“I like you, Lilith.”

Faced with the confession from the blond beauty, Dietrich, standing before him, Lilith could only say one thing.

“Excuse me, but have you lost your mind?”

“……”

Dietrich answered with a twisted eyebrow.

Lilith was bewildered. Anyone would be.

When a man who had been angrily shouting at him just moments ago suddenly confessed.

Perhaps he’d hit his head when he fell earlier?

Lilith hurriedly grabbed Dietrich’s head and turned it this way and that.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“What else? I’m checking if you hit your head somewhere.”

“I didn’t, so let go.”

Dietrich roughly removed his hands.

Even with his deeply furrowed brow, his beauty remained unchanged.

Dietrich was the most handsome man in Donum territory, no, probably the most handsome in the entire Empire.

The harmony of his chiseled nose, angular jawline, and teal eyes that captured the essence of verdant forests was truly fantastic.

“If you’re not hurt, that’s fine. The Paladin’s joke is too much.”

“Joke?”

“Yes! A joke. Who would believe a confession with that expression?”

Even a passing dog wouldn’t believe such a confession.

Dietrich’s expression wasn’t that of someone looking at the object of his affection.

It was the complete collection of hatred, irritation, and other negative emotions directed at a criminal he wanted to capture and throw in prison.

“Besides, how could Dietrich the Paladin, famous for his piety, like the evil villain Lilith? Does that make any sense?”

“Don’t make me say it twice.”

Dietrich gritted his teeth.

He stared intensely at Lilith with eyes filled with some unfathomable deep emotion.

Then he simply kept his lips tightly sealed.

“……Hey, hey, didn’t you say before that you liked that saintess, Eunice or whatever? But now suddenly it’s me? Is it okay for a paladin to be this fickle?”

“That’s why I gave up.”

“What?”

“I decided to let go of my feelings for her. Because of you.”

His heart dropped.

“As you said, a man who harbors feelings for two people at once, especially a villain like you, isn’t worthy of the Saintess.”

His thoughts came to an abrupt halt.

He couldn’t understand at all. Lilith lost his words and just gaped like a goldfish.

Dietrich simply stood watching him.

‘Does this make any sense?’

That devout Dietrich abandoning his unrequited love for the saintess……

No, not even abandoning. He said he came to like two people at once.

That straightforward Paladin who knew nothing but God and justice harbored such a sinful heart?

“So what is this now? Are you asking me to date you?”

He tried to act nonchalant, but Lilith was a mess inside.

He barely managed to speak properly, nearly tripping over his words. His lips were rapidly drying up by the second.

The one second waiting for Dietrich’s answer felt like an hour.

But judging by his expression, it certainly wouldn’t be a positive response.

“No.”

See.

“I’m blaming you.”

Even worse than expected.

Pure resentment seemed to drip from Dietrich’s eyes.

Lilith stepped back as if trying to avoid it. Only now did reality sink in.

Dietrich’s confession was real.

Therefore, they were completely ruined.

“…Ha, this is absurd.”

Dietrich Yustaf was the man Lilith had liked for three years.

Yet even with such a man confessing, he couldn’t happily accept his feelings.

Why?

Because Villain Lilith’s true identity was also that of Saintess Eunice, the very object of unrequited love that Dietrich had given up on.

So Lilith had just been rejected twice simultaneously by the man he’d been pining for.

‘D*mn it!’

How on earth did things end up like this?

Everything started last spring, with the monastery arson incident.

❀❀❀

The infamous phantom thief Lilith, who supposedly had no match, was merely Saintess Trainee Eunice within the monastery walls.

“Trainee Eunice! It’s almost midnight! How long do you plan to be lazy?”

“Please wait just a little longer, Father Theodore.”

“You do know that report needs to be reviewed by the end of today, right?”

To add, she was a lowly saintess trainee suffering from overwork and workplace harassment.

“Haha, of course I know.”

Eunice forced a smile while enduring Father Theodore’s grating nagging.

Today again, she felt like half her lifespan was being shaved off because of him.

The Saintess—a role tasked with protecting this land from demonic energy by following God’s will.

To become a Saintess, one had to endure the tearful period as a Saintess Trainee.

This was because of God’s will that to become the highest person, one must first serve from the lowest position.

‘Then make the Emperor serve first, you damned bastards!’

Of course, such a thing would never happen.

Anyway, for this reason, Saintess Trainees had to walk a path of asceticism for one year, handling all sorts of miscellaneous tasks at the monastery.

And if you also served as Father Theodore’s administrative assistant?

If you had to endure his abusive behavior with that filthy personality and excessive workload?

‘Should I just quit?’

How do you think I feel? I want to give up.

After three months of working overtime more than five hours a day, she wasn’t in her right mind.

Still, she thought she’d get off early today.

Until she discovered an important report that needed to be submitted to the council by tomorrow!

If she had discovered it an hour before leaving, she should have just pretended not to see it.

But her damned sense of responsibility ultimately made Eunice’s mouth run.

