Episode 96. The Man in the Pendant?
Sssssss...
A dark underground prayer room.
A faint light appeared, and soon it transformed into a girl in a black one-piece dress with long hair.
“Kurur... Kurur.... Krrr...!”
When Leana saw it, the brown wolf bound in chains suddenly writhed and howled. It seemed as if the chains would break at any moment, and it would rush in and bite her.
She succeeded in reviving the brown wolf with a revival spell.
However, it was impossible to return the beast’s soul.
The brown wolf had now become an undead.
A moving corpse with bugs eating its body.
Leana tried to return it to its original state, but it didn’t go as planned.
While she was panicking, priests and soldiers rushed in upon hearing the beast’s voice. Startled, she quickly dodged only her own body.
“Sorry, did you keep me waiting long? I was looking for something I lost.”
“Kurur... Kurur...!”
“It’s a pendant, a keepsake my father left behind. Have you seen it?”
Leana created a small halo of light on her palm and looked around the dark basement.
“If it’s not here, it’s a big deal. There’s a portrait of my father in there. My father was really handsome. He was a great hunter, and he was a very kind man.”
Leana, who had been muttering to herself while searching for the pendant, suddenly became gloomy.
After a moment of silence, she stared at the brown wolf with sad eyes.
“But do you know why he died? My father was also a member of the wolf clan. Just like you.”
That’s why Leana kept worrying about this brown wolf.
She saw her father burned at the stake in the Vatican, but she felt like he was still alive somewhere.
“If you find the pendant, do you want to get out of here together? I’ll definitely bring you back to life. Not some undead.”
“Krrrrrr...”
“You like it too?”
“Krrrrrr...”
“Yes, from now on, we’re on the same side. Got it?”
Leana smiled brightly at this hideous beast.
Her blue eyes sparkled for a moment.
“Ah, I found it!”
Her pendant was buried under the chains that bound the brown wolf.
Without a moment’s hesitation, she reached out.
Clang! Clang!
At the same time, a square iron bar fell down toward her.
“Leana, are you looking for this?”
Maurice appeared in front of Leana, who was trapped inside the iron bar.
He was holding a shining pendant in his hand.
“Hold it!”
Leana reached out and tried to grab the pendant.
“Ouch!”
But the moment it touched the bars of the iron bars, she collapsed in a burning pain.
Maurice shook his head as if he couldn’t do it.
“Give up, kid. This iron bar was made with the priests’ divine power. I recognize your talent, but you can’t win against everyone here.”
The iron bar that held Leana was surrounded by the highest-ranking priests and their disciples.
The blue light coming from their bodies was creating an iron cage.
It was just as Maurice had said. They could win one-on-one, but it was impossible to take them all on at once.
“You son of a bitch, Maurice!”
The priests were surprised by Leana’s curse.
She was a child who always laughed to the point of seeming incompetent. Now that they looked at her, it seemed like she understood everything Maurice said.
Maurice laughed out loud, wondering what was so funny.
“As expected, Leana, you’re a child who gets more interesting the more I see you.”
“If I leave here, I’ll kill you first, Maurice!”
Leana’s turquoise eyes were like blue flames.
“I’m sorry, but you can’t leave here until you die.”
“Don’t make me laugh! You’re weaker than me!”
“It’s not that I’m weaker than you, it’s that I don’t waste my strength foolishly like you.”
Maurice clicked his tongue, looking at her pitifully.
“What?”
“You must have used a lot of strength to revive that beast as an undead. So now you wouldn’t be able to win against a mid-level priest. Of course, you wouldn’t be able to beat me.”
Leana also felt that there wasn’t much strength left in her body.
“How are you? Do you want to live?”
“Huh, who would beg for their life from the Vatican?”
Leana actually hated the Vatican.
Nevertheless, she pretended not to hear and worked so that she could get a chance to get revenge.
The Pope used to have deaf children as his servants. It was to prevent his conversations from leaking out.
Knowing this, Leana finally caught the Pope’s eye through hard work, and thanks to that, she learned quite a bit of prayer spells and information that only the Popes of the past knew.
“Well, that makes sense.”
Click!
Maurice opened Leana’s pendant.
Inside was a portrait of a handsome man with silver hair and blue-gray eyes.
“You were his daughter. I remember. The wolf clan warrior we captured. We chased him for a long time, but he was finally caught so absurdly that I was surprised. Now that I think about it, it seems he was trying to protect his daughter.”
Leana’s face twisted as if she were about to cry at her father’s story.
When she was 8 years old, she contracted scarlet fever and was on the verge of death.
