I Became the Villain Saintess's Slave

Chapter 52

"Of course. I’m here at your Patriarch’s own request."

Nora studied Isabella’s smiling face carefully.

"...our father sent you?"

As far as Nora understood it, someone from the Order of Lumielle moving this fast made no sense at all, not when Cassius himself had only just sent word that he’d arrived in Peria.

"And if I’m not mistaken, aren’t you assigned to serve the faithful in the Kingdom of Castilla? So why would you be the one sent here, Archpriest Isabella? Aren’t there already Archpriests or Bishops stationed at the cathedral in Peria itself?"

Something about this situation kept nagging at Nora, refusing to sit right no matter how she turned it over.

By her own reckoning, even if the cathedral in Peria had requested help from the Archpriest stationed in Castilla, the journey alone would take well over a full day to reach Sarnel territory.

None of the Seven Pillar territories maintained their own cathedral.

Geography played a role, certainly, the empire’s borders sprawled too wide for that kind of infrastructure everywhere, but the deeper reason was that all seven families had agreed long ago that keeping the Order of Lumielle’s presence concentrated in the capital, where the imperial court itself resided, made oversight simpler.

On top of that, Nora had received no word at all about an Archpriest arriving ahead of schedule, and she’d only just gotten the order to secure this floor herself.

"Of course, you might not have heard yet. I’ve actually been reassigned, effective immediately, to serve the faithful in the capital of Peria."

The reassignment, moving from Castilla straight to the imperial capital, struck Nora as suspiciously sudden.

"And the capital’s cathedral already houses plenty of important figures, including the Saintess herself. So was this transfer genuinely ordered by the Order, or..." Nora murmured, half to herself.

"Archpriest Isabella, would you mind explaining why you—"

Just as Nora pressed further, chasing down whatever was actually going on within the Order, Adrian cut in, practically beaming the moment he registered that Isabella had been reassigned to Bravenheart territory.

"Isn’t that wonderful news, though? Now that you’re stationed somewhere with far greater reach, Archpriest Isabella, you’re bound to become even more renowned once word spreads through the empire."

"You’re very kind, but wherever I’m assigned, I serve there for the Goddess Lumielle’s will alone, never for personal renown."

Something about the way Isabella spoke struck Lucian with an odd sense of déjà vu, her cadence, the practiced warmth threaded through every word, the kind of voice built specifically to draw sympathy and trust from anyone listening.

To someone who didn’t know what actually lived behind that voice, it would have worked flawlessly. Lucian, already carrying the small, uncomfortable secret he did about her, found it genuinely unsettling instead.

Adrian’s expression had already twisted into exactly what Lucian had half-expected, thoroughly, hopelessly charmed, whatever emotional manipulation Isabella had just deployed landing right on target.

"If you ever need any kind of help, Archpriest, please don’t hesitate to call on me. I’d walk, I’d run, straight through fifty active volcanoes if that’s what it took."

Lucian’s brow furrowed watching his older brother make that declaration. Adrian had apparently lost every ounce of rational thought the second Isabella entered the room.

Isabella’s own expression, for a flicker of a moment, betrayed something closer to distaste, faint but unmistakable disinterest bleeding through toward Adrian.

"Thank you. I’ll certainly keep that in mind." She said it graciously anyway, careful not to let anything crack the composed, gracious image she projected to the room.

"Perhaps I could accompany you to tonight’s party, Archpriest Isabella."

"I’m afraid that won’t be possible tonight. I likely won’t be able to stay for the event at all, I still need to file my report confirming this matter’s been resolved."

Both Nora and Adrian’s curiosity sharpened at that, wondering exactly what report an Archpriest would need to file.

Isabella seemed willing enough to show them. Her hand disappeared into the folds of her robe and emerged holding a small white pouch, some kind of storage relic capable of holding inanimate objects within a fixed capacity.

White light spilled from the pouch first. Then, as the object inside began to emerge, something shaped like a flower vase, the air in the room darkened noticeably, a wave of dark mana bleeding outward the moment it came fully into view.

Something inside that vase felt wrong. Nora, Adrian, even the Phantom soldiers standing guard, all of them visibly tensed at the sight of it.

Inside the vase sat a single strange flower, white, delicate, seemingly ordinary at a glance.

Despite the dark mana radiating off both flower and vase, distorting the air around them, a faint magic circle hovered between the two, inscribed with careful script, clearly some kind of containment ward.

