Isn’t Being A Wicked Woman Much Better? - Chapter 210

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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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Special Side Story 7
I had sensed that unmistakable difference—as though our very souls had been swapped—for a long time through sheer intuition, but I refused to acknowledge it.
“Traces of the past vanished? I thought the so-called Saint who saved the Empire had undergone some magnificent transformation, but that crude, unrefined manner of speech is still there, the stalking persists, and I fail to see what has actually changed.”
Unable to accept it in any way, I continued spewing words of denial.
“You seem oddly fixated on the word ‘stalking.’ As if that’s exactly what you wished for.”
“Spending time with Isidore has only sharpened your wordplay skills.”
That was when it happened.
Deborah Simour, who had been within my field of vision, vanished, and that detestable golden hair flashed before Philaf’s eyes.
“Wordplay, naturally. Married couples always grow to resemble one another, after all. Ah, you’ve heard the news of our marriage, haven’t you? Just in case you hadn’t.”
“You bastard!”
With the appearance of the figure who had been stoking my fury for ages, I lost all reason in an instant, and the spirit Celiana, synchronized with my emotions, began unleashing torrents of flame.
Isidore swiftly erected a barrier to neutralize the inferno, then deployed a teleportation spell to close the distance before unleashing a rapid succession of sword strikes.
Yet hundreds of lesser spirits converged in an instant, transforming into the shape of a blade to intercept Isidore’s sword path.
Boom!
As the colossal concentrated forces collided, the very earth trembled. Simultaneously, heat so intense that mirages shimmered above the ground radiated outward in all directions.
“Phew, scorching!”
“Well, how does the taste of fire suit you?”
“I should ask Deborah Simour to blow some cool air my way later.”
Watching Isidore make a fuss before responding with playful banter, I ground my teeth audibly.
“I’ll shred that flapping mouth of yours to pieces.”
“How terrifying.”
Crash! Crash!
Each collision between the golden-gleaming blade and the crimson-burning spirit unleashed such violent shockwaves that the very space was torn asunder.
“I-I do hope Duke Visconti doesn’t sustain any injuries in this…”
Within the barrier Purple had constructed, Baron Ignis stood restlessly, his anxious gaze fixed upon the two combatants. Deborah Simour, meanwhile, stood calmly, recalling her conversation with Isidore.
“Isidore, be honest with me. If you fought Philaf one-on-one, who would win?”
“I would win. Without question.”
He stated it as though reciting an obvious truth.
Though I had been concerned about a one-on-one confrontation with Philaf, seeing it unfold now, I finally understood why Isidore brimmed with such confidence.
‘The gap is too wide.’
Though they appeared evenly matched at first glance, the momentum of the spirits enveloping Philaf was gradually waning, while Isidore’s sword energy remained unwavering from start to finish.
It seemed his experience of clashing with the Archfiend itself, wagering life and death, had elevated his prowess.
“Ugh…!”
Rather than losing strength, the blade Philaf parried grew heavier with each passing moment, and the whites of his eyes were now streaked with crimson.
“Celiana!!”
At his cry, Celiana, who had been waiting in the void, attempted to unleash her breath upon Isidore, but before the flames could even spread, Philaf himself doubled over, coughing blood.
“Cough!”
Isidore had summoned an ice-aspected blade directly toward the location of Celiana’s core.
Caught by the surprise attack, Celiana was reduced to ash and forcibly unsummoned, and the backlash twisted the mana within Philaf’s body, causing him to cough blood.
“….”
Isidore’s expression turned cold as he wiped Philaf’s blood from his cheek.
Black blood.
The most undeniable evidence that he had made a pact with a Demon.
“I never considered you a friend, but you’ve turned even the innocent days of our childhood into a cesspool.”
“Haha…! Ever since you appeared, I’ve felt like I was wallowing in a cesspool. Your rotten interior masked by that insufferable pride—it disgusted me.”
“So I appeared noble to you.”
“…Your mouth never stops. Since we’ve come this far, let’s wallow in the cesspool together…! Ptui!”
He spat out black phlegm with a sinister laugh, and then black blood began pouring from his left eye.
As one eye gradually took on a yellow hue and transformed like a cat’s, Isidore cursed under his breath. It was nearly identical to the final form the Demon’s contractors had shown.
Surrendering a portion of one’s soul in exchange for forbidden power, gradually becoming assimilated with the contracted Demon.
Boom, boom, boom!
The moment Isidore infused his blade with sword energy to stop Philaf, the Lava Cave began to tremble, and steam erupted from the widening cracks in the earth.
Soon, water began gushing up through the increasingly widened fissures.
“So it’s finally emerged.”
As Purple growled, sensing the stench of dark magic, Deborah muttered with displeasure beside him.
In her previous life, she had witnessed a similar sight. This was already the second time she was seeing the abilities of Puckel, the Demon contracted with Philaf.
Puckel.
The Temple scriptures recorded him as the “Duke of Bathing Chambers,” a high-ranking Demon who freely controlled water flowing beneath the earth and its temperature.
Puckel had once approached Fleur Montes.
‘So Puckel wanted a spirit summoner as a contractor.’
And the fact that he had approached Philaf again meant he still hadn’t obtained what he desired.
‘In the past, Fleur self-destructed far too quickly.’
