THE TRAGEDY OF THE VILLAINESS

Chapter 129

Sponsored by TheWackyWombat. Thank you 💖 (1/5)

***

It was a scene that involved Cassius. Cassius once dared to treat the female protagonist, Lina, as if she was invisible, even though she was the Saintess. He liked her, vaguely thinking of her status as royalty, but Lina proudly told him that she was not royalty or nobility, but only a commoner.

Cassius then felt confused about his feelings. Not only that, but he also ignored Lina. He drew an embarrassing line at Lina, who pretended to know him at the ball.

When Nisos witnessed the scene, he was terribly confused by his brother’s attitude, and even fought lightly with Cassius…

Perhaps because he was the second son, Nissos was given a lower title than Cassius. Nissos was less authoritative than Cassius, though more human-like. He had the same bad luck, though.

If Seria had to choose one of the two, she’d go with Nissos… they both weren’t very good.

Nissos asked why he was in such a state. Seria told him it was because he was weak. She also gave him the doctor prescribed.

Nissos looked like he didn’t understand, but he couldn’t ignore Berg’s doctor. She could tell by the way he took his medicine.

“So why did you tell me to come up here?” (Nissos)

“I’m thinking of giving you a present.” (Seria)

“A present?” (Nissos)

Seria had to have a good reason to call Nissos here.

“Here you go.” (Seria)

Seria held out the small box on the side table. It was an amulet, the cheapest of all the holy relics she had bought at the auction house where she had gone to get Mies.

She thought he was going to complain, but surprisingly, Nissos’ eyes grew wide as he looked at the amulet in the box. It was quiet.

“Why, out of the blue?” (Nissos)

He cleared his throat several times and took the amulet from the box.

Seria stood up and said, “You’ve done your job, now go.”

“What? Go? Are you kidding? Do you know how long it takes to get here from Kellyden?”

“There’s a Kellyden mansion in the capital as well.”

Nissos, who was looking at Seria with an exasperated expression, stood up from the bed, mumbling repeatedly. However, he listened well, because when Seria told him to go, he really tried to leave…

Seria glanced at the skinny Nissos and said,

“Have lunch and go.”

****

“He eats really well.”

Seria smiled at what Susan said with a smile. Her story was true. Nissos had such an appetite that she was a little embarrassed in front of the servants. No, she thought he was on a diet because he had lost so much weight. She didn’t expect him to finish the food on the table so aggressively.

Of course, Berg’s food was delicious. The chicken in a rich, hot cream sauce was one of Chef Berg’s 40 specialties.

Of course, that was not the only thing he ate.

Nissos also ate several pieces of white bread the size of the palm of his hand with butter, and a nicely done steak that was slow cooked with grains and pepper. He drank only one glass of wine, though. Nissos Kellyden was a high-class aristocrat with elegant manners, and one wrong move and he would have looked like a beggar scavenging and eating at speed.

‘So it’s now Nissos who gets bullied in Kellyden, not Seria?’

Seria couldn’t help but wonder as she watched Nissos eat eagerly. Moreover, Nissos returned to the mansion in the capital, not in the Kellyden estate. Looking at the back of Nissos on the terrace of the office as he was leaving, Seria had a question.

Duke Dietrich had sold out his connection to Lina . What will Nissos do?

Will he decide not to present it to Lina? Of course, the circlet was already in Seria’s possession.

Baron Ison has lived in seclusion since that day and dared not send anyone to look at it. As Seria stepped out into the hallway, she asked Ben,

“Ben, how is His Highness?”

In the past few days, Lesche had been coming home much later from the Imperial Palace. Ben said with a warm expression on his face.

“I heard he’s coming early today. Oh, by the way, he told you to have dinner with your doctor first.”

“My doctor?”

“Yes, Grand Duchess.”

“……?”

***

“Do I really need to eat this much?”

“Yes, Grand Duchess. Don’t drink alcohol and have some of this juice.”

Seria was puzzled why she had to eat with her doctor. But she only ate a very mild meal that didn’t put pressure on her stomach.

After finishing dinner, Seria asked him why he was doing this, he only gave her a troubled smile.

Then the time was pointed at 8 PM. The doctor left the room for a while and Seria was reading the report on the magic crystal mine. Then after a while, a bowl of black water suddenly appeared in front of her. Treat? The person who offered it to her was none other than….

“Lesche?”

Seria looked up involuntarily. Ben or Susan usually came to let her know when Lesche was coming, so why didn’t anyone let her know this time? When she looked around, her doctor, who had been away, was also here. As Seria accepted the hospitality offered by Lesche, she asked.

“What’s this?”

“Drink it.”

“……?”

Seria alternately looked at the drink and Lesche.

“Is it poison?”

“Poison?”

