Chapter 87
Chapter 87
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 87
Chapter Title: The Saint of Rome (8)
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‘—What?’
The Leech Queen?
Shit, did those bastards just say the Leech Queen?
‘Isabella is the 3rd ranked Executor of the Black Star Guild?’
What kind of bullshit was that?
‘Wait, then what? Who are those bastards… Ah.’
A sensation like a lightning strike.
The mismatched puzzle pieces, the twisted gears, finally clicked into place.
-In any case, things changed a lot after the Black Star Guild showed up. Enough that Marco Zorno, who used to run wild without a care in the world, went into hiding without a peep.
Paolo's voice echoed in his mind.
‘This… is fucking… insane.’
Why couldn't I have realized this sooner?
Why, why, why.
‘The ones targeting Isabella… weren't the Black Star Guild.’
Their clumsy appearance, unbecoming of trained assassins.
Their ferocity, swinging their weapons at civilians without hesitation.
‘The Marco Family.’
They were the ones trying to assassinate Isabella.
‘Wait a second. But I definitely felt the magic of the Black Star from them?’
Why would the Marco Family, who were supposedly pushed out by the Black Star Guild, possess the magic of the Black Star?
‘No way.’
Oh-jin's eyes widened.
Suddenly, a memory from when he inherited Ashad Khan's memories came to mind.
-Huhu. You must fight poison with poison.
The real power in the Black Star Guild, known as the King's Proxy and leader of the ‘Owl’ faction.
Cheon Woo-seong.
The words he had casually mentioned.
‘So "fighting poison with poison"... was he talking about this?’
Now, the entire situation became clear in his mind.
‘The Owl faction and the Marco Family had joined forces.’
That's why.
That's why he felt the magic of the ‘Black Star’ from them.
‘Ah, fuck.’
The situation was so absurd that only curses came out, and his head spun.
‘Putting aside the fact that I didn't feel the Black Star's magic from Isabella.’
If she really was the ‘Leech Queen’, the difference in their levels would literally be heaven and earth, so it was plausible I couldn't detect her magic.
But.
‘…I was completely fooled.’
To say I was careless was just an excuse.
Claiming the situation was bound to be misunderstood was nothing but self-consolation.
He had simply been played for a fool.
By Isabella's masterful acting.
‘Dammit.’
A con artist who couldn't even see through a simple act.
Painful self-reproach weighed him down.
‘I'll reflect on this later.’
This was no time to dwell on past regrets.
Oh-jin narrowed his eyes, focusing his mind on the conversation between Isabella and the Marco Family.
“Ha! Your little prince is down, so now you're bluffing?”
“Hm? A prince? Ah… you mean Mr. Oh-jin.”
Isabella raised the corners of her lips into a slight smile.
“Mr. Oh-jin is certainly as handsome as a prince.”
Huhuhu.
Her eyes sparkled as she looked down at the fallen Oh-jin.
“Kugh! This… this bitch!”
Her completely relaxed demeanor made the assassins flinch.
“—What are you all doing?”
“B-Boss?!”
At that moment.
A young man appeared, pushing through the assassins.
A skinhead with bizarre, intricate tattoos covering his entire body.
“It's been a while~ Marcooo!”
Isabella waved cheerfully at the young man.
Marco's expression twisted viciously.
“You damn bitch… Let's see if you can still run that mouth after I rip it apart.”
“My. As vulgar as ever. Is it because you have no hair?”
“You fucking bitch!!”
Grit!
Marco ground his teeth and raised a spiked bat.
-Wooooong!!
The Stigma on his left chest blazed fiercely, and intense magic swept through the area.
“The curse keeps her from using her magic! Get her now!”
“Yes, sir!”
His subordinates bowed deeply.
“Huhu. Can't use magic, you say.”
Isabella wore a deep smile.
“Indeed. It was quite a nasty curse.”
Because of the Owls' unexpected intervention, the curse cast upon her had been far more powerful than she anticipated.
Yes.
So powerful that even she, the 3rd ranked Executor of the Black Star Guild, a high-level Awakened who had reached a staggering ‘10-Stars’, had her magic sealed.
“—But did you know?”
Isabella spread her arms wide and looked up at the sky.
The sky, once a crimson sunset, had now been dyed in darkness, twinkling with brilliant starlight.
“That the Stigma of the Leech Constellation… becomes several times stronger at night?”
Wooooong!!
Isabella's Stigma emitted a deep, blood-red light.
“…What?”
Marco's eyes wavered.
“N-No. That… that can't be.”
As if he couldn't believe the reality before him.
He trembled, shaking his head.
“It's the Curse of Jamiwon!!! Do you think you can escape its effects just because it's night!!!”
The Curse of Jamiwon.
A top-tier curse.
No, a powerful curse that could be called ‘beyond classification’.
