I'm not a Regressor

Chapter 199: Fake Kindness And Lawful Good (3)

"You are… Damien Salvatore."

Isabella smiled sweetly as she looked at Damien walk out from behind Paulo.

She suppressed her instinctive reaction and spoke naturally as if nothing was going on.

"It's an honor to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about the heroic tales of the Sword of Justice."

She slightly lifted the hem of her one-piece dress and gave an elegant bow.

Her graceful movements exuded noble elegance, and her demeanor did not fit the heinous nickname ‘witch’ at all.

"Hah," Damien snorted mockingly as he stared at Isabella.

"Have you been deceiving people with such a shameless attitude?"

"I believe there is a misunderstanding."

"Misunderstanding? You call this a misunderstanding?"

Damien's expression distorted in anger.

"Do you not feel guilty when you lie through your teeth in your father’s presence?"

He took a step back and glanced at Paulo, who was standing beside him.

Paulo nodded and stepped forward.

"We already have all of the evidence."

"Evidence? I’m not sure I follow."

Isabella innocently tilted her head.

"Will you be able to keep up your act after you see this?"

Paulo pulled out a remote from his pocket with a sly smirk. As he pressed a button, a projector started playing a video on the wall.

Krrrrr!—

Kieek!—

Isabella was recorded in high definition, surrounded by tens of thousands of monsters as she slaughtered them with a bloody aura emanating around her.

"…"

Isabella's gaze turned cold.

Her expression seemed to indicate that she finally understood who was responsible for the monster incident in San Fruttuoso.

She clenched her fists and glared at Paulo.

"…Was it your doing?"

"Hmm? I’m not sure I follow."

Paulo nonchalantly shrugged his shoulders with an expression like Isabella’s on his face.

"All I know is that my princess, the 'Saintess of Rome', is not an Awakener of Aries, but she is, in fact, an Awakener of Hirudo who drinks the blood of humans."

"…"

Isabella silently bit her lips.

No matter how you looked at it, in the video, she did not look like an Awakener of Aries in any shape or form.

"We also caught the agent you attached to Damien."

Paulo motioned with his eyes, and Damien nodded his head and dragged someone over.

"Ubb! Ub!"

—It was an old man with gray hair who was wearing a blood-stained butler outfit.

Roberto struggled in Damien's hands, and the shining stigma of Hirudo was visible through his ripped clothes.

Damien released the gag blocking Roberto's mouth.

"Fua!"

"Do you know this woman?"

"…I've never seen her in my life."

Roberto shook his head, showing an indifferent expression.

"Is that so?"

When Damien reached out to the sword at his waist with cold eyes…

"That's right. I'm not an Awakener of Aries… I’m an Awakener of Hirudo."

"L-Lady Isabella!"

Isabella nodded her head in acknowledgment, and Roberto looked at her with dismay.

Victory flashed in Paulo's eyes.

"So what about it?"

"…What do you mean?"

"Look at the video. What does my not being an Awakener of Aries have to do with me being a witch? Are you implying that it's wrong to kill monsters to protect people?" Isabella asked confidently, showing a dignified attitude and straight posture.

Paulo frowned.

"Awakeners in possession of the stigma of Hirudo should have to drink human blood periodically. If that isn't a ‘witch’, then what is it?"

"Hah, do you take us for vampires from a movie? The blood pack that my father spilled on the floor is enough."

Truth be told, she had never killed anyone to drink their blood, not even when her vampiric impulses became uncontrollable.

There were times when she assaulted people to drink their blood, but she’d never killed anyone for it.

"If requiring other people's blood to survive makes someone a witch, would you call a leukemia patient a witch?"

If you dived deeper into the facts, the situation was different for Awakeners of Hirudo since their impulses originated from their stigmas. However, she skillfully avoided mentioning anything about that and continued to argue.

"…"

Paulo scrunched his eyebrows and glared at Isabella.

Her attitude was so brazen that he couldn't help but think, ‘Is she right?’ for a moment.

'However…'

Rather than a trial, it was a judgment.

He had anticipated her acting in such a manner and had prepared something to counter it.

"This video isn't the only evidence."

Paulo lightly flicked his finger.

People dressed in luxury designer clothes walked out—they were the family heads of collateral lines who Isabella had personally subdued after she took control of the household.

"This is a report that states that, every month, a certain amount of blood disappears from the protection center that witch operates!"

"She runs the protection centers to embezzle blood!"

"Who knows? That woman may be holding people captive and forcibly drawing blood from them! No, I'm sure of it!"

"If you heard what the Black Star Organization did in Korea and Japan, you can probably easily imagine what she would do!" the family heads shouted with veins popping out in their necks.

Most of them were malicious speculations without any evidence, but what did it matter at that point?

All that mattered to them was somehow portraying Isabella as a wicked witch.

"…Hah."