Her father, who had been hiding in the forest, went to the Vatican on his own two feet, carrying his dying daughter.
It was a scarlet fever epidemic, so the Vatican had set up a temporary clinic to treat children.
However, her father, who had set foot in the Vatican, was quickly discovered. He was caught without much resistance and was soon publicly burned at the stake.
Leana saw all of this through the window of the infirmary.
Believing it to be a dream.
She thought it was a nightmare because she had a high fever.
Her father was not someone who would be caught so easily.
However, she later found out that her father had been captured so that Leana would not be caught.
“In fact, I opposed killing your father like that back then. However, the Vatican’s old guard’s policy was to burn the wolf clan at the stake, so there was nothing we could do.”
Leana did not believe Maurice’s words.
“Lies. You are no different from other priests.”
“Really. I wanted to turn your father into an undead. Then he would have become the Vatican’s greatest weapon.”
“...!”
Leana felt the blood in her body go cold.
Could that be why they kept the brown wolf alive?
To manipulate him as a weapon for their own purposes?
Maybe her father could have ended up like that.
“You are the real beast...”
Leana’s voice cracked and cracked.
She glared at him with eyes filled with contempt, hatred, and disillusionment...
But Maurice stroked his chin and smiled coolly.
“If you want to achieve something great, you can’t just listen to good people.”
“You son of a bitch, Maurice! I’ll kill you!”
Leana screamed as if spitting blood, and her entire body was quickly engulfed in white flames.
They reached out toward the iron bars that held her.
“Focus on your prayers!”
The priests who were defending the iron bars with their divine powers also raised their voices in prayer.
Papat! Papat!
The two forces clashed, sending strong flames flying here and there.
‘I didn’t expect it to be this much...!’
Maurice’s face hardened as he watched.
He had expected her strength to be strong. But he didn’t think it would be this much.
Even with several top-tier priests hanging on, it seemed like they would have a hard time dealing with Leana alone.
!”
Bang!
In the end, one priest could not hold out and fell.
Through the gap in the defense line, Leana’s white flame flew through the bars.
It directly struck the chains that bound the brown wolf.
Crap!
The chains quickly cracked and soon shattered like biscuits.
“Kururur! Kwaaaaah!”
The freed brown wolf let out a long roar and flew high. Soon, it bared its teeth and pounced on the priests with its huge body.
“Ugh!”
“Kwhhhh!”
The priests were confused, not knowing whether to stop Leana or attack the brown wolf.
In the meantime, the brown wolf bit and killed two people in an instant.
“Attack the brown wolf!”
The underground prayer room quickly turned into a horrible hell.
“Haa...”
Leana collapsed in the middle of it.
The iron bars that had imprisoned her disappeared, and the white flames she had been spewing were no longer visible.
Gulp.
Instead, blood was flowing from Leana’s nose and mouth.
It must have been because she had used her strength recklessly, as Maurice had said. It was too hard to even keep her eyes open now.
It was just like that time. Everything was hazy, like when she had seen her father being burned at the stake.
The scene of the brown wolf brutally killing people was also blurry and unrealistic, like a dream.
“Kuaaaa!”
At that moment, a brown wolf flew toward her, blood dripping from its teeth.
Leana smiled and reached out her hand.
“Let’s go together. I’ll turn you back to how you were.”
“Kuaaaaah!”
Pfft!
At that moment, flesh and blood splattered onto Leana’s face.
“...!”
The brown wolf flying toward her disappeared in an instant. Instead, all that was before her eyes was a charred lump of stone.
“Are you okay, Father Maurice?”
The priests quickly caught Maurice, who was staggering as if he were about to fall.
Maurice’s power had made the brown wolf like that.
“I’m okay, so... catch Leana... quickly...”
However, Leana had already disappeared like smoke.
“Haa... haa...”
Leana wiped the blood flowing from her nose with the back of her hand and kept running.
She had to quickly get out of the Vatican. However, she didn’t have enough strength left to teleport.
She barely managed to cast her magic, but she could barely move between walls.
From afar, she could hear the sound of the Vatican soldiers running.
However, her body was getting heavier and heavier, and her legs, which had lost their strength, seemed ready to give way at any moment.
'Just a little more... Just a little more...!'
Fortunately, it was now a dark night, and she was more familiar with the geography of the Vatican than anyone else.
If she went into the forest behind the west tower, there would be a path leading outside. It was a hole where a priest who had been dismissed had secretly met prostitutes.
"Find her! She couldn't have gone far!"
Maurice's voice came closer.
'Maurice...Next time, I will definitely kill you!'
Leana, who was gritting her teeth, found a hidden path and barely made it outside.