Thanks to that, Theodore wrote the report at lightning speed, and naturally, the hastily created report was a mess.

Eunice, who was in charge of reviewing it, had to rewrite rather than just correct it.

“Father Theodore, the trainee clothing budget seems too high. Please reconfirm.”

“Just submit it as is! It’s correct.”

“What? But……”

“Ah, you don’t trust what I’ve done?”

I don’t.

Even in the report he wrote the day before yesterday, there were 12 numerical calculation errors.

But she couldn’t say that.

Besides, from experience, it was better not to touch Theodore when he raised his voice.

Not only would he not listen to reason, but she’d just get more verbal ab*se.

But today, an even bigger pile of crap fell on her despite keeping quiet.

“What’s with this trainee clothing budget?”

It was after the sun had completely set and Eunice had finally finished reviewing.

Theodore, who had looked through the report soaked with Eunice’s blood and sweat, asked this with reproachful eyes.

‘Has he finally gone mad?’

Eunice barely swallowed the thought that crossed her mind and spoke words befitting a saintess trainee.

“You instructed me to write it this way, Father.”

“When did I?”

Is he really insane?

Is it normal to completely forget what you said an hour ago?

“Do it again.”

Theodore threw the report. It landed with a thud at Eunice’s feet.

Something surged up inside her. Instead of picking it up, Eunice glared at Theodore.

“What is that insolent look, Trainee Eunice?”

“I clearly raised an issue about the clothing budget, and you told me to let it go, Father Theodore.”

“When did I ever say that!”

Whether Theodore shouted or not, Eunice continued what she had to say.

“And now you’re telling me to fix it? You know that because of this one thing, I have to revise the entire report from the beginning, right?”

“That’s your job! What do you want me to do about it! Huh?”

Theodore shouted so loudly his voice cracked.

That was definitely the face of someone who remembered what he had said. But he just couldn’t admit it.

Theodore, his anger rising, banged on the desk repeatedly.

“Why blame others for your incompetence! This is why you’ve failed the saintess exam twice!”

“……”

“You said you decided to become a saintess because of your mother’s dying wish! Will you succeed this year at this rate?”

What did he say?

“This is filial impiety! How heartbroken would your deceased mother be if she knew her daughter became the monastery’s disgrace instead of a saintess? Huh?”

Eunice’s facial muscles stiffened uncontrollably. She felt her heart turn cold.

This b*stard was crossing the line in the dirtiest way.

“…Father Theodore, please take back those words.”

“Take back what! Did I say anything wrong!”

There was a cracking sound from the pen Eunice was holding.

She had really endured so much.

She endured being forced to work overtime for three months straight while having all his work dumped on her. She endured him taking credit for all the successes.

She endured him blaming all mistakes on Eunice and barking at her to fix them.

But bringing up her mother was going too far.

“Do better, just do better! In this easy exam that everyone else passes, the only person who has failed since the Donum Monastery was established is Trainee Eunice. Aren’t you ashamed?”

Her clenched fist trembled.

The idiot, the fool, the disgrace of Donum Monastery.

Eunice knew well what others called her for failing the saintess promotion exam twice, which was supposedly a guaranteed pass for everyone.

She hadn’t expected to fail so many times in what they called an easy saintess promotion exam.

But it wasn’t Theodore’s place to point that out.

Because it was this monastery’s disgrace who had covered up his numerous mistakes.

If Eunice was Donum Monastery’s idiot, fool, and disgrace, then Father Theodore was even worse.

Despite being the monastery’s head.

But when he kept coming at her like this, she simply couldn’t endure anymore.

‘Should I just kill him?’

Suddenly, she noticed the pen in her hand.

‘This would end it in 3 seconds.’

An intense impulse suppressed her reason. Just as her body was about to move instinctively—

“Ha! This is no help at all! If only this report goes through well, I’ll be promoted to mid-level priest right away……”

“A promotion?”

“Unless Lilith appears and causes trouble again, or my documents suddenly disappear, this promotion is as good as mine!”

“……”

“If you knew how many years I’ve been working toward this… Tsk, sheesh!”

Promotion. At that word, Eunice’s eyes, which had been about to go berserk, returned to normal.

Because a better revenge method than physical pain had occurred to her.

True pain doesn’t come from being near God. Rather, it’s easily encountered while living.

As for k*lling him, well, she could do that at the end after thoroughly playing with him.

“I understand. I’ll work harder, so please calm your anger, Father.”

Eunice hid her sinister intentions and smiled brightly at the damned Theodore.

“Hmph! You should have acted like this from the start. Trainee Eunice, you’ll need to work hard to escape your status as a third-time exam taker!”

“Yes, I’ll keep that in mind.”

Father Theodore would never become a temple priest, even if he took the exam five or ten times.

Because the lowly Saintess Trainee Eunice, no, Phantom Thief Lilith, had just made up his mind.

Tonight, he would set fire to Father Theodore’s precious document storage.

Now, it was time to pay him back without holding back.