Hush Now, Saintess!

Yeah, it’s not that big of a deal.

Even though she had gotten chased after by that conman right in front of the imperial crown prince.

And eventually fell into his arms after receiving his help.

I even said he’s cute before running away…

‘Ha. I shouldn’t have run away like that.’

Now that I think about it, I wonder why I did that.

They were hiding their identities anyway, and there’s no reason for me to avoid him since I needed to change my fate.

‘I dunno. My body just moved by itself.’

Hildeon Kyros.

As I recalled earlier, he was the one who killed Roella in the original novel.

It happened around the middle of the novel’s first part.

When she had been found out as a fake saintess, Roella couldn’t be satisfied with just bullying Sylvia with petty methods anymore. And so, she went as far as attempting to murder the real saintess.

In the end, Roella could not escape a guilty verdict, and she was sentenced to a life in prison.

Attempted murder against the saintess of the Kyros Empire was not just a light issue.

The petty bullying that Roella did previously got swept under the rug, courtesy of Duke Brietta, but he couldn’t do anything about the attempted murder.

That’s how Roella got imprisoned in the dungeon of the imperial palace…

‘After she was locked up, she got caught up in Hildeon’s rampage, then died.’

I let out a deep sigh.

Then, that night.

I had a dream about the day Roella died in the original novel.

* * *

“Keugh…! S-Save me…”

Thud.

The woman’s urgent voice disappeared for a moment.

Roella closed her mouth tightly and endured as best as she could. She pushed down the urge to scream.

She slid down against the wall of the imperial palace.

She couldn’t move because her legs were so weak.

Just a few minutes ago…

Her prison cell’s door suddenly opened when a commotion broke out.

She didn’t know what was happening, but all around her, the prisoners ran outside while cheering.

However, Roella couldn’t follow after them easily.

Settling deep within her was an unknown sense of anxiety that she couldn’t dismiss.

‘Why did the prison cells open all of a sudden?’

Even if she had gotten imprisoned, it was still a fact that she was the esteemed daughter of a ducal household of paladins. She could surmise what the situation could be.

The first assumption was that the central authority in charge of controlling the prison doors had fallen.

Second…

‘A crisis has occurred, and the prisoners need to be urgently evacuated.’

Though she was the last to get out of the dungeon, Roella quickly found out the reason why the prison doors were opened.

It was because of a crisis.

Not only that, but it was a catastrophic crisis.

“Aaaack! Someone, please save me!”

“P-Please… Please, someone…”

“Move! Get out of my way!”

The world was a sea of fire.

Terrible screams rang out everywhere, and corpses were littered all over, unable to scream any longer.

It was also extremely difficult to breathe because of a black energy that was filling their surroundings.

With her back against the wall, Roella wrapped her arms around herself.

‘I have to…. I have to run away.’

But at that moment.

Ta-dak, ta-dak, ta-dak.

As heavy footsteps echoed from the ground, someone’s shadow fell upon her.

She couldn’t breathe.

No. It would be more accurate to say that she had forgotten how to breathe.

Roella’s eyes turned upward.

As her pupils were shaking, her gaze was met by the green eyes of a man completely shrouded by a black shadow, staring at her eerily.

It was the creator of this hell.

“…Your Highness.”

Crown Prince Hildeon Kyros.

A smile slowly rose over his pale face, which had black veins crawling from the sides.

“It’s been a while, Ducal Lady.”

After only that short greeting, Roella’s vision gradually tilted.

And the view above her darkened.

It was the last scene that Roella saw before she met her demise.

* * *

“Ugh, that was much too vivid.”

Thinking back on the dream I had when I drifted off in the carriage a few days ago, I shivered.

It was such a vivid nightmare that I couldn’t easily forget it even though it’s been days now.

Thanks to this, my memorable first meeting with Hildeon was also firmly engraved in my mind.

Right. A dark history like that would be remembered forever.

What’s comforting now, however, was that Hildeon and I had nothing to do with each other.

‘We just have the kind of distant relationship where we only see each other coincidentally from time to time. What I did was soooo embarrassing…’

In the first place, Hildeon and Roella weren’t acquainted at all in the original novel. They only met as ‘the person who protects Sylvia’ and as ‘the person who harasses Sylvia’.

So, as long as I didn’t appear in front of Sylvia at all, Hildeon and I had no more reason to see each other again.

But there’s one thing that was still bothering me…

I fiddled with the little mineral in my hand.

It was the sacred relic that I got from Bastion.

‘I’m pretty sure he went there for this thing.’

Going back a little, during the night of the incident.

I only belatedly recalled one of the original novel’s chapters.

Around the novel’s beginning, Hildeon and Hestin hid their identities and infiltrated a dark alley to steal a sacred relic.

By all accounts, that novel chapter must have been depicting the events of that day.

That dark alley was Bastion.

And the sacred relic that they stole…

‘It must be the sacred relic that I took with me.’

Out of the blue, I interrupted their mission.

However, I couldn’t help but feel that it was unfair.

‘I didn’t steal it because I wanted to! Besides!’

It was rather good for them that I was the one who inevitably stole the sacred relic.

Because it wasn’t just an ordinary one.