Bluegale's large clinic.
Isabelle, leaving the clinic, had black hair and was wearing a black dress.
Her face was as pale as a sheet of paper, and her expression was deeply shadowed.
Five or six people followed her.
"Your complexion is not good. How about leaving early tomorrow morning...?"
Despite the people's dissuasion, Isabelle stubbornly shook her head.
“No. I want to let my father rest comfortably for at least one day.”
“Understood, Your Majesty.”
“And as soon as you arrive, summon the council of elders.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“By the way, have you heard from Grand Duke Rustis?”
“That... not yet...”
Isabelle’s expression darkened at the servant’s words.
Her father, the Duke of Rodwell, had just passed away. He had suffered for several days with his entire body half-crushed and had died a terrible death.
It was said that he had been attacked by a brown wolf sent by the Emperor.
Before she came to Bluegale, she had already sent a letter to her son, Grand Duke Rustis, telling him to prepare himself mentally.
After killing her father and her husband, the Emperor’s next target was clearly her son.
That meant that they had to make the first move.
However, her son was hesitating. Fighting the Emperor meant civil war.
‘Yes, it will not be an easy decision.’
The child was only nineteen years old.
“Understood.”
Isabelle nodded and walked toward the carriage.
However, men in white clothes with the Vatican emblem were seen here and there in the clinic garden.
They looked like they were searching for something.
“The Vatican is chasing a murderer.”
The servant quickly informed her.
However, this was of no interest to Isabelle, who was about to go to war with the Emperor.
However, out of concern, she headed toward another carriage behind her own carriage.
It was the carriage to transport the Duke of Rodwell’s coffin.
“I should check my father’s carriage before we leave.”
The servant quickly opened the carriage door.
Inside the carriage, dark curtains were drawn, and there was only a single coffin covered with a black cloth.
As she looked at it with a candle, Isabelle felt that the shape of the black cloth was a little strange. It was as if someone was hiding behind the coffin... Could it be that the murderer that the Vatican was looking for was here?
“Your Majesty? Is there something...”
The thing hiding under the cloth suddenly popped its head out, as if it had heard the servant calling from outside the carriage.
Unexpectedly, she was a girl of about fifteen or sixteen.
Her face was soaked in blood, and her deep blue-gray eyes reminded her of Christine.
Sssssss...
A dark underground prayer room.
A faint light appeared, and soon it transformed into a girl in a black one-piece dress with long hair.
“Kurur... Kurur.... Krrr...!”
When Leana saw it, the brown wolf bound in chains suddenly writhed and howled. It seemed as if the chains would break at any moment, and it would rush in and bite her.
She succeeded in reviving the brown wolf with a revival spell.
However, it was impossible to return the beast’s soul.
The brown wolf had now become an undead.
A moving corpse with bugs eating its body.
Leana tried to return it to its original state, but it didn’t go as planned.
While she was panicking, priests and soldiers rushed in upon hearing the beast’s voice. Startled, she quickly dodged only her own body.
“Sorry, did you keep me waiting long? I was looking for something I lost.”
“Kurur... Kurur...!”
“It’s a pendant, a keepsake my father left behind. Have you seen it?”
Leana created a small halo of light on her palm and looked around the dark basement.
“If it’s not here, it’s a big deal. There’s a portrait of my father in there. My father was really handsome. He was a great hunter, and he was a very kind man.”
Leana, who had been muttering to herself while searching for the pendant, suddenly became gloomy.
After a moment of silence, she stared at the brown wolf with sad eyes.
“But do you know why he died? My father was also a member of the wolf clan. Just like you.”
That’s why Leana kept worrying about this brown wolf.
She saw her father burned at the stake in the Vatican, but she felt like he was still alive somewhere.
“If you find the pendant, do you want to get out of here together? I’ll definitely bring you back to life. Not some undead.”
“Krrrrrr...”
“You like it too?”
“Krrrrrr...”
“Yes, from now on, we’re on the same side. Got it?”
Leana smiled brightly at this hideous beast.
Her blue eyes sparkled for a moment.
“Ah, I found it!”
Her pendant was buried under the chains that bound the brown wolf.
Without a moment’s hesitation, she reached out.
Clang! Clang!
At the same time, a square iron bar fell down toward her.
“Leana, are you looking for this?”
Maurice appeared in front of Leana, who was trapped inside the iron bar.
He was holding a shining pendant in his hand.
“Hold it!”
Leana reached out and tried to grab the pendant.
“Ouch!”
But the moment it touched the bars of the iron bars, she collapsed in a burning pain.
