Tenes came to Niel sobbing loudly.

Anyone could see he had been thoroughly beaten up.

“That woman caught me and kicked me out penniless, Lord Niel. Sob……”

Niel lifted his eyes from the documents he was reading, briefly glanced at his appearance, and replied in an emotionless voice.

“That’s unfortunate.”

He seemed completely unconcerned whether Tenes had been beaten up or left penniless.

His mood was notably worse than usual.

The courtiers in the imperial palace were watching him cautiously, as he wore an expressionless face instead of his usual gentle smile.

‘I apologize, Your Majesty. We lost him.’

In the end, his knights returned with shameful faces, having failed to capture the criminal who shot the arrow and fled.

‘……Let’s return.’

Niel said in a cold voice.

At this, the knights looked even more ashamed and didn’t know what to do.

‘Um… Your Majesty, are we just leaving that building…? There’s a dangerous element inside…’

‘That will be all.’

‘Pardon? But the report…’

‘Do I need to repeat myself?’

‘F-forgive me, Your Majesty!’

Niel turned away right in front of the underworld building.

The woman who had been ignoring him all along had finally revealed her identity to him. She had shown her equally firm resolve.

If she had already decided to protect Yuria, he would never be able to stop her.

Because she was that kind of person.

Once she decided to protect someone, she would protect them no matter what with her cruel yet immense sense of responsibility.

Even if those people were ignorant masses who had cursed and pointed fingers at her.

Of course, he could use force to break into the building and forcibly drag Yuria out.

But that might hurt her.

Whether physically or emotionally.

She wouldn’t be defeated by mere ordinary knights, but the process would surely make her the subject of gossip.

No matter how much he cleaned up afterward, she would once again be stigmatized for defying the imperial order.

Then she would snort indifferently and let the malicious whispers directed at her slide.

The sharp and cutting criticisms from the people she had saved with her life… she would let them pass with an indifferent face, as she always had.

Becoming more and more numb, not even knowing that it was wounding her.

“……”

The veins on the back of Niel’s clenched hand bulged.

That was not what Niel wanted.

He couldn’t hurt her just to capture Yuria.

‘I’ll have to dispose of Yuria quietly, away from public eyes. So that she won’t be harmed.’

Niel thought as he closed and opened his eyes deeply.

Tap. Tap.

His fingertips tapped the desk rhythmically.

Why did she care for and look after things that weren’t worthy of receiving her heart?

“Um, Lord Niel……”

At this moment, Tenes carefully spoke, breaking his contemplation.

“That woman has even brought in the pope and is plotting something wicked.”

“……”

“I overheard that they’re planning to send the saint back to where she originally came from.”

“……”

“They’re going to secretly infiltrate the imperial palace tonight……”

“I see.”

But Niel only responded indifferently.

He seemed completely uninterested in the saint, despite her being a major criminal who had attempted to assassinate him.

“You’ve worked hard all this time. Now that you’ve been exposed, you can no longer continue your work. How incompetent.”

Despite his calm voice, his added comment was quite scathing.

Tenes realized that his information would no longer earn him any money.

“Then what about the bounty at least……”

“Bounty?”

“Didn’t I report the saint’s location?”

“The saint wasn’t there.”

Niel replied indifferently.

“What? That can’t be! She was definitely there! I saw her! The saint was hiding in Jella Irene’s underworld office!”

“I’m telling you I didn’t see her.”

Tenes raised his voice in indignation, but Niel drove him away with a cold voice.

“If you contradict me one more time, I’ll have you arrested for offending the emperor’s mood, so shut up and leave, Tenes.”

In the end, Tenes was expelled from the imperial palace without a single coin.

“What a complete tyrant!”

Unable to contain his anger, Tenes vented his fury in the street.

“This cruel emperor! I definitely saw the saint! He’s pretending not to know just to avoid paying the bounty!”

It was when he was shouting angrily while tearing down the wanted posters on the street.

“What did you just say? You saw Yuria?”

A man who suddenly appeared grabbed Tenes’s arm and asked.

“W-who are you?”

Startled Tenes asked, blinking his eyes and forgetting his anger.

***

The man who caught Tenes was none other than Arne.

Five years ago, after having his heart torn out by his most faithful servant.

