The Hero Becomes the Duke’s Eldest Son

Chapter 144

The Usurper Saintess was powerful.

Even a Sword Master would not be able to handle her, who wielded the power of the Slaughter God’s saintess and the power of the Slaughter Sword simultaneously.

However, the Saintess of the Blind Eyes was even stronger.

Merida’s calm voice could be heard.

“Spica, I can finally see your eyes now.”

Spica had long lost her former noble demeanor, and her saintess attire was torn here and there, resembling the rags of a beggar.

The white cloth that covered her face was also torn from the battle, revealing her face.

Radiant silver-blue eyes.

A beauty so stunning that anyone would exclaim in awe.

Despite the wounds and bruises from the battle, they only accentuated her beauty.

“…I can’t see anything anyway, Lady Merida.”

“But you can sense it through intuition. It’s much better than covering your face with such a cloth.”

“Hah… Can you really say that in this situation?”

Spica let out a hollow laugh.

Her laughter seemed somewhat empty.

Saaaaa, the blood wings that had sprouted from her back rapidly scattered like feathers falling off.

Her original black hair gradually returned.

The blessing of the Slaughter God had weakened to the point where it could no longer maintain the blood transformation.

With this, the outcome of the battle was as good as decided.

Seeing this, Aden was convinced.

‘It’s over.’

The Usurper Saintess had lost.

Both Spica and Merida knew it.

“Kill me.”

Thus, Spica spoke to Merida.

“As you said, I usurped the position of the saintess through unjust means and waged an unreasonable holy war to bring down the Church. As the master of the Slaughter Tower and the proxy of the Slaughter God, punish the sinner.”

“…”

“Why are you hesitating? Hurry and punish the sinner. Fulfill your beloved duty.”

She urged Merida to kill her, as if she was unafraid of death, as if she had accepted everything.

There was a self-deprecating smile on Spica’s lips.

In contrast, Merida remained silent, taking no action.

Only after a while did Merida speak.

“Spica Lunias, my first disciple. I have one question.”

“Yes, Lady Merida.”

“Do you hate me, hate the Slaughter Cult?”

“…”

Spica did not answer.

No, to be precise, she couldn’t answer before Merida continued.

“If you hate me, I can understand.”

The Saintess of the Blind Eyes spoke calmly to her disciple.

“Because I annihilated the village you lived in.”

Even the self-deprecating smile disappeared from Spica’s face.

* * *

People had changed.

A young girl from the mountain village felt it.

‘They won’t meet my eyes.’

When people met her gaze, they turned their heads to avoid eye contact, hurriedly going in another direction or hiding their bodies.

Her parents were no different.

‘They don’t hug me. They don’t pat my head. They don’t praise me.’

They no longer smiled warmly or called her name with a gentle voice.

They only looked at her with eyes mixed with fear and even disgust.

‘I’m bored.’

No, the young girl soon realized that what she felt was not boredom.

‘I’m lonely.’

The bored girl became a ‘lonely’ girl.

Thus, the only way to express her feelings was with the word ‘lonely,’ just three syllables.

The young girl thought.

‘How can I make them look at me again? Smile at me? Hug me?’

In the young girl’s short memory, the thing that made her parents happiest was ‘hunting.’

And the only thing she was good at was also hunting.

‘Let’s do what I’m good at.’

So, the girl brought back larger and more animals.

But nothing changed.

Instead, the village people and her parents looked at her with colder eyes, muttering, “Monster…”

Nothing got better.

‘Lonely.’

The young girl didn’t know words deeper and stronger than ‘lonely.’

She didn’t know the right words to express the feelings so deep that it felt like she could suffocate and die in them.

Thus, not knowing where things went wrong, time flowed mercilessly.

Then one day, the villagers told her.

-There is a giant man-eating monster living in the mountain next to the village.

The people informed the girl who knew little.

-If only that monster were gone, we would be safer.

A monster that eats people lived in the mountain next to the village.

