The Devilish Duke Can't Sleep

Proofreader: somnium

It was Kahel who struck out that subtle, hostile atmosphere.

“You took out all the interior. How do you plan to continue the project?”

“Ah, I had a lot of free time after bringing in the busy people. Sorry. So, should I tell you this first?”

Luahalla led Kahel and Gerard towards the inside of the first floor.

Meanwhile, Lena looked out the window in the carriage. With Kahel’s orders to wait in the carriage, it won’t be long, and she’s at ease looking around, without Gerard’s attention.

Even though the square where the fountain was earlier was great, this Rivella Street, where the nobles went out with their fancy decorations, was so splendid that her eyes were spinning.

The stone paving the road looked a little denser and harder, and the building was bigger and more luxurious. A row of sycamores lined up in the middle of the road shaded the road with lush leaves, and on the first floor of the buildings there was always a high-end store with a glass show window to welcome customers wrapped in high-quality materials. It was a sight she could not have imagined in Kerouac, so she even thought that the eras of Ardennes and Kerouac were different.

“Wow…… Ardennes is truly amazing…….”

Lena looked out the window with a curious face, and she didn’t even notice anyone outside the window was watching her.

“Now that…… Who the hell is that……?”

Lian, who had come out to Rivella Street in an unmarked carriage to meet his friends after a long time, happened to see the Duchy of Luave’s carriage galloping through the streets and followed it out of curiosity. He came along with a light playfulness, and he didn’t know he would get such a spectacle.

It was surprising that Kahel, who was rarely seen outside, appeared directly on the streets of Rivella, but the appearance of a woman looking out the window with an innocent face in the carriage that Kahel got off was something that even Lian could not understand. She seems to believe that she had covered herself with a hood, but she didn’t seem to realize that as she looked down the street, her face was almost completely exposed.

Seeing that even though he was staring at her like this, she didn’t notice at all, she probably wasn’t a person with strong magical powers, and from her attitude, she didn’t look like a noblewoman. What was even more surprising was that even though she had just been in the same carriage with Kahel, he didn’t feel that her aura was being possessed by Kahel’s devilish powers at all.

Lian, who is curious about her origins, cautiously walked over to the carriage and knocked on the carriage’s door while the Luave coachman went to a nearby inn to buy apples for the horses.

He could see the woman in the carriage startled by the sudden sound. Then Lian showed her a harmless smile and greeted Lena.

“Hello, miss.”

His figure was so beautiful that it seemed to be enveloped in the brilliance of an angel. Usually when he smiled like this, everyone around him would be kind as if they would do anything for him. Lian, who knew this well, believed that he could easily break the opponent’s boundaries again this time.

But his opponent wasn’t as kind this time. Of all people, it was Lena, who was humble even after seeing Kahel’s appearance. Since Kahel’s urging that she ‘shouldn’t stand out,’ she felt more afraid of being caught by someone.

‘Oh, what should I do? Someone saw me! I have to hide!’

Lena hurriedly put on the robe and made sure the doors of the carriage were locked. And yet, she went back and forth for a while before burying her head between her knees and plugging her ears.

Lian, who looked at the figure from the window, shed a hesitant laugh in absurdity.

“Excuse me, lady? I’m not a bad person. Can we talk for a moment?”

He knocked on the carriage door again and sweetly called her, but Lena was immovable.

Lian was a little surprised that his smile didn’t work on the young lady, but he understood. Isn’t she the woman next to Kahel? She doesn’t seem to be possessed by Kahel’s devilish powers, so she wouldn’t fall in love with his smile or anything like that.

“As expected, there are a lot of interesting things next to Kahel.”

Lian crouched down and watched Lena’s trembling. When he sensed the coachman’s return from afar, he hurriedly returned to his own carriage. It was unsuccessful to find out who she was, but it was interesting enough to know that there was a woman unpossessed by his side.

But he had no intention of telling his father or Liddell of this right away. Of course, he was also a son of Santella, so he recognized this as important information that he might use someday, but it would be no fun if Kahel quickly brought her and hid the girl.

‘I’ll have to do some more research around Kahel.’

Lian smiled and started the carriage.

* * *

“Angel! Angel! Please grant me a blessing!”

“Princess Santella! Wow!”

As the white carriage, specially made for Liddell, passed the road, the people on the street cheered and asked Liddell to bless them. At their reverent voice, Liddell also thrust her head out of the carriage’s window and waved her hand.

