The intruder who turned the Grand Temple upside down was none other than Jella.

After learning that she could no longer find the heart from Niel, Jella immediately left him and came looking for Yupheon.

She had tried to travel through the portal connecting the Imperial Palace and the Grand Temple, but for some reason, the portal wasn’t functioning properly.

After pondering briefly and pouring magic into it several times, she was finally able to activate the portal and cross over to the Grand Temple, but the aftermath caused the portal to break.

Normally, she would have tried to fix the damaged portal somehow, but captured by Arne’s voice, she didn’t think about the consequences and left the broken portal behind as she invaded the Grand Temple.

However, in the process, the portal made a loud explosion, throwing the Grand Temple into chaos. Priests who rushed out in the middle of the night were running around everywhere trying to catch the intruder.

Destroying several buildings while trying to avoid those priests was certainly not her intention.

In any case, Jella moved stealthily to find Yupheon while evading the priests trying to catch her.

‘But Yupheon Arne is a bit scary…’

She was in the middle of hopping from rooftop to rooftop, heading toward the innermost part of the Grand Temple, where the Pope’s residence was located.

‘Huh?’

Flash! Jella felt something strange.

‘Yuphe is scary? What am I thinking?’

Her head tilted in confusion at her own thought.

Yuphe had been the closest person to her since childhood. There had been times when she felt uncomfortable with him after Yuria appeared, but she had never once thought of him as scary.

‘Wait. Come to think of it, since earlier…’

Jella blinked slowly.

‘Something has been interfering with my mind.’

Her movement stopped abruptly.

-The Pope…

She remained still, listening carefully to the voice echoing in her mind.

-You must seduce the Pope and recover the heart.

-He’s dangerous, so be careful. Don’t get caught.

“Yuphe…”

Jella quietly recited, following the voice in her head.

“Seduce Yuphe…”

At that moment, she saw the silhouette of a person moving below with splashing water sounds.

It was Yuphe.

For a moment her eyes seemed to cloud over, and then Jella immediately jumped down in front of him.

***

Yupheon stared at her with round eyes.

“Jella?”

For a moment, he thought he was seeing things. Perhaps he had been in the hot water too long, or perhaps he had drunk too much and was seeing an illusion.

However, after blinking a couple of times, he gradually realized that the woman before his eyes was certainly not an illusion.

Nothing in the world could perfectly imitate her, who was so pretty and lovely that his heart trembled. Even if it were an illusion created by himself.

It was the real Jella.

The moment he realized she wasn’t an illusion, his drunkenness cleared instantly.

“Why are you…”

As he absently looked over her appearance, he froze.

Jella was wearing only a thin nightgown. The shawl she had worn when she first went to meet Niel had long since disappeared.

As a result, her exposed white skin was glistening in the moonlight.

Yupheon was at a loss about where to look at her disheveled appearance.

“Yuphe.”

Jella called him in a gentle voice.

“Yes…”

Yupheon immediately answered, instinctively responding to her call.

Noticing his subtle trembling agitation, Jella slowly approached him.

One step. Two steps.

With each step she took closer, Yupheon felt his blood vessels tightening.

Whether it was due to the hot steam emanating from the bathtub, or the subtle atmosphere different from her usual self.

Yupheon stood rooted to the spot, unable to move as she approached, looking straight into his eyes.

Finally, Jella stopped in front of him and spread her arms to embrace his waist.

“…!”

His golden eyes trembled.

It was so surreal that she was nestling into his arms.

‘What is this? Did God really answer my prayers because I’ve been good all this time?’

But that couldn’t be. The god had already died by his hands and lost his divinity, he wasn’t good, and above all, why would the god grant his wish?

Recalling the god’s voice that had cursed him vehemently when he cut out the heart, Yupheon erased his earlier assumption.

The vicious Arne would have taken her away from him, not given her as a gift.

‘What… is this situation?’

Yupheon, who had been frozen in place forgetting even to breathe, slowly lowered his gaze to look at her nestled in his arms. Though he didn’t understand the situation…

‘This is, too good.’

Thump, thump, thump, thump.

His heart beat violently.

Above all, he had just come out of the bath and was only roughly wearing a robe over his n*ked body.

He hadn’t even properly fastened it, so his bare skin was exposed.

As she nestled against his bare chest still wet with water, her already thin nightgown became soaked.

At the same time, Yupheon felt heat rising to his face because of her soft body felt through the damp layer of cloth.