The villagers told the young girl about the monster’s existence.

‘People hate monsters.’

They hate, despise, and loathe monsters.

Just knowing a monster is there makes them fearful and wish the monster would disappear without a trace from this world.

The young girl, who knew little, understood this well.

‘So if I get rid of the monster, they will surely like it.’

The young girl from the mountain village went to the neighboring mountain.

She didn’t know much.

Like how difficult the path to the neighboring mountain would be.

That the villagers deliberately told her about the monster in the neighboring mountain to get rid of a small monster within the village.

But the villagers also knew little.

Like the fact that the monster they called a man-eating monster was an ogre.

That the being they feared was still an immature, young ogre.

Boom!

They didn’t know that the young girl, who knew little, had the ability to take down that young ogre.

‘It hurts.’

Instead, she got badly injured.

It was the first time she had been hurt so badly while ‘hunting.’

But the blood-covered young girl’s steps were light as she carried the ogre’s head back to the village.

‘Everything will be alright now.’

She imagined in her head.

Imagined her parents patting her head and hugging her again, the villagers smiling and greeting her warmly again.

The lonely girl felt good.

She wanted to return to the village quickly, enduring the pain as she trudged back to her home in the mountain village.

But such imaginations of the young girl could never come true.

That day, the young girl saw three things.

The silent, quiet village.

A beautiful angel with hands stained with red blood.

And beneath that angel, lying there…

The corpses of the villagers.

The angel, covered in blood, without eyes to make eye contact, spoke to the girl.

“It’s the same, my successor.”

The girl didn’t understand what the angel who killed the village chief was saying.

The young girl knew little.

But she realized one thing: her blood-stained appearance now looked exactly like the angel who killed her parents.

Thud.

The girl dropped the monster’s head she had carried with difficulty to the ground.

That day.

The young girl, Spica, saw her own small but precious world crumble.

—

“It was the Antlion Village.”

Merida spoke.

“They pretended to be a kind rural village, luring travelers and then killing them to steal their possessions.”

Antlion Village.

It was an expression referring to a village of bandits disguised as an ordinary village.

Ironically, they treated Spica like a monster, yet they were no different from human-eating monsters.

“The Slaughter God’s decree classified them as evildoers. And they attempted to kill me and rob me when I came to take you as per the revelation.”

“…So you judged all the villagers. Yes, I know. I’ve heard the story already.”

Now she knew.

That the villagers wanted her dead.

That they were wicked people who deserved to die, she now knew.

“Even knowing that, I couldn’t forgive.”

A fierce light shone in Spica’s silver-blue eyes.

“I couldn’t forgive you for killing my parents, couldn’t forgive you for destroying my village, couldn’t forgive you for making me never see them again. So, that day, I willingly followed you into the church.”

Only for revenge.

To kill the hateful Saintess of the Blind Eyes who wiped out her village, she entered the tower.

And she learned how much Merida cherished the Slaughter Cult, and her goal grew.

She decided not only to bring down Merida but also the Slaughter Cult.

“Lady Merida, I made up my mind while watching you. Since you took away my precious things, I would also take away what fills your heart. To do that, I needed to defeat you and become the saintess.”

“…You have attempted to usurp me one hundred and seventy-four times, and each of those one hundred and seventy-four times, you have failed.”

“Haha, that’s right. From the start, defeating you, Lady Merida, was an impossible task.”

She let out a hollow laugh.

Merida, the Saintess of the Blind Eyes and proxy of the God of Slaughter and Death, was too strong.

A mere saintess candidate with the Holy Mark could not defeat the saintess blessed by the Slaughter God. The gap between them was insurmountable.

“So, I tried to give up.”

She had realized that she could never defeat Merida with her own power, even if she lived until Merida’s natural death.

The young girl who knew nothing had grown into an adult who knew a lot, and she learned how to ‘give up.’

