Chapter 68: The Sister Who Sniffs

Every profession has a sentence its experts never want to hear from an outsider.

For a doctor, it’s [Are you sure about that diagnosis?]

For an engineer, it’s a woman who can’t tell a spanner from a wrench asking if his blueprints are accurate.

For the Mother Superior of one of the most powerful churches on the Magic Continent, it turned out to be a man praising her chest, out loud, with a straight face.

In all her years of living, she’d never expected that.

Sword Sister Rita lost her mind instantly.

"Y-, You filthy, garbage—! How dare you speak like that in front of the Holy Mother?!"

Her sword was already out.

Adonis innocently raised both hands and smiled.

"Wait. Before you consider cutting off my... whatever you’re considering cutting off, understand that I was simply so happy to see Mother Euphemia that I made a slip of the tongue."

Rita growled. "That was no slip! You meant every word!"

Adonis stepped back and wiped his cheek with his sleeve.

"Could you not talk so much? You just spat on me."

"I did not!"

Her face went red, surely she’s embarrassed.

"I didn’t spit on you! You’re lying!" (???)?

"Why would I lie in a church?" 𝘧𝓇ℯℴ𝓂

He kept thoroughly wiping his face which somehow made Sister Rita stutter and quiet into shame. Her pointed elf ears, flushed at tips, bounced up and down with every shameful breath.

"Th-, This is an insult! You have no respect whatsoever!"

Behind the veil, Mother Euphemia kept a serene smile on her tender, rosy lips.

"Rita."

Just her name, said once.

Sister Rita froze and turned her face away, furiously pouting with one hand still strangling the sword at her side.

"... If he dares make light of the holy mother’s words and deeds again, I’ll cut out his tongue."

Euphemia let out a sigh. It was so soft that to Adonis it sounded more like a moan. She lifted herself elegantly from the daybed to sit properly. Her body twisted temptingly as she moved, and the way her robes shifted was something else considering the two large things on her lithe torso.

Unfortunately, Adonis could only see silhouettes.

’This woman is written too sexy. If I’m not careful, the author’s shameless pen will make me forget why I’m here. I’m here to destroy the Church and become king. Still, one still has the strong urge to dip their head between those thighs.’

He cleared his throat and put on his proudest smile.

"Thank you for your understanding, Mother Superior. I didn’t know women like you could take compliments so sweetly, yet I chose to risk it, heh. How nice."

Euphemia’s eyes narrowed behind the prince.

There were guards beside the doors.

"Take this unruly prince to the dungeon. I’ll come and meet him very soon."

The guards didn’t waste a second. They grabbed his arms and locked his gentle wrists in pure white chains molded from [Holy Magic], cold enough to sting evil.

"Don’t resist and you’ll keep your life, Your Highness."

"Eh?"

Rita finally smirked, she whipped her messy short hair back like it had won her something and huffed.

"Hmph. Did you really think you could offend the Holy Mother and walk away with such nonsense?"

Adonis looked at the chains then shrugged sadly.

"Aw, shucks. You got me."

The smirk slid right off her face.

That wasn’t how a man looked when he’d lost; he’s not showing fear, nor anger, nor begging. He just looked a little disappointed like his pet goldfish had died, or maybe someone who missed the early morning bus.

’Why... isn’t he shaken?’

Mother Euphemia and Hershant both warned her about him and called him every horrible name they knew.

A fake man with no qualities.

A particular kind of bastard who tricks people.

A devil wearing a saint’s mask.

When he’d first walked in so confident, she hadn’t been bothered at all. But now that he was readily acting defeated, it bothered her quite terribly.

Rita clenched her fist and felt a chill she hadn’t felt since the war against the northern theocracies. Still, her duty was to protect the Holy Mother. If even the prince of this nation stood in her way, she would slit his throat without hesitation.

That was the zenith of her loyalty!

...

At the same moment, the carriage of First Queen Esmarie tore through the rings of Gilishon like a runaway storm.

It smashed fruit stalls, flattened crates, scattered bread and even an innocent cabbage man’s cart across the stone roads, and not a single merchant screamed.

It wasn’t because it was the First Queen, or the mother of the second-ranked prince in line. It’s just a survival mechanism for lowborns never to raise their voices at lavish carriages. No one who did that loved their life.

