Isn’t Being A Wicked Woman Much Better? - Chapter 167

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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 167
While Miya listened to their conversation with a rigid expression, her lips pressed so hard they ached, Francois Marquis and Albert continued their discussion.
“Francois Marquis. Don’t waste money on Miya’s little charity princess act. Spend it instead on purchasing slaves with no consequences if they die. We need power. A saint who can kill anyone—that’s what we need.”
Buying slaves to sacrifice in the ritual meant liquidating more assets. Francois Marquis, who was pathologically obsessed with grooming his appearance and looking beautiful, hesitated for a moment, and Albert’s brow furrowed.
“We can manage a few nobles whispering suspicions about Miya however we like. We can even manufacture sympathy and turn public opinion to our advantage. But if a true saint appears, everything Miya’s doing now is nothing but wasted effort! You understand, don’t you?”
Albert’s voice grew increasingly harsh, and Francois Marquis scratched his cheek so hard blood began to seep.
“….”
“Marquis. The more dire the situation becomes, the more we must capture and kill the saint, offering her blood to that person so their displeasure with you might ease even slightly.”
“I haven’t abandoned my search for the saint either. The problem is that among those who participated in the Hyanghwa ritual, I cannot identify anyone suspicious. Have you found even the slightest clue, Albert?”
A heavy silence fell between them. Then it came.
“I know who the saint is.”
A cold voice cut across the space between them.
“How long have you been there?”
“Since the beginning.”
“But what did you just say….”
“Wait! Miya Binoshu, did I hear that correctly? You know who the saint is?”
At Albert’s urgent question, Miya wiped the blood beading on her lips and nodded.
“I do.”
Watching Miya’s eyes gleam with a strange intensity, Albert was inwardly startled. When he’d observed her volunteering from a distance in the past, he’d thought she resembled a puppet doll, but now she felt like an entirely different person.
Francois Marquis urgently gripped her slender shoulders.
“Who is the saint, exactly?”
“…Deborah Simour.”
The moment Miya spoke the name of the princess, she heard something that had been precariously balanced on the edge of her heart shatter into countless pieces.
And that something was, perhaps….
* * *
“The saint who wielded power in the Hyanghwa ritual is Deborah Simour?”
“Yes.”
The Fourth Empress leaned forward, her eyes gleaming with a dangerous light like broken glass shards as she stared at Miya from very close. Boldly, Miya did not avert her gaze even as the Fourth Empress revealed an abyssal power.
“Miya, didn’t you kneel before me with these very lips, saying I arranged that power for you, thanking me?”
She pressed her thumb hard against Miya’s split and bleeding lips.
“So why are you suddenly so certain that Deborah Simour is the saint? You’d better give me a reason I can accept.”
Miya spoke without flinching at the pain.
“At the ball…the Crown Prince spoke as though there was a powerful demon in the center of the altar. Coincidentally, at the center of the altar was the Crown Prince and the princess conducting the ritual—Deborah Simour.”
“Hmm. And?”
“Moreover, the princess has consistently obstructed Your Majesty’s plans. As if she knew beforehand. When the rift appeared in the Sky Forest, wasn’t it a coincidence that the princess’s knight order appeared and saved Duchess Orgo?”
“….”
“If a rift had occurred, the saint who blocked the demons during Hyanghwa should have revealed herself again, yet there’s been no sign of her power since. Furthermore, the princess I thought was a lavish villainess turned out to be donating full scholarships, establishing foundations, and helping run orphanages. No matter how I look at it, the princess must be the saint who appeared during Hyanghwa!”
Having finished her long speech rapidly, Miya breathed heavily with bloodshot eyes.
“Miya. Every time a situation unfolded differently than expected, you handled it inflexibly and were pushed back repeatedly. Perhaps you didn’t want to acknowledge your own shortcomings, so you felt as though the princess was constantly obstructing you.”
The Fourth Empress pressed forward with a cold voice, her eyes glaring fiercely at Miya.
“Above all, Deborah Simour is notorious as a reckless young lady. While recent events have somewhat overshadowed her past misdeeds, can we truly call that woman a saint?”
“She is a saint! Absolutely!”
Miya spoke with a voice trembling with fervor.
“Miya! Do you understand what you’re saying right now?”
“….”
“You’re asking me to kill the young lady of Simour without any clear evidence to support your conviction.”
To this piercing question that stabbed at her heart, Miya’s face twisted grotesquely as she laughed shrilly and spoke with venom.
“I know!”
In truth, it mattered little to Miya whether that woman was truly a saint or not.
“….”
“If she weren’t around, I could do so much better.”
The moment Miya witnessed even lowborn commoners speaking of Deborah Simour, a deep murderous intent seized her.
Deborah Simour.