Even if she couldn’t forgive, even if she couldn’t unravel the knot in her heart, she learned to say ‘it can’t be helped’ and suppressed her twisted desire for revenge, eroding it with the stream of time.

Eventually, it would completely crumble away, leaving not even a single ember.

“…If ‘they’ hadn’t given me this sword, that’s what would have happened.”

“Who are ‘they’…?”

She shook her head at Merida’s question.

“I don’t know their identity either. They just threw me this sword, told me its ability, and said I could use it however I wanted. And honestly, I’m not even curious.”

She sneered, her eyes gleaming with a fierce light.

“The moment I grabbed this sword, the hatred buried beneath resignation surged again.”

The despair of a child who lost the future she dreamed of, the emptiness of losing even the opportunity, the rage towards Merida who took everything away—all of it revived.

A twisted smile appeared on her lips.

“Thanks to them, I could even ‘slaughter’ you, Lady Merida. I’m really grateful to them. I didn’t expect you to survive, though. Haha.”

Merida could somewhat guess Spica’s state.

“You’re enthralled by that wicked sword.”

Spica frowned slightly and tilted her head at those words.

“What are you talking about? Enthralled? Me? How could something like ‘slaughter’ manipulate me?”

However, even as she spoke, her eyes were not normal.

“Haha, I’m a saintess, after all. No, not anymore, since the blessing is gone. But as a high priest of the Slaughter Tower, how could I be swayed by the voice of ‘slaughter’? Right? Yes, that’s right. It’s only natural.”

Her speech gradually became awkward.

In her silver-blue eyes, a different kind of madness than that of other bloodthirsty priests of the Slaughter God was evident.

Aden, who had been quietly watching their conversation, also noticed this.

‘She’s enthralled by the demonic sword without even realizing it.’

With enhanced hearing, Aden had heard their entire conversation and learned about Spica’s past.

‘I understand now why she’s different from the Iron-Blooded Saintess in the future.’

The Iron-Blooded Saintess Aden knew would have overcome her seething desire for revenge to some extent.

Whether it was resignation or forgiveness.

‘Probably, by the time the Saintess of the Blind Eyes died of natural causes five years later, her hatred would have been completely worn down.’

Judging by her future dedication to the Slaughter Cult, it would surely have been so.

But the demonic sword Lavolas had altered that future.

The emotions that had been gradually dying out were driven to madness by the demonic sword, making her believe it was her own choice.

‘Now that the dissonance is surfacing, is it because the Slaughter God’s blessing has disappeared?’

That was highly likely.

“Anyway, are your questions over? Then end it now. ‘I feel like my anger will only be appeased if I accept the death of this bitch’… Wait, what did I just…?”

Aden felt a chilling, ominous premonition.

‘I need to remove that sword!’

Instinctively, he tried to intervene to stop Spica, but it was too late.

Whoosh!

Spica swung the demonic sword, Lavolas, in her hand.

Thud.

The sound of flesh being pierced echoed. The blade cut through skin, dug into flesh, severed blood vessels, and shattered bones, making a small noise.

“…!”

Everyone present froze at that moment.

However, Lavolas did not pierce Merida or anyone else.

The blade of the demonic sword had impaled Spica’s own heart, protruding from her back.

“…Ah?”

Even though she had stabbed herself with her own hand, Spica looked dazed as if she couldn’t comprehend what had happened.

Gush.

Sticky red blood flowed like a spring from her mouth and chest.

“…Lady Merida…”

As Spica tried to continue speaking, her silver-blue pupils grew dim, as if shrouded in fog. With a thud, her body collapsed onto the wasteland.

It was a moment of stillness.

Wooong.

The blade of the demonic sword, which had taken Spica’s life, glowed a sinister red, emitting a chilling light.

[You foolish woman.]

The voice, as if thousands of tongues were whispering simultaneously, grated on the ears.

[I thought I had finally found a contractor who would indulge in slaughter after such a long time. Truly a worthless woman.]

It was the spirit of the demonic sword Lavolas.