I’m Not A Saint Though?

chapter 15

“You found evidence?” I asked, crunching on a juicy apple.

‘Ah, so sweet.’

Sitting in my room, doing nothing but enjoying the temple’s fruits, felt like living the life of a goddess.

As I hummed to myself, the maid who had delivered the news about the Duke replied, “Yes, just as you said, Saintess, it was hidden in a book.”

“I see. That’s good.”

Nodding nonchalantly, I took another bite of the apple.

“You’re truly amazing, Saintess. How did you pinpoint the location of the evidence so accurately?”

“It’s all thanks to Goddess Hedel’s grace.”

“Oh my! It seems the Goddess is truly with you, Saintess.”

After expressing her admiration repeatedly, the maid looked at my face with a complicated expression.

“But to think that the culprit who murdered the legitimate heir of the Dukedom was living as the Duke… How heartbroken you must be, Saintess…”

Oops.

‘I wasn’t thinking.’

I was supposed to be heartbroken, having learned that the man I had known as my father all my life was actually the one who murdered my real father.

Yet, here I was, calmly eating an apple.

Worried that I might arouse suspicion, I swallowed the apple I had been chewing and smiled faintly.

“When I think of my wrongfully deceased father, tears well up in my eyes. It feels like my heart has been ripped out.”

“Oh dear, what to do…”

“But I’m now the Goddess’s daughter. I can’t be tied down by personal feelings and waste time on them. The fate of Catalon rests on my shoulders.”

“…Saintess.”

The maid’s eyes shimmered with emotion.

Smiling gently at her, I then lowered my gaze.

“Still, I’d like to spend today commemorating my deceased father.”

“Yes, you should. Then I’ll excuse myself.”

“Thank you.”

Looking at me with pity as I smiled bitterly, she quickly excused herself.

As soon as the door closed, I sprawled back on the sofa.

“Ah, so comfortable.”

There were only two things I hadn’t changed after entering the Saintess’s room and overhauling everything, and those were the mattress and this sofa.

“How many feathers did they put in this? It feels like lying on a cloud.”

As I rolled around on the sofa with a wide grin, I heard a clicking sound from somewhere.

“Lying so smoothly without batting an eye. Are all humans so shameless?”

It was Delton, lying on his stomach on the sofa opposite me.

I rolled my eyes to meet his gaze, still lying on my back, looking at the ceiling.

“No, I’m just exceptionally talented.”

“Anyone listening would think I was complimenting you.”

Scoffing in disbelief, he then suddenly snapped, “And get your facts straight. It’s thanks to me, not Hedel. You should be thanking me!”

“Well, that’s true.”

I readily nodded.

Delton had indeed played a significant role in this.

“Just hide this among the books in the study on the first floor of our house.”

“Which book are you talking about?”

“Any book will do.”

Before going to the dining hall yesterday, I had secretly handed Delton a letter.

It was the letter from my grandfather that had incriminated the trash.

‘Of course, it was forged by me, imitating my grandfather’s handwriting.’

The practice I had secretly done as a child, wanting to emulate my grandfather’s handwriting, had finally paid off.

As expected, everything you learn comes in handy someday.

Anyway, Delton, completely swayed by a whole cake, had faithfully followed my instructions, and thanks to that, I was able to put the trash behind bars.

‘It’s still amazing to think about how he transformed into a cat.’

The sight of his large body gradually shrinking and transforming into a white cat was truly marvelous.

‘It seems his thousand years of training weren’t completely in vain.’

As I looked at Delton with renewed interest, he muttered, pouting, “Yes, don’t forget your gratitude. Do you know how much trouble I went through to find your house, a place I’ve never been to before? The map you drew was so terrible it was useless!”

“…Terrible? Aren’t you being too harsh?”

“Harsh? You still say that after seeing this?”

Yelling in disbelief, Delton jumped up and ran somewhere.

After rummaging through the trash can in the corner of the room, he came back with a crumpled piece of paper in his mouth and threw it at me.

It was the map I had given him yesterday.

“…”

Silently unfolding the map, I couldn’t help but shut my mouth.

‘It is a bit much, even to me.’

With curves and straight lines drawn haphazardly, it was hard to tell if it was a map or a doodle.

‘Why can’t my drawing skills improve?’

After a moment of embarrassment, I looked at him with a “So what?” expression.

“I gave you a whole cake for that.  Isn’t a whole cake for one errand a good deal?”

