How to Live as the Terminally Ill Younger Sister of the Villain - Chapter 63
Her voice was calm, as though she had known everything.
Right now, only Angelina could maintain composure.
Though Mason was expressing his anger outwardly due to being emotional, Haley kept dry heaving from the shocking truth, and Jake was frowning, unable to believe what he was hearing.
Even Pudding, who didn’t know the situation, tilted its head in confusion, sensing everyone’s anger.
Angelina could remain calm because she already knew what they must have seen.
It had been explained in the original work.
“The High Priest’s wrong interpretation created this hell.”
The High Priest split the inscription ‘When the sun is devoured by darkness and the world is dyed in blood’ into two parts for interpretation.
The sun being devoured by darkness meant a solar eclipse, and the world being dyed in blood meant enough blood should flow to cover the sword.
As a result, they thought the sword that pierced the tree needed to be covered in blood.
‘They say they used to sprinkle blood on the tree itself to stain it red before coating the sword… If I mentioned that, either Haley or Mason would faint.’
Angelina knew other things too, but she kept them to herself. There was no need to reveal things better left unknown.
“The wrong interpretation was problematic, but the High Priest added an even stranger meaning to it. Since they were wounding a sacred tree, the blood too had to be ‘pure.'”
“That’s why they used children…!”
Mason flared up again. But he was so angry now that he could barely speak.
“Damn it!”
He could only kick the chair violently.
“Kweek…!”
Pudding, sitting on the desk, was startled, and Haley, imagining something terrible again, dry heaved.
Angelina also sighed and agreed with Mason’s anger in a low voice.
“Indeed, why did the ancient people have to write unnecessary words like ‘blood’ on the tombstone to cause this mess.”
Though it’s unclear exactly when the tombstone was made, what was the person who wrote it thinking?
Even if it was written like a riddle to prevent just anyone from breaking the seal, did they really not foresee this outcome?
As she pointlessly lamented about a past that might be hundreds or thousands of years ago, Catherine, who had been quiet until now, spoke up.
“They didn’t just kill them indiscriminately.”
Her words drew sharp gazes from everyone.
Mason, the most talkative, voiced everyone’s thoughts.
“Are you defending them now?”
Though they had brought her because Angelina asked to rescue her, those who didn’t know who Catherine was couldn’t trust her. Their sharp reaction was natural.
“No. Absolutely not.”
She strongly denied it, but when people’s gazes didn’t soften, Catherine hesitated for a moment before rolling up her sleeve to show the inside of her arm.
There were several overlapping marks as if cut by a sword. Some parts of the skin were mottled, perhaps from wounds reopening and scarring over.
“Don’t tell me you too…”
“Yes. I’m also a victim.”
Mason’s face contorted.
Though deep, these were wounds that could have been healed if holy power had been used.
Yet the priests seemed to have withheld even that small amount of holy power from the children, leaving the wounds untreated.
It was disgusting that they poured holy power into ‘freshly’ preserving the extracted blood, while neglecting the children’s wounds.
Catherine noticed that everyone’s gaze towards her had changed, and gaining confidence from this, she added:
“Still, I was relatively better off. Because my holy power manifested.”
“What does holy power have to do with this?”
“You all already know that the Order planned to create a fake saint, right?”
“We’ve heard.”
“They didn’t just kidnap children solely for blood extraction. They managed those with holy power separately.”
“Separately?”
“It was to test if they were qualified enough as vessels to contain the saint’s power. I experienced both because my holy power manifested a bit late.”
“So all children with holy power become ‘vessels’?”
“Not all of them. Only a very small number of children respond to the sacred object.”
Catherine let out a long sigh.
“When you say sacred object…”
Someone’s murmur was answered by Angelina.
“The blue rose.”
Everyone’s attention turned to her, and Catherine nodded heavily.
“That’s right. The blue rose that bloomed from the Sun’s Tears. The High Priest had succeeded in breaking its seal.”
Since this wasn’t widely known, everyone frowned once again, as expected.
“And when they used it, my holy power increased. That’s why I was chosen as a ‘vessel’ capable of receiving the saint’s power.”
