Chapter 203
Chapter 203
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 203
Chapter Title: Well-fed Hypocrisy and Hungry Goodness (7)
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When did it start?
When did her kind father change so drastically?
Was it when they were forced to send her older sister away?
Or was it when she returned as an Awakened?
Or perhaps.
Had he been hiding his twisted true nature behind a mask of kindness from the very beginning?
Just as she had pretended to be the Saintess of Rome to hide the fact that she was the Leech Queen.
"...Why."
Isabella forced her reluctant lips to part.
As if squeezing the words out.
She asked.
"Why... did you do it?"
It was true that she had significantly reduced her father's authority after taking control of the family.
But Paolo, who had never been an 'Awakened,' had been crushed by the power of the branch families long before Isabella's return, living as a patriarch in name only.
In fact, it was only after Isabella came back and crushed all the branch families that he was able to enjoy more power than before.
And yet.
Why.
"Was I such a thorn in your side? Enough to bring in the Seven Stars to have me killed?"
"......"
"Say something, Father. You were always good at talking, weren't you?"
Isabella looked at him with a weary expression.
Paolo hung his head low, clenching his fists in silence.
"Why... did I do it?"
His clenched fists trembled slightly.
"Are you really asking... because you don't know?"
"Yes. I can't figure it out, no matter how hard I think."
"Because of you... because of you! You don't know what a miserable life I've lived?!"
Paolo cried out as if wailing.
"The patriarch's authority? I was better off before you came! Better off living as a puppet of the branch families, with no hope at all!"
At least back then, his mind was at ease.
He could console himself by thinking he just wasn't lucky enough to become an Awakened, that he hadn't been chosen by a Constellation.
It was a hollow title.
But at least he hadn't felt miserable.
But.
"After you... after you returned... everything fell apart."
Isabella was competent.
Excessively so.
Regardless of being an Awakened, she had a natural talent for handling people.
Hiding the fact that she was the 'Awakened of the Leech Constellation,' she hadn't used her powers as an Awakened to crush the heads of the branch families.
First, she used the land and businesses exclusive to the main Colagrande family line as bait to incite conflict among the branch families.
It was like tossing a single sheep into a pack of wolves.
Blinded by greed, the branch families pounced on the bait with fire in their eyes, and she fanned the flames of their conflict by turning them against each other.
In the midst of it all, she approached exceptionally talented Awakened and formed a personal guard directly under the Colagrande family.
'And then.'
The rest was swift and smooth.
After secretly absorbing the businesses of the branch families, who were exhausted from fighting each other, and growing her own power, she brought them all to their knees.
Yes.
All of it.
It was something 'Paolo Colagrande' could have done as well.
"You'll never know how miserable, how utterly miserable I felt!"
Isabella had accomplished what he had given up on, believing it was impossible for him.
Calmly, nonchalantly.
So effortlessly, as if it were nothing at all.
The misery he felt then.
Became a sharp dagger that tore him to pieces.
"Do you remember what you made the branch family heads do after you subjugated them? Huh?"
"...I told them to apologize to you, Father."
"Yes! You made them apologize to me!"
Ahh.
How could he ever forget that nightmare?
The sight of them, forced to bow their heads and grovel!
Their eyes, filled with contempt and ridicule as they looked at him, the man who had done nothing and reaped the victory thanks to his competent daughter!
"If... if I had been as competent as you, if I had possessed the same talent."
Then.
If that had been the case.
"Cassia... that poor child... I could have saved her...."
Paolo screamed, curled up on the floor.
When pressure to banish Cassia came from all sides under the pretext of 'tradition.'
If Isabella had been the patriarch instead of him.
"I didn't want to know... I never wanted to know something like that."
If only he had known nothing.
That happy future he thought was as unreachable as a towering evil.
If he could have lived without knowing that it was a future he could have reached on his own two feet.
He wouldn't have been this miserable.
He wouldn't have been this wretched.
"I... I hate you. I hate you more than anyone for making me realize the truth."
Paolo sobbed, glaring at Isabella.
"......"
Isabella looked down at the sobbing Paolo, her lips sealed tight.
It hurt.
Her chest, her heart.
As if being gouged by a sharp knife, as if being seared by a hot iron.
It hurt so, so much.
"...Pa, pa."
What slipped from her lips was the name she had called Paolo in her childhood.
She clutched the hem of her blood-soaked dress and bit her lip.
"I... I didn't."
That wasn't my intention.
She never thought her actions would make him feel so miserable.
She just.
'I just wanted to go back to that time.'
When the whole family laughed together.
To those faded days.
I just wanted to go back.
"Ah, ugh."
Isabella clutched her chest and staggered backward.
How did it come to this?
How did it all fall apart?