“Good deal my ass!  No matter how I look at it, I’m the one at a loss. I ran around for an hour, and the size of the cake is this small?”

Delton poked at the large strawberry cake on the plate with his paw, complaining.

It was the one the maid had brought at my request a while ago.

“Small? What’s small about it? It looks twice the size of my face…”

“It’s small. Small. Small!”

Growling with a serious expression, Delton then turned his head away, snorting.

“Double it next time. Something like this isn’t even a mouthful. It doesn’t even touch the sides!”

Then, he really devoured the whole cake in one bite.

‘Ugh. Is that a pig or a lion?’

I didn’t know why it was so difficult to revere a thousand-year-old divine being.

***

The rumor of the Duke of Veloce’s imprisonment spread throughout the Empire in an instant.

“Did you hear? The Duke of Veloce was a bastard child?”

“That’s what they say. His mother drugged the previous Duke and jumped into his bed.”

“Not only that, but he murdered the legitimate heir and took his place?”

“That despicable man! How could he do such a thing to his benefactor who freed him from slavery?”

“He was rotten from the core. I always thought he was too much of a scoundrel for a legitimate heir of the Veloce Dukedom. It must have been because he took after his mother.”

“That’s right.  Alcohol, gambling, and even drugs.  There’s never been such a depraved person among the past generations of the Veloce Dukedom.”

The Duke’s notorious behavior, along with the fabricated evidence, lent credence to Shaen’s claims.

“Sigh, I feel sorry for our Saintess. To have lived, thinking the man who murdered her father was her father, how great her shock must be.”

“Indeed.”

“Wait, then does that mean those appendages were also involved?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“Think about it. They said the real Duke of Veloce died 13 years ago. But the current Duke’s illegitimate daughter is seventeen years old.”

“Now that you mention it, that’s true.  So they were involved even before the current Duke became the heir?”

“Yes, and if that’s the case, they must have known his true identity.”

“So they were all in cahoots?”

“Huh, to think that those baseless people were acting as the masters of the Dukedom.”

Just as everyone was expressing their astonishment, someone raised a new claim.

“Wait, come to think of it, the Saintess’s mother also died 13 years ago.  Could it be that he killed her too?”

“Oh, surely not…”

“Surely not? What surely not? His Grace might have been too distraught over the loss of the previous Duchess to notice that his son had been replaced, but the Duchess wouldn’t have.”

“Of course, of course. They lived together for years, how could she not know?”

“This needs to be investigated as well.”

“Of course, it has to be investigated. We have to uncover everything this time!”

The agitated crowd rushed to the prison where the Duke was held and demanded an investigation into the charges they had deduced.

Stimulated by their outcry, the investigators interrogated the Duke even more harshly.

“Hey, why don’t you just confess? The crimes you’re suspected of are countless!  We don’t have time to waste on something with such clear evidence. Do you understand? Huh?”

“I keep telling you I have nothing to confess, even if I wanted to!”

The Duke pounded his chest in frustration.

He was going crazy, being forced to confess to something absurd.

“I’m the legitimate heir of the Veloce Dukedom! It’s all a lie concocted by Shaen, that bitch!”

Just as the Duke was almost wailing, claiming his innocence,

*Slap!*

A loud slapping sound echoed through the interrogation room.

The investigator, exasperated by the fruitless interrogation, had slapped the Duke across the face.

“Wh-What…!”

The Duke’s eyes trembled uncontrollably.

Born into a high-ranking noble family, he had always been pampered and looked up to.

He had been beaten before, but never slapped.

Not even by his strict father.

‘B-But by this low-ranking official…!’

He was dumbfounded and filled with rage.

But he couldn’t yell and rage like he usually did.

Ironically, at that moment, realizing that his status had plummeted to rock bottom, a fear greater than anger washed over him.

Just as he was trembling, the investigator, who had been glaring at him, suddenly stood up and bowed politely.

“Wh-Why are you here, Your…?”

The Duke’s expression turned to one of bewilderment.

That violent man, who had slapped a Duke of the Empire without hesitation, was now acting so politely.

Just who had arrived to make him act this way?

Turning his head, thinking the Emperor might have come, he widened his eyes.

‘Well, well. It’s me.’

The one who had burst into the interrogation room mid-session was none other than me, Shaen Veloce.

‘It’s nice to see you again, you piece of trash.’

I winked at the gaping trash.