My Body Has Been Possessed By Someone - Chapter 324

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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 Episode 12
2. The Rakes of House Adis (8)
“What on earth are you doing? Speak!”
“I have lost the eyes of the World Tree, it is true.”
Raphael spoke with measured calm.
“Yet vestiges of that power remain, and at times I glimpse things faintly through them.”
“What…?”
“And through that power, I have seen you.”
He gazed impassively at the restraints that bound Kanna’s limbs.
“You are currently under a compulsion cast by an artifact from the Southern Continent—a suggestion to leave Adis, drown yourself in the sea.”
“…”
“Therefore, I ask that you endure until the compulsion is lifted.”
Ah.
In that moment, Kanna recalled the final command.
Leave Adis, board a ship, sail to the Eastern Continent.
Drown in the sea along the way. Sink so deep that no body could ever be found.
‘That’s right, that was it.’
So Raphael believed she would take her own life, swayed by that mere suggestion. How absurd.
“I wasn’t affected…”
Kanna spoke as though sighing.
“No, wait. I was affected at first, but when I discovered that Orsini had hidden the stone, I got so angry I broke free.”
The fury had been so intense that the compulsion shattered in an instant.
“Then why do you continue to obey the compulsion?”
“I’m pretending to obey! I want to find out who cast the suggestion. Raphael, I have a plan too. Just listen—I—”
“I will not listen.”
Raphael cut her off with finality. It was unprecedented.
“Believing yourself free from the compulsion is itself an effect of the compulsion. Therefore, do not attempt to persuade me. Say nothing more.”
Raphael doesn’t believe me!
Kanna was stunned. Raphael was denying her words! Telling her to be silent—such harsh words!
“Raphael, how could you speak to me this way?”
“My apologies.”
“Don’t mock me. If you were truly sorry, you couldn’t say such things.”
At that, Raphael fell silent. His face, gazing down at her with those deep eyes, resembled a statue cast in shadow.
“I see.”
“What?”
“Upon reflection, I am not sorry at all.”
“What did you just…?”
“From this moment forward, I will disregard your commands.”
Raphael spoke with serene certainty, as though it were something he could do whenever he wished.
“Protecting you is my foremost priority. Accept this, and bear it with grace.”
With those words, Raphael turned away.
I couldn’t believe this reality. Remarkably, Raphael seemed somewhat angry at this very moment.
He must have thought I was trying to end my life.
‘That’s not it. I was truly just gazing out at the sea without any particular thought.’
Besides, no matter how angry he was, what was the meaning of this state?
I looked down at the iron chains binding my limbs.
This was a sight I had witnessed before.
In the past.
‘Seon-hee was like this.’
History had repeated itself—I was in the exact same predicament as Mother. Captured by the Divine Spirit and imprisoned in the Divine Temple.
‘No matter how concerned he is, how could he resort to such barbaric methods….’
I exhaled a long sigh.
‘How do I prove I’ve awakened from the suggestion?’
Denying it would do no good; he wouldn’t believe me. Why was he so utterly convinced?
‘But I don’t have time to remain here like this.’
Of course, I had formulated my own plan. I had no intention of leisurely indulging in this game of running away. I was actively working my mind to find whoever had cast the suggestion.
Time was of the essence if I was to capture that person….
“I’ve brought your meal.”
Shortly after, Raphael entered with food. He sat beside me and offered a piece of steak on his fork.
“Please eat.”
“….”
I stared at him intently, then smiled softly.
I had neither the time to persuade him nor the time to wait for his belief.
‘Then there’s no choice.’
I would have to break through the wall that was Raphael and move forward.
“I prefer something else.”
I gently raised my hand.
Raphael’s gaze dropped before returning to me. He refused bluntly.
“That’s not possible right now.”
Raphael wore only a thin black robe, and even that alone was insufficient to conceal the immediate response stirring within him.
“Don’t concern yourself.”
Raphael spoke as though his body didn’t belong to him, extending the fork once more.
“You must be hungry. Please eat.”
I gazed at his hip.
There was a pocket there. And inside it, I had placed the key.
“Fine. I’ll eat.”
I parted my lips and took the finely sliced meat he offered between my teeth. I stared directly at him, chewing deliberately.
I swallowed with a soft, delicate laugh.
“Will you give me another?”
I said this while parting my lips once more.
“Put it in for me.”
Raphael gazed silently at her lips. His eyes traced the crimson fruit-like tongue within, yet his expression—seemingly sincere—belied something far more complex.
“Raphael, I can’t help but notice.”
Kanna Adis whispered with a smile.
“You realize your robe has come undone, don’t you?”
“Yes. I’m aware. My apologies.”
“Apologizing to me won’t change anything….”
She glanced again at the gap in his loosened robe. The moment her gaze touched it, heat radiated from Raphael’s breath. He was unmistakably aroused now. His escalating state left Kanna Adis somewhat breathless.