Maurice shook his head as if he couldn’t do it.
“Give up, kid. This iron bar was made with the priests’ divine power. I recognize your talent, but you can’t win against everyone here.”
The iron bar that held Leana was surrounded by the highest-ranking priests and their disciples.
The blue light coming from their bodies was creating an iron cage.
It was just as Maurice had said. They could win one-on-one, but it was impossible to take them all on at once.
“You son of a bitch, Maurice!”
The priests were surprised by Leana’s curse.
She was a child who always laughed to the point of seeming incompetent. Now that they looked at her, it seemed like she understood everything Maurice said.
Maurice laughed out loud, wondering what was so funny.
“As expected, Leana, you’re a child who gets more interesting the more I see you.”
“If I leave here, I’ll kill you first, Maurice!”
Leana’s turquoise eyes were like blue flames.
“I’m sorry, but you can’t leave here until you die.”
“Don’t make me laugh! You’re weaker than me!”
“It’s not that I’m weaker than you, it’s that I don’t waste my strength foolishly like you.”
Maurice clicked his tongue, looking at her pitifully.
“What?”
“You must have used a lot of strength to revive that beast as an undead. So now you wouldn’t be able to win against a mid-level priest. Of course, you wouldn’t be able to beat me.”
Leana also felt that there wasn’t much strength left in her body.
“How are you? Do you want to live?”
“Huh, who would beg for their life from the Vatican?”
Leana actually hated the Vatican.
Nevertheless, she pretended not to hear and worked so that she could get a chance to get revenge.
The Pope used to have deaf children as his servants. It was to prevent his conversations from leaking out.
Knowing this, Leana finally caught the Pope’s eye through hard work, and thanks to that, she learned quite a bit of prayer spells and information that only the Popes of the past knew.
“Well, that makes sense.”
Click!
Maurice opened Leana’s pendant.
Inside was a portrait of a handsome man with silver hair and blue-gray eyes.
“You were his daughter. I remember. The wolf clan warrior we captured. We chased him for a long time, but he was finally caught so absurdly that I was surprised. Now that I think about it, it seems he was trying to protect his daughter.”
Leana’s face twisted as if she were about to cry at her father’s story.
When she was 8 years old, she contracted scarlet fever and was on the verge of death.
Her father, who had been hiding in the forest, went to the Vatican on his own two feet, carrying his dying daughter.
It was a scarlet fever epidemic, so the Vatican had set up a temporary clinic to treat children.
However, her father, who had set foot in the Vatican, was quickly discovered. He was caught without much resistance and was soon publicly burned at the stake.
Leana saw all of this through the window of the infirmary.
Believing it to be a dream.
She thought it was a nightmare because she had a high fever.
Her father was not someone who would be caught so easily.
However, she later found out that her father had been captured so that Leana would not be caught.
“In fact, I opposed killing your father like that back then. However, the Vatican’s old guard’s policy was to burn the wolf clan at the stake, so there was nothing we could do.”
Leana did not believe Maurice’s words.
“Lies. You are no different from other priests.”
“Really. I wanted to turn your father into an undead. Then he would have become the Vatican’s greatest weapon.”
“...!”
Leana felt the blood in her body go cold.
Could that be why they kept the brown wolf alive?
To manipulate him as a weapon for their own purposes?
Maybe her father could have ended up like that.
“You are the real beast...”
Leana’s voice cracked and cracked.
She glared at him with eyes filled with contempt, hatred, and disillusionment...
But Maurice stroked his chin and smiled coolly.
“If you want to achieve something great, you can’t just listen to good people.”
“You son of a bitch, Maurice! I’ll kill you!”
Leana screamed as if spitting blood, and her entire body was quickly engulfed in white flames.
They reached out toward the iron bars that held her.
“Focus on your prayers!”
The priests who were defending the iron bars with their divine powers also raised their voices in prayer.
Papat! Papat!
The two forces clashed, sending strong flames flying here and there.
‘I didn’t expect it to be this much...!’
Maurice’s face hardened as he watched.
He had expected her strength to be strong. But he didn’t think it would be this much.
Even with several top-tier priests hanging on, it seemed like they would have a hard time dealing with Leana alone.
!”
Bang!
In the end, one priest could not hold out and fell.
Through the gap in the defense line, Leana’s white flame flew through the bars.
It directly struck the chains that bound the brown wolf.
Crap!
The chains quickly cracked and soon shattered like biscuits.
“Kururur! Kwaaaaah!”
The freed brown wolf let out a long roar and flew high. Soon, it bared its teeth and pounced on the priests with its huge body.
“Ugh!”