There were natural limits to how much it increased, but it had increased nonetheless. And High Priest Wyatt viewed this positively.
“And this kind of response to the sacred object… I was the twelfth.”
“Gasp!”
At Catherine’s quietly added confession, Mason took a sharp breath. With wide eyes full of shock, he spoke.
“So that’s why they called you ‘the twelfth flower’ in code at the Grand Temple…!”
“Yes. That’s why.”
Mason’s shocked eyes moved from Catherine to Angelina. Angelina still maintained her composed expression, showing no signs of surprise.
Just how much does she know?
Though the thought crossed his mind, he didn’t ask. Somehow, he felt the answer would be more than he could handle.
However, contrary to appearances, Angelina was quite surprised.
‘Ah… so that’s what twelfth flower meant?’
She had only used it because it appeared that way in the original work, not because she knew its meaning. Even the fact that Catherine was the twelfth ‘vessel’ was something she just learned now.
‘So this is why it had to be Catherine.’
Angelina nodded while thinking she should erase all the notes like ‘pure soul’, ‘holy power user’ from her notebook.
“That’s why that day, even though Priest Derek was suspicious of you, he had to respond properly. Because only insiders would know such details.”
Catherine spoke while keeping her eyes fixed on Angelina, who was slowly nodding.
“That’s also why I mistook you for my old friend.”
“….”
“She was… ‘the first flower.'”
At these words, for the first time, a small crack appeared in Angelina’s expression.
Seeing Angelina’s brow furrow, Laura quickly intervened.
“You must be mistaking her for someone else. My lady has no connection to the Grand Temple.”
“…I know. I know well she has no connection.”
She couldn’t not know, after stealing the sacred object right in front of the High Priest. But she couldn’t help her gaze being drawn despite knowing this.
Though Laura’s intervention quickly ended the discussion about the resemblance, Angelina’s mind was somewhat complicated.
And it was for a slightly different reason than what Laura thought.
‘If an extra character had this much significance to the setting, it should have been mentioned at least once in the original work.’
Come to think of it, there was no mention in the original work about why Catherine was the ‘twelfth flower.’
‘Even for a novel that’s stingy with explanations, this is a bit much.’
There were countless children who had passed through the Grand Temple. So it was understandable that their names weren’t mentioned in detail.
But shouldn’t the fact that Catherine wasn’t the first to be chosen as a ‘vessel’ have been mentioned?
‘Was it deliberately omitted to avoid making the female lead seem less special?’
That could be possible. Considering the nature of novels, the male and female leads should be special beings chosen by the world.
“Anyway, now that I’ve disappeared, the High Priest will be in a frenzy trying to find a new ‘vessel’.”
Catherine, unaware of Angelina’s thoughts, continued her story.
“When I think about that, I wonder if I’ve driven other children into danger just to save myself, haah…”
Having directly experienced how much they overworked young children to confirm the increase in holy power, she couldn’t help but sigh.
However, Angelina abandoned her train of thought and immediately responded, erasing Catherine’s worries.
“No. That won’t happen. The High Priest will never find another ‘vessel’ again.”
“What…? What do you mean he can’t find a vessel…”
Catherine asked in surprise.
“There’s a reason for that.”
Angelina smiled and brushed it off vaguely.
If finding a ‘vessel’ for the Saint’s power truly depended on the blue rose, that blue rose was now in the hands of the Magic Tower Master, not the High Priest.
Although she hadn’t met him to confirm it yet, there was no way the Magic Tower Master could have failed to empty out the Grand Temple without any holy knights or high priests present.
The High Priest had no knowledge of the black lake’s location, and even the crimson thorn he once knew was now in her possession, so the High Priest had absolutely no means to find another ‘vessel’.
“So don’t worry about that.”
Angelina turned her head to look at Blake.
“The situation is much more complicated than expected, isn’t it?”
“I never imagined it would be this serious.”
“It’s natural you didn’t know. There’s someone powerful keeping it hidden.”
Given that none other than the Empress was involved in this matter, one can imagine how thoroughly they must have kept these secrets.
