The Villain Carries the Holy Sword – Chapter 13

Chapter 13: Spring Comes Forth (6)

“Vanderbilt Arzweber was too weak.”

Long ago, Cain was a boy.

The Gypsum Flower Princess Oleciren had arrived in Ethelred’s territory, exactly as she did now.

She requested a knight.

At the time, Philip had sent Vanderbilt to the princess as an excuse to get rid of Cain, who was constantly clinging to Vanderbilt.

It was a situation in which the territory’s knights were being taken away as mercenaries, with no one stopping them except Cain.

“Tsk. If only Count Edmund had been here……”

“Even so, for an elderly knight of a rural territory, he fought quite well.”

The knight, Isoel, spoke to Oleciren.

As she spoke, she fixed her focus on Vanderbilt’s corpse, which lay dead with its chest exposed in front of them.

“I suppose.”

Cain clutched Vanderbilt’s bloodied hand.

He shed tears naturally as he realized that this shriveled and dying body was all Vanderbilt had left.

His only knight.

His sole ally.

Vanderbilt Arzweber.

Princess Oleciren and Knight Isoel.

If those two hadn’t shown up and yanked Vanderbilt away like a limb, he wouldn’t have died.

Cain gritted his teeth so hard that they broke, vowing that he would never forget what occurred today, even if the world turned upside down.

🔹🔹🔹

Cain was not the Cain of then, nor was Abel.

Oleciren frowned at Cain’s scathing remarks.

“Is it my imagination that your words sound unpleasant?”

“I said it deliberately to be unpleasant.”

Click.

Isoel stepped forward.

She appeared uncomfortable but was also determined to defend Oleciren’s honor.

“Isoel, it’s fine.”

Oleciren leaned back and tilted her head in wonder.

“Why would you do that? You and I just met.”

“It’s just a provocation to test you.”

“Haha. The count’s successor dared to provoke the princess of the land. How amusing.”

Sparks flew between them.

“Even if you don’t like it, there’s nothing you can do about it, so you might as well do it now.”

“……”

BAM━.

Oleciren clutched the foldable fan she was holding.

She had intended to throw the fan at Cain’s face due to her rage, but she refrained.

She couldn’t lose her current appearance, as she was the Gypsum Flower, just because she had a fit.

“If you really don’t like me, you can charge me with treason.”

Cain shrugged.

His words and movements were lighter as usual, but his look was extremely heavy.

As a result, Abel and Vanderbilt realized that Cain was now traveling exactly as planned.

The knights, including Cloyd, were busy observing and waiting.

No matter how foolish a knight was, they couldn’t help but notice the lightning that was suddenly flashing between Cain and the princess.

Oleciren was no slouch.

“How could I? Being treated so poorly by Young Master Cain is probably because I came here so suddenly without prior notice.”

She purposely lowered herself and exposed her frailty, highlighting Cain’s harshness.

But Cain wasn’t the type of person to fall for that.

“That’s correct. In a rural area like ours, we have no idea whether a princess exists or not. We need a royal envoy to find out.”

“Are you saying that you can’t tell if I’m ‘First Princess Oleciren’ or not?”

However, Oleciren was the first to lose in this war.

“But I think you’re the real deal because you look like the picture in the newspaper… I think.”

There were no newspapers in rural areas such as Ethelred, but they were available in central cities.

Last year, the newspaper released a group shot of the attendees to honor Oleciren’s birthday.

The local lords had obtained the newspaper to acquaint themselves with the faces, and Ethelred’s head steward had done the same long before.

“Well, I don’t know if it’s real or not because Cloyd hasn’t confirmed it.”

Cain could bet his finger that Cloyd had not verified the princess’s identity.

His trembling eyes spoke volumes about the truth.

“The situation was so urgent that it led to this rudeness.”

Oleciren took the ends of her skirt and elevated them slightly, bending her head.

Cain bent his head in response, but he anticipated her next action.

‘She will bring up Edmund.’

Count Edmund, a count who was not in the count’s territory.

“It was because someone who wasn’t the real successor made me doubt you.”

Cain was a successor, but not the actual successor.

Before Edmund went to the dungeon, there was only one child, Cain, so everyone naturally considered him the successor.

However, Edmund never named Cain as his successor.

‘I don’t believe he was trying to preclude me from being the heir, but rather, he didn’t think much of it.’

Cain remembered Edmund vaguely.

He could not have imagined himself considering such political concerns.

‘He was a sword-crazy man, as evidenced by his nickname, ‘The Strongest Swordmaster of the Kingdom.’ He probably assumed that everything would work out somehow.

Of course, he might have kept quiet considering Abel’s existence.

Cain shakes his head.

Edmund wouldn’t be returning anyway.

The dungeon on the Ethelred coast will never be opened, and Edmund, who entered alone to subdue the dungeon in the face of the marquises’ political machinations, will never come out.

Unless there was a miracle from God, which the Holy See was always saying,.

“A princess who may or may not be real and a successor who isn’t real.”

Cain extended out a hand.

It was a knight’s unclean hand, smeared with blood and mud.

Princess Oleciren looked at his hand with a faint smile like a Gypsum Flower.

“Are you asking for reconciliation?”

“I don’t think we’re the kind of people who can reconcile.”

Oleciren’s eyes narrowed.

The count’s son and the king’s daughter.

The successor and the first princess.

And the positions may alter at any time.

The meaning underlying Cain’s simple words was profound. However, she was unable to predict his genuine motives.

