Isn’t Being A Wicked Woman Much Better? - Chapter 178

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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 178
Hoping they would fall for the rumors I had carefully cultivated, I was listening intently to the servants’ conversation when I suddenly felt a chilling presence behind me and spun around urgently.
“What are you doing here?”
Beleck Simour stood behind me with a grim expression.
“Why are you here, brother?”
Goodness, he startled me.
“You’re awake this early? The sun must be rising in the west.”
“Brother, are you sleep-deprived? Your complexion looks terrible.”
“That fox Isidore dared to use me as a mere accessory for the jewelry auction—how could I possibly look pleased?”
“The plan originated from my head. Think of it positively.”
“Sigh.”
He ran his hand roughly through his hair and exhaled a short breath.
The various rumors circulating recently had come from me, and the plan to lure the Black Mages using the gifted ship had been shared only secretly with my family. Beleck, who held leverage over me, was more trustworthy than anyone.
“Brother, by the way—did you find it? The birthday gift I asked for.”
“Yes… I actually found it.”
He muttered quietly, then suddenly let out a hollow laugh as if exasperated.
“You’re the first person I’ve ever met who blackmails someone into finding a birthday gift!”
“It’s obvious whatever you’d come up with wouldn’t be impressive anyway, so it’s better for me to find what I want. Since I’m finding it rather than buying it, it doesn’t cost anything.”
The poor gift-selecting sense of the direct Simour line could be easily inferred from Enrique’s case alone—he had received three toy wizard figurines holding staffs.
“If only you could hold your tongue! Isidore might be the only one who can handle your personality.”
He suddenly gripped my hand tightly.
“But what is this?”
“Since I found it as you said, it’s a bit awkward to call it a gift. It’s not quite a lavender diamond, but it did cost some money.”
Beleck Simour spun around and disappeared quickly, and I gazed at the jewelry box he had thrust toward me with an amused smile.
“Are you all right?”
“With what?”
“Spending your birthday like this.”
Isidore asked me if I wasn’t upset about using my birthday—a day that should be celebrated happily above all else—as bait to lure the Black Mages, but I wasn’t upset at all.
Because there were many people here who cherished me rather than used me, I already felt as though I had received a great gift. Then I was startled by a sudden realization: somewhere along the way, I had genuinely come to accept Deborah Simour’s birthday as my own, rather than Yoon Do-hee’s.
Yes, this place was no longer a novel to me.
It was my real world.
* * *
One of the Black Mages disguised as a dress shop employee brought a catalog containing dress designs to the Fourth Empress. Inside was a note. The Black Mage appeared utterly ordinary, like a typical shop attendant, so the scene aroused no suspicion.
The Fourth Empress tapped her fingertips rhythmically on the page showing a red dress. By folding her fourth finger and raising her index and middle fingers, tapping four times at regular intervals, she was signaling: wait.
The Black Mages had long communicated covertly from outside through pre-arranged hand signals. Seeing her point to the red dress, it seemed she was instructing them to lie low quietly until the red moon rose, as planned.
The Black Mage, having inferred her meaning, withdrew quietly, and Jamila pressed her lips together, lost in thought.
‘…A ship party.’
Yesterday afternoon, premium intelligence arrived that the fireworks artifact being developed for the Spring Flower Festival had been sold. Moreover, someone had witnessed a piano being loaded onto the ship, suggesting an orchestra would be performing.
‘Using fireworks means they’re planning a proposal event at night.’
Furthermore, the ship’s size was approximately four times that of a yacht. It wasn’t small, but it wasn’t a space that could accommodate a large number of people either. Once the orchestra filled the deck, the number of guests that could be invited to the ship party would inevitably shrink further.
‘Duke Visconti and Deborah alone on a ship—the odds are quite high.’
The two of them on a vessel. As my subordinate had said, it was a golden opportunity to eliminate the lady.
‘But….’
She had sharp instincts.
‘Something about this feels like a plausible trap.’
The more appetizing it seemed, the more I recoiled from it. Once suspicion took root, the more I thought about it, the more it felt like bait designed to draw me out from behind the scenes.
‘Such a cunning viper, and yet she’s called a saint.’
Using a once-in-a-lifetime proposal as bait to catch a Black Mage?
In the past, I would never have believed that a vain, reckless lady would devise such a strategy. But during this time, Deborah Simour had cleverly concealed the truth of her sainthood.
Moreover, I was in a tight corner after the assassination plan failed. The fact that she immediately dangled this tempting bait as if she’d been waiting suggested she was also skilled in psychological warfare.
‘…Certainly, my situation is not favorable right now.’
If I didn’t act soon, I might never get another chance to eliminate her.
But there was something Deborah Simour didn’t know. The crimson moon would soon rise.
