Chapter 62 | How to Not Get Executed as an Otome Game Villainess

Until now, Leonhart had never revealed his true likes and dislikes.

He was friendly to Loris because she was a daughter of the Aldheim family, gentle to Liliana because she was a commoner who needed placating, and polite, proper, and perfect to everyone—not because he was that kind of person, but because he needed to be that kind of person.

He didn't know what his true self was like.

Perhaps a “true self” didn't exist at all. He was this perfect skin itself, these proper manners themselves, the identity of the Crown Prince itself.

Thinking of this, he suddenly felt a sliver of sadness.

For some reason, an inexplicable trace of sorrow washed over him.

Since Loris was possessed by an evil god, he could reasonably infer that for a pampered noble young lady to develop such a spoiled, tyrannical personality—if that Tyrant Daughter's temperament, those actions of bullying others, and the very traits that made her a villainous daughter were all the result of that dark power—

Then what was the original Loris like?

Was she the girl who cried while watching the opera today?

Was she the girl who thought of buying gifts for her friends while picking out stud earrings?

Was she the girl in the restaurant who said, “Please make the arrangements, Your Highness,” handing over the decision-making power to someone else?

If so...

...then why did she have to be possessed by such a thing?

What did she do wrong?

Leonhart was struck by an inexplicable, profound sadness, feeling his own insignificance and the injustice of fate. Though he had the entire kingdom behind him, in the face of such darkness, in the presence of a deity—an evil god—no one would ever want to make contact with it. Even if he mobilized the forces of the kingdom's mages, they would not be able to solve it.

For even catching a mere glimpse of an evil god's trace was an exceedingly rare feat, one that relied entirely on Leonhart's Innate Magic.

Any other method would be incredibly difficult.

—

“Your Highness?”

Loris's voice pulled Leonhart back to reality.

He turned his head in a daze and saw her looking at him with her head tilted, a trace of confusion in her emerald-green eyes.

“My apologies,” Leonhart said, offering a weak smile.

That smile was just as gentle as usual, but only he knew how much strained effort was hidden behind the upward curve of his lips. The cold sweat on his back was slowly turning icy, his fingers had only just stopped trembling, and the chill welling up from the depths of his soul felt as though something had planted a seed of never-melting ice deep within the marrow of his bones.

“Are you tired, Your Highness?” Loris asked, her tone carrying a cautious, probing edge. “Today's schedule... was quite packed.”

Leonhart shook his head, picked up his water, and took another sip—in truth, the glass was already empty; he simply needed a physical gesture to hide his still-trembling hand.

“It is nothing.” He set the empty glass back on the table, shifting his gaze away from Loris's face to the azure sky outside the window. “I was just thinking about a few things.”

He did not bring up his previous line again—There are some things I do not know if I should say.

There was no longer any need to continue that topic.

“...”

...

Due to Leonhart's poor state, the afternoon itinerary of visiting the museum and art gallery was naturally canceled.

The carriage departed from the restaurant entrance, slowly making its way toward the academy along the cobblestone road.

The interior of the carriage remained silent.

Loris leaned against the window, watching the bustling street scenes fly by outside. Her pale gold hair shimmered in the afternoon sun as she sat lost in thought.

Leonhart sat to the side, his gaze scanning her inch by inch. He looked at the curve of her ear, rendered almost translucent by the sunlight, and at her clean, slender fingers resting on her knees, unadorned by any flamboyant nail polish.

These details, which he had once viewed merely as political bargaining chips, now filled him with a heavy sense of reality.

The carriage rolled to a gentle stop in front of the academy gates.

Loris smoothed down her light blue skirt and reached out to open the carriage door.

“Lady Loris,” Leonhart suddenly spoke.

Loris's hand paused on the door handle. She turned her head slightly to look at him.

Leonhart looked into those emerald eyes. He wanted to ask so many things—“Do you know what is happening to you?” or “What exactly is that darkness?”—but when the words reached his lips, they ultimately dissolved into the gentle, proper smile he was best at:

“I enjoyed our outing today very much.”

This was the truth.

It was neither pleasantries meant to win over the duke's family, nor the official rhetoric expected of a Crown Prince. It was the most genuine, sincere respect that Leonhart von Edelstein, after catching a glimpse of the abyss, could offer to the person before him who was fighting so hard to live as herself.

Loris was stunned for a second or two.

Then, she wore a smile that, while still flawless and carrying a touch of fatigue, was exceptionally vivid yet distant:

“Me too.”

The carriage door opened. Gathering her skirt, she elegantly stepped out, climbed the stairs, and disappeared behind the heavy oak doors.

Leonhart sat alone in the empty carriage, cold sweat trickling down his cheek. He leaned back against the velvet seat and slowly closed his eyes, feeling the burning sensation that still flickered deep within his right eye.

The Aldheim family, an unspeakable gaze, the shadow of an evil god...

He silently made a certain resolve in his heart.

Before everything collapsed completely, he would pay close attention to this matter. Perhaps he ought to investigate the whole truth in his own way as the Crown Prince, but until then, he would perfectly maintain the status quo and play his part as a proper fiancé.

For an evil god was a supreme, transcendent existence to anyone, even to his own imperial father.

If word got out that the daughter of the Aldheim family was watched by an evil god, the kingdom's domestic political landscape would surely fall into absolute chaos.

The carriage slowly set in motion, the clattering of the wheels monotonous and cold.