Isabella laughed as she listened to the hatred-filled criticism pouring down on her.

'From the very beginning… they had no intention of listening to what I had to say.'

It was a situation where logic couldn’t prevail in the first place.

"Don't talk nonsense! Lady Isabella has never done such a—!"

"Quiet."

Bang!

Damien fiercely swung his fist and knocked Roberto unconscious.

"Can you still claim that you're not a witch?"

"…"

Isabella pursed her lips.

What would be the point of arguing anymore?

'He got me.'

Ever since Paulo found out that she was an Awakener of Hirudo, her defeat had basically been decided.

"I also fell into shock when I first found out about it. To think that my beloved daughter was a vampire who kills people to drink their blood…"

His eyes started to tear up.

"How…? How could you do this to your father? How could you deceive me?"

Paulo's voice gradually grew more emotional, and tears rolled down his cheeks.

"Say something! Anything!"

"…You want me to speak?"

Isabella smiled weakly.

"Do you even care to listen?"

"Ah… I really can't believe it. Why would a kind child like you…?"

Paulo’s face tensed in anguish.

"This is all my fault."

Paulo let out a deep sigh and turned his head towards Damien.

"Sir Damien, please… please bestow salvation upon my daughter who has been stained by evil."

"Yes."

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Damien nodded and drew his sword from its sheath on his waist.

Ring—

The scales hanging on either side of the sword's cross-shaped guard made a clear sound.

"…"

Isabella looked up at Paulo with sorrowful eyes.

'How…'

‘How did it come to be like this?’

'I just… wanted things to go back to the way they were.'

She recalled the photo she secretly kept in her drawer—the picture of herself, her father, her mother, and her sister all smiling together.

All she wanted to do was return to the happiest moment in her childhood. Was that really such a wrong thing to ask for?

"Kill that witch!"

Did they become certain of his victory after seeing Damien draw his sword? The family heads of the collateral lines started to shout at Isabella.

"Kill her! An evil witch like her must die!"

"You filthy bitch!"

Criticism echoed through the crumbling residence.

The family heads who had harbored hatred against Isabella for robbing them of all their privileges and authority after she took control of the Colagrande Household let out their pent-up anger.

"Please kill that witch!", "The Sword of Justice will punish you!", "Vampire bitch!", "You evil witch!", "Do you know what happened to us because of you?", "Bitch, it's all your fault!", "You demon!", "Cold-blooded witch!", "This is all karma!", "Make that witch pay for her sins!", "Tweh! Unsightly woman!", "Die!", "If only you didn't exist", "Kill the witch!", they all shouted.

Malice hidden under the umbrella known as righteousness headed towards Isabella.

They cried out for the witch's death like they were judges bringing down punishment upon sinners.

"…"

Isabella slumped down as if her strength had drained away, clutched her chest, and crouched into a ball.

'It hurts.'

Was it because of the curse or was it because the hope she had clung to had shattered into pieces?

'It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.'

Her chest throbbed in pain as if a sharp knife was digging into it.

'Ohjin…'

Suddenly, she started to wonder about what he was doing.

He said he went sightseeing in Rome with Ha-eun the day before. Perhaps he went out early to sightsee again.

Considering the fact that he hadn't investigated after the ceiling collapsed, it was highly likely that he wasn't inside the residence.

'That's a relief.'

She at least didn't want him to find out that she was a dirty and evil witch that sucked the blood of others to survive.

"It seems that you don't plan on denying it anymore."

Thud, thud—

Damien slowly raised his sword.

Although there was still a considerable distance between him and Isabella, that distance was no problem for one who possessed the stigma of Libra, which used 'light'.

Owoooong!—

The raised sword shone brightly with a dazzling light.

"Isabella, I know that you took care of many hungry and homeless people who had nowhere to go…"

She operated dozens of protection centers, and there were probably thousands, even tens of thousands of people who she had saved.

"However…"

If she had done it to secretly extract their blood and hadn’t done it out of pure goodwill…

"You are nothing but a filthy fraud."

The sword cut through the air like a guillotine’s blade.

The brilliant light coating the edge of the sword shot toward Isabella.

And then—

Booooom!!—

—a deafening sound rang out.

A terrifying rumble shook the room, and the residence’s floor cracked open.

"…Huh?"

Although it was such a tremendous noise, Isabella felt no impact on her body.

Still crouched down, she slowly raised her head.

Bzz, bzzz!—

What she saw in front of her was a pitch-black spear wrapped in blue lightning—a spear she was very familiar with.

"What a load of bullshit."

Tap—

A young man emerged from the debris and stood in front of Isabella as if protecting her.

"Fake kindness is also a kind of good. You're acting all high and mighty for someone who has never given up a cent for someone else."

Kaa, twe—

Ohjin spat out a thick glob of phlegm and raised his middle finger at Damien.

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