The Villainess in the Romance Fantasy Is Strange

8. Childhood (4)

“This should be enough….”

I moved my hand, which was exceptionally light today, brushed the dust off my clothes and got up.

I don’t know who the warlock was behind these men, but that should have been enough warning.

However, if, after making such a threat, he would target Lia again and use useless tricks. I’ll have to track down the people behind them and let them slaughter in silence.

…… No. Do I really need to keep them alive?

Whether this guy is from the church he was talking about or not is a background setting that doesn’t even appear in the original work. This is the so-called unknown territory. So, as much as we don’t know how big it is or how much of a threat it is. I think it would be best to find out and get rid of them all.

“…… Just, go and cut your throat?”

Involuntarily, I muttered, startled. It felt like someone on the other side of the man was trembling.

I pondered for a while in front of the man’s severed head.

Since this happened, should I find out who is behind it and root it out? Can I get away from Lia for a while to get rid of the aftermath?

While brushing off the blood on the blade, I contemplate which one to choose. At that moment, Leah grabbed my sleeve.

“Oh, no. Cain… !”

“Huh? No, what?”

“You said you were going to go and cut your throat, no! Poetry, as for mutilating the body. It’s against the rules!”

“…… Huh?”

I was thinking, “What are you talking about?” I realized when I saw Leah pointing her index finger at her man’s corpse.

Ah, Leah can’t believe it. Do you think I said I would decapitate her corpse again?

Certainly, it could have sounded like that because it was out of context. Even so, I’m not a heinous person enough to decapitate a corpse. Since all of them had already been decapitated in the first place, there is no neck that can be cut.

“Poem, you should bury the body well. You can’t just cut it off, Cain!”

“Ah…. Yea, I got it. I won’t.”

It would take a long time to explain, so I just nodded.

Lia seemed relieved after hearing my words, whew. He stroked her chest and let out a sigh. However, it was only for a while, and he was afraid of the corpse of the killer and the severed head lying around. He comes close to me with a somewhat frightened face and clings to me.

Looking at Lia, puck-. He kicked the neck of a nearby man and rolled it away. Leah didn’t see my actions like that, she said as she tugged at my sleeve.

“Cain, you know. What were these people after all… ?”

“Well, I’m not sure.”

She blurted out the end of her words and glanced at the neck of the man who had rolled away.

Blanked skin, grotesquely distorted nose and mouth. It was too late to think of it because I was surprised at how ugly it looked.

“That guy said something about the church, and he said something about him. He even asked for you as a sacrifice, probably. Aren’t they the apostles serving evil spirits?”

“Evil God…… ! What is this, Cain… ?”

Liah, who was surprised, asked cautiously. It looked like a 10-year-old kid, so I smiled and put on the boots I had taken off. I looked around at the bodies of the men scattered all over the place.

First of all, let’s fix the rude language without even realizing it.

“Well, you know that there are many gods in this world, right?”

The god I’m talking about is not an omnipotent god in the religious sense, that is, a creator, but actually exists. He is a real god who has many influences on the world.

Since Leah had learned this from her tutor not long ago, she nodded her head quickly.

“Yeah, you know. Are you talking about Venus or Solar?”

“Yes, it is. Venus, who governs love, and Solar, who governs the sun, are gods, right? They are good gods who exert a good influence on the world. To put it simply, it’s the good side.”

There is nothing more foolish than arguing about the good and evil of gods from a human point of view. A few nights are not enough to dig deep into the philosophical explanation.

“Hey, that guy he said. So, a god who demands a human being as a sacrifice is an evil god that has an evil influence on the world. The doctrine itself harms people.”

“Ah…. That’s right, because it harms people, it’s an evil god. Then, is the god they worship a bad god?”

“Yes, it is. So evil.”

I’m not sure if the person they worship is a real god. There was a church, and he even said that he had to sacrifice Lia as a living sacrifice, so it would be safe to say that he was a kind of god.

Of course, he may not be a god. Actually, what is it, is it so important?

The important thing now is that those unknown guys are aiming for Lia. He might try again. It’s just the fact that Lia could awaken as a villain with that opportunity.

In other words, because Leah has grown up safely. As for me, who has to watch her become the most beautiful woman in the empire…. It is a story that the very existence of that suspicious church is a thorn in the eye.

“…… Hmm.”

I’m trying to think of a way to bring these guys down, Tuk-tuk. Leah tapped me on the shoulder.

“By the way, Cain. These people…. No, what to do with these corpses? Are you just going to leave it like this?”

“No, I have to clean up.”

“…… Post-processing?”

“Yes, clean up.”

Of course, it’s not that nobles can kill people at will.

Because there are definitely laws and trials in this world. If they find out I killed ten burly men. Perhaps he will face a large fine or some kind of punishment? Even considering that it was self-defense.

As Lia’s escort knight, such a stigma cannot be overlaid.

