novelraw Chapter 64
Chapter 64
Ch.64 “Waaah! Give it back!”
Scarlet and her party’s journey to find Hans was proceeding smoothly.
After a week of forced marches, good news finally reached them.
It happened while Scarlet was cooking.
“There’s a city nearby—a fairly large one.”
Leah spoke up, glancing around at the group as Scarlet stirred the pot.
“Really?! Does this mean we’re finally done sleeping outdoors?”
Cecilia was the first to react.
Having been startled just the other night by a huge snake that appeared nearby, the prospect of avoiding another night in the wild filled her with joy.
It wasn’t just the cold night air—the bugs and snakes that crept up while they slept were unbearable.
“How far is it?” asked Scarlet, flipping a pancake with practiced ease.
“If we push it, we should arrive by dinner time.”
Leah had already visited the place with Hans before, so she estimated they’d make it by then.
“Whew… thank goodness. Let’s eat and pick up the pace a bit.”
Mia’s expression brightened slightly—she clearly disliked camping too.
After finishing their meal, they set off toward the city and safely arrived before sunset.
They bought supplies at the market, had dinner at a restaurant, and by nightfall gathered at an inn, sipping beer and chatting idly.
Since they all had ties to Hans, the conversation naturally turned to him.
Seizing the perfect moment to make her rivals give up, Leah casually dropped a bombshell.
“I was totally shocked during this trip with my master—he tried to gamble his entire fortune on something called a ‘call option’!”
Leah deliberately framed ‘call options’ as gambling to the group.
“I begged him not to, but he wouldn’t listen and went through with it anyway. He’s seriously trash!”
Mia, Cecilia, and Scarlet exchanged disgusted looks.
“So Hans has sunk so low as to gamble? On something called a ‘call option’?”
“Wow… he’s really scum, isn’t he? Priest Hans…”
“Cough! Seriously, Leah? Are you sure?”
A man with messy relationships who also gambles? What a truly awful man!
Leah’s motive for badmouthing her master was clear: she wanted everyone here to hate him so they’d back off—leaving Hans all to herself.
Of course, the problem was that Leah wasn’t the only one trying to turn opinion against Hans.
Wanting to keep the mood going, Cecilia spoke up with a cold expression.
“How can someone be not only lecherous but also gamble? I still can’t believe this is the same Hans I knew.”
‘Good. My acting was perfect.’
Cecilia felt satisfied with her performance.
Leah nodded earnestly in agreement.
“Believe it or not, it’s true. He was gambling on ‘call options’ while traveling.”
Technically, options were derivative instruments meant to reduce risk—but to someone unfamiliar with finance, it certainly looked like gambling.
“What even is a ‘call option,’ Leah?”
Even Mia, who’d lived a long life, had never heard of this ‘gamble’ and asked curiously.
Leah paused, thinking.
‘What was it again? It was super complicated…’
She’d never cared much about money, so commercial knowledge was naturally beyond her.
So she improvised vaguely.
“It’s a popular gamble in the New Continent. When we were together, he blew his entire fortune—ten gold coins—on it!”
One gold coin could support a family of four for several months.
Ten gold was a huge sum—especially to frugal Cecilia, who gasped in shock.
“Ten… ten gold coins?!”
“But wait, Patron—I mean, Hans—is super rich, right? Ten gold isn’t even that much to him.”
Compared to the fortune Scarlet had spent to defeat the Demon King—with most of it funded by Hans—ten gold was pocket change. So her question was perfectly reasonable.
But Leah couldn’t allow that doubt to linger.
To her companions, Hans had to be seen as trash—a degenerate gambler wasting money recklessly.
She quickly made an excuse.
“No! My master lost everything at sea—he had literally zero left! Those ten gold coins were his entire fortune! To bet it all on gambling? That’s just wrong.”
Just as the mood began to shift subtly, Cecilia doubled down to keep it going.
“That’s right! And Priest Hans used to sneak around nunneries too.”
Her brief statement sent shockwaves through the group.
“N-nunneries?!”
“My master? No way… surely not?!”
“He’s a beast, plain and simple…”
Scarlet’s jaw dropped in disbelief, Leah looked on the verge of tears, and Mia shook her head as if she’d just heard something filthy and indecent.
No wonder they were horrified.
What even was a nunnery?
A sacred place where pure women devoted themselves to the gods!
For Hans to ‘sneak around’ there? Of course they’d think he was a pervert.
(Though in truth, Hans was an innocent victim. He’d gone to that nunnery only because a malevolent spirit—left over from the King of the Dead’s return—was about to kill Cecilia, and he needed to eliminate it in advance.)
“You all know how I first met Priest Hans, right?”
Everyone mentally recalled the place where Hans and Cecilia had first met.
Leah nervously bit her thumbnail and murmured, almost too softly to hear:
“The nunnery basement.”
For the first time since meeting her master, Leah began to suspect him.
‘Could he possibly be a pervert beyond her worst imagination…?’
“Ahem. It’s true—Priest Hans did sneak around nunneries. I didn’t mention it before because I didn’t want his reputation ruined.”
In reality, Hans had been on a special mission from the Papal Office and had infiltrated the nunnery undercover.
