I Abandoned the Male Lead Who Cheated with the Villainess - Chapter 167

It was impossible to tell who Arnold was begging for mercy from. In this filthy chamber, it was only him, his wife, and his beloved son.

As a result, the Empress fell ill. She had been pushed by Arnold, and on top of the injuries from that, she was suffering from mastitis. However, what troubled her the most was the grotesque image of her husband.

— Eek! Get… get away!

The image of her husband shoving her and their son stayed with her, lingering in her mind.

Soon, a bloody storm swept through the palace, and even in the moments before her death, the Empress could never understand what Arnold had been so afraid of. Unlike the surviving Queen.

“The root cause has not been resolved, has it? Why, why do you continue to make me feel this fear?”

Arnold, who had fallen to his knees before the Pope, screamed. In truth, he didn’t care about the Empress; he had wanted to kill the child. The newborn, Herix, who would grow up to curse him and, one day, bring about his death.

But someone had stopped him: the Pope. Arnold’s blind rage only claimed the lives of innocent people, sparing the one he had wanted to kill—Herix.

“This is all for Your Majesty’s sake. The rumor that the newborn prince has the Emperor’s mark has already spread throughout the empire. Your Majesty did not heed my warning, and the unrest caused by the incident you started has left the people more anxious and unsettled than ever. If you were to lose the rightful heir with the Emperor’s mark, it would become uncontrollable.”

“Then what should I, what should I do…?”

The Pope lowered his body in front of Arnold, embracing him with a compassionate expression.

“Oh, poor soul.”

“Please, save me.”

Arnold pleaded. Having ascended to this position by taking countless lives, he loathed the idea of his own life being taken by someone else. No, he had sacrificed so much to get to this point, and he desperately wanted to hold on to his position. He wanted to stay in power and survive.

The Pope knew well the blind ambition Arnold had for his position.

Born into a low-ranking family, Arnold had the extraordinary intellect and physique of someone destined for greatness, yet he had been condemned to a life without achievement. His obsession with life and survival was stronger than anyone else’s, and it had led him to grasp power. It was not a desire to rule, but a desperate need to possess it.

“How truly lovable you are.”

How fitting you are as a puppet.

Eventually, Arnold would be discarded like trash, but for now, he still had some use. The people needed a scapegoat, a cursed figure.

Just like the animal king in the founding myth of the Sortenic Empire, Arnold’s role had been decided long ago.

The Pope, who had long delivered false prophecies, now sought to become the true god, the very embodiment of Novnie. So, Arnold had no choice but to play the role of a fox until then. He had to focus on the destruction of Novnie, who would take over the role of chaos.

‘An intangible god… If the people forget about it, then it will be gone.’

The new god would be the Pope himself, the true hero and god who would save the Sortenic Empire from the incompetent tyrant.

“The prophecy has not yet been delivered. However, it is not without a way. Do this, Your Majesty.”

“Make the prince an animal.”

“An animal…?”

“Yes, rule over him.”

“Rule…?”

“Yes, make him like the fox from the founding myth, and never… never let him crave the throne.”

Arnold, unaware that what the Pope had suggested was a trap, took the Pope’s words as a brilliant solution. His once sharp mind had surely hardened when he drenched himself in the blood of his family.

⚜ ⚜ ⚜

Time passed, and Herix was now the same age as when Aiden had whispered his love to the newly born Herix with his lovely green eyes shining.

Still, the five-year-old boy never questioned why he sometimes had to become a fox, tied with a leash. To him, it had always been this way since he was a baby.

“Herix, just hang in there. I’ll definitely get you out of here.”

“Eat this. Right now, all I have is this bread stuffed into my pocket, but one day, I’ll give you freshly baked bread, the tastiest you’ve ever had.”

“Your eyes are swollen from the blindfold. Next time, I’ll bring some ointment.”

“How heartbroken would the Empress be if she saw you like this? But it’s okay. I’ll save you.”

The boy, who claimed to be his ‘brother,’ came irregularly, but he spoke quickly and disappeared, so Herix could never tell who he was.

He didn’t know his name, why he came, what was the Empress, or why the ‘mother’ the boy missed had never returned from the faraway monastery… With only fragmented information, Herix was too uneducated to make sense of it all.

Because of the dark basement, he had never truly seen the boy who called him ‘brother.’

As a result, Herix never questioned why, unlike his ‘brother,’ he was kept in a cage-like basement.