The Former Empress Roughly Hides Her Abilities - Chapter 137

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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 137】

The returning holiday.

Rianel, who visited Vincenheim Mansion, stopped in her tracks before the portrait hanging in the hall.

“How is it?”

The Duke stood beside her and struck a pose.

He was pleased with his own appearance, depicted more solemnly than usual, so he was curious about Rianel’s evaluation.

“There are parts in the portrait that differ from reality.”

“What? Wh-which parts?”

The Duke turned around again to stare at the portrait.

“The part depicting the shoulders differs from reality. Your Grace’s shoulder width should be portrayed as narrower than Asil’s.”

Rianel had confirmed through precise measurement that Callen’s shoulders were narrower than Asil’s.

However, in this painting, both men’s shoulders were drawn to be roughly the same size.

“Can’t we let that slide as artistic license!”

“That expression is not within the acceptable range.”

What’s so important about those damn shoulders?

The Duke was flabbergasted, but Rianel remained unmoved.

Asil, who had somehow gotten caught between the two, stood with his broad shoulders hunched.

“I won’t say anything, father-in-law.”

However, the corners of his mouth that had subtly risen were expressing Asil’s pride instead.

As the commotion grew louder, Rupert came out.

Having been sleeping in late on the holiday, he yawned while ruffling his disheveled hair with one hand.

“Ah… Sister, you’ve come?”

Rianel called the newly awakened Rupert to stand before the painting.

“Do you also think this portrait’s depiction is accurate?”

Rupert looked back and forth between Asil and Callen. After blinking several times to grasp the situation, he quickly sided with Rianel.

In his pocket was the handkerchief with the letter ‘ㅋ’ that he had received from the palace, and he had not forgotten the shame of that day.

“It’s obvious at a glance. This is the painter’s mistake. I suspect the painter made excessive corrections to satisfy the client.”

“Whose son are you anyway!”

The Duke expressed his disappointment, but.

“They say an open mouth should only speak the truth.”

Rupert responded with his back straight.

This holiday too, Vincenheim Mansion was noisy.

* * *

At the same time.

Pope Malon walked through the quiet temple corridors, frowning.

“….”

Originally, holidays were the temple’s peak season.

Believers who worked on weekdays would flock in, offering prayers as if shedding guilt and putting gold coins in the donation box was the daily routine.

But the temple, which had lost popularity due to recent events, was quiet today as well, and accordingly, the temple’s donation box was light.

“Tsk.”

Malon was displeased with all these changes, but he also knew there was nothing he could do.

People recognized that Cardinal Oben taking the blame for the temple’s sins and leaving was just scapegoating.

At times like this, if he babbled about comforting the people’s hearts saying this was a trial given by God, all the criticism would turn toward him.

‘So staying silent until people’s anger subsides is the best course.’

But since he didn’t want to face that reality with his own eyes, Malon turned his steps and entered the inner chambers deep within the temple.

He thought the silence of that space, which only priests of cardinal rank or higher, or those permitted by them, could enter, would calm his mind.

“Who’s there.”

In the middle of the corridor leading to the inner chambers, someone was lying prone and moving busily.

“S-sorry!”

The man sloppily dressed in holy knight attire began hurriedly sweeping the documents scattered on the floor into a box upon seeing Malon.

“I spilled the documents Cardinal Janol asked me to bring on the way… I’ll clean it up right away.”

These were materials that catalogued not only the temple’s donation status but also what assets they possessed.

Though these documents that could show the temple’s financial state at a glance should be handled carefully, the man was shoving them into the box haphazardly, not even knowing if they were upside down.

‘Was his name Logan?’

He was a guy with a common face and no particular skills, but since he kept running into him lately, he remembered the name.

Malon watched that scene intently before soon shaking his head.

‘Well, what would an illiterate fool know anyway.’

Logan was too stupid to even use as a spy.

“Get lost.”

After driving Logan away, Malon entered the relic storage room located in the deepest part of the inner chambers.

He locked the door and took out the relics one by one to clean them, confirming that their luster had become more turbid than before.

Because the temple’s approval rating had fallen, the power of the relics was weakening.

‘God definitely doesn’t exist.’

The fact that a trivial number like approval rating could control the relics meant that God was either dead or had turned away from this world.

‘Well, even when you existed, you weren’t a god for us.’

In the world God created, the temple only functioned as a device to make the female protagonist Ensilen shine.

In the predetermined story, Ensilen cut out the temple’s rotten corruption.

Malon’s role was to become the representative of the ‘new temple’ that had washed away existing corruption and express gratitude to Ensilen.

While Malon acknowledged the temple’s corruption, he disliked that the time built up by countless priests was consumed as a device to make someone shine.

Even knowing all this, the fact that he couldn’t escape his predetermined role every time the story began was even more horrifying.