Unable to control that fiery temperament, Fleur had been trading blows with Rocke when his black blood was exposed, and he hastily wielded the Demon’s power.
Not only had he, a Temple guardian knight, made a pact with a Demon, but he had also despicably burst open the hot spring to submerge an entire village—all to prevent Rocke Visconti from focusing entirely on combat.
“Rocke!!”
Rocke Visconti, who had been evacuating villagers while dodging the water jets that shot up like blades, suffered severe burns on his right arm from scalding water that erupted from somewhere.
“Sir Knight, my child is still in there.”
Naila wanted to heal Rocke immediately, but a mother’s desperate plea came from somewhere, and without a moment’s hesitation, he teleported into that hellish vortex of water.
He disappeared into the hazy steam and didn’t return for a long time. The anxiety of thinking he was dead—those moments of waiting for him felt like a nightmare.
But well, that’s all ancient history, and now…
“Philaf Montes! Though we have walked together like friends for so many years, your actions bring me nothing but deepening disappointment!”
Deborah had brought along the Crown Prince, as reliable as a bowl of soup from last night.
“Even we newlyweds are working, so Your Highness must work as well, no?”
With a touch of coercion.
In preparation for Philaf repeating his past, the nearby villagers had already been swiftly evacuated by the Imperial forces, and above all, the Crown Prince possessed the authority to immediately transport the criminal Philaf to the Central Prison.
It meant the Crown Prince, hungry for results, would handle it swiftly without her needing to lift a finger.
“Philaf! No matter how much you are the firstborn of House Montes, the crime of dabbling in dark magic is grave!”
“Out of my way, human.”
At that moment, an alien voice erupted from Philaf’s throat, and red bat-like wings unfurled from his back.
“Seize him!”
The Crown Prince shouted in fury, but an enormous volume of steam engulfed everything around us, thick enough to obscure our entire field of vision.
“Damn this foolish human!”
Puckel, who had shot skyward in a panic, unleashed a torrent of curses at his contractor Philaf Montes while flapping his wings with all his might.
These Montes fools were so stupidly arrogant that they refused to heed a demon’s words, their pride as thick as steel cables.
The moment Saint Deborah appeared, I signaled him to flee—so desperately—but Philaf ignored me. No, it seemed he was so consumed by his own emotions that he couldn’t even hear me.
Fleur Montes was no different.
The instant Rocke Visconti appeared, I told him his opponent was beyond his league and to run—but he ignored my words. In the end, before we even set foot in the Ignis region, his neck was cleanly severed by the Demon Swordmaster’s blade.
“But seriously, why would a top-tier human like a saint stalk a bottom-tier human like Philaf? Is stalking really the saint’s hobby?”
“What nonsense are you spouting? The object you’ve been coveting all this time was in the Ignis Volcanic Region, Puckel!”
At the irritated saint’s voice, the demon’s eyes widened in shock.
“H-How did you—!”
“And when Philaf, who hails from the Northern Region, appears in the Ignis territory with no connections whatsoever and throws a tantrum demanding the path be opened, anyone with common sense would find it suspicious.”
“Aaaahhhhh!!”
Pure white vines extended from the ground and began constricting the demon’s entire body, drawing an agonized shriek from him.
The densely concentrated holy power comprising the vines brought searing pain, as if he were being burned by sulfurous flames.
Writhing and flapping his wings desperately, the vines only coiled tighter around his limbs, and Puckel eventually couldn’t endure the agony and plummeted from the sky.
“Ugh…! How did you… how did you know about me, saint?”
The demon asked in a tone of utter bewilderment, and I leaned in close, whispering directly into his ear.
“I have Naila’s memories, so the Temple Grand Library contains records of ancient demons like you.”
“But regarding ‘that’… only I and my contractor should know about it…”
“I don’t know what it is exactly, but I’ve figured out that something important exists in Ignis. In the past, Fleur Montes came to Naila drunk and told her about it.”
“…What?”
“He said to abandon the engagement with Rocke and go to Ignis together. That if he could just obtain a certain object there, he could protect her from the Archdemons.”
“He said something that insane?!”
Puckel was flabbergasted.
How could someone reveal the contents of a demon contract to a saint while conducting the contract itself? Was he some kind of double agent?
A demon, unable to truly comprehend the complex human emotions of love and hate, jealousy, obsession, and pride all tangled together, found this situation utterly absurd and confusing.
“Thanks to Fleur’s drunken rambling, I already knew something important existed somewhere in the vast Ignis Volcanic Region. But thanks to you, I now have very specific coordinates. Much appreciated.”
Deborah gestured toward the Lava Cave, and the demon’s yellow pupils vibrated rapidly.
“So there really is something in there.”
“Let me go, human! I’m about to talk…! Aaaahhh!”
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Deborah seized the demon as it hastily fled Philaf’s body and began torturing it with ropes of holy power.
“Aaaahhh! It hurts! It hurts! I’m telling you it hurts! What kind of saint are you? More cruel and wicked than a demon… ahhhhh!!”
“What kind of demon whines more than a Shiba Inu?”
At the loud, grating complaints that made me frown involuntarily, Deborah felt the peculiar sensation of becoming quite the accomplished torturer.
“Ugh, ahhh! I’ll talk! I’ll tell you!”
“What’s in there that made you approach Philaf?”
“Huff… huff! It’s….”
“Ugh… *cough*! That’s… well…”

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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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