"No need to worry, it’s already sealed," Nora said, holding the floating vase steady between both hands, gesturing toward the visible seal.

Lucian wasn’t looking at the vase at all, though. His attention had locked entirely onto the white flower itself, something about it registering as though it were staring back at him from somewhere deep inside.

A white flower, dark mana. I’ve seen this combination before.

The longer he studied it, the stronger the sensation grew, something inside that flower watching him in return.

He flinched back a step, startled.

Isn’t that a Murk! The sensation crawling through him now matched exactly what he’d felt from every Murk he’d already encountered.

Don’t tell me this is one of those Adenium flowers.

Isabella caught the shift in his expression instantly and asked after his condition.

"Lord Lucian, please, don’t stare at this Adenium too closely. There’s a Murk hiding inside it."

Something about that answer set Lucian’s mind racing. How had an Adenium flower ended up here at all? As far as he understood from that memory he’d walked through, those flowers only grew in the Red Lands of Eosia.

Nora leaned in to study the flower herself.

Her eyes went wide the instant she took it in properly.

She could see it too, apparently, a cluster of Murks gathered somewhere within the bloom itself, and the same dark, unsettling sensation she’d felt the day that mysterious door had swallowed her missing maids whole.

"Archpriest Isabella. Don’t tell me this is what caused that strange domain to appear."

Isabella confirmed it outright. Whatever had triggered the disruptive domain haunting the fourth floor, this object was the source.

Nora’s focus shifted from the flower itself to the engraving worked into the vase’s surface.

The carving didn’t match any Bravenheart craftsmanship style she recognized at all.

And Adenium flowers, as far as her own knowledge went, didn’t grow naturally anywhere across the continent of Arta, the plant needed desert conditions, and Arta simply had no desert regions to speak of.

This was new information entirely for Nora, her expression sharpening with genuine curiosity, clearly fascinated to learn a flower like this could apparently serve as a vessel for evil spirits at all.

"But how could Murks alone generate a domain this powerful?" Nora asked, leaning in for a closer look. Isabella pulled the vase back slightly, keeping it out of her reach.

"The answer to that lies in the engraving on this vase itself."

Isabella’s hand moved over the seal, fingers tracing something across the warding script bound into the vase’s surface, adjusting it with practiced precision.

The moment her hand stilled, the vase gave a small shudder, and the dark mana bleeding out around it drew back in all at once, absorbed entirely, leaving both flower and vase looking like nothing more than an ordinary household decoration.

"This relic, shaped like a simple vase, was specifically designed to mask the true strength of an Adenium already compromised by Murks. Which means what looked like an unremarkable little pot and flower was actually concealing something genuinely dangerous the whole time."

Isabella exhaled, feigning exhaustion, then turned and offered Lucian a respectful bow.

"Even I failed to recognize how dangerous this object truly was. If Lord Lucian hadn’t helped me realize it in time, I might have fallen for this relic’s deception myself. I owe him my thanks."

The gesture came out of nowhere. Lucian felt distinctly uncomfortable with how far Isabella had stretched the explanation, especially with Nora and Adrian both now studying him, visibly trying to decide whether any of it actually checked out.

"So that’s why you’re up here on the fourth floor. But how exactly did you help?"

Lucian faltered slightly under the question.

"That’s right, Sister Nora, though I really didn’t do much. I only came up here because Sister Jeanne asked me to find something to wear from the fourth floor—"

"When I got here, I happened to sense dark mana coming off that vase, and it turned out an evil spirit was already trying to attack Archpriest Isabella. I shouted a warning from behind her, and thankfully she reacted fast enough to seal it before anything happened."

The excuse came out a little thin, and Nora looked like she was still turning it over when Adrian suddenly leaned in toward the vase himself.

"Wait, isn’t this the vase Princess Helia gave us, twelve years ago?"

Princess Helia. The name hit Lucian like a physical jolt, especially paired with the claim that this exact object had been a gift from her, twelve years back.

"You’re right, actually, Adrian. If I remember correctly, she gave it to us during her visit for your sword calling ceremony," Nora added, backing up his memory.

Adenium flowers. Princess Helia. Something from twelve years ago.

Lucian’s heart hammered hard against his ribs, every piece of it slotting together with what he’d already seen inside that memory, all of it connected somehow.

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