I Reject the villain’s ending.

Episode 48.

After a moment, Prince Rivier, who had collapsed, was the first to open his eyes.

“Ugh.”

“Rivier!”

“Elder brother, why am I on the floor……?”

The crown prince cried as he wrapped his arms around Prince Li Bie.

As the still dazed Rivier blinked his gentle eyes, the Emperor, Empress, and Emperor opened their eyes.

“Ugh. What the hell is this?”

“Your Imperial Majesty, it’s poison. There’s poison in the food, and you, Your Majesty, the Empress, and the Crown Prince have collapsed, Your Imperial Highness!”

“Freehi, my dear!”

This time, the crown prince couldn’t contain himself and collapsed, coughing up blood.

His face was white as if he had endured the poison all this time. The crown prince hadn’t been attended to, as we had been focusing on the downed.

Eventually, the poison spread as he tried to hold on.

“I’m fine, poison…….”

“Saint, Saint, please heal my brother, hurry up!”

“Hah.”

My stomach was churning, my head was dizzy, and I couldn’t think straight because of all the noise, but the crown prince needed to be healed.

I stretched out my hand and sent divine power to the crown prince, speaking through my blurred mind.

“It’s a strong poison, Empress, Your Majesty the Emperor, and Empress Dowager, the crown prince has ingested a lot of poison and needs further treatment by the imperial physician. The crown prince has…….”

“Tong, what about you?”

“It doesn’t look like you’ve ingested that much poison, so my divine power is enough to treat you, so don’t cry, prince.”

He smiled weakly and tried to soothe Prince Rivier.

He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and recovered enough to sit up.

“Thank you, Saint, I am indebted to you.”

“It’s all right, but you should see the imperial physician, just in case.”

Just then, someone shouted.

“The Saint’s and Guardian’s vessels aren’t the only ones without poison! They’re the ones who were poisoned!”

“What?”

This is bullshit, I’m healing them and saving their lives, why would I be poisoned?

I looked around in bewilderment, and the white-haired maid pointed to the brunette maid.

“Bella says the saint blackmailed her to poison the food for the feast!”

Who the hell is that?!

I was dumbfounded, unable to keep up with the speed at which things were happening.

Suddenly, the pale-faced maid fell to her knees and confessed.

“The holy woman told me to put poison in it, that she would use it to save the imperial family and get them into debt.”

Oh?

“Me?”

I’m the only saint here. So the saint this maid is talking about is me?

The emperor, his face reddening as he rode on the ice, exclaimed.

“I heard that you became a saint at the age of twelve and executed everyone in your own family, and now you dare to touch the imperial family!”

“……!”

Iros’s face froze at the emperor’s words.

“He killed my biological father and younger brother without mercy, so I was worried about his character, but it seems that people don’t change!”

“Your family has dabbled in black magic, and you’re not the only one……!”

“You believe that?! Isn’t it obvious that the holy woman is the one who did this? You must imprison that wicked holy woman immediately!”

Something is going wrong.

Iros shouted that I was not such a person, and beside him, the crown prince’s icy gaze pierced through the air.

“Did you set this up in the first place, trying to get me into debt?”

A gaze that rippled with contempt beyond disappointment.

“I was so grateful to you, so how could you set yourself up for this?”

“I didn’t……!”

I was about to say in Moorish, but the knights beside me grabbed my arms.

“Let go of me!”

“Lock the saint in the dungeon now!”

“No! I didn’t ask for poison, and I’ve never seen that maid before!”

“Saint!”

“Lock her up too. If she’s the culprit, he’s in on it.”

“That’s not fair… Pink!”

Amid this, Iros unleashed a ferocious blast of mana, blowing away the knights and soldiers around him.

“The sinner rebelled……!”

“Take your hands off the saint’s body at once. Otherwise, I will cut off both of your hands.”

“……!”

Iros, always gentle and polite, bared his teeth like a beast and approached.

The knights who had grabbed my arms to lead me to the dungeon felt his thick mana and involuntarily shrank away from me.

I lost my balance as their grip loosened.

“Saint, are you all right?”

“Ha. I’m fine.”

I was spared an ugly fall to the floor only by Iros’s catch.

The Emperor spoke again.

“What are you doing here without taking the sinner into custody!”

“That, that…….”

The knights and soldiers hesitated and looked away.

They instinctively realized that Iros’s mana alone was enough to outclass them.

Holding me, Iros glared at the Emperor with eyes like the north wind and declared.

“No one in the Divine Realm would dare to ignore the Empire’s disrespect for a noble saint.”

“She is guilty of attempting to exterminate the imperial family!”

“No. She came here at your invitation and saved your lives, she is no sinner.”

Iros whispered, squeezing his blurred eyes shut.

“Rest. I’ll do the rest.”

“I’m sorry, I’m… I’m at my limit.”

His voice trailed off as he finished, dizzy and exhausted.

* * *

As Sierra drifted to sleep, Iros held her close and warned the others.

“The Saint is in my care. I’ll walk to the prison, you lead the way.”

“Hmph. Take the Protector to the prison.”