So I gathered all the decapitated bodies and heads at the bottom of the garden. It is a grotesque scene when corpses are piled up and the heads of as many as ten people are placed on top of them.

“Cain, I’m scared…. The corpses just look at me… !”

“It’s true that you’re actually looking at me.”

“…… Whoops!”

After scaring me a bit, Leah clings to me. To calm down, I patted Lia’s head and said quietly.

“Lia-sama, don’t be afraid just yet. Lia-sama has something to do.”

“My, what am I supposed to do?”

“Yes, Lia, did you learn the basics of fire elemental magic some time ago?”

“Yeah, that’s right… ?”

“We will have time to actually utilize the fruits of that learning. Come on, Leah. Cast a spell on this pile of corpses and set it on fire.”

“Boo, light the fire… ?!”

Lea, the flagship, glanced at me.

It seems that he was surprised when he suddenly tried to light a fire with his eyes wide open. I responded calmly and in a tone that made me do things for granted.

“Yes, Lia. You don’t have to be scared. Aren’t these guys the ones who tried to harm Lia-sama?”

“That, that. Yes, but….”

“Lia-sama, think about it. What if I wasn’t by your side? They must have kidnapped Lia-sama to be sacrificed, and Lia-sama probably wouldn’t be of this world by now. Those guys are such heinous bastards. It means that Lia-sama doesn’t have to feel sorry for these guys.”

“Is that so? Cain, I don’t have to be sorry… ?”

“Yes, it is. Why are you sorry, Lia-nim? Rather, these guys should thank Lia-nim. You must have been alive to cause harm to others, but thanks to Lia-sama, you are becoming fertilizer to make a more beautiful world. I will probably be grateful even after death.”

“Oh, okay. If Cain says so….”

Gulp, Lia swallowed her dry saliva and stretched out her right hand.

“…… Par, fire!”

And then, let’s shout with a cute voice like a 10-year-old child. A small ember popped out of the tip of her dainty finger. It soon grew into a sphere and attached itself to the pile of corpses.

──Pung, boom!

With a loud noise, the fire grew even bigger. Along with the smell of burning flesh, acrid smoke came out and hit the place where Lia and I were standing.

We watched the untimely burning ceremony from a few steps away.

…… And it wasn’t until about ten minutes later that I realized something was wrong.

“Hey, Cain. How long will it take for the body to burn… ?”

“If you want only bone powder to burn…. It should burn for two hours at a high temperature of about 1000 degrees.”

“Two, two hours? A lot of black smoke is rising right now, but I wonder if people will come before that… ?”

“Yes, it is. I must have misunderstood.”

I didn’t know because it was the first time I’d burned a human corpse, but now that I think about it, it took several hours to completely incinerate a person on my planet.

Isn’t that the case just by looking at the crematorium? It would take at least two hours to burn the body at a high temperature where you could feel the heat just by getting close to it, but it would take much longer with the embers raised by less powerful magic. Even at the minimum, it probably would take about three hours.

And three hours is more than enough time for all the villagers who saw the black smoke rising from the burning of the corpse to come.

When I reached that point, I grabbed Lia’s hand.

“Lia-sama.”

“Uh, huh?”

“Let’s bounce.”

“Uh… ?! Want to run away? That, then What to do with these corpses?”

“You don’t have to worry. Since they are well scorched with fire, you won’t be able to track us by looking at the traces of swordsmanship left on the corpses.”

“Ah, I see. Then just go…. Oh!”

Lia’s body staggered as she tried to walk in front of her, holding her hand with mine.

I moved quickly and grabbed her by the waist just before she fell.

“Lia, are you okay?”

“Eh, it’s okay…. I think my body is a bit strange. Cain.”

“The body? Where exactly, how strange is it?”

“Should I say that, strangely, the whole body seems to lose all its strength….”

“The whole body seems to lose all its strength… ?”

With such symptoms, there is one thing to be expected. It is a phenomenon called mana exhaustion, which is caused by excessive use of mana in the body. Isn’t that a bit odd for that?

Leah is now a child of 10 years old, and she is a beginner wizard who has just learned magic. It doesn’t make sense that her mana depletion came just because she lit a small fire.

That means there are external factors that I don’t know about…. What is it?

At the edge of my troubled field of vision, I saw the front of Lia’s clothes slightly open.

On the back of her slender neck, an inverted black clover pattern the size of her thumb nail was engraved.

“… ….”

The moment I saw that pattern, I felt a strong sense of deja vu.

Nevertheless, this black clover pattern is something I know.

I hated Stella, the protagonist of the original story, so much that I wanted her to die. A pattern meaning the curse of misfortune contained in the necklace that the wicked woman ‘Lia von Eleves’ gave to Stella as a gift.

In the original work, ‘Ria von Eleves’ is not expected to appear until she is 18 years old. She is cursed with misfortune.

…… It is none other than ten-year-old ‘Lea’.