How to Live as the Terminally Ill Younger Sister of the Villain - Chapter 80
Chapter 12. Suspicion
Angelina, who had returned to her room, couldn’t rest. It was only natural.
‘Nothing will happen, right?’
No matter how hard she had tried to change things, the villain and the male lead were still meeting. It would be a lie to say she wasn’t worried.
‘No. They have no reason to hate each other.’
They didn’t have overlapping interests, and there was no reason for a power struggle…
She tried to calm herself, but she couldn’t.
‘In the original story, the two had no connection. My brother simply hated the male and female lead.’
It wasn’t jealousy or a power struggle. He disliked them as if he was taking out his frustrations on them.
“Haah…”
Unable to organize her thoughts, Angelina buried her face in her hands and let out a deep sigh.
Despite trying so hard to prevent her brother from becoming a villain and taking all possible measures, she was still anxious.
‘At this rate, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to leave when the time comes.’
She wonders if she won’t be able to die because she’ll be worried about her brother.
‘No, get it together.’
Angelina lifted her head abruptly and took a deep breath. Inhaling deeply and exhaling seemed to ease her troubled mind a little.
Then she went to her desk.
“By the way, where did that one go?”
She found herself looking around involuntarily, missing the one that usually followed her everywhere, rubbing against her and tripping her.
“If you mean Pudding, he’s with the Marquis.”
“I guess he really likes my brother.”
“……”
That was fortunate. Since the child was brought in to comfort her brother, it was good news that he liked him.
Although Laura made a rather strange expression.
Sitting at her desk, Angelina took out the notebook that was like a sanctuary for her mind, which she had kept in the drawer.
She opened the bucket list page and jotted down the recent information she had obtained.
First, she crossed out things like [Pure soul?] or [Holy power user?] that she had scribbled around Catherine’s name. Then she wrote anew.
[‘Vessel’ = One who responds to sacred objects]
She also neatly drew a pig’s tail to the side and added details like [Holy power increases].
[Twelfth flower = The twelfth child to show a response to sacred objects]
[Then what about the other eleven?]
The pen tip stopped.
‘What really happened to the other eleven?’
Beings that weren’t even mentioned in the original work. Extras, even more pitiful than herself, who at least had been given the setting of having a limited lifespan.
No matter how positively she tried to think, it didn’t seem like their endings would have been good.
How else could Catherine have constantly tried to run away after becoming the ‘twelfth flower’, and said she was taking a gamble with the male lead because she had nowhere else to fall?
‘The fake saint project started after the current High Priest took office.’
That means it hasn’t been more than 20 years at most. Does that mean 11 children have passed by during that time?
‘The more I think about it, the more trash they are.’
Although it was started for her brother’s sake, Angelina thought that putting a stop to their project was a good thing no matter how she looked at it.
The thought that she could continue to thwart them made her feel proud and happy.
With mixed feelings of anger and pride, Angelina began to write again.
[First flower = Catherine’s friend ‘Lina’ (presumed dead)]
‘In the end, I couldn’t ask about this…’
Before they could have a proper conversation, Aesi came and took Catherine away, so she couldn’t ask anything about the child named ‘Lina’.
Would there be another chance to ask? Considering future plans, it seemed unlikely that she and Catherine would have such a comfortable conversation again.
Feeling regretful, she rested her chin on her hand and looked at the flower on the desk.
It was the freesia that Ante had brought. Laura had already beautifully arranged it in a vase to decorate the desk.
Looking at the glass vase and the bright yellow flower, she naturally thought of the ‘blue rose’ sacred object. A sacred object that looked like a tulip but was named a rose.
Angelina turned the page.
It was a new page.
[Sacred Objects]
[1 – Crimson Thorn]
[Obtained from Witch’s Tomb – Handed over to Aesi]
[2 – Blue Rose]
[Obtained from Grand Temple – Currently with Aesi]
[3 – Black Lake]
[Black Land in the Duchy – Aesi will obtain soon]
She wrote down what she knew and put check marks next to the completed items. Then she added below:
[Further investigation needed for the remaining two]
[One is suspected to be in the Imperial Palace – Palace storage? Might be impossible to obtain?]
