Everyone Was Obsessed With Me After I Became the Youngest Princess Favourite - Chapter 244

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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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In that instant, Diana cried out “Sister!” and screamed at Lia to separate from Setikaael immediately.
Lia lifted her head to see Lucio, who had drawn near without her noticing, staring at her with wavering eyes, and Diana, whose lips trembled with anxious concern.
She shook her head toward both of them.
Of course, she understood perfectly well why Diana was so frantic.
If Setikaael reached out and took her life this very moment… the power sealed within the soul stone would be released, and he would live.
Yet Lia wiped the blood smeared across Setikaael’s cheek and lips with trembling fingertips. She had known all along that he could never kill her.
Setikaael, too, regarded Lia with composure.
As if he had already accepted everything, his eyelids blinked slowly.
It must cause him tremendous pain, yet he showed not the slightest sign of it.
But Lia could perceive it. Mana was ceaselessly leaking from Setikaael’s heart, and his body was crumbling away.
The black wings and long hair had vanished long ago.
Unless one were a fool, there was no way not to see that his life force was ebbing away.
“I… have been waiting for this moment.”
Lia squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them and spoke.
She tried to speak as calmly as possible, but she could not help the tremor of tears creeping into her voice.
“All this time, I have waited for you to die….”
From the beginning, Lia had known that Setikaael would take the arrow meant for her.
She had devised this plan from the start.
If Diana and the Demon clashed directly, the outcome would be uncertain.
But when she unleashed her final attack with all her strength, if Diana’s arrow were aimed at her, she was certain there would be a chance of victory.
Of course, it was a dangerous method that demanded risking her life, and persuading Diana had not been easy… but it was unavoidable to defeat the Demon perfectly.
She had worried that Lucio’s unexpected arrival might disrupt the plan, but she had barely managed to seize the optimal moment.
No matter how superhuman Lucio’s reflexes were, unless he were a mage, he could not rush to her in a single bound.
Only Setikaael could stand before her.
And no matter how formidable Setikaael was, if he were focused on attacking and she suddenly cast a teleportation spell, there would not be enough time for him to defend.
Before heading to Terenthium’s headquarters, Lia had repeatedly rehearsed this plan in her mind.
Since one of them—the Demon or herself—had to die for this to end, naturally the Demon had to be the one to perish.
So she had held only the conviction that her plan must succeed, and that conviction had struck true.
But why….
“Why does watching you die like this… fill me with such sorrow?”
Rather than joy, tears burst forth.
Even though this was the moment she had so long anticipated, she could not smile.
“Do not cry.”
Instead, Setikaael murmured softly with a faint smile.
“Smile instead. Now that I, who tormented you so, am disappearing, only happiness awaits you… so why do you weep?”
As if he had already sensed the annihilation beyond death itself, his voice trembled slightly as he spoke his farewell.
In that moment, Lia burst into tears and spoke.
“I actually knew all along.”
Though she had denied it all this time, insisting that what he did was not love, she had known the truth.
“That you… love me.”
So I made my plans with the certainty that he would die in my stead.
And that certainty was.
“When I was at the Tessar Orphanage….”
Back then, in those distant days when I knew neither my own name nor my station, when I knew nothing at all. Lia’s heart had been sealed with mana, and she could not infuse magical power at all.
Yet she had certainly discovered Splecia near the forest around the Orphanage.
Long before I came to Terenthium and understood its true worth.
“In this world, there is no one but me and you who can create Splecia.”
And yet he despised and hated me so.
Then why did he create Splecia?
There was only one reason.
“So even though I truly despise you so bitterly, and I’m so genuinely angry I feel as though I’m going mad….”
I could not bring myself to hate you.
Lia could not bring herself to say thank you, so she swallowed the words deep down into her throat.
The happiness I would have enjoyed had Setikaael not existed gnawed at me, and the suffering I need not have endured pressed upon my chest.
Seeing this, Setikaael moved his lips that would not part.
“I’m sorry for hurting you….”
As though his first apology since his existence felt awkward, he squinted his eyes slightly.
But perhaps because it was the end anyway.
“I’m sorry for making you sad.”
The next apology came a little easier.
“I’m sorry for tormenting you.”
“….”
Lia received his apologies without a word.
The hand of Setikaael that enfolded the back of hers was trembling faintly.
It seemed he feared I might pull my hand away.
Feeling how desperately he was speaking, Lia felt tears threatening to spill over.
And.
“…because I love you.”
The moment I heard those words, I stopped breathing.
Setikaael too noticed this, and with a bitter smile, he continued.
“I’m truly sorry for loving you.”
Tears streamed from his eyes as he made his final confession of love.
“I’m truly foolish….”
At the same moment, laughter and tears burst forth from Lia together.
