burst open with a violent crash.
Setikaael strode in with long, purposeful steps.
“Why did you do that?”
His hand pressed firmly against my shoulder, and his face bore an expression of such cold ferocity as I had never witnessed from him before.
“What on earth—”
“Lia.”
His voice dropped to a dangerously low register.
“Someone just entered the Forest.”
Setikaael’s hand closed around my jaw.
“You’ve done something reckless. I don’t know what the Great Sage told you, but he is no match for me. Neither are those beneath him.”
“…”
“They’ll likely become prey to the Demon Beasts before they even reach this place.”
Hearing Setikaael’s words, I finally understood that Diana had entered the Black Forest.
My heart raced wildly.
Yet simultaneously, I felt relief wash over me.
The Demon believed it was Raezl who had led the Priestess and the Holy Knights into the Black Forest.
He did not know of the Saint’s existence, nor of Diana’s true identity.
In that moment, I nearly burst into tears without meaning to.
Confined to this room, I had grown quite weary from the endless waiting and gnawing anxiety.
But I could not let him see that I felt relieved.
Before the tears brimming in my eyes could spill over, I glared at Setikaael with all the strength I could muster.
“If whoever enters the Forest poses no threat to you, then why are you so angry?”
Until now, his demeanor had remained consistently composed and unhurried.
Even when recounting tales of the past, he had shown no agitation whatsoever.
But now, he displayed emotion in a manner I could scarcely believe.
I paused, bewildered by the rigid set of his jaw and the thin line his lips had become.
It was then I glimpsed resentment crystallizing in his eyes.
‘Resentment? Directed at whom by whom?’
I was about to lash out with a sharp retort, my eyes widening in astonishment, when—
…!
Lia flinched upon seeing the earring held in Setikaael’s hand.
It was the very earring she wore frequently in her daily life.
More precisely, it was a magical artifact in earring form containing the essence of location-tracking magic that the Bellus Duchy had researched up until now.
And it was also the bracelet she had gifted to Diana—one she had painstakingly enchanted herself to track Diana’s whereabouts.
“Rope, I’d like to give you this as a gift.”
“My lady?”
“Please don’t refuse. I’m not asking for anything difficult. I simply wish to know something of what happens beyond these walls…”
Lia had carefully layered mental magic upon the earring multiple times to ensure no one would detect it as a magical artifact, just in case.
The moment she realized she was trapped in a room where mana could not be used, she gave the earring to Rope.
She reasoned that if she forced it upon him like a naive, foolish girl, he might think her stupid, but he would never discard it.
Fortunately, Diana had followed the signal from the earring and found her way here directly without wandering lost in the Forest.
‘…But in the end, my trail was discovered.’
Though Lia worried what might have happened to Rope, she harbored no regret for using her that way.
After all, it was the Demon who had created this situation.
When Lia did not back down at the sight of the earring and instead fixed Setikaael with a cold glare, the air between them grew taut in an instant.
In that tension-laden moment, as Setikaael gazed upon Lia meeting his stare directly, he felt something peculiar—the hurt and anger that had surged at her betrayal began to dissolve like mist.
He drew his hand across his face once, and composure returned to him.
“Lia, I know you didn’t follow me willingly.”
Setikaael gently patted Lia’s cheek.
“I thought you would give up. I had forgotten just how tenacious you are.”
“…”
“I should have told you sooner if I’d known you’d be like this.”
When Lia looked up at him with eyes that seemed to ask ‘Tell me what?’, the corners of Setikaael’s mouth curved upward softly.
He whispered quietly.
“Once the gateway to the Demon Realm opens completely and I bring you there, your soul becomes entirely mine. Then, no matter how many times you die, you will never escape the Demon Realm. Never.”
Setikaael watched Lia, who had frozen as if struck by his words, with quiet intensity.
In his crimson eyes burned yearning, obsession, and possessiveness.
Feeling a satisfaction so profound it was almost sickening, he tenderly caressed the hollowed shadows beneath her eyes.
Suddenly, words of love rose to his very throat.
Setikaael had known for a long time that he loved Lia.
But he had refused to acknowledge his own heart, choosing instead to view her merely as a means to unseal his bonds—and in that foolishness, he had lost her.
“One mistake is enough.”
He murmured the words in a voice heavy with finality.
He looked like a predator before its prey, and Lia felt genuine fear grip her.