Everything seemed so peaceful, completely undisturbed, just like every other weekend in the kingdom's past.

Yet at the moment Leonhart von Edelstein closed his eyes and leaned back against the carriage seat in an attempt to calm his racing heart, he had no idea what he had just brushed against. He did not even know if “that thing” had noticed him—after all, when an ant occasionally looks up at the sun, the sun usually doesn't care.

But since the story has reached this point, readers might be left entirely in the dark if certain background details are not explained clearly.

Beyond the shroud that mortals could never reach, in the dark corners untouched by the manicured cypress trees and pristine sunlight of the royal capital, the undercurrents of history had never stopped their thick, frenzied churning.

While Crown Prince Leonhart was breaking out in a cold sweat inside his spacious carriage from a single second of looking directly, he had no idea that in some corner of this world, a group of people was sacrificing their entire sanity, flesh, and even souls just to obtain that one ruinous second of attention.

It was an ancient chapel submerged hundreds of meters underground.

The air was thick with musty dampness, dried blood, and a sweet, cloying stench reminiscent of rotting kelp with a salty tang of sea salt.

There were no holy white candles, only a few oil lamps lit with the fat of some unknown deep-sea fish, casting clingy, sickly green shadows on the black stone walls.

Dozens of fanatics clad in dark-patterned black robes knelt flat upon the stone slabs.

Their foreheads were pressed tightly against the ground, their bodies convulsing and trembling like shrimp from sheer, extreme euphoria and terror.

At the end of their gaze stood an altar constructed from a chaotic pile of countless irregular geometric shapes.

No specific face was carved upon it, for any mortal artist who had ever attempted to depict “that existence” had thrust a chisel through their own eyes the very moment they set pen to paper.

In the center of the altar lay only a writhing, seemingly living mass of black gelatinous substance.

“...O great, nameless Beholder, dimensionality-reducing Observer, blind eye that tears open the skin of the world.”

The priest leading the prayer stood at the very front.

His voice had long ceased to resemble any structure a human could produce, instead carrying a raspy, echoing resonance. The hem of his robes had transformed into translucent fleshy tentacles, frantically thrashing against the stone platform.

“Please look upon your servants with pity... Please bestow your gaze, even if but a glance for a thousandth of a millionth of a second, upon this desolate, low-dimensional soil...”

The fanatics began to chant in a low chorus.

It was no hymn of praise, but a string of illogical gibberish cobbled together from entirely meaningless syllables.

Along with their prayers, the air around the altar began to distort like heatwaves shimmering off a summer road, and fine, spiderweb-like black cracks split open at the edges of space.

They were praying for the evil god's gaze.

They believed it to be the ultimate blessing, the sole path to evolution and ascension.

However, the twisted flesh began to sketch a painting using fresh blood.

It materialized within the consciousness of the cultists.

The young lady in the painting possessed pale gold hair. She was delicate and young, exuding a pampered aura. Then, more information began to flood into the minds of the cultists.

...Aldheim...

...Royal Grammar Academy...

...A super-genius Level Ten mage...

“This...”

The leading priest was dumbfounded, filled with utter disbelief!

This was the moment the cultists were most envious of, and the point they found most incomprehensible!

They had sacrificed the lives of hundreds of their brethren and struggled for decades, yet they couldn't capture even a single trace of the deity. On the other hand, that arrogant daughter of the Aldheim family seemed to carry the crown of the abyss naturally.

After a long silence, they only groveled even more devoutly.

Cold sweat poured down their faces.

Because of that aura of the abyss.

“...Is your gaze cast upon her...”

The leading priest's tentacles began to wave unconsciously. Closing his eyes, he wept streams of blood as he spoke in a deep voice:

“...Please guide us on what to do...”

Heavy echoes rumbled as the cultists chimed in.

“...Please guide us...” “...Please guide us...”

Suddenly, the eerie blue flames of the candles placed around the area—crafted from some unspeakable materials—flickered.

In this moment, the priest knew in his mind what he had to do.

Within the underground chapel, the frantic prayers had reached their peak.

The mass of black gelatin in the center of the altar suddenly ceased its writhing. Under the gaze of all the fanatics, countless tiny slits abruptly tore open across its surface, revealing rows of emotionless golden pupils condensed from pure, turbulent mana.

In this instant, a gaze seemed to fall upon them.

“A response! The deity has looked upon us!!”

The priest shrieked hysterically.

All the fanatics raised their faces, greedily and crazily welcoming that gaze.

But what they did not know was that it was only because of their prayers—specifically, because their ritual had projected Loris's shadow—that this indescribable deity had noticed the existence of this underground chapel and realized there was actually a group of puny mortals praying to It here.

That magnificent gaze now calmly pierced through the dense mental realm, skimming past these trembling, human-shaped ants.

And then, It cast Itself casually toward the direction of the academy in the royal capital, falling upon the villainous young lady who had just finished a whole plate of avocados with toast for lunch and was currently feeling a bit distressed about how to deal with Liliana in class tomorrow.

“...Your will, we shall carry out...”

Human God: ?

Sensing where his Lord's gaze was looking, the evil god's priest knelt down once more in devout worship to show his loyalty, and the other cultists quickly followed suit, their voices echoing solemnly:

“...Your will, we shall carry out...” “...Your will, we shall carry out...” “...Your will, we shall carry out...”

Admittedly, this was rather strange to It. It was highly vague what sort of will they were planning to carry out; all the Human God had done was take another look at the soul that interested It.