‘…’

It wasn’t just his face that was heating up. His entire body seemed to be boiling and dizzily heating up.

‘Wow, this could be serious…’

Even while thinking this, Yupheon couldn’t bring himself to push her away.

The body nestled against him and the faint scent of flesh were so stimulating that he simply couldn’t break away.

He wanted to just sink into this violent wave of sensation that was crashing over him like a disaster.

Thinking this, Yupheon painfully exhaled the breath he had been holding.

His body kept twitching.

Unfortunately, because he wasn’t properly dressed, he couldn’t hide it.

Jella raised her head and asked.

“Yuphe.”

“Yes…”

“Do you like me?”

“Yes, yes.”

Yupheon nodded as if entranced and answered.

“I like you, Jella.”

His voice trembled slightly as he said so.

He had always been ready to confess, but these were words he couldn’t bring himself to say.

“Is it me you like, or…”

She glanced down and slightly frowned as she asked.

“Is it my body you like?”

“No, I…”

Yupheon looked upset at her gaze that seemed to have seen something improper, but he couldn’t lie and answered honestly.

“I like both.”

“……”

Jella’s mouth remained closed.

***

“Is it me you like, or is it my body you like?”

“No, I… I like both.”

Jella looked at him with a perplexed expression.

‘Isn’t the usual response in this situation that you like me, not my body?’

Yupheon’s eyes were tinged red.

His already pure and pretty face exuded a decadent atmosphere.

Seeing him like that gave her a strange feeling.

‘So, Yuphe really likes me…?’

Something had been interfering with her mind for a while now.

-The Pope likes you, so use that to recover the heart from him.

‘What are you saying?’

As she tried to lightly ignore the noisy voice, at that moment her head began to ache terribly.

When she regained her senses amidst the extreme headache that felt like it would split her skull, she found herself embracing Yuphe.

-Yes. Seduce that man like this! Hurry and find my heart!

Jella felt a surge of irritation at the voice that kept disrupting her mind.

She was thinking she should first break away from Yuphe’s arms and deal with this voice when:

‘Huh…?’

She was about to pull away when she paused. Yupheon’s state was a bit…

‘Why is this…?’

Jella’s pupils trembled finely.

‘Could it be, really?’

It was a reaction that couldn’t come unless he saw her as a romantic interest.

Jella unconsciously swallowed.

‘He really likes me?’

With her usual straightforward personality, she wasn’t good at speaking indirectly.

“Do you like me?”

She hadn’t intended to ask so abruptly, but due to the headache that had been bothering her, she blurted it out without proper thought.

And to that question, Yuphe, “Yes, yes. I like you, Jella.”

He answered immediately without hesitation.

Just like he was saying something he had prepared for a long time…

‘No, it’s too early to jump to conclusions.’

In the original work, Yupheon, the official karma-collector character, was well-described for how excellent his lower body was, and how much karma he had accumulated with that excellent lower body.

‘So it’s entirely possible even without truly caring for the other person.’

But Yuphe insisted with a tearful face that he did indeed like her.

At Yuphe’s words that he liked both her and her body, Jella momentarily had a distant expression.

“Since when exactly?”

“Since I was born…”

“Don’t lie.”

The distant light on her face scattered instantly.

“It’s true…”

Toward Yupheon, who mumbled in an aggrieved voice, she narrowed her eyes sharply and questioned.

“We hadn’t even met when you were born.”

At her stern rebuke, Yupheon’s eyebrows drooped.

Well… my life truly gained meaning only after meeting you. The day I met you was the day of my true birth.

But saying that wouldn’t work with her anyway.

So Yupheon swallowed those words down his throat and smiled again.

“From the moment I first saw you.”

“……”

“I’ve loved you since then.”

“……”

Jella looked at him with a gaze that seemed rather disbelieving.

It seems his credibility had dropped due to his earlier statement.

“…You don’t believe me, again.”

Yupheon muttered in a disappointed voice.

At that melancholy gaze, Jella unconsciously flinched and refuted.

“You were six years old when we first met. What kind of love could a six-year-old…”

“It’s possible…”

Yupheon cut off her words and mumbled sadly.

“I’m saying I’ve liked you, why are you the one judging…”

Jella briefly had a serious expression as she clenched and unclenched her fist, then carefully asked.

“So, really… you’ve liked me…?”

With each syllable she uttered, her throat felt increasingly dry.

Yupheon stared at her and asked.

“How would you like me to answer?”