The Peaceful Life Of A Maid Who Hides Her Power And Enjoys It - Chapter 83
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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 83
I shook my head with a disgusted expression for no reason. Then I honestly revealed.
“There’s no such thing.”
“None?”
“Morian Sereniye’s letter. Morian Sereniye was a fictional character created in the first place anyway.”
Honestly, I was half convinced that he was Lu or someone related to Lu.
Huh. Count Sereniye glared at me with eyes full of suspicion.
“A created fictional character? To make such blasphemous remarks. Not content with treating my daughter as if she doesn’t exist, you lie about having a letter? You deceived me.”
For a moment I froze briefly.
‘Come to think of it, there’s a high probability that a woman named Morian Sereniye actually exists, right?’
Wasn’t it possible that Lu had stolen and used that real person’s identity from the beginning? That’s why the Head Maid was worried.
But what’s important now isn’t such trivial matters of authenticity.
What I wanted to know was whether this guy was Lu or not.
“Deceive what? You also knew everything and brought us…”
“No. I know nothing. All I know is the fact that Miss Daisy lied. To think you were uninvited guests rather than guests. You must surely pay for your crimes.”
“Your Kalerpa did that, so what are you saying…”
“As Count Sereniye, I will punish you right now. If you don’t obey quietly, you won’t see anything good, so come here.”
It was truly one-sided criticism.
Rising solemnly from his seat, he immediately walked out of the courtyard.
Count Sereniye, exposed directly to the falling rain, gestured to me. I followed him out, wondering if getting rained on was some kind of punishment.
The man’s head that had been reaching toward the sky suddenly sank down at some point.
“Get on.”
Soon. He was now looking at me as a four-legged beast.
‘…A beast?’
This man, was he a mage? Is he Lu after all?
“I said get on.”
I hesitantly placed my bottom somewhere around Count Sereniye’s shoulder… no, back… no, waist area. What is this situation all of a sudden?
Why do I have to ride on this beast’s… no, Count Sereniye’s… no, this beast’s back?
“Something like a wolf?”
After all my wondering, that was the only question that came out.
The beast began to take steps.
I gripped his fur tighter and lowered my body to avoid falling off his back. It was quite difficult.
“That’s right. I’m under a terrible curse where I’m a count during the day and become a beast at night. I’m looking for my own prince to break this curse.”
“You don’t seem to be the age to be looking for a prince. You’re an old man.”
Clip-clop, clip-clop.
He who had been walking lightly snorted and asked back.
“Is there a law that says old men can’t look for princes?”
“You’re an old man and a married man at that, so you shouldn’t do that.”
Honestly, I don’t even know what I’m saying.
My mind was now complexly tangled with two questions.
Is this bastard really Lu?
Or are all the mages of Loqwe as self-centered as Lu?
“Didn’t you say with that mouth that Morian Sereniye doesn’t exist? I’m not a married man either. Unless I’m a young and pure unmarried man.”
Where does truth begin and where does joking begin with this man?
This damn middle-aged noble who takes it for granted that others will play along with him.
“Grip a little gentler. My fur will fall out.”
While I pulled the beast’s fur harder, he passed through the grasslands surrounding the castle and entered the interior of a small forest.
The beast that had been circling near a large zelkova tree began vigorously digging under a gravestone.
Suddenly there was a rumbling sound of something collapsing, and secret stairs hidden underground revealed themselves.
“You transformed to enter here?”
“A count crawling on the ground to enter wouldn’t be cool.”
As he said, the entrance to the stairs was very small, so I had to lower my upper body close while riding on the beast to enter inside.
The underground was humid and dark. If Count Sereniye hadn’t lit candles with magic, it would have been darkness where you couldn’t gauge even an inch ahead.
‘Is this an underground tomb?’
I stretched my head out and read the letters written on the stone slabs covered with dust.
Beloved so-and-so, respected so-and-so… They were all coffins where members of Sereniye were sleeping.
“These friends will be seeing a living person for the first time in a long while too. It wouldn’t be bad to wave and greet them.”
“Don’t say creepy things.”
He laughed pleasantly, then put me down and returned to human form.
Despite his fur having been soaking wet, Count Sereniye as a human was completely dry without a drop of moisture.
He approached a nearby coffin and opened a small wooden box placed on the gravestone. Soon he took out a small pearl from inside and held it out to me.
No, that wasn’t a pearl.
“I’ll ask one thing. Have you ever picked up and eaten something like this? Or did someone force you to eat it?”
