The Villain Who Will Kill Me Is Too Handsome, It's Troublesome - Chapter 108

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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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Episode 108.
The news had been announced across the entire Empire that morning.
The sudden tax increase sent the nobility into uproar. The fact that a monster army created by the Southern Kingdom had appeared without warning was shocking enough, but a war? And they were raising taxes for it?
So they were hiking the tax rate for this?
If I’d known the taxes would climb this high, I would have planted more wheat last autumn. Now, after paying the imperial levy, there’s barely anything left for the lords themselves.
That inevitably translated into plunder from the common people. As always, lords maintained their own portion by taking from those beneath them.
“A few days ago, monsters did appear at the border.”
That night, gathered with everyone including Serlnia, Ushiel spoke in hushed tones.
“That was your brother’s doing?”
“It must have been.”
Ushiel produced evidence—a Barrier Stone bearing the marks of tampering, the seal that had been erected between the Southern Kingdom and the Empire.
“This was made specially by the Temple and donated to the Empire.”
The temple priests had poured their Holy Power into its creation. Ever since those ancient days when the Source of Evil had incited the Southern Kingdom to war, unleashing a catastrophic monster plague.
Its purpose was to prevent external monster invasions and to serve as a communication link to the Temple.
“If monsters had destroyed it, there’s no way this much Holy Power would remain.”
In response to Ushiel’s crystalline power, the manifold Holy Power embedded in the Barrier Stone glimmered in varied hues.
“A human broke it. Someone deliberately opened the way.”
And someone who knew this mechanism well.
This was a device the Guard Units at the border didn’t even know about. After all, there could be traitors anywhere within the Empire. That was why it was a secret known only to the Temple and the Imperial Palace.
“My brother has truly lost his mind. What kind of love is that supposed to be…….”
“It’s nothing but possessiveness and obsession.”
“Did falling under the temptation of the Source of Evil corrupt him further?”
Ushiel let out a scornful laugh, watching Serlnia, who still harbored a faint attachment to her blood kin. Hopeless, the expression seemed to say.
“Give up. What you’re seeing is merely the surfacing of possessiveness and obsession he’s been concealing all along.”
“Yes, I haven’t forgotten that he’s beyond redemption.”
Then Bleo, who had been listening silently, stepped forward.
“But surely you can’t persuade the nobility with this evidence alone, can you, Saint?”
“That’s right. So the Princess must secure definitive proof of his collusion with the Southern Kingdom.”
Bleo gazed at his fiancée with worried eyes.
Because he’d fallen out of favor with the Emperor, he’d lost his position in the Imperial Palace. The same held true for his father. Peter no longer called Soltis by his informal name in private.
So this was something she would have to do alone.
“That shouldn’t be difficult. Commander Pursell has firmly taken my hand.”
Pursell was the one who had brought word of the monsters first.
“Then we need to prevent conflict at the border as much as possible, yes? Since His Majesty might cause trouble once the Holy Knight Order commander is withdrawn from the capital…….”
“It’s fine. Leave it to us.”
Ushiel smiled faintly, watching Artiela and Karien huddled together whispering something.
Infinite trust between twins.
Serlnia found herself envying it suddenly.
“Speaking of which, can the Lufel Duke really be wandering about like this? Didn’t they say the Source of Evil had its sights set on him?”
At Serlnia’s question, Bleo flinched involuntarily.
He’d already heard from his mother—that Kirien was originally part of the Source of Evil, and that the Curse Ring binding them both had been severed, leaving him whole.
The problem was that he’d been having nightmares continuously since that day.
The same nightmare he’d had the day he’d collapsed.
A nightmare where Kirien, wreathed in black energy, slaughtered him and his family, then mocked Artiela before killing her miserably, and the world descended into destruction.
“The Duke is no longer a sacrifice.”
“Is that so? Then it’s a relief.”
Shouldn’t they have held an even grander banquet then? It was finally his turn to shed the disgrace the Emperor had heaped upon him. Serlnia handed Kirien a glass of champagne.
And she spoke loudly enough for the Holy Knights enjoying the banquet over there to hear.
“Congratulations, Duke.”
“Thank you, Your Highness. But…….”