“Let’s make a deal instead.”

“A deal. An act of sharing and receiving something from another person. Unfortunately, I have nothing to receive, but I have something to give.”

Oleciren naturally refused Cain’s hand.

It was unfortunate that things didn’t go as planned, but she would use her status as a princess to force him to enlist.

“The darkest night, Arthuan.”

That moment.

Swish━!

Isoel instinctively took her sword and pierced Cain’s throat.

However.

Clang.

Abel, who had been watching from behind, dashed forward like sunlight and extended his blade.

Isoel’s sword flew up into the air.

Whoosh━.

A battle broke out in an instant.

Oleciren couldn’t hide her big eyes and even opened her mouth.

“Y, Yeah, you. What are you saying?”

“I need to see that guy. Be my guide. Then I will be your sword.”

“How much do you know?”

Oleciren’s voice has changed.

From a tone that appeared to be present but was not, to a speech that cut like Isoel’s blade,.

“I know enough.”

“……”

Cain raised his dirty hand again.

Isoel glared at him menacingly, as if she intended to charge at him and give up her life.

Abel, too, bared his teeth, determined not to be outdone by her, despite his tired and wounded body.

“Take it. Before it’s too late.”

“I thought I’d only see such a deal in the political arena of the royal court, where people are either cornered and killed or caught.”

Clack.

Oleciren suppressed the urge to burst out with a swear word and took Cain’s hand.

“People die everywhere.”

Cain shook his hand and accepted the agreement, knowing that he was the only one conducting the right bookkeeping in this location.

🔹🔹🔹

Tick━tock.

The second hand of the ore clock moved, and the red glow of the sunset entered the reception area via the massive arched window.

Unlike before, when only Oleciren and Isoel were there, there were quite a few people now.

Oleciren furrowed and glanced around at the others.

“I understand you and your brother Abel. But why is your brother’s sick mother here?”

Arna scratched her cheek with a slight smile when Oleciren asked him a question.

Cain had called her without explanation, so she had no idea why she had to confront the princess.

“What about the knight, Vanderbilt?”

Cain crossed his legs and pointed at the elderly knight standing behind him.

“You can’t seem to speak without putting thorns in your words.”

“It’s the princess’s fault for saying such provocative things.”

“Do you think of me as a princess?”

“I think you are the princess you claimed to be for the time being.”

Cain and Oleciren’s feud persisted even after they had joined forces.

Abel’s eyes flew left and right as he observed the discourse between Cain, who was responding, and Oleciren, who had become irritated at some point.

Cain smiled as he gazed around the reception room.

There were six people in all.

Himself and Vanderbilt.

Oleciren sat opposite them, as if in a mirror, with Isoel standing behind her, guarding her.

And between them.

Abel and Arna sat side by side, listening to the talk between them.

Silence fell.

Cain and Oleciren, who were leading the talk, exchanged looks as if they wanted to devour one another, but neither opened their mouths.

As the suffocating tension progressively increased,.

“Sigh, tell me how you found out.”

Oleciren let out a sigh.

She had to find out the source, as Cain had revealed her secret in a single moment, a secret she desperately wanted to keep.

“It’s a secret.”

Cain raised the corners of his mouth and refused.

He couldn’t explain how he got the information through regression, and he wanted to witness Oleciren’s displeasure grow even more when her previous appearance overlapped with her current one.

Crack━.

Oleciren held the fan she was clutching tightly, as if it were about to break.

She wanted to murder Cain right now and silence him, but it was impossible.

“Let’s put aside such nonsense and get to the main point.”

Cain felt she had reached her limit and motioned to Arna.

Arna smiled innocently, like a rural girl who knew nothing.

“Little Mother is currently under the curse of the witch Glumiêm of the ‘Unseen Forest’.”

“……!”

Arna’s smile vanished.

Oleciren gazed at Arna with amazement.

Oleciren, who appeared to see something, looked over at her many times before opening her mouth.

“If she’s under Glumiêm’s curse, she’s half-human, how is she still alive?”

“She’s been holding on.”

“That is ludicrous. She’s not just any witch; she’s the one that has ruled over the northern woodland for three centuries!”

“She’s holding on well.”

Cain cut her off with a casual tone.

Even Arna, who was curious as to how far Cain would go, smiled when she heard such an answer.

Cain held up two fingers.

Then he folded them one by one and spoke to Oleciren.

“There are two crucial considerations. First, we must lift the witch’s curse. Second, we must find a witch who is superior to Glumiêm, the 8th witch.”

“A witch who’s not a nobody, a witch who is higher than Glumiêm……”

“She exists. The ‘2nd Witch,’ who leads the ‘Blood Festival’ with Arthuan on the darkest night when a new witch is born.”

Oleciren inadvertently bit her bottom lip.

“And it seems there is someone in front of me who will become a new witch.”

Isoel was about to move again.

She couldn’t leave Cain alone, who was ruthlessly stabbing the most sensitive information they had to keep hidden.

Click.

However, Oleciren raised her arm, halting Isoel’s movement.

Unlike the three who looked at her with surprise, she confronted Cain, who had an arrogant expression as if he were asking for something he had lent her, head on.

“You are no longer a princess; you are now the Witch Oleciren. Are you not afraid?”

Cain shrugged.

“A princess or a witch, death is death if your neck gets cut.”

Everyone stared back at him.

Everyone gasped, and Oleciren couldn’t help but say something from the bottom of her heart.

“Crazy bastard.”