The Villain Who Will Kill Me Is Too Handsome, It's Troublesome - Chapter 41

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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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Chapter 41.
“Hic!”
Bleo jumped, hiccupping involuntarily. He’d always been overshadowed by his younger siblings, but today it felt worse than ever.
“Ysiel, is there really something wrong with Artiela?”
“Yes—and it’s a tremendous problem.”
Ysiel gnawed at her lip, a habit from childhood, but soon turned to face the Count with a composed expression.
“Father, would you please fetch Mother from the Temple?”
“Of—of course.”
“Explain it carefully so she won’t be alarmed. She’ll understand once you tell her we need all available research on Ancient Curses.”
“A curse? On Artiela?”
Father swayed under the shock, and it was Kirien—equally stunned, his eyes losing focus—who steadied him.
“Yes. The Source of Malevolence left us a parting gift yesterday.”
Ysiel’s jaw clenched audibly.
She couldn’t fathom how it had managed the deception. Artiela had clearly healed the wound with her own Holy Power.
Even after invoking the sacred tree yesterday to verify, they’d found nothing wrong. The strange barrier of Corrupted Holy Power had vanished without a trace.
‘Surely not.’
The Corrupted Holy Power—could that have been the problem all along?
Even now, Artiela’s right hand was rotting from within, corrupted by that profane and twisted essence. The surface showed no sign of it, but there was no telling when it might consume her entire body.
That’s why she’d drawn the Holy Sword with her left hand instead.
“Bleo?”
“Go ahead, speak.”
“We need to take Artiela to Edelion. May I borrow the family carriage? It would be more comfortable than the one there.”
She’d heard the sacred tree’s warning and mobilized knights to rush here as quickly as possible. Yet it still felt as though she’d left her twin sibling in danger alone—guilt flickered across Ysiel’s eyes.
Artiela becoming a Holy Knight, drawing the Holy Sword—it was all ultimately her doing.
“Of course. I’ll have the finest one brought around.”
“Use the Imperial carriage.”
Ordinarily, Ysiel would have refused the Emperor’s kindness, but she nodded.
“Thank you, Your Majesty. The dark essence within the Imperial Palace is being purified by the Priest Order as we speak, so you needn’t worry about that. They are all specialized in Anti-Dark Magic Barriers.”
“I’m grateful.”
“And…….”
Ysiel fixed Peter with an unwavering gaze. The Emperor’s eyes slid away.
“If your schedule permits, I’d like to ask Your Majesty to visit Edelion as well.”
“I’ll make time for it. Right now, I must attend to restoring order here first.”
Peter nodded easily, yet the look in Ysiel’s eyes as she watched him remained troubled.
“Is this another act of the Source of Malevolence? Or the Dark Mages again?”
Peter asked Kirien with an accusatory tone.
“Well, even if it’s the Dark Mages, it’s ultimately the Source of Malevolence’s doing—aimed at the Duke, so it’s all the same, isn’t it? Controlling your Aura alone won’t solve the problem, it seems.”
……
Kirien’s hands clenched into fists.
Soltis and his son tensed slightly, half-expecting Kirien’s agitated Aura to lash out, but mercifully it did not.
“I’ll send a proxy for the remaining noble council meetings.”
“I didn’t know you had a trustworthy proxy. I’d heard your retainers were terrified of meeting you.”
“I’ve gained a steadfast friend I can trust more than any oath-sworn vassal.”
Kirien looked at Bleo.
“Surely not me?”
“Yes. I ask this of you, Bleo.”
“Well, I’m at the Imperial Palace daily anyway, so attending shouldn’t be difficult, but…….”
Bleo glanced toward Peter.
He’d already sensed why Kirien was asking him. He could guess what words had been exchanged in that meeting room.
“I trust you, Bleo.”
Kirien blinked at him, his eyes clear and gentle.
Pure, serene, somehow distant.
“Ah, this is…….”
A facial attack. No wonder everyone—man and woman alike—succumbed to it.
“Yes, I’ll end my days at the Temple from now on.”
Bleo found himself nodding as if under a spell.
