It was a Political Marriage, But I’m Being Loved - Chapter 125

The steward knew far less than Cernadis had hoped.
But because the man answered every question without needing to be tortured, Cernadis decided to spare his life for now.

“Does he know that Iaoros is dead, or not?”

He figured the man probably didn’t know the full story. Iaoros had likely kept him around only to maintain the estate.

“…There’s probably no direct connection. After all, Iaoros was only a mid-level demon.”

Creating lower demons or familiars was a power reserved for high-class or upper-ranked demons. There were other ways for someone to become a demon, but they weren’t exactly recommended.

Most of the time, the result was merely a mindless monster—soulless, with no real power.
The steward guarding Iaoros’s mansion would eventually be reduced to that, once his outer form began to decay.

“Do you require anything else, my lord?”

“No. If I need anything, I’ll call. Until then, don’t bother me.”

“Understood, Lord Cernadis.”

The steward smiled politely, bowed, and then disappeared.
If he had kept pestering him, Cernadis would have killed him without hesitation. He tilted his head lightly and looked around.

“Now then… where would Iaoros have hidden his secrets? In the traditional basement? No, too cliché. Maybe in some dramatic study to keep up appearances? Or… could he have tucked something away in the bedroom, nice and private?”

As he strolled through the mansion, humming to himself, Cernadis recalled something the steward had mentioned.
Iaoros always spent the night whenever he visited this estate.

Which could only mean—

“The bedroom, of course.”

Sure, he could have sneaked into the basement or his study in the middle of the night.
But the fact that he always stayed overnight made the bedroom the most suspicious location.

Cernadis headed straight for Iaoros’s bedroom and began tearing it apart without a second thought.
With the owner dead, he had no reason to hold back. He destroyed, ripped, and broke things at will.

“Where the hell did you hide it? Don’t tell me it’s not the bedroom after all?”

In frustration, he stormed down the hall to the study on the same floor and started trashing that room next.
But since Iaoros had only visited the mansion a few times a year, the study didn’t hold many items.

“This is annoying! So irritating! There has to be something here!”

He smashed all the porcelain, overturned the furniture, ripped up the floor—
He was just about to start tearing down the wallpaper when something behind the wall was revealed.

“Oh. Found it.”

It was a hidden door. Not in the bedroom—in the study.

“Ugh, seriously, Iaoros? Did you have to be that boring?”

Muttering irritably, Cernadis extended one of his fingernails into a long claw and began prying into the groove around the secret door. He was humming again as he worked, but then suddenly paused.

“Wait a minute. Why am I even bothering with this?”

BAM! Crack!

With one powerful punch, he broke through the secret door and shoved his hand inside, ripping the entire thing off its hinges.
Made of stone and wood, the door clattered to the ground behind him as he stepped inside.

The pitch-black hallway led to a narrow staircase that descended below.

“A basement, huh… Iaoros, you’re lucky you died before I found you. If you were still alive, I’d be down here chasing you, ready to kill you out of sheer frustration.”

Grumbling to himself, Cernadis stepped into the darkness.

Meanwhile—

When Susanna finally regained consciousness, she was in shock.

Her arm—gone. Not just her arm, but part of her shoulder had been cut clean off.
Even as the high priestess held her and assured her that the limb would regenerate once her body was purified, she refused to hear it.

“When?! When will that day come?!”

Susanna already knew.
The demonic energy now embedded in her body was proof of her corruption.
Unless she genuinely repented for her sins, that darkness would never leave her—and neither would her wounds.

She couldn’t stop hating.

She resented the Imperial Family for labeling him a traitor and taking him away.
She hated the Empire for keeping people at his side who weren’t her.
And she couldn’t help but resent Valter Bianchi—the man who had made her fall in love, only to leave her broken like this.

Susanna screamed as she convulsed, overtaken by a violent outburst.
Even with multiple priestesses surrounding her—offering prayers and soft words of comfort—the world still felt cruel, cold, and unbearable.

Once she finally calmed down, Marquis Leroy came to visit her. He said he was there on behalf of the family and that she would soon be sent to a provincial town.

“They say the clean air and pure water of the countryside will help your body purify itself more easily.”

He spoke gently, but Susanna didn’t believe a word.

No matter how she looked at it, it felt like her family was abandoning her—a disgrace to the family name, an unbearable stain.

