The Villain Who Will Kill Me Is Too Handsome, It's Troublesome - Chapter 18

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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 18.
The angel-like face had gone pallid when blood ceased to flow, then flushed crimson, warping into something terrible. He was squeezing so hard that bruising spread across her skin in sickly purples. At this rate, she might actually die.
“No, you brainless Aura—don’t you know this is when you’re supposed to work?”
Artiella drew the Bardo and channeled her Aura into the blade.
Had the Black Shadow returned? But Kirien’s shadow remained pristine, untouched.
“Your Grace!”
Artiella threw herself into the room.
Then Kirien’s eyes snapped open. His crimson eyes, still unaware that his own hands were throttling his own throat, moved helplessly toward Artiella.
“P-please, help…….”
Artiella bolted to the bed and struck his arm away.
His grip went slack. Impossibly, Kirien’s eyes fell shut again—as if he’d slipped back into a deep sleep.
“What? Does he sleepwalk too?”
So relentlessly self-destructive?
Artiella stared at the sleeping man sprawled across the mattress.
Moonlight poured through the open Balcony windows and bathed him. His pale skin looked even more bloodless in that glow. Against it, the angry red marks stood out sharply.
“Did he claw himself?”
As Artiella examined the line of scratches that ran from below his ear to his jawline, she frowned.
“This isn’t…….”
Hidden beneath his collar, a second set of marks became visible through his nightshirt—parallel bruises that traced the length of his throat, and scars that crossed both wrists.
The scars on his wrists were not the kind made unconsciously.
Artiella had to swallow a sound of distress.
‘Yusiel, what if this man’s soul is already shattered?’
What if it was already too late? What if he was surrendering himself to the Source of Evil, and she’d watch those hands close around her throat—
“Ah!”
Suddenly pressure seized her neck. Kirien’s hands had locked around it.
“D-Duke, I can’t—”
His pristine white Aura erupted outward from his arms. She’d thought him brilliant once, but did he need to be this powerful?
Even as her breath came short, Artiella fought to channel her own Aura, straining to push her hands against him—
‘It’s not…….’
It wasn’t working.
Kirien’s Aura remained rigid around his forearms, unmoved.
During their daytime experiments, his Aura had scattered and yielded at the slightest touch. Why wasn’t it now?
“I can’t—can’t breathe——”
Artiella felt her airless face might burst.
If this continued——
‘I’ll die strangled by the Source of Evil.’
This couldn’t happen.
If it did, Bleo and her father would grieve. All her effort—her defiance of the Emperor, the schemes she’d devised to keep the Duke at her side—would crumble to nothing.
And him most of all: this man, the most virtuous and beautiful in all the world.
‘I won’t let him commit a sin he doesn’t will!’
Artiella gathered her Aura again with all her strength. It was useless. What force held him that wouldn’t budge an inch?
She’d always held pride in her Aura—the strongest in the world, or so she’d believed.
Then his pristine white Aura, clinging to his hands, bounced lightly. It spilled onto hers.
As though even the smallest aid might matter.
‘Ah, that power—it was trying to protect him.’
She’d forgotten. That force wasn’t meant to destroy the world around him. It was simply clumsy in its effort to shield him, and it hurt him instead.
Which meant the power coiled around his arms right now——
‘—was trying to stop him!’
Then what moved him wasn’t Aura at all. It was something else.
She knew exactly what it was.
‘The Black Shadow?’
But his shadow had been whole just moments ago. When had it returned?
This was dire. Without Yusiel, Artiella couldn’t bind the Black Shadow. Her meager Holy Power was too frail to overcome such a malevolent force.
‘Yusiel, please—Yusiel—’
Artiella strained to send Telepathy to her twin sister, her desperation laden with the bitter regret that she hadn’t cultivated her Holy Power sooner.
But there was no answer.
Was she destined to watch the future unfold exactly as written?
Yet even as such thoughts crossed her mind, she saw Kirien’s white Aura still striving, refusing to abandon her—offering what aid it could.
She’d mocked it as worthless once. Now, seeing it labor so, her heart twisted.
But this——
‘Because it’s the Duke’s will.’
How could a Knight of Justice abandon someone who reached out asking to be saved?
Artiella gathered what little Holy Power she possessed to her fingertips, praying for divine miracle and salvation.
In that moment.
A pale white Aura exploded and intertwined with the pale green one.
“This… this is……”
Artiella felt a warm power rising within her.
‘Holy Power.’
Drawing together her last reserves, Artiella seized Kirien’s wrist. Simultaneously, there came a soft pop as strength drained from his arm.
“Done!”
At the same moment, his upper body was thrust backward. He collapsed sideways just like that—not some sleeping prince from a storybook, but with a heavy, exhausted face.
Artiella’s throat burned, but she endured and grasped the Bardo. The pale green Aura enveloped the blade alongside her Holy Power.
‘Black Shadow, you cursed thing!’
I’ll make you regret coming back. This time I’ll cut off your breath for good!
Artiella swung her sword toward the Duke’s shadow.
“Huh?”
It’s gone? That’s not the Black Shadow—just an ordinary shadow.
“What, what is this? Where did you go, you wretched thing!”
Artiella scanned the room intently. But there was no trace of evil energy anywhere.
Well, then.
On Sacred Ground, how long could something wicked linger without an offering?
“Whew, I thought I was done for.”
Artiella gently rubbed her still-burning throat with her hand. She’d fought Demonic Beasts before, but this was the first time she’d tasted the terror of death.
It was fortunate that her Holy Power awakened at this moment.
She’d yearned for this power so desperately—the force rooted in healing and purification. It struck her anew that this was an absolute necessity to fight the Source of Evil itself.
She’d repelled an evil whose nature she didn’t even know, healed her throat too.
‘Wow, I’m a wielder of healing power now.’
As Artiella savored the effects of her Holy Power, her gaze suddenly fell on Kirien’s neck. And then to his wrist.
“If those fade away… would he become a little brighter?”
Artiella brushed her hand gently over his pitiful scars. She prayed that along with the miraculous fading of the marks, the wounds of his heart would be erased as well.
After wiping away even the traces left on his wrist, she could not rise from the bed but simply collapsed forward onto Kirien’s mattress.
Only then realizing that healing required far more stamina than she’d imagined.
* * *
Artiella is a strong knight.
As a knight who frequently stood night watch, she’d always been energetic even with somewhat insufficient sleep. Yesterday she’d rested well and recovered at someone else’s estate.
She had every confidence she could keep watch over the Duke and stay awake through the night.
If only it weren’t for the Holy Power.
“Duke, it’s time you were waking up—mercy me!”
Bailey, who had come to wake Kirien, discovered Artiella collapsed face-down on the bed in sleep.
“Shh, looks like she’s only just fallen asleep.”
Kirien, already awake, brought a finger to his lips.
He wanted to slip away as carefully as possible without waking Artiella. But one of his hands was held fast in her grip, so he couldn’t move.
“Duke, our Ati says you must have breakfast and come out to the Training Ground……”
A new witness arrives.
Bleo’s reaction upon seeing the youngest collapsed across the thigh of a man in his own bedchamber, her hand clutched tightly in his, was intense.
“Did she, did she, did she break through the window to get in? The one called the Holy Sword Wielder?”
As misfortune would have it, spring wind drifted lazily through the broken Balcony window.

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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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