I Will Not Fall For the Villain’s Flirtations - Chapter 66

At that moment, I couldn’t help but hesitate. The relic was undoubtedly important to the Holy Kingdom, but it wasn’t as precious to me as my own life.

I glanced sideways at the man next to me.

This man would enter even if it meant risking his life, right? He had taken me hostage to get the relic, so there’s no way he wouldn’t go in.

In the story, the Magic Tower Master is the final boss who endangers the Holy Kingdom. Honestly, it still didn’t feel real, but since Mullion recognized him, it was likely true.

In other words, he’s a villain who appears until the very end. Given that, he wouldn’t meet his end in an unmentioned place like this.

“Let’s go.”

Having made my calculations, I tugged at his sleeve. At least while I was with this man, I was confident I could stay alive.

But Keene stopped me again.

“Are you sure you won’t regret it? It’s not like you can sell it for a high price.”

“Sell it… Good grief.”

I let out a hollow laugh at his absurd words. As expected of a villain, his thoughts were…

“What do you mean sell it? So you’re not going to go in after coming all this way?”

“You know it’s dangerous. Since when were you so patriotic?”

“……”

I decided to remind him of something he seemed to have forgotten. Clenching my teeth, I spoke as if I were performing ventriloquism.

“I’m a priest.”

“A priest without faith.”

“What are you talking about? Do you think I’m an atheist like you?”

“You don’t genuinely follow it. An attitude like yours isn’t considered devout.”

“……”

I couldn’t understand why we were having this pointless argument in front of the relic we had been searching for. What did my faith have to do with him?

“Enough, I’m going in. Follow me or don’t.”

With that, I stepped into the barrier without hesitation. It felt like passing through a thin film, similar to putting a finger into a soap bubble.

As expected, Keene followed me inside. See, he was going to come in anyway.

“Du, you amaze me sometimes.”

“What?”

“Where do you get such motivation from?”

“……”

Even though it was the first time I heard this, I felt a strange sense of déjà vu. Then I realized it was because the question was similar to one I once had about someone else.

As if she had to prove to everyone that she was the protagonist of this world, Prim relentlessly achieved great feats. Watching him, I too had felt a similar curiosity. I had wondered about the source of her insane motivation.

From Keene’s perspective, I must have been just as incomprehensible. To him, a member of the Magic Tower, I was a novice priest with little potential, yet I had stubbornly refused to hand over the Pope’s vault key and was risking my life doing all this.

But I had different reasons, at least ones that seemed valid at the moment. Even if they might all dissolve and disappear in hindsight.

“Well… It’s right in front of me, so I can’t just not go in. Besides, we don’t even know where the exit is.”

“……”

“Since we’re here, we might as well go through with it.”

If you’ve drawn your sword, you should at least cut something. It was a saying I often heard in my past life.

Things always went similarly here. Once faced with something, I had to do it. There was no other way forward. Just like how there had never been an option to evade the mandatory service I so desperately wanted to escape.

“…Since we’re here, we might as well go through with it.”

He smiled faintly as he softly repeated my words.

“Alright. Let’s go through with it, then.”

He reached towards the bridge and suddenly cast a fire spell. Not just a small fireball, but a powerful spell that seemed intent on burning the entire bridge.

Seeing such a large-scale spell for the first time, my eyes widened and I asked.

“What are you doing?”

But my resentment was short-lived, as I soon understood why he had done such a crazy thing. The seemingly solid floor of the Stone Arch Bridge began to crumble, leaving only a few stones behind.

However, the falling pieces made no sound upon impact. It was as if they had turned to smoke and disappeared.

“What the…”

As I gaped at the bizarre phenomenon, Keene dryly explained.

“It was an illusion.”

“…Ah.”

Realizing this, I whispered in a small voice.

“Thank you.”

Illusions were more in the realm of sorcery than magic. They were unique techniques passed down in small, closed societies, often defying pure magical theory.

Thus, breaking them was also very limited, either by possessing far greater magical power than the sorcerer or by overcoming it with extraordinary willpower.

In other words, this man, who had more than enough magical power, didn’t need to do this. Destroying the sorcery at the risk of damaging the relic was purely for my sake.

Keene smiled playfully.

“Normally, I would have let you go first, Du, but this time, let me go ahead.”

He stepped onto the now sparse and shabby bridge. After a few steps, deeming it safe, he turned back and extended his hand to me.

“Take my hand, Du.”

“……”

I was momentarily speechless at his kindness, even with the relic right in front of us. His striking appearance emerging from the darkness was unchanged.

Clenching the hand that was in my pocket, I steeled myself.

Don’t be swayed, Duna. He’s still the Magic Tower Master.

With that resolve, I took his hand, pretending it was nothing. Ignoring the rough heartbeat that reached behind my ears.

Holding his hand, I walked across the bridge with missing bricks here and there. Our slow and cautious steps suddenly halted when we reached the center.

“The relic is below us.”

Now that I thought about it, the amount of holy power I had sensed earlier had increased significantly. However, the relic’s overwhelming holy power made it difficult to pinpoint its exact location.

“Due to the confusion magic, it seems difficult to find without solving the puzzle. If we make a wrong move, the bridge could collapse…”

“Puzzle?”

Following his gaze, I looked down and saw stones engraved with various animals. I absentmindedly recited the animals in order.

“Dog, cat, fox, bear.”

What is this?

I was momentarily baffled by the sudden appearance of animal drawings, but then I noticed the vine patterns engraved in the background.

“…Grapes?”