“…That’s a heart crystal. It’s something you can only see in the Northern Continent, so how would I, an Empire citizen, pick it up and eat it?”
“You probably ate it, Miss Daisy. Otherwise you couldn’t have died and come back to life.”
I was momentarily speechless.
‘He even knows the fact that I died and came back to life?’
At the same time, my confusion intensified once more.
Is this man Lu after all?
Or Lu’s loyal retainer? No matter how I look at it, he seems to have some relationship with Lu. What exactly is his purpose?
Count Sereniye put the slightly cloudy-colored heart crystal back in the box.
“I’m thinking that Miss Daisy might have swallowed the heart crystal of someone on the level of Kalerpa. There aren’t many Kalerpa-level figures who would remain as crystals at that time. I can think of about two off the top of my head.”
“Who are they?”
“Dian Ket and Mephistopheles.”
The fact that Dian Ket was Loqwe’s Kalerpa was something I had heard about long ago. But the latter was not.
I asked back in a somewhat dazed voice.
“…Grand Sorcerer Mephistopheles was Loqwe’s Kalerpa?”
“No. He almost became Kalerpa. His abilities were quite outstanding, you see. He was a genius of the century and a talent difficult to be born again.”
Along with those words, Count Sereniye lightly shrugged his shoulders.
“Though not as much as me.”
It was a shocking fact in many ways.
But thinking about it carefully, this is easier to accept than the information that Dian Ket was from Loqwe.
Because the modifier “exiled from Loqwe” is attached next to Mephistopheles’ name.
One who was driven out of the Northern Continent for pursuing wrong power.
What the corrupted one did upon reaching the Southern Continent was terrible biological experiments and the outbreak of the Mage War…
It felt like the general puzzle of where and how Mephistopheles appeared and why he came to stir up the Southern Continent was coming together.
Despite the fact that he was the main culprit of the war, the information about Mephistopheles revealed to the world was very limited.
“Not only Mephistopheles’ army but Mephistopheles himself was from Loqwe.”
“Yes, from Loqwe’s perspective, it’s the greatest stain that will never be erased for life. If Mephistopheles’ master had been alive, he surely would have been horrified by the evil deeds he committed. Mephistopheles’ master held a glimmer of hope that his disciple would live like a human being.”
“Was Mephistopheles a born villain?”
“A born villain.”
Count Sereniye sat down with his arms crossed against a nearby gravestone.
As if cleaning, he lightly brushed the dust accumulated on the coffin behind him a few times, then asked me back.
“Do you want to hear his story?”
He slowly rubbed and brushed off the pitch-black dust on his index finger and thumb.
“The path he lived. The reason he came to join Loqwe. The source of his strength. The basis for his master choosing him. The narrative he couldn’t bear to give up. And yet the reason he left Loqwe and turned the continent into a sea of fire.”
The story of Grand Sorcerer Mephistopheles.
I could feel my nerves sharpen at that secret beginning that no one could have heard.
In fact, there is no figure in modern history as shrouded in mystery as Grand Sorcerer Mephistopheles.
No one knows his personal history. Even in plays and such, Mephistopheles was simply portrayed as a madman who sold his soul to magic.
Into a monster who could feel no love or compassion at all.
But I wasn’t interested in Mephistopheles’ story that was casually thrown out.
Rather, I felt wary.
“No.”
Because I was afraid I might start seeing that demon as human.
“I’ll never have occasion to hear his story in my lifetime. To me, Mephistopheles is a terrible slaughterer. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“Wise. Yes, Mephistopheles is a slaughterer. The misfortunes he experienced cannot excuse the evil deeds he committed. So an evil person like Mephistopheles must be a born evil person. Regardless of the truth.”
Count Sereniye smiled gently and suddenly spoke to me.
“Hand.”
What’s that supposed to mean? Am I a dog?
I gave him my hand anyway. Then he placed a heart crystal on my palm.
“A commemorative heart for visiting the underground tomb. Take it. In Rogue, heart crystals are only given to family or closest friends.”
“You’re giving me this? The heart of someone whose face and name I don’t even know?”
“The name is, let’s see… Daphne Sereniye. I don’t remember what kind of woman she was.”
“I don’t need it. It’s not even your own heart.”
“Ah. You need my heart? How bold of you.”
The moment I faced his smile that was beyond mischievous and downright shameless.
The moment my heart, which had been unpleasantly pounding because of Mephistopheles, began to flutter and stir.
I instinctively became certain.
No, I had no choice but to be certain.
“But to give your hand so easily to a strange man. I’m surprised.”
“…Are you Lu?”
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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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