He had poured years of his organization's budget and manpower just to complete the foundation of that curse.
And even then, it was barely completed with the support of the Owls.
That.
“There's no way you could break it in less than half a day!!!! The Curse of Jamiwon is a curse that not even one of the Seven Stars could escape!!!”
“Hmm. Well, that's true.”
Isabella smiled brightly and nodded.
“But that's only if I were one of the 'Seven Stars', isn't it?”
“…What?”
“Huhu. I'm not one of the Seven Stars, you see.”
Her tone suggested she considered herself to be above the Seven Stars.
“Y-You crazy bitch!”
Marco shouted incredulously and glared at his men.
“What are you doing?! Kill that bitch now!!”
“B-But…”
“She's just bluffing, you idiots!! What are you scared of?!”
“Y-Yes, sir!”
At Marco's roar, his men trembled but readied their weapons.
“Dieeeee!!”
“Uwaaaah!”
Hundreds of Awakened charged toward her.
“—Oh my.”
Isabella watched the charging Awakened with a dark smile.
“Such children, who don't seem to value their lives.”
Her fingernails turned crimson.
Extending her index finger.
From left to right.
She drew a blood-red line in the air.
━━━━━━━━━━━━!!!!!!
There was no sound, no noise.
Following the blood-red line that cut through the air,
-Pshhhk!! Pshuaaaak!!!
Necks were slit.
Thud, thud, thud.
Heads rolled across the ground.
Fountains of blood decorated the darkened riverbank.
“Ugh, ah.”
“Ah, ah.”
In an instant.
In less than a second.
“Aaaaaaaargh!!!”
“A m-monster!! She's a monster!!”
More than half of the hundreds of Marco Family members lost their heads and died instantly.
“Ssssp. Haaa~”
Watching the gushing fountains of blood, Isabella took a deep breath.
In a moment, she furrowed her fine eyebrows.
“Hmm. This blood has a disgusting, fishy smell. What have they been eating?”
She glared at the surviving members with displeasure.
“H-Hieeeek!!”
“A witch!! She's a witch!!!”
The members were engulfed in terror.
They turned away from Isabella and began to flee frantically.
“Oh? Where are you going?”
A blood-soaked voice echoed in their ears.
“Aaaaaah!! S-Save me!! Save meeee!!!”
“Y-You crazy bastards!! Don't run!! Anyone who runs dies by my hand!!”
Marco shouted desperately at his fleeing subordinates, but he could no longer stop them.
And where the terrified subordinates fled,
-Pshk!! Chwaaaaaak!!
“Keoheok!! Keok!!!”
“Grrrk!”
Hundreds… no, thousands of fiends wearing blood-red masks were slaughtering Marco's fleeing men.
“The Black, Black Star Guild!”
Marco's face contorted fiercely as he watched the blood-masked fiends.
“Dammit!”
He raised his spiked bat and glared at Isabella.
“Die, you leech bitchhhhh!!!”
He roared as if having a seizure and kicked off the ground.
Kwaaang!!
His Stigma blazed brightly, and a fierce wind whipped around his bat.
“Hmm.”
Isabella hummed languidly, her eyes narrowing.
“I'm quite sure I told you—not to call me a leech?”
Her voice echoed chillingly.
-Kwaaaaang!!!
With a roar, a blood-red energy swept the area like a storm.
“Keoheok!!”
Chjajajajak!!
As if his entire body had been slashed by sharp razors, tiny cuts covered Marco's body.
But when the number of those tiny cuts exceeds a thousand, they can no longer be called tiny cuts.
“Ugh, uah, uh.”
Marco staggered backward, blood pouring from all over his body.
Isabella slowly reached a hand toward him.
The drops of blood Marco shed rose into the air and slowly flew toward her.
“Haah.”
Isabella tasted Marco's blood with her tongue.
Spat.
Her expression soured.
“Ptooey!”
She spat the blood onto the ground as if she had swallowed something foul.
“You were hiding like such a cockroach, so I went through the trouble of getting cursed just to lure you out… It seems it was all for nothing.”
It was more palatable than the blood of those vermin from before.
But that was all.
It was a trash-like taste, not at all worth the effort of making herself the bait.
“S-Save… me…”
“Hmph.”
Isabella grabbed both of Marco's arms and brutally twisted them off.
“Gyaaaaargh!!!”
“Even your screams are vulgar.”
Tsk.
As if displeased, Isabella then grabbed Marco's jaw.
“—Didn't you say something about ripping my mouth apart earlier?”
A bright smile formed on her lips.
“Uh, ugh. N-No... Aaaaaaaargh!!”
Riiiiip!!
She roughly tore off the jaw she was holding.
Blood gushed out, soaking the ground.
“Haa. All that trouble for nothing.”
Overwhelming.
Marco was, after all, a ‘high-level Awakened’ who had surpassed the realm of mortals.