That woman, with her arrogant manner of speaking as though spitting out words, lived as she pleased, enjoyed precious and beautiful things as though they were her due, monopolized admiring gazes, and effortlessly seized even the goodness that Miya had painstakingly cultivated.
“…I wish she were dead. …I want to kill her.”
So when Albert spoke of capturing and killing the saint, Miya felt a cruel impulse surge through her.
To frame Deborah Simour as a saint and have her executed.
“Kyahahaha!”
The moment Miya uttered her true feelings aloud for the first time, the Fourth Empress burst into loud laughter as though amused. It was an eerie sight, like a demon baring its teeth and cackling, yet Miya felt no fear whatsoever. Her heart pounded so violently from the intense exhilaration she’d never experienced before that her eardrums ached.
“I was drawn only to your virtuous and pure appearance that evokes the image of a saint, but it seems you harbor quite a sinister nature beneath.”
Until now, Miya had moved passively like a puppet. While condoning the kidnappings and murders of the Black Mages, she had rationalized her participation in their schemes as inevitable, and had treated herself as a victim while concealing her desire to escape her fallen noble status and rise higher.
But not anymore. Like the young lady, she too wanted to sweep away anything irritating before her eyes and grasp everything she desired in her hands.
And the Fourth Empress, upon witnessing Miya openly reveal her desires, felt a rare moment of pleasure.
“You used me as bait to draw out a true saint, so this time, grant me my request!”
“Ho. You dare to negotiate with me? This is the first time you’ve shown such satisfaction. Very well—such ambition is necessary if we are to work together toward our goals.”
“Does that mean you’ll kill her?”
The Fourth Empress narrowed her eyes.
Murdering the young lady of Simour was no easy task, yet Miya’s assertion was not entirely unreasonable. Deborah Simour’s reckless behavior had consistently derailed their plans, making her a perpetual thorn in their side.
Moreover, recently, the Black Mages who had been kidnapping infants with holy power had vanished without a trace at the hands of mysterious assailants who concealed their identities.
‘What if she had deliberately hidden the fact that she was a saint all along…?’
At this sudden conjecture, the Fourth Empress opened her mouth.
“Very well.”
The Fourth Empress spoke while observing Miya, who could not contain her delight and was smiling with a bitter edge.
“I shall kill Deborah Simour as you wish.”
* * *
A biting wind shook the bare branches as it passed, but I remained shut away in my room, too preoccupied to notice the cold. After the debutante ball ended, I had taken rare respite, lying within the warmth of my blankets.
“Sister, are you unwell?”
Each time Enrique visited my room, finding me sprawled across the bed, his face grew anxious.
“I don’t have a fever though….”
Enrique pressed his small hand to my forehead and tilted his head in confusion.
“I’m not in pain—I’m just doing my best to be lazy. Want to join me?”
Enrique, mimicking me, flopped down beside me and soon fell into a deep sleep. I drifted off listening to the child’s steady breathing.
‘That dream again… or rather, strictly speaking, it’s not a dream but a memory.’
The reason I kept sleeping was partly because of Naila’s memories.
‘Because of these cursed dreams, even sleeping doesn’t feel restful.’
What was remarkable was that the more I recovered these memories, the more accustomed I became to the power called divine force.
‘I’m getting stronger just from sleeping.’
In my dreams, every time Naila wielded divine force, I could directly experience how she controlled such tremendous power. It felt like rediscovering a swimming technique I’d learned long ago, now remembering it through my adult body.
‘Anyway, the situation in these dreams is becoming increasingly chaotic.’
Naila, who had escaped the Desert with a man resembling Isidore, settled in a small village in the Southern Region. Before she could even recover from her journey, she was attacked by a massive monster. With many severely wounded, Naila became even busier.
But unexpectedly, what thrust her into great danger wasn’t a powerful monster—it was Slave Traders targeting the Priestess.
“Keke, a Priestess, no less. We can sell her for a high price to those noble lords.”
Just before she was dragged away, the man appeared like a relief pitcher, annihilating the Slave Traders in the blink of an eye. He then hoisted Naila over his shoulder like cargo.
“Your god gives you no strength to protect your own body yet demands you save others’ lives? What a selfish deity. Or have you been played for a fool by your god?”
“…Please don’t blaspheme against my Lord.”
“Stop spouting nonsense and think about protecting yourself first. I’m not your nursemaid, and I can’t always be by your side.”
“I have poor athletic ability and weak strength, so I can’t handle weapons well. I envy your tremendous power.”
At that moment, the man looked at me with a peculiar expression.
“During the reign of Emperor Silas of the Ancient Tegea Empire, there was a Priest named Danae.”
Danae.
The moment I heard that name from the man’s lips, I felt a strong sense of déjà vu.
[This book is dedicated to the beloved Danae.]
‘The name from the preface of Mana Formula Fundamentals…’

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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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