“Is there anything our princess wants to try later?”
Cecil’s pregnant body trembled at the unfamiliar sound of Julius, an attractive man with short blonde hair.
She wanted to tell him to buy her something to eat these days, but she wondered if he had gone crazy from overwork. She opened her eyes and looked up at him gently.
He seemed to be hiding something behind his back.
‘What is he thinking of doing again?’
“Where do you keep learning such strange ways of speaking?”
“Huh? Oh, this? Priest Lian told me you would like it.”
‘That old man… Does he still think I’m a kid?’
She sneered, expressing her dissatisfaction with the priest who had been taking care of her since she was young.
“So? Are you playing some kind of prank again? I’m too full to play with you.”
“I’m not joking. I just found something interesting in the living room.”
Julius took out what he had been hiding behind his back in a stylish manner and held it out in front of Cecil.
On the cover, in small letters, it read [Things to do after he gets promoted!]
‘Huh? Where did you find that? I hid it well under the sofa.’
“When I sat on the sofa, the height felt slightly different from usual. So, I checked and found something interesting like this.”
“Hey! Just pretend you didn’t see that! You always try to get the upper hand, huh!”
“It will still take some time to be promoted to Special Inquisitor, but these things must be planned in advance! Hahaha!”
With a sad look on his face, Julius opened the book slightly and read in a solemn voice.
“Let’s see… Shopping together with our baby, drinking wine under the night sky, renting an entire luxury restaurant, choosing clothes together…”
“Wow! Don’t read that! It’s really embarrassing!”
The blond-haired mischievous man ran away, giggling, while Cecil struggled and fussed, trying to grab the book from him.
That day, Julius paid the price for his teasing, getting his head practically ripped off by Cecil during labor.
***
A man with an attractive, noble aura, and long blonde hair gently swaying in the wind, Julius wanted nothing more than to escape the situation. He kept blaming himself, torn between the desire to be with Cecil and the sense of betrayal swirling in his mind.
As he tried to step away, he noticed the expressions on Priestess Emily and Cecil’s faces.
Listening closely, he realized the two were bantering playfully.
“Can you really be a good wife if you can’t even cook a piece of meat properly?”
“If I do it with our hearts, it will work out, hehe.”
“If a woman tries too hard, the man will leave.”
“If they try to leave, we’ll just have to hold them back—even if we have to cut off their legs. I don’t want to regret anything.”
The two women clashed over the meat, which was now charred like coal.
Priestess Emily seemed wary of Cecil, burning all the meat that had piled up, her irritation showing. Rather than suspecting that Cecil was a devil, it seemed that burning the meat had become a coping mechanism for Emily.
If Cecil, standing there now, had been the same Cecil before she died, would she have been able to join in on the banter with a smile?
Suddenly, a man with short hair came rushing toward them, saying pleasant things.
Julius saw the figure flash before his eyes.
He stood there, silently watching the scene until the sun rose high, and the grace of God warmed the earth.
***
Thalia, punished for her wild imagination, felt something within her slip away. Before she could say goodbye to Mila Mansion—or rather, the Julius Mansion—she burned the contents of her stomach with sacred flames.
Despite her attempts to prevent such things with near-artistic precision, ever since Cecil had appeared, bad luck seemed to follow.
The unlucky girl walked down the path from the mansion, deep in thought, when she spotted Julius trudging toward her, agony written across his face.
Is something wrong?
Tilting her head, she slowly approached him.
“Good morning, brother. Are you coming back from a morning walk?”
“Ah… Thalia. Good morning.”
Julius lowered his head, avoiding her eyes, and Thalia’s attention was drawn elsewhere.
‘You never acted like this in front of me before.’
She felt a bit sad seeing how much Julius had changed since she last saw him. Just as they were about to exchange more words, someone stepped between them.
The woman holding freshly baked bread in her arms glared at Thalia, her breath heavy, as if ready to pounce.
The relaxed, gentle atmosphere vanished, replaced by the presence of a venomous snake with lifeless eyes, as if it might tear itself apart at any moment.
After glaring briefly at Thalia, Cecil grabbed Julius’s hand and dragged him back to the mansion.
‘Are my thoughts that easy to read?’
Cecil’s departure left a creepy sensation crawling across Thalia’s skin.
A sticky, immoral feeling seemed to linger between Cecil and Julius.
Although she knew it was just her wild imagination, Thalia couldn’t shake the unease she felt about those two.
With her questions unanswered, she made her way to the village interrogation center. She had considered settling for life next door to them, but on her way to the center, she tripped over a rock five times, got hit twice by a falling sign, and narrowly avoided lightning from a clear sky near the mill.
Was she really being punished by the heavens?
“I’ll never have such shameful thoughts again! Lord, please forgive my ugliness.”
A black sparrow flew above her, chirping as if mocking her.
After kneeling down and praying for forgiveness, nothing strange happened—everything felt as if it had never occurred.
It seemed fate only allowed her to live next door to him.
Lowering her head, she sighed deeply.
Afterward, she burned all the illegal books from Uncle Manto’s treasure and secretly reported the location of Uncle Finn’s slush fund—made without Rosa’s knowledge. Absent-mindedly, she strolled along a forest path, watching the falling leaves.
“Ha… I guess I should quit being a heretic inquisitor and become a priestess. That way, at least I won’t have to hear people call me an old maid who can’t get married.”
As she seriously considered changing careers, a familiar voice approached her from behind.
“Sniff, sniff… You smell like my kind, Thalia.”
She turned and saw Renelle, a former genius inquisitor, wearing nothing but strange pants and a shirt.
Sponsor Chapters at the Patreon Shop: Along with BuymeaCoffee.
The Shop section on Patreon can be used as a way to make a one-time-payment. I will be creating products in the Shop section with the title of the webnovels. It will only have an image as the product, but it will count as the payment for the Sponsored Chapters.
For example: You will buy the product with the title “Flower Stealing Master” to sponsor a chapter for the novel. As far as I know, you can buy the same product multiple times, so you should be able to sponsor as many chapters you want. I hope it was easy to understand.
Things are Not Looking Good: Yes, things are not looking good. As you know, translation requires a lot of time and energy. I translate, edit and proofread the chapters on my own. I will be honest here, I started translating as a hobby, then it evolved to a hope of earning a living by doing something I enjoy.
However, I suffered a chain of misfortunes during and after the pandemic, and earnings from FSM and RTV helped me a lot. It became a significant part of my life. As long as my monthly income bordered around $200, I could make the time to translate in the middle of other works. Then RTV ended, and the earning decreased. Now, it has decreased to around $90-$100. And with PETTV nearing completion, that would decrease even more. A*dsence gets me about $ 0.50 per day, and you can’t get the payment until it reaches $100, so I can’t depend on that either.
It wouldn’t be an issue in normal circumstances, but it matters a lot to me since I am still dealing with a lot of financial troubles. I am currently looking for a job, and will have to invest my time and energy in it once I get it.
Long story short, if you enjoy reading this novel, support the translation if you can, either by becoming a Patron in Patreon, or sponsoring chapters at BuymeaCoffee. You can also take some time to watch a*ds to increase the revenue on A*dsence. Grains of sand together can form a desert.
FSM supporters has been supporting me from the start no matter what, so I would continue to translate FSM as long as I am alive. But for the other projects, I now desperately need your support so that I can spend the time and energy to serve them to you all. That’s all. Thank you.