Of course, she had intended to finish everything before the gateway to the Demon Realm opened completely…
‘If I cross into the Demon Realm, even in death I’ll remain in his grasp.’
Lia clenched her teeth as her legs threatened to give way beneath her.
That was when it happened.
“You should give up too.”
Setikaael pressed close against Lia.
And while grasping her retreating arm, he lowered his head without hesitation.
Warm breath brushed against her cheek, just a finger’s width from the corner of her mouth, then withdrew.
It was only because Lia turned her head at the last moment, before their lips could meet.
I had worried he might grow angry and become more forceful, but fortunately, Setikaael merely chuckled softly and tapped my cheek lightly.
“It’s fine. We have plenty of time ahead of us.”
Breaking someone’s will through coercion and appeasement rather than fear and violence was not his way, but if the other party was Lia, he would gladly embrace that process.
But then.
“What on earth are you thinking? No matter how much time passes, I would never accept you.”
At Lia’s words, Setikaael’s eyes darkened for a moment.
Seeing his expression, Lia added with exasperation.
“You said you didn’t want to be loved by me.”
So why was he now acting like a man who desired love?
The answer to that question came swiftly.
“Lia, you desire love.”
Setikaael caressed her cheek as he spoke.
“You want to love and be loved in an ordinary way, don’t you?”
“….”
“I love you too, but… it’s probably not in the way you desire.”
He did not wish to deny his identity as a Demon.
Yet Setikaael spoke with a somewhat troubled expression.
“I could never suffer on your behalf like an ordinary human would, nor could I weep for you.”
The love he offered was far removed from warmth, tenderness, and gentle affection.
If anything, it was an emotion that would drag to the very depths of Hell through rage and hatred.
“So… I wish you would teach me.”
The love you desire.
Lia suddenly wondered if perhaps this was the very image the Saint had hoped to see.
A proud Demon begging a human to teach him love….
“I refuse.”
And I was more than willing to complete the scene Diana had longed for.
Lia’s voice dripped with cold derision.
“I begrudge even my own hatred for you. Love?”
Her scornful laugh carried a deep, burning anger.
The very thought that he—who had mocked her existence and toyed with her entire life—now wished to exchange love with her in an ordinary way was shocking.
Her eyes, which laid bare that sentiment completely, caused Setikaael to stiffen before he spoke quietly.
“…You’ve changed.”
Though I had tried to deny it, I must now acknowledge it.
The Lia who once gazed at him with such blind devotion no longer existed.
In her place remained only a Lia consumed by hatred, driven by vengeance, and in love with another man.
Setikaael pondered this, having even forgotten that it was he who had shattered Lia’s soul and molded her into this form.
He had said it was fine if she did not love him immediately, and he had turned a blind eye to the fact that she loved another human—yet her rejection of him now felt utterly intolerable.
“You will never escape me.”
Setikaael swept his hand in a fluid motion, shattering the shackle around Lia’s ankle and dissolving the magical circle drawn upon the floor.
“Ah!”
Freed abruptly from the restraint that had suppressed her mana, Lia’s senses heightened as though every nerve in her body had been awakened at once.
Until that moment, I had not noticed how ominously the mana in the air had been undulating.
As Lia unconsciously felt a sharp pain in her chest and placed her hand there.
Crash!
The sound of shattering glass pierced the air, and I watched as Setikaael hurled an earring out through the broken window.
“I’ll let them find their way here. If what you desire is to witness their final breath with your own eyes. Oh, and one more thing.”
In the blink of an eye, Setikaael removed the ring from Lia’s finger.
“I can no longer tolerate you wearing this ring.”
I watched as the ring that Lucio had placed upon her hand with his own crumbled to dust in Setikaael’s grasp.
Lia was so stunned that she could not even blink.
She could not believe what she had just witnessed.
Setikaael’s lips curved upward as he gazed at the necklace adorning Lia’s neck.
“This is sufficient accessory for you.”
Only then did reality crash back upon Lia, and she burst into tears, her voice raw and desperate as she clawed at the air.
“I wish you were dead. I wish you would vanish from this world forever!”
At those words, Setikaael laughed.
“I would rather kill you myself.”
Then, just as quickly, he erased the smile from his face and spoke with chilling coldness.
“And because of you, I wish to die.”
With those words left hanging in the air, Setikaael turned sharply and departed from the room.

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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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