CH 69

Pow! Pow! Pow!

Pow-pow-kapow!

The sounds of impacts, louder and faster than anything else heard up to this moment, rang throughout the audience room. There Estian saw Tania, thrashing the dragon’s feet at a speed which even he could not quite discern with his eyes. The spectacle evoked a piece of memory, of what Kane had reported to him about Tania upon his return to the imperial palace with the Forest of Tetin.

“Though she may look like an ordinary young lady, she is the only daughter of Margrave Kaniche. I have heard that as a result of being put through rigorous specialized education, she is accomplished in the sword and in hand-to-hand combat, aside from which she is skilled in poisons as well, and that is not all. Apparently, the girl possesses Herculean strength just like Margrave Kaniche. It is a good thing. Margrave Kaniche may be a little furious, but I am sure there is no young lady better suited to protecting Her Majesty. It is a relief to have her around for dangerous matters too.”

Yes, that was why Estian left her by Cecile’s side to double as a bodyguard.

He watched the dragon being beaten by Tania as it clutched its feet and rolled around the floor in pain. Never had he imagined her to have such monstrous strength, enough to whup a dragon.

“Have I been keeping the most dangerous thing next to Cecile?” Even as Estian muttered to himself, Tania’s fists knew no rest as they continued to punish Girgantia’s body.

* * *

“H-how…”

The saintess looked at the man who had fallen by her side. The man who was bleeding from his head, unconscious from the impact of colliding against the floor and rolling far away, was someone she knew well.

“Kane?”

He was an existence she had created, as she did that dragon. Moreover, she had put even more effort into his creation than the others.

“Wh-why is my sub male lead…” The saintess mumbled to herself as she took the collapsed Kane into her arms. Since the days of old, romance featured a male lead, as well a character that boasted charm no less than that of the former, yet was fated to never be together with the female lead, only to gaze upon her from afar his entire life: a sub male lead. And that was none other than Kane.

Unlike Estian, who had dark hair and eyes, Kane was given the attributes of red hair and blue eyes, and in the saintess’ story, he would fall for Cecile the empress’ charms… This would be after she possessed Cecile, of course. But being the man of noble and pure heart he was, Kane would hold to his principles and simply watch over her at a distance to the end of his days because of Cecile’s status as an empress. Naturally, he was handsome. Ugly men were unneeded in romance, after all.

Such was the first sub male lead the saintess had created.

The man who, if things were all as they should have been, was supposed to be burning with precariously suppressed love for her was covered in blood and rolling on the floor. The saintess’ hands holding Kane became suffused with blue light, following which the wounds of Kane’s body began to quickly disappear. The formerly unconscious Kane slowly opened his eyes.

“Wh-who…”

He blinked repeatedly—his sight had not completely returned to him—but the saintess covered his eyes with a hand as if to put him at ease, then she whispered into his ear, “Be still. I’ll come back after taking care of everything.”

“Who…?”

The saintess’s hand glimmered with a blue light again and Kane’s body went slack again just as he was about to get up. She carefully placed Kane, now sleeping with a peaceful face, on the floor and stood up. It was then that Girgantia, who had been suffering Tania’s furious assault, took retreating steps until it was before the saintess, who walked up to grab the end of the dragon’s tail. “You dare to hurt my man?”

A fire blazed in the saintess’ eyes.

The saintess liked this world. She had written it with smooth inspiration, after all. She did not suffer writer’s block a single time as she drew out the story, as if she were painting actual individuals that existed somewhere in another world. The reason she continued to write was partly due to how smoothly she made progress, but also because all the leading male characters in the story were to her liking.

‘It was so fun writing it.’ 

The saintess had brought her characters to life with the drive of twisted love—of having men that were to her taste feeling anguish because of her—along with the mindset of benefiting womenkind and ‘the more handsome men, the merrier’. 

Holy power began to rapidly accumulate in her hand that was gripping Girgantia’s tail.

“For the sin of hurting the main characters’ faces.” The saintess glowered at the dragon with eyes filled with determination. “Don’t think it’ll end with a simple death.”

She felt greater fury than the time she got a comment that read ‘Your writing sucks balls’.

* * *

Cecile was running madly.

“Your Majesty! You mustn’t!”

Attendants were on her tail trying to catch her, but they were not fast enough. Cecile was holding a book in her hands as she ran, one of those which Tania had brought over a while ago.

‘It’s definitely the same as it was in the story!’

Unbelievable though it may be, Cecile knew of this situation. She stared piercingly at the book in her hands. Stoan delegation. Object excavated from an unknown dungeon. And a dragon.

‘I know this!’