[Information about the other one is in the ‘Artifacts’ section of the Capital’s Grand Library – Investigation pending]
She wrote down all the information she could draw from the original work.
‘But the Grand Library isn’t called grand for nothing…’
She had a vague memory of visiting the library when she went to the capital, holding her brother’s hand as a child.
It was as large as the biggest among the Marquis’s vacation homes.
Even if it was specified to be in the ‘Artifacts’ section, finding documents related to sacred objects there would be like finding a needle in a haystack.
Moreover, from what she’d seen of sacred object-related documents so far, they never explicitly stated their connection to sacred objects.
They were written very vaguely, in a way that wouldn’t seem odd even if matched with completely unrelated things.
So she really had no idea where to start.
‘Would it become clearer once I go there?’
Then Angelina’s gaze returned to [Crimson Thorn]. Her eyes stopped at [Witch’s Tomb] written below it.
She was lost in thought for a moment.
‘I wonder what I’ll find if I investigate this first?’
The Witch’s Tomb.
That’s where Angelina had obtained the Crimson Thorn sacred object. Everyone called it the Witch’s Tomb.
But its official name was ‘The Crimson Thorn Guarding the Sun’s Tomb’. Not a witch’s tomb, but the sun’s tomb.
Why did the Sun’s Tomb come to be called the Witch’s Tomb? When did this change occur?
‘Well, since it’s related to sacred objects, following this trail might lead to something.’
Angelina took out the necklace she had kept in the same drawer as her notebook. It was Mason’s holy power suppression necklace.
Again, there was no particular reaction.
Resting her chin on one hand while fiddling with the pendant, Angelina put down the necklace and picked up her pen again.
[Man with wings – Silver wings]
[Blue rose in hand – ‘Thief bastard’? ‘Made to give’?]
[Sword at waist – Black? Blue?]
[Presumed to be a tomb-like location…]
She briefly wrote down the scene she had witnessed there. But it was so instantaneous and blurry that nothing particularly stood out in her memory.
‘Should I write down the little boy’s voice and the little girl’s voice too?’
Somehow, those seemed separate from what she saw then, so it felt awkward to write them all in the same place.
Still, as she was slowly trying to recall her memories, Angelina frowned.
“Come to think of it…”
Thinking carefully now, among those fleeting, discordant voices, the little girl had definitely used the name ‘Lina’.
‘Lina, what should we do?’
And that happened when she grabbed Catherine.
At the time, since her nickname was ‘Lina’ and ‘brother’ was mentioned, she thought it was a long-forgotten memory from when she was very young.
But Catherine’s old friend was also named ‘Lina’.
‘Then instead of my memory… did I glimpse Catherine’s memory…?’
Is that even possible?
Well, in a situation where you’re seeing hallucinations of a winged man, what wouldn’t be possible?
‘Then what I heard when I touched the Duke was his memory…?’
The voice saying this wasn’t enough. The voice saying they’d be back soon. It was definitely the same boy’s voice.
‘Coming back soon…?’
Just this much, even remarks about not being satisfied.
‘The Duke’s trauma…’
If it were such a young voice, it would match that age exactly.
‘Did I really see memories?’
It was both absurd and bewildering.
Although she didn’t intend to look, she felt as if she had pried into someone’s private life.
‘Why just those two and not others? And why specifically those scenes… those moments?’
Angelina rolled her thoughts around in her head while also rolling her pen.
[Magic Tower + Contact with holy power suppression device]
[Grand Temple + Contact with the same device (Laura?)]
[Our villa + Contact with the Duke (no device)]
No matter how she looked at it, there was nothing in common.
Moreover, for the second one, it was unclear whether she touched the device or Laura. Since she touched Laura, who was holding the device.
[The other person’s memory?]
Then the winged man she saw… whose memory was that? The Crimson Thorn sacred object? Or given that the background was similar to a tomb… the tomb’s memory?
‘Is there really a witch buried in the tomb?’
And what she saw was the witch’s memory?