Inside, Queen Esmarie gripped the window frame with a pale, worried face.

On the coachman’s bench, the coachman was sweating through his collar.

"Y-, Your Majesty, may I slow down a little? We’re going to kill someone—"

"Have you gone mad or something?! Don’t you know how dangerous it is for my daughter to be back in the kingdom at the same time the Church is here—?!"

"Your... daughter..."

The coachman swallowed.

He remembered Princess Claire. How could he not? She looked nothing like her mother or her brother. With that midnight hair and those bloodthirsty eyes, she looked more like a blood witch than a princess.

"Your Majesty, I feel like I’m forgetting something else about the First Princess. I just can’t put my finger on it—"

A deep, cold wave of shame and horror washed through Esmarie’s whole body.

"Shut up and ride!"

The coachman slapped the reins, so horses screamed and the carriage lurched faster down the cluttered streets.

When they finally reached the western gates before the Azapita Mountains, they found the guards.

Well, they didn’t look like guards anymore.

Their armors were sliced open from shoulder to hip, eyes empty and full of nightmares... a few sat curled up like balls against the wall with their arms around their knees, shivering like homeless beggars in winter.

The coachman gasped so hard he fell off the bench and tumbled into the dirt.

Esmarie stepped down from the carriage in a hurry.

"Where is the princess?"

One of the guards flinched.

When he spoke, his teeth clacked together.

"P-, Princess Claire... oh my days... she... she suddenly came back from her journey in the Demon Continent... and asked where Prince Adonis was. One of us told her he was up in the mountains with the nuns."

He gulped for air that he’d been fearfully holding back ever since he saw her.

"She got very mad and called us liars, then said the prince is a sinner like her, and he’d never go to a garbage church. Then she started saying strange things... like she could sense her brother lost his virginity... and she’d come to confirm it. And asked if he was really surrounded by nuns..."

"..."

The coachman covered his mouth.

"We told her we didn’t know anything about the Fifth Prince’s virginity. One of us said that, and she cut his arm off. She said never to call him Prince Number Five again. That he’s number one in her eyes. Then she slashed all of us down and called us liars again..."

He wiped his face with a trembling hand.

"But then she caught the Fifth Prince’s scent. She apologized for calling us liars, and went up the mountain."

The coachman nearly fainted.

Esmarie, on the other hand, only looked tired.

Maybe you could also add unbothered.

Not that her only daughter, her precious Daddy’s girl, had just maimed some of the capital’s finest guards.

Only that she’d arrived late, so she just sighed.

"I see, how unfortunate. I’ll send healers to tend to you so keep up the good work."

The coachman scrambled to his feet.

"You’re... really just going to leave the First Princess to run rampant like that?"

The First Queen said nothing.

She climbed back into the carriage, because apparently she was the only one who remembered that only her worthless stepson could tame the princess when she got like this.

"Take me back to the palace."

"But, ah..."

The coachman opened his mouth to argue.

Then it hit him, that thing he’d forgotten.

The First Princess was deathly obsessed with the most useless prince in the kingdom.

...

Soon, a young lady before the Melcian Convent.

The Fifth Prince’s scent had led her here.

Long, wavy black hair flowed down her smooth, slender back, tied in a small topknot with loose strands framing a face that was beautiful, but a little off. Her eyes were sharp and red. Her smile was sly and vicious. Pale skin, a dark-blue and silver armored crop-top that left her midriff bare, a short draped skirt, and light plates that covered only a few small parts of her lithe, curvy body.

She sniffed the air again.

"Mmm... it seems someone wants to eat my little brother."

...

Deep in the convent’s dungeon, Adonis sneezed into his rusted shackles.

He sniffled loudly.

"Someone must be talking about me."

[Ding! Warning: Host and Prussia are in danger!]

"Eh?"

Adonis yawned and flopped back onto the hay of the filthy dungeon floor, hands behind his head.

"If anything’s in danger, it’s my immune system. And I’ve only been here a few minutes."

Note: Suffering from H. pylori, failed an ESR test and also have low water content in my body. I will try my best to release more Chapters, but until I’m better bear with me :(