Their first meeting had been when he lied to Cecilia and together they exorcised the spirit—but now, she decided to add a little extra spice.
“In fact, he never received any special mission from the Papal Office at all.”
Cecilia continued with a solemn expression.
“He secretly visited the nunnery with impure intentions toward the nuns. That’s when he met me in the basement—and through my sermons, I guided him onto the path of repentance.”
(In truth, she’d been terrified of the unknown spirit and had clung to Hans’s back the whole time—but that part, she kept hidden.)
To eliminate her rivals, Cecilia was even willing to lie about their very first meeting.
“Th-that’s a lie! Our first meeting was—”
At Leah’s desperate cry, Cecilia tossed her long hair back dramatically.
“It’s not easy telling your best friend your boyfriend is a pervert.”
It was a bald-faced lie—but no one expected the usually naive-looking Cecilia to be capable of such calculated cruelty for love.
Cecilia had long since figured out that Hans’s ‘Papal Office mission’ was fabricated.
After investigating him during the Demon King campaign, she knew he’d lied.
Now, with just a bit of exaggeration, the eyes of the Hero Party trembled with outrage.
‘Patron… were you really such an uncontrollable pervert?’
‘What on earth did you do in that nunnery, you perverted master!’
‘No wonder you grin like an idiot whenever you see elves.’
—Grrr…!
As everyone ground their teeth in fury, Scarlet’s face suddenly turned crimson.
“To give me something like this and then act like a pervert?!”
She yanked a ring off her finger and slammed it onto the table.
—Clang!
“Huh?”
Gold metal with a sapphire set in the center—an artifact Hans had once sent to Scarlet.
Cecilia picked it up and asked blankly,
“This is…?”
In this world, when a man gave a woman a ring, it was practically a marriage proposal.
If one were to defend Hans: the ring actually nullified all debuffs—like the slowed movement from ice magic—making it invaluable for Scarlet, who fought at the front lines.
But aside from Scarlet, no one knew that.
And Scarlet herself chose not to mention its effect.
Her reason was clear.
‘Heh heh… this should be enough to make them utterly lose interest.’
She was secretly pleased with how things were unfolding.
Sure, she was angry about the nunnery part—but in the end, she had to be the ultimate victor.
Just as she’d hoped, Leah’s face turned red, then pale.
“Crazy! That bastard of a master!”
Unable to contain her rage, Leah grabbed the table and hurled it.
—Crash!
Ironically, instead of eliminating rivals, she nearly lost affection for her own master.
“Haa… haa…”
An awkward silence fell over the room after Leah’s outburst.
‘Sorry, Leah… but love is something you fight for.’
‘Heh heh. Looks like your love for him, Leah, is nowhere near mine.’
‘Leah’s definitely out of the running.’
Though inwardly gleeful, they all maintained carefully neutral expressions.
“I understand why you’re so angry, Leah,” Cecilia said soothingly—though inside, she relished the downfall of a strong rival.
“Huuu…”
Leah forced her emotions down.
Sharp as she was, she instantly grasped the situation.
‘These ruthless bitches… they actually endured that?’
The war had already begun— the uniquely feminine battle of subtle glances and veiled words.
Cecilia and Mia (excluding Leah) immediately understood why Scarlet had thrown down the ring: by doing so, Scarlet was subtly declaring how intimately connected she was to Hans.
‘This is just like those romance novels where nobles speak in circles.’ Cecilia thought.
But having read many such novels, she responded with calm confidence.
“Then, Scarlet… since this ring was given by someone who enjoys toying with people’s hearts like a pervert, may I take it? The sapphire matches my eyes perfectly.”
Scarlet’s face froze in shock.
‘Wait—why would you take it?!’
Before Scarlet could stammer a reply, Cecilia swiftly slipped the ring onto her own ring finger.
“It’s so beautiful! I could probably sell it for a good price.”
“Cecilia? What are you saying?! You’d take a ring from Hans—a man so lecherous, vile, and dismissive of women as playthings?”
Cecilia beamed innocently and nodded.
“Since Hans didn’t give it to me with any special meaning, it has nothing to do with me, right?”
Watching this, Scarlet thought to herself:
‘She… she’s a fox! I swear I can see a tail behind her!’
Cecilia saw her chance to eliminate Scarlet.
After all, giving away a ring Hans had gifted was practically a declaration that she no longer wished to continue their relationship.
Satisfied, Cecilia admired the ring and silently sneered:
‘See, Priest Hans? No one but me deserves to love you.’
“Give it back…”
“Huh? Is it because it’s expensive? If it’s about money, I’ll pay you—”
Scarlet trembled with fury, tears welling up in her eyes.
Finally, she burst into tears and grabbed Cecilia’s hand.
“Waaah! Give it back!”
“Wh-why are you like this, Scarlet?!”
Cecilia clutched her ringed hand tightly to keep it from being taken, while Scarlet desperately tried to reclaim it.
In the end, Scarlet won the physical tug-of-war—but watching the scene, Mia thought to herself:
‘What a circus. I’ll never understand why the Sage got tangled up with such strange girls.’
She clicked her tongue, convinced everyone except herself was utterly abnormal.
(Of course, this self-assured arrogance was only possible because she didn’t know Hans was actually terrified of her.)
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