Kirien exchanged the champagne glass he’d been given for grape juice.
“I’m a Holy Knight, so…….”
Alcohol is forbidden for me.
At Kirien’s words, Serlnia burst into laughter.
“You’ve become quite the clergyman, Duke.”
But Artiela certainly seemed to be drinking just fine.
So did the other Holy Knights.
What was champagne, after all, but a soft drink to them? They could simply dispel hangovers with Holy Power anyway.
“I’m simply sensitive to alcohol.”
“How will you ever match your lover then? At least try a sip?”
“Kirien, it’s fine. Go ahead and drink.”
“Quite right, Kirien. Champagne hardly violates our precepts. Only the weakest priests abstain.”
Besides, tonight was a feast.
The Emperor’s men, lurking in the neighboring house, would be listening to gauge how much enjoyment was being had. To prove this was an ordinary gathering, the host needed to appear reasonably merry.
“Drink! Come now, drink!”
Reluctantly, Kirien brought the glass to his lips.
And immediately regretted it.
Because of the new ability the alcohol had granted him.
-My God, we’ve completely blocked the water channel.
Every time he consumed alcohol, he began hearing the voices of those who followed the Source of Evil.
* * *
“Are you hearing anything else?”
Artiela and Kirien were heading somewhere with a contingent of knights.
“Nothing, my lady.”
A faint flush colored Kirien’s cheeks.
He was weak to alcohol to begin with, and having sipped champagne to better hear those voices for his Information Sensing, his face was now suffused with color.
“Let me purify you.”
He was grateful that Artiela could awaken her Holy Power to help. Even poison could be detoxified, it seemed.
“Haa…….”
Kirien shook his head vigorously side to side.
The flush in his cheeks faded as quickly as it had come.
“I feel nauseated.”
The journey to the Territory alone had left him queasy from using the Movement Scroll, and now with the alcohol on top of it, his stomach was threatening to turn inside out.
Even Holy Power couldn’t easily dispel that sensation.
“Here.”
Artiela pulled dried meat from her pouch and placed it in his mouth.
As the salty-sweet flavor spread across his tongue, his stomach began to settle slightly.
“So the water source for the Lufel Duchy is that lake at the peak of that mountain, yes?”
They had only just arrived in the Lufel Duchy—the land known as the Empire’s greatest plain.
Not long after hearing that the water channel had been blocked, word came that the Territory was in crisis, so they’d come to investigate in person.
“Could I have misheard what I was sensing?”
Kirien had begun to doubt his own ability.
It was certainly strange—hearing another person’s voice. And of all things, the voices of those from the Southern Kingdom who followed the Source of Evil.
More troubling still was…….
“What if I haven’t yet severed my connection to the Source of Evil……?”
Perhaps those praises were reaching him because they shared the same soul. In that case, what if that creature could also see his circumstances? The fear had gripped him at the thought.
As anxiety crept in, he habitually tried to empty his mind.
“Ah, well, what does it matter? We’ll just pool our strength and eliminate it. If you and I combine our Holy Power, that thing won’t stand a chance, will it?”
Artiela, who could expand positive thinking infinitely, seemed unconcerned.
“But first…….”
They had to address the water. Clean water was a vital resource for human survival.
“The wells have all run dry, but the lake’s water is still clear, yes?”
Transporting water was difficult, true, but the pristine water in that high mountain lake was abundant. If necessary, they could always carve a new water channel.
It would be expensive, certainly, but a wealthy duchy’s coffers could manage such a solution.
Which made it all the more suspicious.
Why hadn’t they simply done it?
As they climbed the mountain puzzling over this, Artiela discovered where the water channel had been blocked.
“Wow, they really piled up the embankment deep, didn’t they?”
They had sealed it so thoroughly that water couldn’t even seep underground—both the bottom and the paths where it might flow into the valleys were blocked.
As a result, the lake’s water level had risen substantially.
And whether by coincidence or design, dark clouds had begun gathering in the southern sky—from the direction where the Southern Kingdom lay.
“Ah…….”
So drying up the water wasn’t the goal at all.
The moment understanding struck her, Artiela wrapped Sword Energy around Bardo.

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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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