I’m a Rookie, but I’m an Experienced Professional - Chapter 101

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 101

“Well, rather than a favor, it’s more like cleaning up the mess you made.”

When I added those words indifferently, Anabella swallowed hard.

“The mess I made… do you mean trying to harm Miss Eileen?”

“That’s part of it, but there’s something else too.”

“S-something else?”

Anabella’s eyes wavered anxiously.

‘Now’s my chance.’

I lowered my voice a bit more and spoke as if whispering.

“The reason I went to rescue you when you were being dragged to the temple, and brought you back to Belheim, was all because you desperately begged me to save you.”

“I-I made such a request to Miss Eileen?”

“Yes. Why? Don’t tell me you doubt my words?”

When I narrowed my eyes and pressed her, she turned pale and waved her hands frantically.

“N-no! It’s not that, but… I find it hard to understand that I would make such a request when I had even tried to harm you. It’s also strange that Miss Eileen would grant my request…”

Oh ho, to think such thoughts. Her head isn’t completely full of flowers after all.

But I had no intention of letting her suspicions solidify into certainty.

I snorted and crossed my arms.

“You said it yourself. That if I just spared your life, you would tell me everything about who ordered you to do such things. I was tempted by those words and took the risk to go there, but now you say you don’t remember anything, so I feel cheated and quite displeased.”

When I snapped irritably, Anabella’s eyes filled with tears.

“I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry…”

The situation of telling blatant lies and receiving apologies wasn’t particularly pleasant, but I didn’t feel guilty about it.

Even if she was brainwashed, Anabella was the culprit who tried to kill me. This much was like karma.

“Don’t just say you’re sorry with words, repay me with actions.”

“How can I repay you with actions…”

“Later when the Lord comes and asks what happened, just say that you asked me to save you.”

This was the reason I had been laying the groundwork until now.

“M-me?”

“Why? Can’t you even tell the truth?”

When I glared and asked, Anabella flinched and clasped her hands tightly together.

She kept her gaze lowered for a long time, staring down at her hands, then looked at me with a resolute expression and nodded.

“Yes, I’ll do that.”

Good, I got her.

* * *

Callix appeared in the reception room about an hour later.

The conversation with the temple faction must have been quite unpleasant, as his expression when he opened the heavy door was murderous beyond measure.

An aura colder than early winter frost instantly froze the inside of the reception room.

I wondered if Anabella could do well in front of such overwhelming presence. Worried that the plan might go awry, sweat formed on my palms.

“Explain what happened.”

Callix Crowbell spoke in a commanding tone as soon as he sat on the sofa.

When I glanced at her, Anabella swallowed hard and barely managed to speak.

“I… begged Miss Eileen to save me.”

Though her voice, filled with terror, trembled thinly, Anabella said everything exactly as I had instructed her.

“…”

After hearing the entire account, Callix Crowbell stared at me intently with narrowed eyes. His cold gaze seemed to pierce through my mind.

“Did you make her say this?”

His intuition really is ghostly sharp.

“It’s true that I ‘explained’ what happened. Miss Anabella Rizeren can’t remember anything at all, perhaps due to shock.”

Though cold sweat ran down inside, I replied with as indifferent an expression as possible.

“It’s not that I don’t remember anything at all.”

Then Anabella, who had been quietly sitting after finishing what she was supposed to say, suddenly interjected into the conversation.

“I clearly remember clinging to Miss Eileen, saying that I might die if I returned to the temple like this, and begging her to please help me.”

‘Oh, what? She knew how to tell such lies?’

I looked at Anabella with slight surprise.

Callix Crowbell was the same.

Perhaps not yet confident enough to meet his gaze directly, Anabella flinched and hurriedly lowered her eyes.

“It’s true. I really did make that request.”

Even so, she insisted to the end that it was something she had done.

‘She has no talent for acting or lying.’

Well, in the original work too, Anabella Rizeren was described as having an honest personality who couldn’t lie.

It was also the reason why the original male lead, the Prince, and Callix Crowbell came to like her.

‘The problem is that the current Callix Crowbell doesn’t like Anabella Rizeren.’

There was no way he would fall for such a shoddy performance.

“…”

So I expected him to immediately scold her to stop such transparent lies, but surprisingly, Callix Crowbell said nothing.

“A little while ago, Archbishop Barbana contacted me directly.”

Instead, he brought up a different topic.

“He said he understood my anger a hundred times over, since a cherished subordinate nearly died.”

He continued while staring directly at Anabella.

“However, it’s a long-standing custom to handle priests under temple rules, and breaking this precedent would put both the temple and myself in a difficult position, so he asked me to please hand over the person. Along with words that he would punish her severely enough to appease my anger.”

Upon hearing his words, Anabella’s complexion turned as pale as paper. It was an expression of more desperate terror than when Callix Crowbell had threatened to execute her himself.

“P-please spare me.”

She sprang up like a spring and prostrated herself flat on the reception room floor, beginning to plead.

“If I go back like this, it won’t end with just excommunication—I’ll die. So please spare me.”

Her pitiful, tearful voice filled the room damply. Anabella begged desperately to be saved, using both hands and feet.

“Well. Do I have any justification to protect some nameless priest while making an enemy of the temple?”

Callix Crowbell answered indifferently, but in his eyes looking down at her, some indescribable strange emotion flickered.

I couldn’t tell exactly what it was, but at least it seemed he had no intention of immediately sending Anabella back to the temple.

[4-5. Help Anabella stay in Belheim.]

[Reward: 100,000p]

That’s why even when such a damn Main Quest suddenly appeared before my eyes, I could dismiss it with just a bitter smile.

This was also clearly the system desperately trying to save the original female lead.

“I’ll also ask you, my lord.”

What miraculous ability could I, a powerless player, possibly have? If told to do it, I had to do it.

I also had a strong desire to finish this damn Chapter 4 as soon as possible and find out what the system was thinking by doing such things.

When I took Anabella’s side, Callix turned his head to look at me as if dumbfounded.

“Even after nearly losing your life because of that woman, you’re asking me to save her? I can’t tell if you’re naive or gutless.”

If it weren’t for this damn Main Quest, I wouldn’t have cared whether that woman lived or died.

The words I couldn’t bring myself to say went down my throat and scattered as a bitter sigh.

Meanwhile, Anabella’s gaze looking at me as if I were her savior felt burdensome.

“Eileen.”

When a terribly low voice called my name, my shoulders flinched involuntarily.

“Do you really want me to take in that woman?”

“Yes, I’m sincere.”

Though I answered steadfastly, I didn’t expect much.

Protecting a single priest while turning against the massive force that was the temple was quite an irrational choice.

It would be a hundred times better to just hand Anabella Rizeren over to the temple.

“…I’ll do that then.”

But when an unexpected answer came, I looked at Callix Crowbell in surprise.

Anabella was the same.

“…”

His gaze looking down at her was a complex tangle of resentment and compassion.

It was definitely not the look one would give to an attempted murderer who had tried to kill a cherished subordinate.

The vague doubts I had been feeling until now became certainty through that complex gaze and his irrational decision just moments ago.

Callix Crowbell had known Anabella Rizeren from a very long time ago.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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