Chapter 199
Chapter 199
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 199
Chapter Title: Well-fed Hypocrisy and Hungry Goodness (3)
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“You must be… Sir Damian Salvatore.”
Isabella smiled brightly as she looked at Damian, who had walked out from behind Paolo.
Suppressing the turmoil in her heart, she continued to speak with a natural air, as if nothing was amiss.
“It's an honor to meet you. I've heard many heroic tales of the Sword of Justice.”
She lifted the hem of her dress slightly and curtsied elegantly.
A natural movement exuding a noble grace.
She seemed far too unfitting for the heinous moniker of 'witch'.
“Hah.”
Damian scoffed in disbelief, glaring at Isabella.
“Have you been deceiving people with such a shameless attitude all this time?”
“It seems you've misunderstood something.”
“Misunderstood? You call this a misunderstanding?”
Damian's expression twisted fiercely.
“Can you really keep spouting that nonsense in front of the father who gave birth to you?”
He glanced at Paolo standing beside him and took a step back.
Paolo nodded and stepped forward.
“I've already secured all the evidence, my dear.”
“Evidence? I don't quite understand what you're saying, Father.”
Isabella tilted her head, feigning innocence.
“Now, do you still not understand after seeing this?”
Paolo, a sneer on his face, pulled a remote control from his pocket.
When he pressed the button, a beam of light shot out from a projector, displaying a video on the wall.
-Karrrrrr!
-Kieeeek!
The video vividly showed Isabella, wreathed in a blood-red aura, slaughtering thousands, tens of thousands of monsters that swarmed her.
“...”
Isabella's gaze turned cold as she watched the video.
Her expression was one of realization, as if she finally understood who was behind the monster incident in San Fruttuoso.
Isabella clenched her fists, which trembled slightly, and shot a glare at Paolo.
“...Was this your doing, Father?”
“Hmm? I don't know what you mean.”
Paolo shrugged his shoulders and shook his head with feigned innocence.
His feigned innocent shrug was just like Isabella's.
“All I know is that my little princess, once called the 'Saintess of Rome,' is not an Awakened of Aries, but an Awakened of the Leech Constellation who drinks human blood.”
“...”
Isabella bit her lip gently.
No matter how one looked at her image in the video, she did not look like an Awakened bearing the Stigma of Aries.
“And I also caught the tail you put on Sir Damian.”
Paolo gestured to Damian with his eyes, and Damian nodded, dragging someone over.
“Mmph! Mmph!”
An old man with gray hair, dressed in a blood-soaked butler's uniform.
Roberto was twisting in Damian's grasp.
Through his torn uniform, the glowing Stigma of the Leech Constellation was visible.
Damian removed the gag from Roberto's mouth.
“Puha!”
“Do you know this woman?”
“...I've never seen her before.”
Roberto shook his head with a stoic expression.
“Is that so?”
As Damian's eyes glinted coldly and his hand reached for the sword at his hip.
“That's right. I'm not an Awakened of Aries, but of the Leech Constellation.”
“M-My Lady Isabella!”
As Isabella nodded in admission, Roberto stared at her with a horrified expression.
Just as a triumphant light gleamed in Paolo's eyes.
“But what of it?”
“...What of it?”
“Look at the video. What does my not being an Awakened of Aries have to do with being a witch? Are you trying to say that killing monsters to protect people is wrong?”
Isabella asked confidently, her back straight.
Paolo frowned.
“An Awakened with the Stigma of the Leech Constellation must periodically drink human blood. If that's not a witch, then what is?”
“Ha, do you think we're vampires from a movie? We can live perfectly fine on just the blood packs you spilled on the floor.”
In truth, she had never killed anyone for blood.
Not even in the days when she couldn't control her vampiric urges.
She had attacked people and drunk their blood, but never to the point of death.
“If needing someone else's blood to live makes one a witch, then I suppose leukemia patients are witches, too.”
In reality, if one delved deeper, the situation was different for an Awakened of the Leech Constellation, as the Stigma itself carried a bloodlust.
But she skillfully continued her rebuttal, conveniently leaving out any mention of the bloodlust.
“...”
Paolo narrowed his eyes, glaring at Isabella.
Her unabashed confidence was so potent that for a moment, even he found himself thinking, *‘Is that so?’*
*‘But.’*
This was not a trial, but a place of judgment.
He had anticipated this and prepared accordingly.
“This video isn't the only evidence, my dear.”
Paolo snapped his fingers lightly.
A group of people draped in luxury brands walked out.
They were the heads of the collateral families whom Isabella had personally subjugated after seizing control of the family.
“This is a report stating that a certain amount of blood disappears every month from the protection centers that witch runs!”
“The only reason she runs those centers is to siphon off blood!”
“Who knows? That bitch might be capturing people and forcing them to give blood! No! That must be it!”
“If you've heard what the Heukseonghoe did in Korea and Japan, it's obvious what that bitch is capable of!”
The family heads shouted, veins bulging in their necks.
Most of what they said was nothing more than malicious speculation, not even evidence.
But what did that matter now?
The only thing important to them was to brand Isabella as a wicked witch, no matter what it took.