Having lost his divinity and been banished to earth, wandering as a spirit, he discovered three men amicably sharing his heart.

He rushed at them to retrieve his heart but was quickly subdued and barely escaped.

It was all because his heart had been stolen. His heart, which resembled a red nucleus rather than a bodily organ, was a source of power that condensed numerous life forces.

He ordered Yuria to seduce the three men and retrieve his stolen heart.

Although she failed to seduce the emperor, if he could recover even one of the three pieces of his heart, he could regain his past glory.

Yuria had enchanted Yupheon and brought him to Arne, who welcomed him gladly.

‘Now, Yu-Yuphe. Please cut open your chest and return the heart to Lord Arne.’

‘Yes, of course.’

Yupheon smiled brightly and took out a dagger.

Arne calmly watched as Yupheon raised the dagger to extract his heart.

His power of “enchantment” was by no means omnipotent.

It breaks down and takes damage in the face of strong dissonance. Then, the backlash would burden the caster.

This was all due to the rules established by the man who had created him in the past. Even after Arne had pushed that man aside and become the chief god of this world, those rules remained unchanged.

That was also why Arne didn’t act directly but used Yuria.

Because she came from another world, Yuria’s body was beyond the rules of this world.

Thus, she could make possible even such absurd things that would cause strong dissonance, like asking someone to cut open their own chest.

But then.

Suddenly, Yupheon changed the direction of the dagger he was holding and rushed at him.

‘Kyaaak!’

Yuria quickly fled, and Yupheon attacked him while bursting with holy power.

Arne barely managed to escape from the chaos, but he had lost his strength and needed a recovery period.

It was absurd and infuriating to be reduced to this state by a man who had merely been his servant.

What made him even angrier was when he returned to the chapel after regaining mobility.

After the emperor’s knights and the temple’s holy knights had taken turns raiding and ransacking, nothing remained.

“The holy grail! My holy grail!”

With his heart torn out, he couldn’t use his power without absorbing people’s life force.

The holy grail, an ancient sacred artifact that served as the medium, was gone.

“Damn it.”

He chewed on a harsh curse and ran his hand through his hair.

In this situation, he had to find Yuria at least.

That day, Yuria had fled immediately as if she had anticipated what would happen.

That cunning girl had definitely deceived him and conspired with Yupheon.

“How dare she……”

The explosive life force consumed when summoning Yuria was so vast that it caused numerous women to collapse simultaneously, spreading rumors of an epidemic in the capital.

That vast life force was sustaining Yuria’s body, which had crossed over from another dimension.

Originally, he had planned to use Yuria to retrieve his heart from the three men, but since she was of no help, he decided to just devour her.

After devouring Yuria, he wouldn’t have to worry about life force for a while.

‘Th-there’s a terrifying underworld woman named Jella Irene, and the saint has entrusted herself to her.’

Fortunately, he encountered someone who knew Yuria’s whereabouts.

It wasn’t difficult to infer Yuria’s next move.

‘She’s planning to open the dimensional gate.’

A cave in the northern forest of the imperial palace where Yuria first appeared.

That place was the passage connecting Yuria’s original world and this world.

‘To get there, one must cross through the center of the imperial palace.’

Yuria was a timid woman, but her will to return to her world was strong.

She would definitely head to the northern forest through the imperial palace.

So Arne disguised himself as an ordinary priest and attempted to infiltrate the imperial palace to chase her.

It was when he felt that the main gate of the imperial palace was more bustling than usual.

He bumped into someone running in the other direction.

“Ugh.”

“Ouch.”

The person he bumped into was also wearing priest’s robes, but they got up quickly and ran away without even apologizing.

They moved so fast that there wasn’t even time to grab them and question them.

“Such a rude human. When I regain my power……”

It was when Arne was grinding his teeth in anger at the rudeness while getting up.

“Here he is! We’ve caught the suspicious person!”

At someone’s shout, soldiers suddenly rushed toward him.

“W-what are you doing?”

Arne shouted in confusion.

“Blonde hair and purple eyes! This is the one!”

“Seize him!”

“Let go! I am an ordinary priest.”

A commotion broke out as the guards tried to capture Arne while he resisted.

And at the same time, not far away.

Two women were infiltrating the imperial palace amidst the chaos.

They were Jella and Yuria.