To prevent the story from starting at all, he tried to designate Lisa, who would conceive the protagonist, as a saint and bind her to the temple.

‘But no matter what I did, I couldn’t prevent Lisa from meeting Duke Vincenheim.’

As a mere clergyman, he couldn’t change anything.

It was the same even after dozens of repetitions.

Only by summoning demons and drawing in Yuna could he finally create this much distortion.

‘It took truly a long time to get this far.’

Having escaped from being a puppet bound to the story, untying the strings that bound his hands and feet to move on his own, it could be said there had been much progress.

But he still felt powerless.

The reality of that powerlessness was the ‘book’ that existed in the deepest part of the relic storage room.

Malon stood before the door disguised as a wall.

Only Malon possessed the key to the room that even Yuna couldn’t enter.

There was only one object in the room.

The original manuscript of the source material that was the center of this world.

Even at this very moment, the novel was floating in mid-air, turning its own pages.

“….”

What he had given to the demon Seir was merely a copy that transcribed the contents of that book.

The real ‘original’ was impossible to touch.

All Malon could do was watch the blank pages turn.

Originally, the story should have ended by now, and the book should have returned to the first page to repeat the same story.

But the current book wasn’t going back, endlessly creating blank pages with nothing written on them.

Malon thought this itself was evidence that this world was already broken.

“Ha.”

He still couldn’t lay a hand on that book.

Not being able to interfere with the storybook.

…That meant he was still a being that belonged to this world.

Suddenly, Malon realized.

‘The male protagonist and female protagonist are both protagonists, but their weight is not the same.’

The female protagonist was a protagonist just by existing.

However, the male protagonist’s position was divided according to the female protagonist’s choice.

If Ensilen hadn’t become Empress and had remained at the Academy to choose Asil, then Asil would have become the male protagonist.

Malon had thought this was a world sustained by three pillars, but the three pillars had never been equal in size from the beginning.

Perhaps this world, having lost its largest pillar, should have already collapsed.

Malon held his breath at the conclusion he reached after repeated contemplation.

The air in the storage room, which he had thought quiet, pressed heavily upon his shoulders.

‘Then why has this world been maintained until now?’

…How so?

* * *

Rianel and Asil maintained their routine of going to the government building on weekdays and visiting Vincenheim Mansion on holidays while continuing their investigation into the Temple.

This was to prevent the Temple from detecting anything unusual and concealing information.

However, there were limits to obtaining information only from outside the Temple.

The Temple was an extremely closed-off organization.

‘At least it’s fortunate that we have a channel to receive news from the Temple.’

Asil secretly exchanged information with Logan through correspondence.

However, since Logan also had to move while watching the Temple’s upper management, he couldn’t even access core information.

Still, it was quite helpful in re-verifying the contents of the sacred relic records that Rianel had glimpsed during her infiltration of the Temple.

“Logan said that the title of that novel is registered as ‘Untitled’ in the sacred relic records.”

Rianel traced the cover of the demon’s book with her fingertips. The leather cover, deeply stained with the passage of time, gleamed.

Rianel had thought nothing was written on the cover because it was too worn. But hearing Logan’s words, it seemed possible that there was no title to display in the first place.

“Then there’s a possibility that the novel registered in the sacred relic records is the ‘original’ of this book.”

‘Moreover, all sacred relics are said to have unique functions.’

Then that book must also have some ability.

“What function does the original possess?”

Even when the two put their heads together, no conclusion emerged.

‘It might be nothing special.’

If it wasn’t a simple storybook but an object containing the flow of this world, it could perform more dangerous functions than expected.

‘Moreover, the Temple is in decline.’

The Temple in the story had reformed and changed for the better, but the current Temple had strengthened its closed nature by cutting off certain individuals like severing tails.

At times like this, one wrongly sparked ember could cause the entire organization to collapse.

The Temple couldn’t be unaware of this either.

‘Those driven to their limits are usually more dangerous.’

She was concerned because there was no telling what crazy thing the Temple might do.

“If that’s the case, let me look into it.”

Logan said he would try infiltrating inside the Temple, but contact with him was cut off shortly after.

Soon, unfortunate news followed.

“You said Royhum’s body was discovered?”

“Yes. To be precise, Evan, Royhum’s son, testified to that fact. Because of this, the Temple’s upper management seems to have noticed Logan’s betrayal.”

Evan, who had continued his life as a fugitive regardless of whether his father lived or died, finally surrendered after raising the white flag on his long life in hiding.

Nearly a year had passed since Royhum’s accidental death.

For the death of someone who had once been Minister of Finance, it was announced quite late, but the timing of the announcement was poor.

‘There’s never a peaceful day. This damn half-assed Empire.’

Asil clicked his tongue.

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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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