“Kwhhhh!”
The priests were confused, not knowing whether to stop Leana or attack the brown wolf.
In the meantime, the brown wolf bit and killed two people in an instant.
“Attack the brown wolf!”
The underground prayer room quickly turned into a horrible hell.
“Haa...”
Leana collapsed in the middle of it.
The iron bars that had imprisoned her disappeared, and the white flames she had been spewing were no longer visible.
Gulp.
Instead, blood was flowing from Leana’s nose and mouth.
It must have been because she had used her strength recklessly, as Maurice had said. It was too hard to even keep her eyes open now.
It was just like that time. Everything was hazy, like when she had seen her father being burned at the stake.
The scene of the brown wolf brutally killing people was also blurry and unrealistic, like a dream.
“Kuaaaa!”
At that moment, a brown wolf flew toward her, blood dripping from its teeth.
Leana smiled and reached out her hand.
“Let’s go together. I’ll turn you back to how you were.”
“Kuaaaaah!”
Pfft!
At that moment, flesh and blood splattered onto Leana’s face.
“...!”
The brown wolf flying toward her disappeared in an instant. Instead, all that was before her eyes was a charred lump of stone.
“Are you okay, Father Maurice?”
The priests quickly caught Maurice, who was staggering as if he were about to fall.
Maurice’s power had made the brown wolf like that.
“I’m okay, so... catch Leana... quickly...”
However, Leana had already disappeared like smoke.
“Haa... haa...”
Leana wiped the blood flowing from her nose with the back of her hand and kept running.
She had to quickly get out of the Vatican. However, she didn’t have enough strength left to teleport.
She barely managed to cast her magic, but she could barely move between walls.
From afar, she could hear the sound of the Vatican soldiers running.
However, her body was getting heavier and heavier, and her legs, which had lost their strength, seemed ready to give way at any moment.
'Just a little more... Just a little more...!'
Fortunately, it was now a dark night, and she was more familiar with the geography of the Vatican than anyone else.
If she went into the forest behind the west tower, there would be a path leading outside. It was a hole where a priest who had been dismissed had secretly met prostitutes.
"Find her! She couldn't have gone far!"
Maurice's voice came closer.
'Maurice...Next time, I will definitely kill you!'
Leana, who was gritting her teeth, found a hidden path and barely made it outside.
***
Bluegale's large clinic.
Isabelle, leaving the clinic, had black hair and was wearing a black dress.
Her face was as pale as a sheet of paper, and her expression was deeply shadowed.
Five or six people followed her.
"Your complexion is not good. How about leaving early tomorrow morning...?"
Despite the people's dissuasion, Isabelle stubbornly shook her head.
“No. I want to let my father rest comfortably for at least one day.”
“Understood, Your Majesty.”
“And as soon as you arrive, summon the council of elders.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“By the way, have you heard from Grand Duke Rustis?”
“That... not yet...”
Isabelle’s expression darkened at the servant’s words.
Her father, the Duke of Rodwell, had just passed away. He had suffered for several days with his entire body half-crushed and had died a terrible death.
It was said that he had been attacked by a brown wolf sent by the Emperor.
Before she came to Bluegale, she had already sent a letter to her son, Grand Duke Rustis, telling him to prepare himself mentally.
After killing her father and her husband, the Emperor’s next target was clearly her son.
That meant that they had to make the first move.
However, her son was hesitating. Fighting the Emperor meant civil war.
‘Yes, it will not be an easy decision.’
The child was only nineteen years old.
“Understood.”
Isabelle nodded and walked toward the carriage.
However, men in white clothes with the Vatican emblem were seen here and there in the clinic garden.
They looked like they were searching for something.
“The Vatican is chasing a murderer.”
The servant quickly informed her.
However, this was of no interest to Isabelle, who was about to go to war with the Emperor.
However, out of concern, she headed toward another carriage behind her own carriage.
It was the carriage to transport the Duke of Rodwell’s coffin.
“I should check my father’s carriage before we leave.”
The servant quickly opened the carriage door.
Inside the carriage, dark curtains were drawn, and there was only a single coffin covered with a black cloth.
As she looked at it with a candle, Isabelle felt that the shape of the black cloth was a little strange. It was as if someone was hiding behind the coffin... Could it be that the murderer that the Vatican was looking for was here?
“Your Majesty? Is there something...”
The thing hiding under the cloth suddenly popped its head out, as if it had heard the servant calling from outside the carriage.
Unexpectedly, she was a girl of about fifteen or sixteen.
Her face was soaked in blood, and her deep blue-gray eyes reminded her of Christine.
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