“...Hah.”
Listening to the hate-filled accusations pouring down on her, Isabella gave a hollow laugh.
*‘From the very beginning... you never had any intention of listening to me, did you.’*
This was not a situation where logic would work.
“Nonsense! My Lady Isabella would never do such a thing—!”
“Quiet.”
*Thwack!*
Damian swung his fist violently, knocking Roberto unconscious.
“Can you still claim you're not a witch after all this?”
“...”
Isabella sealed her lips shut.
What was the point in denying it here?
*‘I've been had.’*
From the moment Paolo discovered she was an Awakened of the Leech Constellation, her defeat was all but certain.
“I, too, was in great shock when I first learned the truth. To think that my beloved daughter was a vampire who killed people to drink their blood...”
Paolo's eyes began to well up with moisture.
“How... how could you do this to your father? How could you deceive me like this?”
His voice gradually filled with emotion.
A clear tear streamed down Paolo's cheek.
“Say something!”
“...You want me to speak?”
Isabella laughed weakly.
“Do you even intend to listen?”
“Ah. Truly... I can't believe it. Why did that sweet child...”
Paolo winced as if in pain.
“This must all be my fault.”
He let out a deep sigh and turned his head toward Damian.
“Sir Damian. Please... please save my daughter, who has been tainted by evil.”
“Yes.”
Damian nodded and drew the sword from his hip.
*Jingle—*
The scales hanging like bells on either side of the cross-shaped guard chimed with a clear sound.
“...”
Isabella looked up at Paolo with sorrowful eyes.
*‘How.’*
How did things end up like this?
*‘All I wanted... was to go back.’*
She remembered the photograph she kept hidden in her drawer.
A picture of her father, mother, and older sister, all smiling together.
All she wanted was to return to that happiest memory from a childhood she could barely recall.
Was that so wrong?
“Kill the witch!”
Perhaps seeing Damian draw his sword convinced them of their victory.
The emboldened heads of the collateral families pointed at Isabella and shouted.
“Kill her! A wicked witch like that deserves to die!”
“You filthy bitch!”
Accusations echoed through the collapsed mansion.
Having been forced to grovel after being stripped of all their interests and power since Isabella took control of the Colagrande family, the family heads unleashed their suppressed hatred.
“Please, kill that witch!” “The Sword of Justice will punish you!” “Vampire bitch!” “You wicked witch!” “Do you know what happened to us because of you?!” “It's all your fault!” “Demon-like bitch!” “You have no blood or tears!” “This is your karma!” “Make that witch pay for her sins!” “Ptooey! You disgusting bitch!” “Die!” “If only you were gone!” “Kill the witch!”
A viscous malice, gathered under the umbrella of good intentions, was directed at Isabella.
Like judges condemning a sinner.
They cried out for the witch's death.
“...”
Isabella sank to the floor, her strength gone.
She clutched her chest and curled into a ball.
*‘It hurts.’*
Was it because of the curse's influence?
Or was it because the hope she had yearned for so desperately had been shattered to pieces?
*‘It hurts, it hurts, it hurts.’*
Her chest throbbed as if being gouged by a sharp knife.
*‘Mr. Oh-jin.’*
Suddenly.
She wondered what he was doing right now.
He said he went sightseeing in Rome with Ha-eun yesterday. Did he go out early again today?
Since he hadn't shown up even as the ceiling was collapsing, he was likely not in the mansion.
*‘That's a relief.’*
At the very least, she didn't want him, of all people, to find out that she was a vampire who lived by drinking human blood, that she was a filthy, wicked witch.
“It seems you have no intention of offering any further rebuttal.”
*Thud, thud.*
Damian slowly raised his sword.
Though there was still a considerable distance between him and Isabella, for him, a wielder of the Stigma of Libra which controlled 'light,' such a distance was no issue.
*Wooooong!*
The raised sword shone with a brilliant light.
“I am aware that you, Isabella, have cared for many who were lost and hungry.”
Isabella ran dozens of protection centers.
Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of people had likely been saved because of her.
“But.”
If that heart did not stem from a pure, good intention to help others, but was instead for the sake of secretly stealing their blood.
“You are nothing but a filthy hypocrite.”
Like the blade of a guillotine falling.
The highly raised sword cut through the air.
A brilliant light shot out from the blade, aimed at the curled-up Isabella.
And then.
KWAAAAAAANG!!
A deafening roar shook the eardrums.
Along with the terrifying impact, the mansion floor cracked and split apart.
“...Huh?”
A tremendous roar had sounded, for sure.
But she felt no impact on her body.
Isabella, who had been huddled on the ground, slowly raised her head.
*Crackle, crackle!*
Before her was a jet-black spear, wreathed in blue lightning.
It was a spear she knew well.
“What a fucking circus.”
*Thud.*
A young man landed from atop the collapsed debris.
He stood before Isabella, as if to protect her.
“Even hypocrisy is a kind of good, you bastard. A guy who's never given a single fucking dime for anyone else sure loves to act all high and mighty.”
*Hock, ptooey.*
Oh-jin spat a thick glob of phlegm and flipped Damian the middle finger.