They were definitely grapevines. The small berries that looked like grapes made me even more certain.

“Oh.”

As I stared at the drawings, a fable familiar to a native of Liche suddenly came to mind. It was made into a nursery rhyme that I often sang with friends when I was young. The violinist lady who played under the Stone Arch Bridge would always warm up with that nursery rhyme as her first piece.

“There’s a story. A fox lived in a village…”

The fox was not good at hunting. Not particularly enjoying hunting or meat, he only tried to catch chickens to avoid being teased by his friends.

That day, after failing to catch a chicken again, the fox, instead of repeatedly trying, wandered into a forest path he had never taken before. As he walked dejectedly, he came across a vast vineyard.

“He hadn’t known about the vineyard because he was only focused on the chickens, even though he liked grapes more.”

Liche’s specialty is wine. Hence, people in Liche were familiar with this fable and song. During the harvest festival, they would pour wine under the Stone Arch Bridge and hum the tune, teasing, “Fox, fox, can’t you see?”

“The relic is probably with the fox.”

Though most of the carvings on the bridge had been destroyed when Keene removed the illusion magic, I remembered that grapevines were also drawn on the sides of the bridge. The structure mimicking the Stone Arch Bridge was undoubtedly meant to hint at the fox.

Thinking my reasoning was convincing, Keene did not stop me from stepping on the fox engraving.

The moment the sole of my leather shoe touched the fox’s face.

Pop!

A blinding light burst forth. After some time, when the light that seemed blinding enough to make me go blind subsided, I finally gathered the courage to open my eyes. As I squinted and gradually opened my eyelids, I saw a white marble box that hadn’t been there before.

“This must be…”

The box filled with gold was fortunately easy to open without any lock. Inside was a platinum bracelet with a vine pattern. Despite its worn exterior, the holy relic exuded an aura that suggested it shouldn’t be touched carelessly.

I almost grabbed it with my hand but then thought better of it, realizing I shouldn’t handle such a precious item with bare hands. I reached into my inner pocket to take out a handkerchief.

“……”

I paused for a moment, feeling the touch of silk instead of cloth. After making a decision, I extended my sleeve as much as possible to pick up the bracelet and carefully placed it inside my inner pocket.

“Keene.”

When I turned around, he was looking at me as if in awe. His purple eyes, shining even in the darkness, were fixed on me.

His relaxed posture, with arms crossed, didn’t suggest any intention to attack.

At least, not yet.

“Are you going to take the relic?”

“……Unfortunately.”

The corner of his mouth curled up. The answer I had anticipated finally came.

“I can’t yield that.”

“……”

He is the Master of the Magic Tower. Regardless of whether he truly has affection for me, he would not stop in his goal to destroy the Holy Kingdom.

Swallowing hard, I quickly turned around and started running. It was an extremely dangerous move to make on such unstable legs, but I had no other choice.

“Du.”

However, at the same time as his low call, my lower body froze like a statue. Keene had restrained me with magic.

“It’s dangerous to run.”

He said this as he took steps towards me. Watching him come closer, I moved my still free hand to take the bracelet out of my inner pocket. As soon as I wore the holy relic on my wrist, I felt an explosive surge of holy power.

“Ugh!”

“……Du?”

Fortunately, it wasn’t overwhelming. However, sensing something was wrong, Keene’s pace quickened.

Using the increased holy power, I broke free from his binding magic and started running again. Or at least, I tried to…

“What the!”

I must have stepped wrong, as I felt my foot half slip into the air, and my body slid down. Screaming, I desperately flailed my arms and managed to grab onto the edge of the structure.

Luckily, there was a protruding stone that prevented me from falling into the abyss below. But with my lack of strength, it seemed unlikely I could hold on for more than thirty seconds.

“……Keene.”

While I was hanging between life and death, he leisurely arrived in front of me and knelt down with a sigh. I expected him to extend his hand to help me, but instead, he rested his chin on his hand and watched me, observing.

“A-aren’t you going to help me?”

“Do you know, Du?”

As my voice trembled with panic, he responded with a seemingly irrelevant question.

“People think I’m impulsive, but actually, I don’t like the unpredictable.”

“……”

Is that really something I need to know right now?

Gritting my teeth, I gave him a desperate look, but Keene continued with his unnecessary words with a calm expression.

“I usually don’t let the buds grow.”

As he said this, he reached out his hand towards me. Just as I was about to sigh in relief, thinking he would finally pull me up…

“……What?”

He took the bracelet from my wrist. Naturally, I couldn’t stop him while clinging to the protruding stone with both arms.

“You……”

As I looked at him in disbelief, a sudden explosion was heard from behind. The one who appeared with the massive noise was none other than Peidos.

Seeing me hanging precariously and Keene, he shouted like he was howling.

“Keene Lione!”

……Lione?

Just as I was about to question the familiar surname, Keene glanced at Peidos and sighed lightly. Turning his gaze back to me, he slowly reached out and tucked my hair behind my ear.

For a moment, hope revived in me due to his habitual gentleness.

Yes, it can’t be. No way. It can’t be true.

However, the moment he smiled, a bell of anxiety rang in my heart, sending chills down my spine.

My intuition was warning me. Something was fatally wrong.

“Go ahead, Du.”

“……”

The hand that had always saved me now pushed my shoulder. The surreal situation unfolded in slow motion, and his dark hair and smiling face grew distant.

No way. Really?

Is this person really…?

Until the end, I couldn’t believe it and didn’t even scream. Thus, I fell into the abyss below.

* * *