“What? That’s not what I meant…”

Cail stammered with a bewildered expression.

“Get away! You’ll bring bad luck! Stay away from my pharmacy!”

I shouted angrily at Cail.

Cail, with a tearful face, begged for forgiveness, saying “I’m sorry, Jella…” but was eventually driven away.

After fuming for a while, I finally calmed down when Cail was out of sight.

“Phew, did I really look angry just now?”

It was difficult to maintain my angry expression while Cail kept looking at me with those innocent eyes like a rain-soaked deer, whispering “Please forgive me, Jella…”

“Pretending to be angry isn’t easy either.”

I let out a deep sigh, hoping that persistent fellow wouldn’t come back.

***

The Emperor’s office.

“Your Majesty, I’ve been informed that Jella Irene’s pharmacy has completed preparations for opening, as you asked us to monitor.”

“I see.”

Niel replied indifferently, his eyes fixed on the documents in his hand.

“Shall we continue to keep watch?”

“….”

Niel swallowed a moment of silence at his subordinate’s question.

Since that day, he hadn’t met Jella.

He had been extremely busy, and he also deliberately avoided her, fearing that if he saw her, he might burst out with resentment he couldn’t control.

“…Please do so.”

Niel answered slowly.

“Yes, Your Majesty. And the execution in the square is about to begin, I’m told.”

At those words, Niel glanced at the time and replied.

“There’s no need for me to attend.”

Niel had blamed the recent epidemic that swept through the capital on Yuria and the cult that worshipped her.

His capable aides had identified connections between those who collapsed and the cult.

Of course, unlike Jella or Yupheon, Niel didn’t know that they had actually stolen people’s life force.

Unlike them, as an ordinary human without holy or magical power, he didn’t have the ability to perceive such things.

He had simply used the visible circumstances to steer this incident in a direction favorable to him.

It was an opportunity he couldn’t miss.

Bringing down Yuria was a very important task.

Only then could he remove the numerous dirty stigmas that covered the noble name of Jella… who had been at the opposite end from Yuria.

For this purpose, Yuria inevitably had to be executed in front of the public. Since it was for show, the more dramatic, the better.

However, Jella ultimately saved Yuria and sent her back to her original world, so Niel needed someone to become a dramatic sacrifice in Yuria’s place.

‘You will do. A criminal to become a sacrifice in place of Yuria.’

The man the guards had brought in that day was the leader of the new religious cult that worshipped Yuria.

Niel had been having Hayden investigate them for some time, so he was familiar with the cult leader’s face.

He deliberately directed people’s resentment toward Yuria and the cult leader by declaring that he wouldn’t punish the ordinary followers who had been deceived by the evil leadership and blamed all crimes on Yuria and the cult leader’s collaboration.

Things became easier when the Grand Temple announced that the oracle from five years ago had been wrong.

So, in fact, Yuria was not a saint, they said. The oracle had been manipulated.

It was unprecedented for the Grand Temple to reverse its interpretation of an oracle.

Such a serious matter could shake the authority of the Grand Temple, so even if an oracle was truly misinterpreted, they would normally hush it up and cover it. However, Pope Yupheon Arne had unilaterally made such an announcement.

Because of this, Yupheon Arne had now been summoned to the Grand Temple, and there was much debate within the religious order about how to deal with him.

Especially because of his past imprisonment of the former Pope Johannes, the elder priests within the order had been holding a grudge against him.

When his aide reported that Yupheon Arne might even be stripped of his position as Pope in the worst case, Niel simply nodded once.

Well, it wasn’t his concern, and that man probably wouldn’t care much either…

The air in the imperial palace seemed to have become a bit more pleasant since that man had left for the Grand Temple.

That was fortunate.

He no longer had to let that man pollute the land and air of the empire that he would eventually return to her.

Niel pushed away these tedious thoughts about Yupheon and turned his attention back to the documents.

There was still much to do.

He had brought down Yuria, who had driven her to be seen as evil. Following this momentum, he needed to gradually change the public’s perception of her.

He had built up the power of the press in preparation for this, so what remained was the battle for public opinion. Fortunately, this was an area in which he was confident.

And at the end of it all, the three heroes who killed her should go down in history as villains.

That would be fair, wouldn’t it?

The fate of the shameless traitors who drove her to her death.

***

Arne, standing before the execution platform in the square, had his head severed amid the jeers of the people.

People threw stones at his dead body, pointed fingers, and then dispersed.

And shortly after, a soul flowed out from his dead body.

[Foolish humans. Did you think you could kill me this way?]

He could not be killed by beheading.

The beheaded body that had contained him was not originally his.

It was the shell of some pitiful man who had been devoured by Arne’s soul—a soul that had lost its divinity and was wandering the earth—and had thus died long ago.

When the shell’s head fell off, Arne’s soul contained within it, took some damage, but that was all.

Arne, who had once again taken the form of a soul and flowed out of the shell, wandered in search of a new shell.

This was actually for the best.

Since Yuria’s escape, he couldn’t do anything with his previous body anyway.

[I should choose someone with money and power this time.]

Living in a human shell, he had keenly realized the importance of money and power.

Arne decided to take over the body of a suitably wealthy nobleman.

Just then, a gleaming carriage nearby caught his attention.

Beyond the open carriage window, a nobleman with neatly combed black hair was reading a newspaper.

The man looked up, sensing an eerie presence.

He screamed when he discovered a black shadow climbing through the window and pouncing on him.

“Aaaaargh!”

Soon, the man’s screams subsided.

Gulp. Gulp.

After devouring the soul inside the man’s body, Arne took over the shell.

The man’s appearance gradually changed as it assimilated with Arne’s soul. The black hair turned blonde, and the blue eyes turned purple.

“Hehehe. Hehe. Yes, this is it.”

Just as Arne, satisfied with consuming fresh life force, was laughing and feeling his new face.

“Master? I just heard a sound…”

The coachman opened the door to check inside the carriage after hearing the scream.

Arne, who had been feeling his new face, put his hand down and glanced at the coachman.

The moment their eyes met—cold purple eyes—the coachman exclaimed in surprise.

“W-who are you!”

“Who else would I be? I’m your master.”

Arne used enchantment with the fresh life force he had just consumed.

The coachman’s eyes became cloudy for a moment, and he immediately bowed his head and apologized.

“Ah, master… I suddenly said nonsense… I’m sorry…”

The stammering coachman suddenly felt something was off.

“But why is master’s hair color and eyes…”

Suddenly freezing, he shouted with a pale face.

“Y-y-y-you, who are you! Where is our m-master?”

“Ugh…”

As the enchantment on the coachman broke, Arne took a hit.

“Damn it.”

Arne wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand and cursed.

Normally, he could easily dispel such doubts using enchantment, but it seemed his power had weakened further after changing shells.

“I-if you don’t tell me where the master is right now… Ugh!”

The coachman, who was shouting at Arne, was pierced by a sharp sword.

“This has become troublesome.”

Arne muttered irritably and threw the bloody sword onto the carriage floor.

Seeing the noble family’s crest on the sword hilt made his irritation surge.

He had gone to the trouble of taking over a nobleman’s body, but at this rate, he wouldn’t be able to use the body owner’s money or power.

It seemed the hair and eyeballs were the problem…

While he could wear a wig for the hair, he couldn’t exactly pluck out his eyeballs.

At that moment, an advertisement on the back of the newspaper that had fallen to the floor caught his eye.

[Make your eyes more beautiful and radiant!]

[A drop of miracle! Put color in your eyes!]

Arne’s brow furrowed as he silently stared at it.

“They’re selling medicine that changes eye color?”