The emperor, who had never seen a prisoner so boldly ask to lead the way to prison before, was momentarily taken aback, but quickly recovered.

As he followed the knight out of the dining hall, Iros looked back and spoke.

“The investigation into the poison will have to be straightforward if I am to make a proper defense to my people later.”

And with that, he turned and left. The Emperor grunted and clutched the back of his head.

“That, that arrogant…….”

“Your Majesty, the imperial physician has arrived. Please have him examine you first.”

“Yes, sir. Chamberlain, we need to investigate properly, so lock those maids away first.”

“Yes, sir. Understood. You will follow me.”

“Yes.”

The chamberlain led the two maids sitting on the floor to the isolation chamber.

The grey-haired maid who had followed him looked up and chuckled softly.

The crown prince, who had remained in the dining room with the imperial family, watched Iros and the maids leave and pondered.

“Brother, what are you thinking about?”

“I think something is wrong.”

Hearing the crown prince’s words, Rivier leaned in close and whispered.

“You don’t think the saint was poisoned after all, do you?”

“Do you think so too?”

“Yes.”

Riviere shook her head.

“After all, as the Guardian said, she was invited to the palace, and there’s no reason for her to be poisoned, and besides.”

“Above all?”

“Someone who treats her body with such care would never harm anyone else.”

“…….”

The crown prince sighed and stood up.

“I’ve had enough of saints, but this one is strange. The evidence is too clear to be flimsy.”

“What do you mean, the evidence is so clear, it’s flawed?”

“It’s the fact that witnesses come forward so easily and things get away with it. Who with any brains would do something so easily and so blatantly?”

“From what I’ve heard, yes.”

“I’ll have to find out more.”

The crown prince did not stop Rivier from following him to the room where the chamberlain kept the maids.

The chamberlain and his knights had just locked the door in front of him.

“Chamberlain, let me open the door for a moment.”

“His Highness?”

“I need to ask the maid something.”

“Very well, open the door.”

“Yes.”

The knight reopened the locked door and inside was a horrifying sight.

“……!”

“Oh, no!”

The maid, who had confessed to having been poisoned, was rotting away in a state of decomposition.

Everyone covered their noses and moved away from the door at the stench.

“Yuck. The maid was poisoned, but why is she dead? How can she decompose in such a short time?”

“Well, it can’t be, we just locked the maids in their rooms and locked the door, how could this happen in a short time?”

“The ‘maids’? There’s only one body in the room. Were there more?”

The servant, finally realizing that there were not enough people in the room, searched the room.

He reported back with a look of despair on his face.

“There’s no sign of anyone leaving through the window. It must be magic.”

“The maid who cried out that the holy woman was the culprit has risen to heaven or fallen to earth, unaccounted for. The maid who said she was possessed by a saint has become a corpse.”

Muttering, the crown prince looked up and cursed.

“Damn you, you fool. It’s a trap! The saint is in danger!”

“What? Go, what’s that all of a sudden!”

“Borrow a sword. Gather your troops now and send them to the prison where the Saint and her guardian are! No time for explanations!”

“Yes! I’ll take your orders.”

Taking the knight’s sword, the crown prince headed straight for the deepest dungeon where capital criminals were kept.

He couldn’t stop thinking about Sierra’s pure white face as she was captured by the knights and proclaimed her innocence.

Biting his lip, the crown prince spoke with heat.

“I hope I’m not too late……!”

* * *

Iros clicked his tongue as they reached the dungeon, where not a single ray of light entered.

The only light came from the lanterns hanging on the walls, and spiders crawled on the floor.

The knights leading the way opened their mouths to speak.

“You may enter here. You’ll have to give us your sword. Prisons don’t normally allow prisoners to bring weapons.”

Iros hesitated for a moment before handing over his sword, knowing it would embarrass the knights if he kept it here.

The knights locked the door and disappeared. It wasn’t until their footsteps had faded into the distance and they were completely out of sight that Iros let out the breath he’d been holding.

“Every time we go out together, something happens, Saint.”

He looked down at the pale, stunned Sierra, then took off his coat and laid it on the hard bed, carefully laying her down.

His body throbbed where he’d touched her earlier when she’d used her holy power to fill the room with brightness.

When she pulled her arm away, her skin was melted, as if she’d been burned.

“If I use my holy power here, I’ll be immobilized for days.”

As he spoke, his hands clasped over Sierra’s forehead and hands.

Pain coursed through her veins like hot lava, but Iros’s expression remained impassive.

Sierra didn’t know it, but whenever she was sick, it was always Iros who nursed her through the night, using his divine power.

After nine years of living like that, she was used to this kind of pain.

“Ugh.”

“Shhh, get some more sleep.”

The soothing voice lulled Sierra back to sleep.

Her face relaxing under Iros’s holy power, Sierra let out an even breath and fell into a deep sleep.

Iros’s arm shook gently.

“We’ll be found out again when she wakes. She’ll be furious that I’ve used divine power again.”

If only her pretty face were always smiling.

“I’ll always protect you, but first.”

With a bang, Iros slapped someone hard from behind.

“I’m going to have to clean that up.”

The smile faded from his face, and Iros exhaled a cold breath of life.