But before Isabella, he was no different from a common 3 or 4-Star Awakened.
“My apologies for being late, my Queen.”
After the Marco Family was annihilated.
A dignified-looking old man with neatly combed gray hair approached her.
“…Roberto.”
Isabella looked down at the bowing old man and commanded in a cold voice.
“Kneel.”
“Yes!!!”
Thud!!
The old man called Roberto knelt on both knees without hesitation.
“Chair.”
“Y-Yes, ma'am!”
After kneeling, he placed his hands on the ground and prostrated himself.
-Plop.
Isabella casually sat on Roberto's back and crossed her sleek legs.
“Even if communications were down, weren't you a little too late?”
“M-My apologies!”
“And you didn't even notice the Owls had interfered…”
“Please kill me, my Queen!!”
“Oh? Really?”
Isabella's blue eyes twinkled as she unhesitatingly dug her fingernails into the nape of Roberto's neck.
-Puk!
“Keoheok! Krrk!”
Roberto's eyes rolled back as he began to foam at the mouth with blood.
“Should I really kill you?”
Wiggle, wiggle.
Isabella twisted her fingers, which were still buried in Roberto's neck.
“Krrk! Keok! Keoheoheok!! P-Please... k-kill... me!”
Even while coughing up blood, Roberto did not break his posture.
“Huhu. Just kidding.”
Isabella pulled her fingers out with an alluring smile.
She licked the blood from her fingers and continued.
“In any case, with this, the bothersome Marco Family has been all taken care of.”
“I-It is all thanks to your Majesty's brilliant plan.”
“Hmm. You think so?”
Isabella frowned, looking quite displeased.
“To be honest, it was quite dangerous this time.”
Because she hadn't anticipated the Owls cooperating with the Marco Family, she had fallen completely for the ‘Curse of Jamiwon’.
If she had been caught by them earlier.
‘Mmm. I would have suffered something quite terrible.’
Knowing Marco's personality, he wouldn't have killed her right away.
She would have endured all sorts of humiliation until nightfall, and once the curse was broken, she would have slaughtered every last one of the bastards who had toyed with her.
‘The end result of killing the Marco Family would have been the same, but…’
Perhaps she would have gained a ‘trauma’ that even she would find difficult to bear.
—A trauma so terrible it would have snapped the thin thread of sanity she was barely holding onto.
“Huhu. In that sense, I suppose Mr. Oh-jin is my savior.”
“Oh-jin, you mean…”
Kwaduk!!
Isabella slammed her shoe heel onto the back of Roberto's hand.
“Keuk!!”
“It's not Oh-jin. You will address him as 'Mr. Oh-jin', won't you?”
“M-My apologies!! Mr. Oh-jin… isn't he the famous Awakened from Korea?”
“That's right.”
Isabella nodded and stood up from Roberto's back.
“I was interested, but… I didn't know he was this special.”
She approached the fallen Oh-jin with a heated gaze.
She bent over and sniffed him.
“Haaaa! This sweet scent…! It's truly the best!”
Compared to any scent she had ever smelled before.
The ‘scent’ wafting from Oh-jin was overwhelmingly sweet.
“No, it's an insult to even compare.”
Compared to this scent, everything else she had ever smelled was nothing more than food waste rotting in a sewer.
“Well then.”
Isabella carefully reached out and dabbed a fingertip into the blood flowing from Oh-jin's wound.
She lightly touched the tip of her tongue to the drop of blood on her finger.
“—Ah.”
Literally.
Her very soul was shaken.
“Haang! Haah… Uuht!!!”
Isabella let out a strange moan and squirmed as if she desperately needed to pee.
‘Wh-What is this?!’
The scent was one thing.
But the taste was on a completely different ‘level’ from any other blood.
‘I-I've never even imagined something like this.’
It was enough to make her believe that what she had been drinking until now wasn't blood, but sewage.
“…Haa.”
With an ecstatic expression, Isabella dabbed Oh-jin's blood with her finger and licked it.
She wanted to gulp down the pool of blood on the ground in one go, but.
‘If I did that—I might actually die from pleasure.’
The taste of Oh-jin's blood was on that level.
“Hu, huhuhu. Huhuhuhut.”
A sticky laugh escaped her lips.
“Roberto.”
“Yes, my Queen!”
“Bring me an Elixir.”
“A-An Elixir, you say?”
“Now.”
The dream potion that only a high-level Awakened of Aquarius could create.
The Elixir was a top-grade potion whose value couldn't even be measured in money.
“H-Here it is.”
“Give it to me.”
Isabella poured the Elixir into Oh-jin's mouth.
His wounds regenerated in an instant.
“Huhuhut.”
She looked down at the fallen Oh-jin and lovingly caressed his cheek.
Licking her lips with a long tongue,
“I will never—let you go.”
A deep greed shimmered in her blue eyes.