The Villain Who Will Kill Me Is Too Handsome, It's Troublesome - Chapter 71

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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 71.
Bailey had been a maid taken in by Bertia when the latter was young. She had found the starving girl and raised her like a sister, giving her a home and work.
After Bertia disappeared, Lillian had tried to take Bailey in, but she was already gone.
“On our lady’s wishes, I entered the Duke’s Residence.”
She had cared for Kirien’s half-siblings while waiting to meet him.
It was also Bailey who had secretly hinted to the previous duke that Bertia had disappeared while with child.
“Why didn’t you tell me she was my mother’s maid?”
Kirien sounded genuinely hurt.
“You never seemed curious about your birth mother, so I didn’t think to mention it.”
……
That was true enough.
Not uncurious so much as afraid to ask.
He’d been occupied enough learning about the Duke’s Residence; asking about what had passed between his father and birth mother felt like a betrayal of the siblings who’d been kind to him.
And there was the certainty that knowing more about his mother wouldn’t change anything.
“Even so, I never thought Bertia would hide her pregnancy from me.”
Lillian sounded displeased as well.
“She likely couldn’t bring herself to tell you after that quarrel with the Countess. Perhaps she felt too ashamed.”
Artiela found herself curious—why had the two of them fought?
Before she could ask, Bailey smiled and answered the unspoken question.
“The Countess had seen the firstborn was a boy, so she insisted our lady absolutely must have a daughter next to arrange a marriage between them. But our lady said the firstborn would certainly be a son, so there was no point in such expectations.”
Quarreling over something so trivial.
“Bertia was right. I lost that one.”
“Still, it seems as though the wish those two in-laws shared has been fulfilled after all, so perhaps our lady is smiling from heaven, isn’t she?”
A bittersweet smile, tinged with happiness. Bailey gazed at Artiela with such warm eyes that if Bertia were alive, surely she would be seen with the same tenderness.
Those eyes were so kind that Artiela nearly stumbled.
Catching Yusiel’s smirk, she straightened at once and quickly produced something.
“Bailey, have you ever seen this before?”
The Jewelry Box infused with Bertia’s power.
The moment Bailey saw it, she reacted.
“My goodness, where did you find this?”
“It really was Mother’s Jewelry Box?”
Kirien asked from beside her, his eyes alight with cautious hope.
“Yes, she’d had it since childhood.”
“The key?”
“I’m not certain…… She did say she’d hidden it somewhere…… It might be written in her diary. I’ll search for it when we return home.”
Another clue had fallen into place. Artiela smiled with satisfaction, but beside her, Yusiel looked her up and down.
“You said you were going to the Imperial Palace to find the Sacred Relic, so why do you look like a beggar?”
“Oh, that’s right. The 2nd Princess has passed away.”
“So suddenly?”
Lillian was shocked too; she’d even laughed at the amusing tale of her son receiving a marriage proposal from the 2nd Princess.
“Yes, she couldn’t endure the pressure after being manipulated by the Source of Evil.”
“How terrible.”
Yusiel turned to look at her mother.
“Mother, it seems we need to prepare for the funeral first.”
“Of course. You’ll be busy with that. I’ll prepare with him and head to the Imperial Palace.”
The two exchanged a meaningful glance. Where their eyes met was upon Artiela’s right hand.
The Time Magic’s duration was running out. The last time it had briefly lifted, it had been consumed at tremendous speed. So if it wore off this time, perhaps……
“Why are you both looking at me like that? Is something wrong with our knight?”
Bailey, noticing the mother and daughter’s concern, opened her eyes wide and turned to Kirien.
“Well, her arm has developed a slight problem.”
“Oh my, how did that happen……”
Bailey gently caressed Artiela’s right hand. It felt just like a mother’s touch.
“You’ll be all right, miss.”
Everything will be all right, child.
Somehow, that was how Bailey’s words sounded to Artiela.
* * *
A shaft of sunlight pierced through the darkest corner of the Demon Tower.
The Source of Evil, opening its eyes in that place, smiled with satisfaction.
“Is it almost here now?”
He smiled with a sickly edge to it.
In this world, love—counted among the noblest and most formidable of human values—took many forms. And he had already cornered every one of them.
There was the mother who had rewritten the fate of the world and her own children.
There was the woman whose long-harbored affection had twisted into something ugly when touched by jealousy and inferiority, earning her abandonment.
