Hiding the Fact That We Are Dating From the Amnesiac Villain - Chapter 21

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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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Chapter 21
* * *
Freena emerged from the Investigation Room and rushed toward Daisy Hall without pause to catch her breath.
‘Could it really end like this?’
It couldn’t possibly.
Declin would never abandon his suspicions so easily. The longer his doubts festered, the worse my situation would become.
What if Declin, worn down by exhaustion, decided it would be simpler to just kill me?
“Freena! What happened?”
“Um, would it be alright if I left early today?”
“Y-yes. Freena, go ahead and leave early. You can rest until tomorrow as well…”
Freena’s face had turned ashen, and her voice trembled with urgency.
The people of Daisy Hall felt the grotesque nature of the current situation more acutely than anyone else. So they silently let her go.
‘Now that I’m entangled with Declin, a safe escape is impossible.’
He was already someone who had approached me before.
I don’t know why he lost his memories, but someday they might return.
‘Will he really leave me alone then?’
The fear was overwhelming.
But.
I recalled Declin’s hands as I’d seen them in the Investigation Room. His fingers, clad in jet-black gloves, bore nothing.
…Perhaps there was a way to break through this situation after all.
* * *
Freena burst into her home and frantically yanked open the nightstand drawer, seizing the ring.
In the past year of possessing the ring, I had never once attempted this.
Through strained breath, a dazzling white sacred power shimmered like heat haze from my trembling fingertips, searing to the eyes.
‘If, just if this truly is a heirloom of Caesar…’
Thrummmmm—!
In that instant, the crimson ruby embedded in the ring pulsed grotesquely like a living heart, radiating a blood-red radiance.
‘It’s a sacred artifact.’
The ring that Hugho—no, Declin—had given me was no ordinary piece of jewelry.
Why did he give me something like this?
There was one final thing I had to do.
An ability I had never used before.
Sacred artifact resonance.
‘I never wanted to use this ability…’
Resonance inflicted excruciating pain proportional to the artifact’s power. But I had to do this.
‘Stay calm. I must center myself.’
Freena squeezed her eyes shut and poured all her senses into the ring.
In an instant, a horrifying sensation of weightlessness overwhelmed me as the world beneath my feet seemed to crumble away. My consciousness plummeted into an abyss of darkness.
Fragments of countless eons—vast and endless beyond what a human mind could comprehend—surged forward like a tidal wave.
Searing pain as if my brain were boiling and my entrails twisting consumed me. I had to endure it. I had to hold on, no matter what.
Soon, the sacred relic’s memories flooded into me.
Even if the sun falls and a thousand years of time crumbles, remember, my brother—you, the sole legitimate heir of Caesar proven through bloodline.
I bestow upon you the throne of divinity.
Rule.
All life and death in this land.
And bring all things to bow beneath your feet.
Cough.
Dark crimson blood spilled from my mouth. My entire body felt as though it had been beaten.
Freena lost consciousness.
When I awoke, a very long time had passed.
The taste of blood still lingered in my mouth.
Opening my eyes, Freena let out a hollow laugh.
There was no other choice.
…It truly was the Caesar heirloom.
The very thing Declin treasured like his own life now rested in her grasp.
* * *
When Freena read the novel, there was one passage that had chilled her to the bone.
Which chapter was it? Perhaps the twentieth.
It was the part where all of Havel’s plans were exposed to Declin.
He ran and tumbled through the Abandoned House until he finally found refuge in a remote Territory that silently sheltered the hunted.
The people of the Territory were remarkably kind to the unfamiliar fugitive.
They pressed warm soup into his frozen hands and soothed his rigid shoulders with gentle smiles, their concern melting away.
Havel finally felt relief, believing he had escaped Declin’s grasp and found a safe haven.
But soon, Havel came to understand.
That the entire Territory was under Declin’s physical dominion.
Every word they spoke, every action they took—all were merely the mercy Declin had granted.
Yet the revelation came too late. Havel was captured by the Territory’s people and met a cruel death.
Even now, thinking of it made my skin crawl.
‘So that ring—the one that made all of that possible—is in my possession?’
Though my abdomen still throbbed with terrible pain, fear and bewilderment overwhelmed it.
‘Declin doesn’t even know he gave it to me right now….’
How could a man with lost memories recall handing over a ring?
In that moment, dread seized me entirely.
‘What happens if he discovers I have this?’
He would never let it slide.
Even as horror washed over me, indignation surged forth.
…You gave it to me! I said I wouldn’t take it!
“C-calm yourself, Freena.”
I could just throw the ring away, couldn’t I?
In the original work, it was the object that had brought calamity, and now it threatened her very existence.
‘There’s a riverside near my home.’
I’d dispose of it there and be done with it.
Freena hurriedly threw on her outer coat and made her way toward the riverside.
A moment later.
She came to a halt before the riverside.
Freena moved without hesitation to hurl the ring away.
To cast this dreadful thing as far from her sight as possible.
But in that instant.
‘The Tracking Orb Auction.’
The words brushed across her mind, and her raised hand froze mid-air.
…Wasn’t it true that Declin had shown interest in the Tracking Orb Auction right after the banquet ended?
‘Perhaps.’
Freena gazed down at the thorned ring resting bare in her palm.
Wasn’t this what he had been searching for?
‘Then if Declin safely recovers this ring, what happens next?’
The terrible events from the original story would unfold again.
And perhaps….
‘If I and my siblings were to suffer the same fate without even a chance to resist?’
Her entire body turned cold at the thought.
She felt no doubt that this was wrong, no sense that she was merely speculating. Perhaps she had already ventured too far to entertain any optimistic possibilities.
Declin’s approach to Freena might have been because he discovered she was Orbannon’s illegitimate child. In the original story, he had wanted to annihilate the Ten Great Families.
He must have judged her to be a rather useful piece to manipulate.
Yet Orbannon had ultimately survived without falling into Declin’s schemes.
But Freena, as an illegitimate child, was different.
‘…No, I can’t.’
I absolutely cannot discard it.
Allowing this dangerous ring to fall into Declin’s hands would be like placing a razor-sharp blade directly in his grip.
Moreover, perhaps.
This could actually be an opportunity.
An opportunity to escape from Declin.
Freena clutched the ring tightly in her grasp, her fist clenching with resolve.
‘Declin’s loss of memory is a stroke of fortune for me.’

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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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