166 – Witch Doctor
“Whew….”
Aria walked out of the shabby bathroom.
She had a face that looked somewhat uncomfortable.
“Hygiene has become a mess while I haven’t seen you.”
Aria expresses her dissatisfaction with a tone as disgruntled as her facial expression.
The bathroom at a store I frequented for the first time in a while was literally the worst.
Even the crown prince was at a loss for a moment about where to do his business between the wall and the bathroom.
Even though I closed the door on my way out, there was a foul smell coming from inside.
“I guess I can’t just ignore this.”
She leaves a mark on her favorite store. She couldn’t tolerate that.
“There is a need to provide a guide to businesses that provide food.”
The store owner’s annoyance was about to lead to a reform of the empire’s hygiene-related system.
Sigh.
He untied his hair and let it go to get rid of the stray hairs.
-Sarak.
Then, the neat 5:5 parting that was used before popped out and returned to its original place.
Until just now, he had tied his hair and exposed his forehead to hide the fact that he was the crown prince.
Who would dare to look at her man with his hair all white and think of the noble crown prince?
In the eyes of others, he would have seemed like a capable and young public servant who would have made women cry.
It was a time when he wanted to return to being a handsome man with all-white hair.
-Ttogakttogak.
The sound of shoe heels echoed through the narrow street, and soon came closer and closer to where he was.
Reflected in the dim moonlight, it had a rather bizarre shape.
Hunchback-like, with its back bent and its face covered with a hood.
Aria, who realized that she was obviously disabled based on her appearance, turned her body and made room for her partner to pass.
“Thank you.”
She may have been a woman, but she said thank you in a sweet voice.
“Nothing to say.”
When I returned to the imperial palace, I thought we should discuss the welfare of the physically challenged. A woman spoke to him.
“You may be a man, but you have a truly beautiful face.”
The feminine name, which he had a complex with, made him feel slightly uncomfortable, but Aria answered without showing it.
“Thank you for your kind words, Lady.”
The other person flinched at those words.
“Lady… This is the first time I’ve heard that word in my life.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. Really.”
Then she pulled back the hood that covered her.
“Could you say the same thing after seeing me like that?”
The woman’s face revealed in the moonlight was extremely shabby.
Her face was grotesque, as if it had melted, and the sight of her nose bent in the middle and with a large dot on it caused an indescribable discomfort.
Witch.
Anyone who sees it will say that.
“Don’t people deserve respect no matter what they look like?”
But Aria did not say those words out loud. Because he wasn’t the type of person to judge people based on their appearance.
There was silence for a moment as Aria casually made a comment that felt as emotional as my face.
“I wonder what it would have been like if I had met you earlier.”
When her partner revealed his crush on her, Aria opened her mouth.
“I’m sorry, but I cannot accept your feelings.”
Aria draws a line like her sword towards such a woman.
She was always confessed to by young female employees, so it was an everyday occurrence for her.
“Then I’ll leave.”
That was when he turned his back on the woman and wanted to go back to the store.
“That makes it even more unfortunate. That I have to kill you right here and now.”
“…!”
Sensing her discomfort, Aria quickly tried to distance herself from her, but it was already too late.
“Ugh…!”
Her left fingertip began to tingle, and soon her body began to feel heavy.
It is a familiar feeling.
The same feeling that had been tormenting her for the past few days.
“How on earth is this…!”
“Are you that curious about that?”
When she raised her head at the sound of a voice, she saw a woman stroking a dagger made of bone.
“Kairis the Aria Arachnen.”
As if she knew Aria’s identity, the woman’s head tilted strangely as she recited his name.
“You inherited your good looks from your father, so you will never understand how I felt about being born with such an ugly face. You probably won’t even know when you die.”
-Suddenly.
The woman held Aria’s chin, which was becoming increasingly stiff, and made eye contact.
“Some people are called witches and can’t even raise their heads when they’re out, but smart guys like you are praised by people around you even if you don’t do anything. Don’t you think it’s unfair?”
A woman looking at herself with glazed eyes and muttering something incomprehensible to herself. Aria argued, moving her lips with difficulty.
“Does that mean you think something like this is acceptable? Just for that reason…?”
“Gochag? Did you just say gochag?”
Cow wow.
Her hand holding her chin gained strength.
“You’ll never understand. I wasn’t born this way, so why do I have to hear other people call me a witch or a monster?”
“Ugh…! If you do something like this, it will actually be poisonous…”
“Really? I don’t think so. Of course, I kidnapped a few people and experimented on them before, but no one would know that I did it, so you just blindly accuse people of being witches. Isn’t that too much?”
Only then did Aria realize. The person in front of her is more ugly on the inside than her outside appearance.
“This evil witch…!”
As Aria gritted her teeth and defined the being in front of her as a witch, the woman sighed and said regretfully.
“In the end, you say things like that too. Just like everyone else.”
Then this time he chuckled. She was even more creepy because, unlike her ugly appearance, her voice was beautiful.
“But it’s okay. By killing you, I can become beautiful.”
“Shut up!”
-Sereung.
Aria decided that she didn’t need to listen anymore and pulled her sword from her waist. She was going to win before her body got any heavier.
-Suddenly.
The woman’s left arm flew through the air in his strike that squeezed everything out.
However.
“It hurts… I’m not the crown prince who overcame the curse for nothing.”
Even though the woman’s arm was cut off, she just looked at the cut surface as if it was no big deal, and more than that, the woman’s last words really bothered her.
“How could you do that… No way!”
Aria realized something and glared at her opponent as if she were going to kill him.
“The curse on my body was all the work of you!”
“Do you finally understand? You’re quite perceptive.”
She continued giggling.
“Originally, he should have died after suffering from anxiety, but he endured it and even recovered. I was so surprised when I first saw that.”
Tuk.
The woman who said that lightly pushed Aria.
Sharp.
Aria, who had poured all her strength into her previous strike, fell so helplessly.
“But the struggle ends here. I came to put an end to it myself. And above all,”
-Cow wow.
“You have to speak clearly, right? I’m not a witch. Please call me Witch Doctor Dirke, kid.”
“Ugh…!”
He fell to the ground and was stepped on by a woman, and for the first time in his life, he felt humiliated.
It wasn’t like this even when he drank poison in the past after being betrayed by a subordinate. At that time, even though I was dying, I was able to struggle until the end.
But now, for some reason, he couldn’t even lift a finger.
Dirke, who was giggling as if he liked Aria’s appearance like that, opened her mouth.
“Now then, shall we take out your heart? If I bring it to the demon, I can throw off my human body and be reborn as a beautiful demon.”
Aria said with a shocked expression after hearing that.
“Reborn as a demon… How can a human be on the side of a demon?”
“Well? Do I resent humans more than demons? At least they didn’t call me a witch.”
“Even if you’re crazy, you’re still crazy…!”
“Don’t worry. I will put your body to good use. For example, in bed.”
Sigh.
She raised her bone dagger above her head.
“Goodbye, prince.”
The moment when he was about to hit Aria’s heart like that.
“What the hell?!”
With the sound of the wind being knocked out, Dirke, who was trampling on Aria, was hit by something on her and flew away.
As Aria, who was still heavy but had regained her freedom, was breathing hard, someone grabbed her and helped her up.
Soon her familiar voice reached my ears.
“Wow, you idiot. You’re getting beaten up again.”
“How are you here…?”
Her own friend, to whom she had once owed her life.
“Are you really strong? How can this guy just get hit on a fake day?”
He was looking at himself with pitiful eyes.