Lia shook her head as she watched Setikaael weeping while looking at her.
“You told me this. That you wouldn’t be able to think like an ordinary human and suffer in my place, or cry for me when you saw me. But what is this?”
He gave everything to turn back time to save her, he stood against the Holy Relic prepared to die in her stead, and now even tears….
“Is that so.”
Had I already been loving like this?
Setikaael laughed hollowly.
I wondered if I had realized it just a little earlier, would I have been able to meet a different ending.
But it was far too late to entertain such hypotheticals.
He could already feel that his mana had been completely depleted.
The speed at which his body was crumbling accelerated with each passing moment.
“You know, the truth is.”
Setikaael kept his gaze fixed on Lia, thinking of the precious little time remaining.
“My love for you wasn’t a curse. It was a blessing, really.”
“….”
“Of course, it must have been a terrible curse for you.”
Since this was the end, he wanted to commit her face to memory a little longer.
Then he noticed tears streaming down Lia’s cheeks.
It troubled him, and yet….
“Still, I’m happy that you’re the only person weeping for my death.”
Setikaael laughed at his own selfish satisfaction until the very end, then reached out to wipe away Lia’s tears for the first and last time.
But that wish would never be fulfilled.
His hand turned to dust and began to dissolve slowly into the air.
Lia watched as his body scattered like grains of sand in the blink of an eye, then quickly shut her eyes tight.
Her chest ached so painfully she could barely breathe.
Then came a sharp, crackling sound.
It was the same sound she had heard long ago when she thought her heart had been pierced and she was dying.
She opened her eyes in shock to see the necklace she had never once removed shatter, and like Setikaael before it, turn to dust and vanish into the void.
“Ah….”
In the end, not a single trace remained in this Human World—even the last speck of his soul had completely disappeared.
The moment Lia realized that the Demon who had tormented her for so long had been utterly annihilated, she was overcome by uncontrollable sorrow and wept bitterly.
A heavy, suffocating silence and mournful cries.
They had finally defeated the Demon and achieved victory, yet no one cheered or rejoiced.
For a Demon, it was not a bad ending.
* * *
The sun rose to herald the beginning of another day across a sky that had been pitch black as if dawn would never come.
As the world brightened, the faces of those who had endured the fierce battle throughout the night were laid bare.
“Grand Duke, the Demon Beasts….”
“They don’t seem to be coming anymore.”
Raezl answered Grand Duke Bellus.
At those words, all those who had guarded the edge of the Forest throughout the dawn released sighs of relief.
Not long after Diana and the Temple Order entered the Black Forest, Demon Beasts began pouring out from it.
After a moment of panic, they faced the creatures with the resolve to let not a single one escape alive.
With the former High Priestess Raezl, the Sword Master Jack, the Grand Sorcerer Grand Duke Bellus, and the excellent mages and sword mages under his command, they were ultimately able to eliminate all the Demon Beasts.
But the problem was.
“Will Lia be…alright?”
Askart asked, biting his lip.
Raezl hesitated, unable to answer the teary-eyed young man’s question.
Suddenly, the demonic aura flowing from the Black Forest vanished as if washed away, and light erupted from within the forest, reaching beyond the clouds and painting the woods white.
At the same moment, the holy flames installed around the forest’s perimeter began to flicker and respond violently.
“Fire…!”
As blue flames began spreading rapidly through the forest as if in a grand assault, Jack looked at Raezl in alarm.
But before he could even ask what was happening, Raezl collapsed to the ground with a thud.
He spoke with a voice trembling with emotion.
“She did it. The Saint has finally defeated the Demon.”
Once the holy flames consumed the forest, all remaining traces of demonic energy connected to the Demon Realm would be erased from the Human World.
At Raezl’s words, the young priestesses and Holy Knights of the Temple also knelt and began offering prayers of gratitude.
At this sight, Jack and the others wore expressions of bewilderment.
Grand Duke Bellus and the others were about to demand an explanation for Adriana’s absence and what was happening.
“What on earth is going on?”
The Grand Duchess appeared with the sound of hoofbeats, quickly dismounting from her horse as she asked.
Her eyes trembled like the ground itself was shaking as she beheld the forest burning fiercely.
“Where is Adriana? Where is my daughter?”
“That is… but madam, how did you get blood on your face?”
The Grand Duke turned pale, bewildered not only by the appearance of someone who should have been at the Marquis’s Residence, but also by the blood smeared on her cheek.
Only then did the Grand Duchess seem to notice the blood on her face, speaking urgently.
“This isn’t my blood.”
“Pardon? Then whose…?”
And before the Grand Duke could even finish his question, someone appeared from behind, clicking his tongue.
“Stella, what were you thinking, rushing ahead like that?”
It was Duke Elrad.

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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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