Please Leave The Sickly Villainess Alone

“Ria, where are you going?”

Luka helplessly followed behind as I pulled him along by the hand, despite his much larger frame.

Where else, I was fleeing to avoid the villain.

The relationship between Lady Jeria’s princes and Luka was abysmal.

Even if bound by the name of brothers, they could be worse than strangers.

The First Prince was a year older than Luka, while the Second Prince was the same age.

At an age when they might have played games if they had met as neighborhood friends, these princes born of noble blood in the Imperial Palace engaged in constant checks and attacks against each other.

Luka once quite liked his brothers.

To him, the princes were siblings even if half-brothers.

The young princes sometimes trained in swordsmanship together and sometimes played hide-and-seek, getting along well.

However, even a white canvas fades with time.

Lady Jeria constantly compared her sons to Luka, nurturing crooked jealousy in their young hearts.

Luka too had a sense of competition instilled in him by the Empress from a young age, and cracks gradually began to form in the relationships between the princes.

And eventually, things came to a head.

One day, when the palace was abuzz with Luka manifesting sword energy at the youngest age ever, the two princes who had been severely scolded by Lady Jeria called him to the Winter Palace.

‘Let’s finish the game of hide-and-seek we couldn’t last time!’

‘This time, you hide. I’ll count.’

‘Arzenluka, you’ll be found quickly there since that’s where brother hid last time. Better hide over there instead.’

‘Okay, there. I’ll close it for you. You definitely won’t be found here.’

Luka hid his body in a remote storehouse of the Winter Palace.

In that gloomy place without even a window to let in a sliver of light, he waited for his brothers to come find him.

Time was hard to gauge inside the storehouse.

Thinking quite some time had passed and certain of his victory, young Luka tried to open the door and go outside.

But the door wouldn’t open.

The moment he realized something was wrong, he became afraid.

Was it because he was helplessly trapped in an abandoned storehouse where no one would come?

No, it was because he sensed that his brothers had changed into despicable creatures like any other vile sort.

He was locked in there for two days without weapons or food.

He might have been trapped even longer and truly met his fate, but an old servant opened the shabby storehouse door to fetch cleaning supplies and discovered him.

Luka, who had been locked up for two days without eating or sleeping, fainted the moment he saw the beam of light, and the old servant hurriedly carried him on his back to find a doctor.

Luka fortunately survived, but after that day, the old man’s face was never seen in the palace again.

He should have thanked him, but when he heard that a corpse had been carried out of the Winter Palace, he instinctively knew it was that old man.

It became another source of guilt.

When the incident came to light, the First Prince was given a month of house arrest.

Even that was reduced on the grounds that it was a common prank among children of that age.

After that day, Luka stopped seeking out the brothers he had once liked.

The princes who had become complete enemies continued to show undisguised hostility at any official occasion thereafter.

Family worse than strangers is just shit.

The weather was nice and we would likely get to see the Empress after a while, so I didn’t want to cause any trouble.

That’s why I was trying to escape the central tower’s garden where some shit, whether the First or Second Prince, was rolling around.

“Isn’t this not the garden you mentioned?”

“Yes, if we go to the annex of the Crown Prince’s palace…”

At that moment, a voice called out from behind to stop us.

“Well, who do we have here?”

It was a boy with a malicious voice and an unpleasant gaze that made my hair stand on end.

It seemed the prince hadn’t just been on his way to the central tower, but had known Luka was here and come looking for him from the start.

Otherwise, how could he have appeared behind us as we were fleeing in the opposite direction from where the prince had been coming?

Seeing the black hair, I hadn’t been mistaken earlier.

The prince was a rather disappointing specimen when considering Lady Jeria’s face.

Not exactly ugly, but more like half-finished.

“It’s been a while, little brother.”

Hearing him call Luka “little brother,” he must be the First Prince.

‘The fool, a dupe used only by his mother and younger brother.’

That’s about all I could remember.

It was all the Second Prince’s doing to lock Luka in the storehouse, but he took all the blame. Because of that incident, his anger was directed not at the Second Prince, but at Luka instead.

That was foolish too. Trusting his full brother unconditionally.

Not realizing that if the Second Prince had succeeded in eliminating Luka then, he himself would have been the next target.

“Is it right for one who is the Crown Prince of the Greffin Empire to be idly gallivanting about with his girlfriend?”

Girlfriend? …Me?

I stared at the First Prince in disbelief.

Meeting my gaze, the prince said with an unpleasant smirk:

“Though a fake, you have a pretty face. Rising from commoner to Duchy’s Princess, are you now aiming for the position of Crown Princess?”

How could he spew such nonsense when he’s never even seen me before?

“Hmm, how about becoming my concubine later instead? I’ll treat you well.”

Considering my real age, this low-level braggart before me was just a small fry.

But if I actually threw a punch, I’d be arrested by the Imperial Guards.

This is why abuse of power is so frightening.

Those born with silver spoons can be forgiven by reality even if their brains are half empty.