People screamed with more excitement when they saw her blonde hair, and Liddell reached her white hand out of the window and gave a blessing, as if in response to the support, scattering little lights. Of course, it was not a real blessing that required a lot of magic power, and it was close to a feat with only a visual effect, but the commoners, unaware of the fact, flocked to try to reach even a single shard of light.

Although soon stopped by the knights of the Santella family, people were moved to tears as they saw Liddell smiling beautifully and generously bestowing her blessings. And Liddell had a good response from those people. These are the ways in which they worship her as a divine being, not a human being.

For the image of the Santella family, she sometimes performed like an angel in this striking chariot, but in fact, Liddell believed she was a true angelic bloodline. She’s been hearing the same things constantly since she was a child, and as she grows up she came to believe that it’s real, and Liddell has been told since childhood that she’s ‘like an angel’.

Anyway, today she was on her way to visit the temple due to the issue of printing the revised scriptures. The Santella family monopolized the scripture publishing business, instead of just supplying the white jade used to engrave at a low price. And over the years, little by little, the scriptures have been revised in favor of the Santella family.

It was Liddell who was in charge of this scripture revision project. She has been paying a lot of attention to this revision for a long time, and today is her last visit before final printing.

“Welcome, Sister Liddell.”

“Long time no see, Priest Rubid.”

The one called Rubid was a high-ranking priest in his mid-50s who had a darker blonde than Liddell. He held the position of overseeing the scripture work at the Limon Cathedral in Ardennes, and was also the older brother of the present Duke Santella.

After a few useless greetings, he immediately led Liddell into the private room.

“I heard that the trial printing of the revised scriptures was over. Were there any problems?”

“Under the blessing of Lana, the test print was completed without any problems. Check it out.”

He then unfolded the scroll of paper full of small letters in front of Liddell.

On the left side of the paper was the old version of the scriptures, and on the right side was the revised version of the same scriptures. It was not all parts of the scriptures, but a part of the founding myth of the Logos called <The Biography of Logos>.

The first part of the phrase “two beasts opposing each other did not stop fighting after a thousand days and a thousand nights” in the old version of the scriptures was changed to “an angel and a devil opposing each other” in the revised version.

Also, ‘The black-winged beast caused a typhoon and plowed up the devastated land, and the white-winged beast raised a breeze and sprouted in the land’ became ‘the devil caused a typhoon and plowed up the devastated ground, but the angel raised a breeze and sprouted life in the land.’

‘The woman said, ‘It saddened me that you do not value the seeds of life that God has sown on the earth’, became ‘The woman said to the devil, ‘You do not cherish the life that God sowed on the earth’.

In other words, there was no word for angel and devil in the previous Logos myth, but in this revised version, the two families are nailed down with the words angel and devil. Moreover, the passages were cleverly demeaning the devil.

Anyway, the main scriptures of the Limon Church were made to be awkward by semantic shift over time, and the <The Biography of Logos> part that Liddell was tinkering with was like an appendix at the end of the scriptures, so the importance dropped.

Moreover, since the two Duchies of Logos were already imprinted in the minds of people with images of angels and demons, they wouldn’t care too much if they noticed that the Logos biography was modified. However, if that prejudice is proven and hardened by the writings of the scriptures, then the prejudice will soon become the truth.

“Yes. It seems to be very smooth. And what happened to my request?”

Liddell, who had been examining the revised parts of the Logos biography, smiled contentedly and handed Rubid a bunch of checked papers. However, there was another aspect that Liddell wanted to confirm today. It was almost at the end of the Logos’ biography.

-… … Logos, where the two beasts will prosper under the power of the woman, will usher in a new era at the dawn of the third millennium, and the glory of Logos will be endless.

It was Liddell’s favorite passage of all the scriptures. In the new scriptures, there was one more important verse in addition to changing the word ‘two beasts’ to ‘angel and devil’.

-…… Logos, where angels and devils will prosper under the power of the woman, will usher in a new era at the dawn of the third millennium, and the glory of Logos who has acquired a new master will be endless.

Liddell smiled as she swiped the ‘acquired a new master’ part with her finger as if loving it.

The excuse for this revision was Melike’s prophetic book found in an old temple warehouse in the countryside. In fact, the Santella family only published what they had discovered three hundred years ago now.

Melike was a prophet from 800 years ago whose identity is still unclear. Although his prophecies were full of metaphors that were difficult to interpret, it was said to have never been false. And the reason the Santella family had to hide the existence of the prophet was because of one prophecy among the many contents in the prophecy.