One Hundred Nights with the Devil - Chapter 21

* * *

“Bella. I’m fine, so please go out and ask Baron Rafiano about the things I mentioned.”

“But, Lady Elena…….”

“Please, Bella. You’re the only one I trust, aren’t you?”

After sending Bella out into the hallway, Elena chased out every single servant preparing tea as well. The Emperor, too, had all of his people wait outside.

Once the two were left alone, the Emperor scanned the bedroom with an indifferent gaze. In the meantime, Elena approached the window and threw the curtains wide open. Bright moonlight poured down toward Elena.

The Emperor approached Elena like a bug chasing the light.

“…….”

Footsteps echoing in the silent and unfamiliar room. And the gaze of the opponent that hadn’t dropped even once since the door opened. The somewhat damp atmosphere made Elena’s senses keen.

Thus, she could perfectly feel the Emperor’s gaze observing her, borrowing the light of the moon.

At first, she suspected the Emperor intended to kidnap even a Saintess simply because she was a woman who fit his ‘criteria.’ However, the Emperor’s first words upon seeing her just a moment ago—mentioning the ‘last time’—brought a different possibility to mind.

And thanks to that gaze persistently glaring at her eyes and hair, it became certain.

“You have a good look in your eyes.”

The Emperor had likely come to ‘check’ on Saintess Elena with the mindset of someone rummaging through the pockets of old clothes one last time to ensure no valuables were left inside before throwing them away.

Perhaps having finished that verification, the Emperor withdrew his probing gaze and stroked his chin at length. A fishy sneer hung around his mouth, where a faint beard had grown. A woman okay to discard. A Saintess whose death would be of no regret.

“I can see why the Devils go crazy for you. Really……. The more I look, the more of a waste you are.”

The Emperor’s gaze was saying exactly that. That while Saintess Elena might be a woman for whom a Devil would go crazy, to him, she was a useless person. She certainly didn’t want to be considered a ‘useful’ person to the Emperor, but that gaze assessing her value as if choosing merchandise could only be unpleasant.

Furthermore, what of that attitude, treating her like someone about to die?

“It seems a busy person such as yourself has come all this way specifically to curse me.”

“Curse you? I only spoke out of pity.”

“Do you intend to deny that you wished for me to die in the West?”

The Emperor burst into laughter.

“Did the Pope say that?”

“It seems your memory is poor enough to forget words spoken by your own mouth just moments ago.”

“Oh my. It seems I wasn’t careful with my speech and caused a misunderstanding with the Saintess. I was not expressing regret over your death. When I said it was a waste, I meant that you are…… too good to serve as a partner for Lloyd Bavaria’s son to screw.”

One of Elena’s eyebrows arched. It wasn’t because of the vulgar harassment about screwing. Nor was it because of that strange expression referring to his nephew, the Deposed Crown Prince.

It was because the self-assurance filling the Emperor’s tone—the strange belief that the Deposed Crown Prince, Dieter Conrad, was alive and that Saintess Elena would undoubtedly screw him—was grating. Immensely so.

“And hoping for your death is also not true.”

The Emperor took one step closer to Elena. From his nearness, the acrid smell of soot could be felt. As Elena, feeling the urge to plug her nose, looked up at him with a scowl, the Emperor’s smile deepened.

“I am certain, Saintess, that you will undergo something far more terrible than death.”

“…….”

Elena read anticipation in the Emperor’s eyes. She could also find a pure, madness-filled cruelty.

“A time of struggling, wailing, and despairing, begging to be killed instead, will continue eternally by the Devil’s Authority.”

Hell, that is. The Emperor whispered very quietly into her ear. The Devil’s cradle. The epicenter of the black fog. A grave for souls that could not return to God……. That, he implied, would be the appearance of ‘Duke Conrad’s Castle’ that you, a Saintess, will go to.

Elena had no need to imagine the scenery of the ducal castle he spoke of. Because she was a person who had already seen hell. Because she had once voluntarily jumped into the midst of those screams of struggling, wailing, and despairing, begging to be killed.

But she swore, Elena had never mixed her own screams into that grief and despair. At least, not once within the Devil’s black fog.

Because she had survived so viciously, she was called the first successful Exorcist in the history of the Empire, yet the Emperor seemed to think she would be frightened by his words.

Foolishly.