* * *
Artiela was once again carried to the carriage on a stretcher borne by Holy Knights.
“Our captain’s going to be all right, yes?”
“They said it’s just exhaustion. She expended a great deal of Holy Power.”
“Phew, I suppose switching from Aura to Holy Power continuously is taxing when you’re used to one or the other.”
“The opponent was formidable enough to warrant it.”
“Hush, all of you. Keep quiet.”
This was the Imperial Palace. During the Priest Order’s conference, Kirien had heard that it was best not to reveal to the world yet that the Source of Malevolence had returned.
It was said that because the creature’s objective this time was clear, and it had yet to seize the Sacrifice, it wasn’t shaking the world as it had in ages past.
And that Sacrifice was their precious youngest member.
“Were you injured anywhere, sir?”
“Ah, no—fortunately the building didn’t collapse or anything of that sort.”
“Your training has clearly borne fruit.”
“There’s just one thing…….”
When Kirien’s expression turned troubled, the holy knights regarded him with puzzlement, their faces pressed forward expectantly—a silent plea for him to speak.
“How does one develop Holy Power?”
“Ah, so you haven’t developed any yet, and thus haven’t met the Admission Requirements?”
There needed to be at least some trace of it. The tiniest amount, as meager as what their commander possessed.
“Yes, if possible, I’d like to develop a great deal of it.”
That way he could protect Artiela—not merely receive protection from her, but be the one who shielded her.
“Hmm, I performed a hundred-day vigil of prayer. Fasting completely. I suffered considerably rebuilding my muscles afterward.”
“I happened to aid a priest who had fallen into hardship. She blessed me, saying I’d excel as a holy knight—and the very next day, Holy Power manifested within me, however faintly.”
“I was born with it. I refused to spend my whole life in celibacy as a priestess, so I trained hard in martial strength and became a knight instead.”
“Even without romance for a lifetime, it manifests.”
Kirien turned over their counsel in his mind, sifting for what might be useful.
With Holy Power, that creature wouldn’t so easily make him its target. Such power had inherent resistance to evil, they had said.
Kirien checked the state of the Sacred Object. It had returned to its natural color.
“If you forcibly take an unwilling woman and make her empress, will she be happy? Will that woman be happy? Will His Majesty? Will the Empire? No—all will fall to misery. Even the children yet unborn.”
“Ah, so you too are unhappy?”
He truly wanted to kill the emperor.
It wasn’t his own humiliation that troubled him. It was the emperor’s greed to possess Artiela even as he shattered a taboo Kirien himself knew—that ugliness repelled him utterly.
At that very moment, his head had begun to throb as if it might burst. Nearly simultaneously, the Sacred Object started to cloud over with ash.
‘It felt different from usual.’
This time too there was agony.
He had said it felt as though his body was being seized by another, but it was more precise to describe it as a bifurcation of body and mind. The pain was so acute that even the emotion he’d felt moments before began to blur away.
“Perhaps it turned out for the best, Bailey? If the pain hadn’t been unbearable, I might have become a terrible person who used my own suffering as an excuse to harm others.”
Perhaps what he’d told Bailey then was the truest articulation.
The anguish that befell me erased even the wickedness in my heart. So I was forced, in a sense, to live virtuously.
That headache always arrived whenever he harbored some small greed, or whenever he resented another.
“Ah…….”
A sudden realization struck Kirien, and he clenched his fists. The holy knights moved to comfort him.
“At least you’ve cleared your name well, haven’t you?”
“Yes, thanks to Ati—that is, thanks to the commander. The stigma is lifted. But the moment I attended the nobles’ assembly, this trouble erupted again…….”
Kirien, the harbinger of misfortune.
Perhaps this stigma would cling to him once more.
Or was it not a stigma at all?
Peculiar, wasn’t it?
That voice he’d heard when the Sacred Object changed most deeply—it had revealed the destination of a corruption that would not be suppressed today.
All of this, you created.
Instead of his soul, his greed and blackened heart had been stolen and coalesced into a sphere, manifesting before his eyes.
And that was precisely the reason he could not help but feel affection for Artiela.

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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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