“And you expect me not to notice?”
“Yes. Please pay it no mind. My apologies.”
He apologized with that refined expression of his.
Kanna Adis understood then. She rather enjoyed that gap of his—that utterly unconvincing pretense.
“….”
Her hands and feet were bound, but her face remained free.
And so did her lips.
She lifted her gaze to meet Raphael’s eyes for a moment longer before letting it drift downward—to the sharp line of his nose, to the firm set of his mouth.
And then….
She moved slowly toward him.
Unlike his earlier firm refusal, he grasped the back of her head and responded.
His muscles, contracted from the aftermath of pleasure, were lost in oblivion.
So lost that he didn’t notice the key slipping free.
* * *
Orsini drank his whiskey.
“Why did you hide it?”
Days ago, Orsini had obtained a sacred stone.
Cecilia, was it? That woman listed in the newspapers as his mistress. He’d acquired it through a covert transaction with her.
Cecilia claimed she’d purchased it by chance from a street vendor.
Surely she’d bought it from an antiquities merchant on the Southern Continent.
The antiquities merchants of the Southern Continent are dangerous. That’s why. That’s why he’d meant to investigate the sacred stone first.
And only then give it to her….
“Why did you hide it?”
His mouth felt split open; he could say nothing.
Because he knew that wasn’t all there was to it.
And Kanna Adis had grasped that fact with terrifying precision.
Once, when Kanna Adis said she couldn’t sleep, she’d told him a story—one she’d heard in another world, she’d said.
The Fairy and the Woodcutter, was it? The tale of a man who’d trapped a fairy by taking her feathered robe. And of a woman who, upon reclaiming it, abandoned the man without hesitation and departed….
He’d spoken carelessly then, calling the man a pathetic fool, but in that moment Orsini had felt utterly wretched.
Because that pathetic fool was exactly like himself.
“Brother, are you listening to me?”
“Yes.”
“El Andois fell victim to a curse. Likely some relic from the Southern Continent. Julian is neither my son nor El Andois’s son.”
“I see.”
“….”
“I need to find out who orchestrated this.”
In that state?
Kalen regarded his brother with suspicious eyes.
Though he’d had a glass of whiskey, remarkably, his brother was still working.
Yet work was merely the body’s motion. His eyes were hollow—his soul was clearly absent from this place.
In any case, his brother was foolish.
Unable to do anything about her, merely suffering in silence—it was truly pathetic.
‘Then again, when she left before, he lived like that for several years, didn’t he?’
If she left, one simply brings her back.
First retrieve her, then persuade her afterward—wasn’t that how it worked?
Of course, he didn’t wish to force her, but what he found even more unbearable was the thought of living without Kanna Adis.
Kalen left the Study.
“Sir Kalen.”
“Ah, Rodrick. Is the work progressing well?”
“Yes. As you instructed, we’ve begun constructing a cabin on that Island.”
“Good. There’s no need to build it large.”
Kalen smiled gently—the smile of a noble gentleman whom Rodrick had once admired long ago.
“A space for two to lie down is sufficient.”
“….”
Rodrick lowered his head without a word.
Then it happened.
“Ah, Father?”
Ah, I’d momentarily forgotten about that.
Kalen turned his head indifferently. It was Julian.
“Um, where’s Mother?”
“Mother? You mean El Andois?”
“Yes, yes.”
“Well, she…”
Kalen knelt on one knee. Leveling his gaze with Julian’s, he whispered into the boy’s ear.
“She’s dead.”
“-!”
“I killed her.”
Julian’s pupils dilated. His eyes reflected utter disbelief.
Kalen watched the face identical to his own contort in shock, gently stroking Julian’s hair as if he were truly a loving father.
“Shall I repeat myself if you didn’t hear?”
“H-hic….”
The child staggered and collapsed backward. He had lost consciousness.
“K-Lord Kalen.”
“Hmm?”
“What did you just say to your son—I mean, to Julian?”
“That’s none of your concern. What are you doing standing there? Move him to the Bedroom at once.”
Kalen rose to his feet. There was a mountain of work awaiting him.
* * *
At that very moment.
Silvien Valentino set down the documents with a weary sigh. They contained records of Kalen Adis’s movements.
“That man is truly impossible to let one’s guard down around.”
I find him the most terrifying of all. Silvien Valentino muttered to himself as he rose from his seat.
‘Seon-hee was right after all.’
When he had traversed time and worlds to recover Kanna’s soul, he had encountered Kanna’s mother, Seon-hee.
And she had warned him then.
That controlling Kalen Adis would be extraordinarily difficult. And that Kalen Adis was a man capable of effortlessly shattering the peace they had so painstakingly achieved.
If he were to deviate from the righteous path, then perhaps it would be better to—
‘Kill him and be done with it,’ she had said.
Silvien Valentino smiled quietly.
It seemed that day had finally arrived.

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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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