When the power connecting to the Demon Realm grew stronger, I could unleash chaos exceeding what happened in Hyanghwa, and surely… a final opportunity would come.
‘I cannot let it slip away as futilely as it did in Hyanghwa.’
This time, even if I had to surrender my entire soul, I was determined to eliminate whatever stood in my way.
‘…Yes, not now.’
She closed her eyes with patient resolve.
* * *
“Today, using the saint’s blood as an offering, I shall forge a contract with a demon.”
At Third Prince Habier’s declaration, the Black Mages who had served him in the Northern Region for so long swallowed hard, their throats trembling. Now that they knew the saint revealed by the Demon Lord was Deborah Simour, the Black Mages were rapidly losing patience.
For the apostles who yearned for the Demon Lord’s descent to the mortal realm, no existence was more threatening and ominous than a saint. Conversely, there existed no treasure more coveted than a saint’s blood, flesh, and bone.
Since demons operated on the principle of equivalent exchange, they could not even imagine how highly a demon would value a saint’s blood, and so they burned with desire to kill Deborah Simour.
“As you all know, the blood of the Histech Royal Family and the potent blood of a Black Mage both flow through my veins.”
Third Prince stood before the Black Mages, speaking with solemn gravity.
“If I add a saint’s blood to this, can you imagine what manner of demon might extend its hand to me?”
He continued with unwavering confidence.
“Once I seize such power, I will not move as passively as my mother does. If you follow me, you shall be compensated for all the humiliation you have endured. I will place this world beneath my feet through the Demon Lord’s power.”
Having declared aloud what he had long desired, a sense of exhilaration washed over him as if it were already accomplished. He couldn’t understand why he had allowed himself to be dragged along doing his mother’s bidding all this time.
“Indeed, Your Highness truly shall receive the Demon Lord’s favor.”
“Your Highness. If the plan succeeds, please share some of the saint’s blood with me.”
At the Black Mages’ fervent pleas, Habier chuckled darkly.
“I have no intention of killing that arrogant, presumptuous woman immediately. I plan to lock her in a pig’s pen and extract her blood over a long time.”
Third Prince’s incitement took hold perfectly. Those who had been resisting Jamila’s orders to wait while their primary target remained within reach began to emerge in growing numbers.
Furthermore, with Albert’s death, the Fourth Empress was gradually losing her grip. Once Albert, who had skillfully commanded the Black Mage Cult, disappeared, voices grew louder in various quarters, and cracks began to form within their ranks.
Moreover, Third Prince carried the noble blood of the Histech Royal Family. The Fourth Empress was a contractor with a great demon, but only to the extent of causing rifts or occasionally receiving revelations. The expectation bloomed among them that if they performed a summoning ritual with a soul bearing royal blood and the saint’s blood as collateral, the Demon Lord itself might truly descend upon this world.
“Then let us begin at once.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Having held their gathering in the Slum District downstream of the Rene River, they dispersed to execute their plan as darkness fell all around.
The Black Mages, dragging small boats they had procured from various places, concealed them beneath a massive black cloth, then looked down upon the river from atop a secluded Forest Hill surrounded by dense oak trees.
A thick silence and taut tension permeated the air from all directions.
Moments later, brilliant fireworks erupted nearby, and from where they stood, the ship glittered with firelight, its silhouette and the figures of those aboard vivid against the darkness.
“How ostentatiously he orchestrates his proposal.”
The Third Prince imagined the proud, beautiful face of Deborah Simour contorting in agony—this would be the last time he smiled and boasted with that arrogant countenance. He swallowed his laughter and fixed his gaze upon the vessel.
Moments passed.
As the ship drifted with the current’s flow, it drew steadily closer to where the Third Prince’s forces lay in wait. The vanguard, having descended swiftly from Forest Hill, boarded their small boats and began rowing urgently toward the ship. With each moment the vessel approached, the delicate strains of piano music grew louder.
Dozens of Black Mages clung to the portholes along the ship’s hull according to plan, while those concealed in the forest prepared a ritual using five corpses to summon aquatic demons. Their scheme was to murder the Saint, capsize the vessel, and blame the creatures that emerged from the rift for the carnage.
Having infiltrated the rear deck and advancing covertly toward the bow where the party unfolded, they suddenly sensed something amiss and froze.
“Dolls…?”
What they had taken for human silhouettes were intricate automata, moving with mechanical precision. And the music—it was not an orchestra’s performance, but rather an artifact’s emanation.
“Gah!”
In that instant, mages who had teleported materialized one by one around the forest’s perimeter, unleashing a torrent of magical arrows toward the ship. When a Black Mage standing near the Third Prince was pierced through by mana transformed into the shape of an arrow and fell dead in an instant, the Third Prince’s face drained of all color.

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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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