There was the woman whose heart—whether love or possession, he could not say—he had shaken, and whose Sacred Relic he had removed because it grated upon him.
So now the time had come.
The light that Kirien Rufel possessed was originally his own, after all.
Because Kirien bore all that filth, he was enjoying happiness—so wasn’t it time to collect payment?
He had driven the 2nd Princess to her death, dragging Kirien back out of Edelion once more.
And yet one problem remained unsolved.
“Is all well, my God?”
From the mouth of the Source of Evil, who had been reaching to seize Kirien’s body anew, black blood suddenly gushed forth.
“Cursed Holy Power.”
Holy Power, by its nature, required a heart that cared for others and faith in the Divine—it could not manifest in one who lacked both. Kirien, isolated as he had been and consumed with his own survival, ought never to have possessed such power. By all reason, he should not.
He had accumulated no good deeds, and the only reason he had lived without sin was because of the Source of Evil itself.
Yet the moment the Sacred Relic was removed, that power had only grown stronger.
“Has the Sacrificial Vessel acquired Holy Power?”
The Source of Evil did not answer the Black Sorcerer’s question. Instead, it closed its eyes and sank into darkness.
The Black Sorcerer faltered, lifting his head toward the shadow in confusion.
“What would you have me do, my God?”
The Source of Evil’s voice emerged faintly.
“Shake them.”
Make them hate and suspect one another.
Yes, that is what love is—something so fragile it shatters at even the smallest crack.
Had it not watched this truth unfold across countless lives? How shallow human faith truly was.
Before the Black Sorcerer, a Cloth Fragment fluttered down—inscribed with the incantations of Dark Sorcery, that shadow-knowledge the sorcerers revered.
“Whom should I shake, my God?”
“Who else? Family, surely. That would be best.”
The Source of Evil, which had laughed with a bitter rasp in the darkness, suddenly hardened its expression. A moment ago, it had sensed something near its Sacrificial Vessel—something……
‘That accursed Holy Knight. He is still alive, then?’
It was certain it had drained him of all strength.
A mere instant, but unmistakable.
* * *
The Imperial Palace had plunged into sorrow under the weight of successive calamities.
Though they called him a tyrant, the Grand Duke Yufailer had fallen. Then the Emperor lay unconscious, and hard upon that came the death of the 2nd Princess.
Before that, the 2nd Prince and his mother, the Deposed Empress who had borne him, had died—and even her family line was extinguished.
“Could it be a curse from the Deposed Empress?”
“She was close with the Black Sorcerers—it seems possible, does it not?”
While such whispers circulated, the 1st Princess dutifully received mourners and observed the funeral rites.
“Welcome, Holy Maiden, Duke Rufel. And Lady Artiela as well.”
The moment Yusiel and Artiela entered, the Prayer Hall of the Imperial Palace, where the funeral was being held, fell silent. Though only briefly, the whispers soon resumed.
“Did you hear? The Source of Evil has appeared?”
“They’re saying a woman drew the Holy Sword—”
“No, no, the opposite. The Source of Evil appeared because the Holy Sword’s rightful master came forth, or so I heard?”
But the two of them paid the gossip no mind. Clad in black ceremonial robes—the Holy Maiden in her black vestments, the other in a black military dress—they proceeded to the coffin placed deepest within the Chapel.
The Holy Knight Order and the Priesthood followed in their wake.
Yusiel traced a Sacred Symbol first, then began a prayer for the dead, and the priests and Holy Knights joined in reverent supplication.
Whether a believer or not, the solemnity of the moment compelled all present to bow their heads and pray in unison.
As the 1st Princess distributed flowers to the mourners and the prayers continued through the offerings, they did not end until the last visitor had laid their flowers upon the casket.
“Looking at the 2nd Princess’s expression, she seems to have found peace in the arms of the Divine.”
“Her body suffered considerable damage.”
“No, she has been restored. Oh, we found something in the 2nd Princess’s quarters.”
At the 1st Princess’s words, a maidservant brought forward a box cradled upon a velvet cushion.
“Is this the Sacred Relic?”
It was the lost Boutonniere.
“Yes, that’s right. We should return it to Duke Rufel.”
Yusiel promptly handed it to Kirien.
But trouble erupted. The moment Kirien took it, the beautiful pink pearl transformed into a deep ashen gray.
Artiela, startled, drew the Bardo. The onlookers could not even scream; they simply covered their mouths.
Yet nothing happened.

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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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