The Saintess Is Too Good at Lying - Chapter 1
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————
The Saint Is Such a Good Liar! Episode 001
I saw it clearly. Lumiel smiled faintly while meeting my gaze just before she threw herself down the Staircase.
By the time I realized what was happening, Lumiel had already plummeted to the bottom. Her frail body tumbled down the steps without a chance to catch herself.
“Ahhh, Lumiel!”
People who came running at the sound discovered the catastrophe before them and gasped in horror. Someone among them cried out loudly.
“The Saint pushed Lumiel down the Staircase!”
Everyone stared at me with shocked eyes. Soon, understanding dawned on their faces—as if to say, yes, that’s exactly something I would do.
After all, I had been caught multiple times before attempting to slander Lumiel.
But I was innocent. I shook my head urgently.
“That’s not true. I didn’t do such a thing…!”
“Saint!”
Just then, someone cut off my words and barked at me.
As I turned my head with a bewildered expression, I saw King Alfonso ascending the Staircase with a face twisted in anger.
Behind him, Lumiel was being carried away, unconscious.
“How much further will you debase yourself? Last time you slandered Lumiel by claiming she was lying.”
It wasn’t slander. Last time, Lumiel truly lied about doing something she hadn’t done.
I insisted on my innocence and said it was strange that Lumiel was the one lying.
But no one believed my words.
“Did it bother you that Lumiel speaks only the truth? So you tried to kill her outright?”
“How could you say such a thing, Your Majesty? I do not lie. You know better than anyone….”
“I don’t know. Perhaps you’re using that rigid image of yours to slander Lumiel.”
“What reason would I have for that? I am Your Majesty’s betrothed and the Saint of Scalia.”
I denied it firmly.
“This time as well, Lumiel simply fell down the Staircase alone. I clearly saw her smile while looking at my eyes before she tumbled down the steps…!”
Crack!
A sharp sound of impact rang across my cheek. The sudden, burning pain made me turn my head with a dazed expression.
“How much further must you disappoint me?”
My brother, Duke Sergio Cassini, was staring at me with contempt in his eyes.
“Are you really slandering the genuine one out of fear of losing your position?”
“Slander, brother? No.”
“Be silent, Justitia.”
Sergio cut off my words with a cold voice.
“By my authority as head of the family, I excommunicate you from the Cassini Family. You are no longer a Cassini, nor are you my sister.”
The sudden declaration caused a stir among those present. Even though excommunication was within the family head’s authority, it was unheard of to cast out a Saint so carelessly.
Yet Alfonso stood by and tacitly approved. I couldn’t believe this was happening.
“This should have been done from the start. Now that the genuine one has returned, the fake sister is no longer needed.”
“…Fake.”
I murmured in a hollow voice, then asked with a sorrowful tone.
“Was there ever even a single moment when you saw me as your sister?”
Sergio laughed coldly, leaned his face close to mine, and replied.
“You know better than anyone that I’ve never done such a thing.”
Sergio turned away without another word. Before Alfonso followed him, he paused as if remembering something left unsaid.
“Regarding today’s incident, I intend to question you severely at a later time. No matter how saintly you claim to be, attempting to harm the Cassini Family’s princess is no trivial offense.”
“….”
“Don’t ever do something like this again. I’m saying this for the Saint’s own sake.”
It sounded as though this was the last time he would let it slide. Absurdly enough. She had never done anything wrong in the first place.
* * *
Fortunately, Lumiel awoke safely and made clear her unwillingness to punish Justitia.
Justitia requested a meeting with Lumiel to speak with her, but when Lumiel refused out of fear, the meeting fell through.
Once word spread, everyone praised Lumiel’s magnanimity while disparaging Justitia.
“Everything originally belonged to Lumiel anyway. The position of Saint, the title of Cassini Family princess—all of it.”
“The real one disappeared seven years ago and has now returned, so it’s no wonder the fake is envious. But still, to think of pushing someone down the Staircase.”
Justitia had become a counterfeit who envied and slandered the genuine article.
“I am truly innocent, Your Eminence. I can relinquish the Saint’s position, the Cassini name—everything. I have never harbored impure feelings toward Lumiel.”
“If the Saint is truly innocent, God will know.”
“…You don’t believe me either, Your Eminence?”
“Regardless of what kind of person the Saint is, I stand with the Saint.”
Archbishop Formoso grasped Justitia’s hand and spoke with gravity. Justitia looked at him with wounded eyes before finally pulling her hand away and leaving.
Not long after.
“I decree the execution of Saint Justitia, who attempted to poison Princess Lumiel Cassini.”
Justitia faced death, abandoned by her family, her betrothed, the Temple, and everyone.
Which meant.
‘I’ve become that Justitia.’
I gazed at my reflection in the mirror with cold eyes. A woman with elegant silver hair that gleamed as if dyed by moonlight and beautiful blue eyes like a lake stared back at me.
Justitia. A virtuous Saint incapable of deception, rigid in her righteousness. A tragic woman who fell helplessly prey to the schemes of the ‘genuine’ one who suddenly appeared, ultimately losing everything.
“Your Holiness, you’re truly beautiful today! There has never been a Saint as beautiful as you in all of Scalia’s history.”
My maid Nora smiled brightly, clearly trying to lift my spirits. She then added carefully.
“Today, try not to encounter Lumiel if you can help it. Strangely, whenever you become entangled with her, only misfortune follows.”
This girl has quite good instincts. As I looked at Nora with an expression of mild approval, she flinched and hurried to continue.
“N-not that Lumiel is a bad person, of course. But strangely, whenever you’re around her, you find yourself in unfair situations.”
The original kind-hearted Justitia would have gently chided her not to speak ill of Lumiel.
“You’re right.”
But I’m not the real Justitia.
“I see it clearly now. The Cassini princess keeps fabricating lies to put me in difficult positions.”
Nora’s eyes widened in surprise at this unexpected response.
“Yes, yes! Exactly! Last time too, she told everyone that Your Holiness rode alone in a carriage from the Slums without her, when in fact you were urgently transporting an injured child to the hospital!”
Just as Nora said, Lumiel had engaged in this pattern of distorting facts, painting Justitia as a strange person.
“I was so frustrated just watching back then….”
That’s right. Until the situation became serious, Justitia had simply chosen not to correct the record.
All I could do was mutter inwardly, ‘But she did ride in that carriage alone, didn’t she?’
Because of this, even those who had believed in Saint Justitia gradually came to trust Lumiel’s words.
By the time Justitia tried to correct Lumiel’s lies and distortions of fact, it was already too late.
“So. I should have listened to you.”
Justitia, it wasn’t as though I lacked advisors around me. I had such a clever maidservant, yet I acted so foolishly?
When I nodded obediently, Nora looked at me as though I were a stranger.
“You seem rather odd today.”
“Do I?”
“Yes. The last time I offered such counsel… you didn’t take it well. You said that as a saint, I should overlook others’ minor faults.”
“My thoughts have changed. Spreading false information doesn’t seem like a minor fault anymore.”
I replied indifferently.
“A needle thief becomes a rope thief, as they say. There’s no guarantee she won’t tell even greater lies later, is there?”
“That’s exactly what I’ve been saying!”
“Of course…”
I gazed absently above Nora’s head and added one more thing.
“I still think Lumiel is a good person.”
The moment those words left my lips.
[That is a lie]
[Lie Gauge increased by 0.1%]
[Current Gauge: 0.1%]
Letters materialized before my eyes.
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————