Lesche asked back with an absurd expression, and took the spoon out from the bowl. He gulped some of the black water and tried to feed Seria directly from his mouth. Seria laughed.

“I’ll drink it.”

Seri took a sip and frowned.

“What is this?”

“I think I’m going to collapse.”

“Is it medicine?”

“Yes.”

The doctor standing behind Lesche quickly added.

“It’s a valuable medicine to help with your energy. Grand Duchess.”

“Ha.”

It was a precious medicine. It didn’t taste very good, but it was not undrinkable. And Seria didn’t have much to say because she collapsed often. So she continued to take the medicine earnestly. It was worth taking because she thought it was like nutritional medicine.

The problem was that the more she drank, the weirder she felt. It smelled like rich ripe grapes and chocolate blooming beyond the distinctive peppermint flower scent. But it tasted strange, and her mouth was gradually turning into toothpaste, a taste that she could not forget, even if she tried…

Seria opened my mouth, tilting her head.

“Metis Flowers?”

“How do you know?”

The doctor’s eyes turned round and asked. Seria was also perplexed.

“Lesche, is it real Metis Flowers?”

“You should  finish it.”

Lesche held Seria’s hands and raised the bowl to her mouth. Seria finished the medicine and blinked her eyes.

She finished quickly and Lesche took the bowl and gave it to the doctor, who gave her a glass of water. After she washed the bitter taste out of her mouth, she asked,

“How did you get it?”

Lesche replied with an indifferent expression.

“I got it at random.”

“Random?”

That was ridiculous.

So when Seria woke up as Seria in the novel not long ago. She remembered drinking an infusion of Metis flowers in that temple.

The Metis flower was so expensive and precious that even the temple, which could gather all kinds of precious offerings if it wanted to, could only prepare one cup of it and arbitrarily fed it to Stern who appeared first.

At the time, she was able to consume the exorbitantly expensive medicine thanks to arriving a bit earlier than the other Stern, Myote.

It was unknown if the temple felt obliged to her (Seria), or if they just didn’t want to give it to Myote. The High Priest taught her (Seria) in great detail the price of Metis flowers and how to get them.

Seria learned that it was a flower that even the emperor of the Glick Empire could not easily obtain. Indeed, a huge amount of money was a must, and it was a legendary medicine that could only be obtained with luck.

Seria knew roughly how much Metis flowers cost. For Lesche, money was not the issue, but getting it  was like taking the stars out of the sky itself.

Lesche said as he sat down beside Seria.

“The Polvas offered it to me.”

“He presented it to you?”

Seria tilted her head.

“Are you planning another demon subjugation?”

Lesche touched Seria’s eyes. His fingers squeezed the tip of her brows with soft force.

“It came to that. We voted to take back the land of Polvas.”

“I see.”

The other day, Duke Howard was heavily defeated in a regular demon subjugation. Duke Howard suffered a great blow to the family’s power as a result. They also had to give up their greed for the “Demon subjugation” that they had been trying to monopolize for so long.

Originally, the battle to defeat demons was held every three years, but this time it was only the Duke of Howard’s troops that suffered the disaster. They wanted to show that the vacancy in the Berg was unimportant, so they forced themselves, and the other noble knights ended up in relative safety.

So, the noble council voted to have a temporary war on a smaller scale than originally planned….That was Lesche’s story.

Of course, it was on the condition that Berg would definitely participate.

When she heard Lesche’s story, Seria tilted her head.

“There are contaminated lands in Berg, too. Why are you not looking for it?”

Lesche asked with a small smile.

“Seria, are you busy?”

“Unlike you, I’ve finished everything that needs to be done.”

“Then give me some time.”

Seria raised her eyebrows slightly as she looked at Lesche, then smiled.

“Okay.”

Lesche smiled lightly and held out his hand to Seria. Seria grabbed his hand and stood up. Lesche took Seria to his office. They checked the map spread out on the desk and saw what kind of land they were going to explore this time in Polvas estate.

After checking the boundary of the land contaminated with magi, Seria raised her head.

“The next plains belonged to Berg. Is this the kind of land you’re talking about?”

‘I’ve never been there either, as it’s a contaminated and closed plain from previous generations.”

“The scale of the plain is tremendous.”

Indeed, they could not enter or attempt to enter without reclaiming the land of the Polvas and securing travel routes. The road was like that. Seria asked, looking at Lesche.

“Ah. So, three years from now, do you want to explore this plain before the official defeat?”

“Yes. I think that would be a good idea.”

“Yes, you should. That’s good.”

Seria understood if the plan was to look ahead to three years from now. She nodded, but she still felt a strange twinge in a corner of her heart. It was a kind of instinctive feeling…

However, it was solved sooner than she thought, because the large desk used by Grand Duke Berg was piled with papers, and one by one, her eyes scanned the papers.

There was the list of rewards for participating in the battle.