"Hah, hah!"
Her breath came in ragged gasps.
The urge to drink blood, which had vanished after she drank Oh-jin's, began to boil up again.
Isabella bit her lip harshly and raised her arm.
*Charrrrk.*
Dark red blood gathered at her fingertips.
"...Yes."
Paolo looked up at Isabella with a vacant expression.
"Go on and end this miserable life with your own hands."
As if he had no lingering attachments left.
Paolo spoke in a detached voice.
"......"
Isabella trembled slightly, her blood-tipped hand raised.
Killing Paolo was as easy as squashing an ant on the sidewalk.
If she just brought her raised hand down lightly.
Paolo.
Would die.
"Hah, hah, hah."
But for some reason.
Her raised hand wouldn't move.
*Rustle.*
Just then, a photograph blew in the wind and landed at her feet.
'This is...'
The photograph she had secretly kept in her dresser drawer.
It was a picture of her with her family when she was a child.
"...Ah."
Did it fall out of the drawer when the mansion collapsed?
A low sigh escaped Isabella's lips at the coincidence, which felt like a cruel trick of fate.
'I have to kill him.'
Stomping on the photograph at her feet, she took a step toward Paolo.
She raised her hand high, panting raggedly.
'If I don't... kill him now.'
She didn't know how he found out, but.
Paolo had realized she was the Leech Queen.
'It will cause trouble for Mr. Oh-jin, too.'
If word got out that Oh-jin had sided with an Executor of the Black Star Society.
It was obvious that it would be a huge stain on his reputation, now that he was hailed as a hero and called the Lightning Wolf.
She couldn't let Paolo leave this place alive.
Yes.
The hope she had cherished in her heart had now become a dream that could never come true.
"*Hic, sob.*"
Tears welled up in Isabella's eyes.
"Why, why, why, why."
The shattered fragments of her hope became tears that streamed down her cheeks.
"...My princess."
"Don't call me that!"
Isabella shouted, glaring at Paolo.
"I told you not to... call me that."
Sobbing, she focused her magical energy into her raised arm.
The dark red blood at her fingertips transformed into the shape of a giant scythe.
The scythe, shaped like a vampire's fang, touched the crown of Paolo's head.
Paolo looked up at the weeping Isabella and gave a faint smile.
"I'm sorry."
"......"
"I'm sorry for being such a worthless father."
"Just shut up. Saying that won't make me spare you."
Paolo had forcibly caused the dragon vein to rampage to make her use the Stigma of the Leech.
Although she'd managed to minimize the damage with Oh-jin and Ha-eun's help.
At least hundreds of people had lost their lives in the monster's attack that day.
Innocent people who had simply come to the sea to enjoy a vacation.
"Do you... even know what you've done?"
The image of the wailing bereaved families vividly resurfaced in her mind.
Among the victims were a pregnant woman who had just conceived, a newlywed couple on their honeymoon, and people who had come on a trip with their parents as a filial gesture.
She herself hadn't lived a completely blameless life.
But she knew all too well that she couldn't overlook what Paolo had done just because he was her father.
"......"
Paolo closed his eyes gently, as if he had said all he needed to say.
"Hah, hah, hah!"
Isabella heaved ragged breaths that reached her chin as she raised the blood-red scythe.
'Just bring it down.'
Yes.
This is the end.
If she just lowers her hand a foot.
She would no longer have to struggle and claw after those faded days that would never return.
'It's not hard.'
It's easier than squashing an ant crawling on the sidewalk.
'I, I, I...!'
Isabella squeezed her eyes shut.
The tears streaming down her cheeks formed droplets on her chin and fell to the ground.
And then.
*Shwick!*
*Thud, thudududuk.*
Paolo's severed head rolled across the floor.
"...Huh?"
Isabella opened her tightly shut eyes and stared at her own arm with a bewildered expression.
The blood-red scythe in her hand was still raised high, frozen in place.
"What in the world..."
When she turned her head with confused eyes, she saw.
Oh-jin, standing there impassively, a bloodied spear in his hand.
Oh-jin, who had been looking down at Paolo's head on the floor, slowly raised his gaze.
"I killed him."
Oh-jin walked over to the trembling Isabella and gently pulled her into an embrace.
"Mr. Oh-jin...?"
"It wasn't you. I'm the one who killed him."
"Why... Why you, Mr. Oh-jin?"
Isabella asked in a trembling voice.
Oh-jin lightly patted her back and continued in a low voice.
"You didn't do anything."
That's right.
The hope she had cherished in her heart, the happiness she had so desperately longed for.
She hadn't shattered it with her own hands.
"I did."
The one who shattered her hope.
The one who trampled it completely.
"I killed him with my own hands."