I chose to ignore him as my answer.

Unable to take out his ill feelings on Luka himself, he seemed to be attacking me beside him instead, which was truly despicable.

“Let’s just go, Luka.”

As I tried to turn away and leave, pretending not to hear, the prince’s voice stopped me in my tracks.

“How dare you ignore me! You lowborn, bewitching thing. Getting cocky because of your face, when you grow up you’ll end up selling your body…”

Thwack!

With a dull impact sound, I turned to see the First Prince thrown to the ground.

“You insulted Lady Ria. Should I just kill you?”

Luka’s fist was bright red from how hard he had struck.

The prince writhed on the ground, twitching his fingers and groaning.

“Ah, aah… M-My tooth…!”

From the sound of it, he seems to have lost a tooth. This… I really should have avoided the shit after all.

While I was taken aback that things had escalated so much, I also felt extremely gratified.

“I’ll teach you who you dared to insult with that filthy mouth of yours.”

He probably just meant to get on our nerves and amuse himself, not expecting Luka to get so angry.

Usually, Luka would have ignored and passed by no matter what insults were hurled at him personally.

The prince trembled and crawled on the ground, trying to avoid Luka approaching him.

“Y-You think you’ll get away with this?! My maternal family, the Croia Marquisate, won’t let you off!”

His words spewed in anger were quite laughable.

Of course, Lady Jeria and Marquis Croia currently had a tight grip on politics and finance, so their influence couldn’t be ignored, but the one he insulted was me – the Princess of the Rayes family and a precious healing mage.

Even if he died by my hand, what could the Empire do to me?

There was no point in weighing a useless prince against a healing mage who could double the Empire’s national power.

Especially considering how indifferent the Emperor was to his own children.

Moreover, though Luka threw the punch, he was only pointing fingers at me.

This showed he was somewhat aware that his status was lower than Luka, the Crown Prince.

Even if Luka beat him more, nothing major would happen beyond earning more hatred from the Noble faction that was already on bad terms with him.

However, I decided to stop calculating extreme scenarios.

This could be settled with just a light ear-flicking.

Though things had escalated a bit, I first grabbed Luka’s shoulder as he approached the prince.

“Stop, stepping in shit will just dirty your shoes.”

Luka seemed even angrier than I thought, his body heaving up and down as if short of breath.

Realizing there wasn’t an ounce of bluff in his words about killing the prince, I hastily added:

“Do as I say. I don’t want this to get bigger.”

Luka removed my hand and turned around, burying his face in my shoulder so I couldn’t see his expression.

“Don’t worry. I’ll do whatever Ria says.”

I let out a sigh of relief and pulled him off me, brushing back his hair and meeting his eyes.

His reddened eyes almost made me feel like I was the bad person.

“Thank you for getting angry on my behalf.”

It was truly appreciated when someone took the initiative to stand up for me.

Especially if they were so blindly devoted.

I approached the prince who was still on the ground.

As I neared, he screamed in anger:

“You bitch, I’ll never let this go!”

His quivering eyes were almost pitiful to see.

Not to mention his swollen right cheek.

“You, you seemed to find me easy prey while fearing Luka. But what a shame, this lowly body you said should sell itself recently awakened as a healing mage.”

Though the goddess’s power had long disappeared from the Empire, there were still devout believers, and temples continued to exist under the pretext of protecting the Empire.

They called those commonly known as healing mages ‘Saints.’

They still believed in the existence of Saints who had vanished into history 700 years ago.

The holy families maintaining the temples accused those who insulted Saints of blasphemy.

And they prophesied that if those accused of blasphemy weren’t punished, the goddess’s wrath would be directed at the Empire.

Whether by coincidence or not, droughts or floods had occurred in history when blasphemers weren’t punished, so the Empire’s people were especially sensitive about such matters.

Even for a prince, if accused of blasphemy, his reputation would hit rock bottom.

“Oh my, if I go to the temple myself and relay exactly what I heard earlier, what would happen to you?”

At my innocent question, the prince’s face turned ashen.

It was an expression more terrified than when he was hit by Luka.

I considered erasing his memory, but seeing those eyes brimming with distrust and anger towards me, I didn’t think the magic would work.

Rather, I thought it might be good to leave some trauma with this guy today. So he would never run his mouth recklessly again.

“The scar on that already unattractive face of yours is because you stupidly tripped on a rock and fell. Right?”

Seeing the prince keep his mouth tightly shut with a sullen expression, I continued as if giving up:

“If not, never mind. Luka, I think it’s better to just give him another beating…”

“S-Stop!”

Only when he heard Luka approaching did that precious mouth finally open.

“Now you can hear me? Then I’ll tell you one more time.”

Since fools usually can’t understand the first time, I kindly explained again.

“If your mouth opens, so does mine, and then you’ll have to live with the label of blasphemer for the rest of your life.”

If you’re unlucky, the anger of the people suffering from the recent drought might be directed at you.

“Are you okay with that?”