Right now, she was locked up in the Grand Temple. The food didn’t suit her taste, the bedding made her skin itch, and every single day here felt like hell.

How was she supposed to purify her body in a place like this?

“Let me go home! I want to go back! Did you forget what the temple did to me?! How can you expect me to live in a place like this?! Let me out! Please—let me out of here!!”

She screamed like a madwoman, her voice raw with desperation.
Marquis Leroy’s expression twisted in shock, and without a word, he turned and left the room.

The priestesses returned shortly afterward, exchanging places with him. They gently guided Susanna back to the bed and did their best to soothe her.

They were persistent, kind on the surface, but there was a cool edge behind their voices.
Once her episode passed and she began to cry quietly, they offered gentle words of consolation.

“I’m going to escape this place. I won’t stay here a moment longer.”

But then she remembered the way her father had looked at her as he left the room.
Fear crept in. She looked down at the empty space where her arm used to be, and thought of her family.

The Leroy household.
Even the servants there might start to pity her now.

That idea alone filled her with unbearable rage—and bone-deep shame.

“The goddess will watch over you, my lady. Please, calm your heart.”

What has the goddess ever done for me?!
Her mind seared with bitterness. But even that resentment, the priestess gently urged her to let go.

Who in this world could possibly let go of their anger so easily?

Tears streamed down Susanna’s cheeks as she sank deeper into her despair.

“I thought… he might visit, at least once…”

The High Priest let out a long sigh as he looked toward the direction of the Imperial Palace.

After receiving a message from the Master of the Magic Tower and accepting the transfer of the “Fragment of the Demon King,” a few dangerous and chaotic days had passed until it was finally sealed away.

Though the capital had narrowly escaped destruction thanks to the efforts of the Tower Master…

“The damage to the Grand Temple is immense. My indecisiveness—my failure to act swiftly—led to great loss.”

He couldn’t help but wonder: what if he’d pushed back against Marquis Leroy’s protests instead of trying to persuade him?
He knew there was no point in such regrets now, but the thoughts still lingered.

“At times like this, one must focus not on the past, but on the present—and the future.”

There was still much to do.
He had to dispatch official letters to nearby temples to send temporary personnel to guard the Grand Temple.
There were bodies to be recovered and rites to be performed.

One saving grace was that the Imperial Family had assigned additional forces to help protect the Demon King’s fragment.

It was now hidden deep underground, sealed within the sanctuary beneath the Grand Temple.
The first box was sealed with holy power by the High Priest and five priestesses and clerics.
The second was sealed with magic by Marcus, Giel, and the royal mage sent from the tower.

With three layers of sealing in place, no one could detect the fragment’s presence anymore.
The sanctuary was sunk beneath the lakebed that surrounded the temple grounds, and the entrance would now be guarded in shifts by Marquis Nordeus, a Sword Master, and his eight disciples.

The Tower Master was still stationed in the capital, so their defenses against demonic attack were solid.
And once the Holy Pope arrived, the cursed seed known as the “Fragment of the Demon King” would finally be erased from the world.

There should have been nothing left to worry about—
But the High Priest still felt a deep, creeping sense of unease.

“Is it because of the demons’ sudden stirrings…? Or… could there still be another fragment out there?”

He hoped it was just instinct.
He had wanted to discuss these concerns with the Tower Master, but he had been unreachable for days.
The Imperial Family was keeping quiet, but rumors had already begun to spread—whispers that he had locked himself away in his chambers with his fiancée.

“….”

The High Priest looked up at the sky and let out a long, weary breath.

“So this is where I’ll be living from now on…”

Her heart was pounding.

The Magic Tower wasn’t as grand or beautiful as the Imperial Palace, at least not from the outside.
It resembled a massive, aged building—something between a tower and a fortress.

But the Tower Master’s quarters were another story.
They contained a sprawling garden, and the inner chambers were just as magnificent as the palace.
It wasn’t Achilles’s taste—it had belonged to the previous Tower Master.

“This is the training ground,” Achilles said, leading her in. “I figured this would be the first place you’d want to see.”

It was a vast space—easily the size of a school field.
He explained that the grounds were built to withstand the Tower Master’s magic, so she could train freely without causing any serious damage.

“And… this.”

He handed Charlize several magical accessories—five in total, a mix of bracelets and rings.

“They function the same way as the necklace I gave you last time. Just don’t wear them together, or their effects will weaken. If the magic stone in one breaks, use these to replace it.”

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