"My body hurts a lot? It doesn't feel like I'm going to die... Actually, it hurts even more than when my stomach was pierced."
At Jeremiah's complaints as she moved Azazel's body this way and that, Pudding, who had returned to cat form, quietly averted his eyes. Right. Our Pudding must have had quite a deep physical conversation with Azazel in the meantime.
"Are you alright?"
Knowing my question carried multiple implications, Jeremiah paused for a moment, looking at her own corpse lying on the bed, then nodded.
"I survived in some form, so that's enough. Thank you, Lady Rohanson."
Jeremiah had a remarkably strong spirit. She was someone who had grasped a lifeline that seemed ready to snap at any moment and held on until she found a breakthrough.
"You kept holding my hand the entire time, didn't you, Lady Rohanson? You are a witch as the rumors say, but unlike the rumors, you're a kind person."
Um... I'm not a witch, I'm a villainess. No, not even a villainess. I was about to correct her when Jeremiah clasped hands with the uninjured side. For reference, the injured side had just been treated by Kanna, who cried upon learning it had been wounded later than expected.
Pudding glared fiercely at Jeremiah, then seemingly realized belatedly that the one inside Azazel's shell was the young princess, snorted and turned his gaze away.
"Why is it so disgusting watching her act so innocently in Astaroth's body?"
Jelly murmured to herself as if she understood Pudding's feelings. Pudding and Jelly seemed to feel cognitive dissonance at the fact that Jeremiah was inside Azazel's body. I pushed aside the two who kept picking on Jeremiah and asked her what I had been curious about all along.
"Lady Jeremiah. Now that we've saved you, would you tell us what happened and why you were being chased instead of the wanted Princess Tenebrei?"
Jeremiah glanced at me and Gabriel, then nodded.
"Yes. Since Lady Rohanson and Sir Gabriel saved me, you certainly have the right to hear it."
And Jeremiah's story went back to the day of the banquet where the Crown Prince was killed. I heard the whole story from beginning to end—from Tenebrei's scheme of asking to switch necklaces to the fact that Azazel, who had dealt Jeremiah a fatal wound, was Bishop Marik's bodyguard. It was a tragedy that had struck in just a matter of days.
"So I ended up losing both my name and my body."
Jeremiah finished speaking, pretending to be calm. As someone who had contributed to Jeremiah losing her body by transferring her soul, my conscience pricked me. No, wait. It wasn't me, it was Bishop Marik who did wrong.
The fact that Bishop Marik was the mastermind who had framed Jeremiah and imprisoned me wasn't even surprising.
"Lady Rohanson, thank you."
The voice of that young girl who had deliberately bumped into me when the lights went out, smeared blood on me, and then greeted me, remained vivid.
"Since sordid matters are entangled, I suppose I may now intervene."
"Is that so, my Lady?"
The voice of Bishop Marik, pointing at my curse array that had been brazenly drawn where the Crown Prince died and deliberately asking me questions about it, also remained clear.
At this point, I was certain that the sword I gifted and the sword embedded in the Crown Prince's body being the same was also Bishop Marik's doing.
Both Jeremiah and I had been played beautifully. With schemes this excellent, isn't this beyond a mastermind—just a final boss? Wait, a final boss in a romance fantasy? That doesn't make sense. Usually it's a father pretending to be a mastermind, or the male lead, right? Um, the final boss in our world is a kind nun. Isn't there something wrong here?
When Jeremiah finished her explanation, Gabriel spoke up.
"I apologize to Lady Jeremiah, but it would be best to let the Emperor discover the body. That way, Bishop Marik and Lady Tenebrei won't suspect Princess Jeremiah's death."
Whether overwhelmed with lingering attachment, Jeremiah nodded quietly while still unable to take her eyes off her original body lying on the bed.
Contrary to her putting herself down for being dull for not noticing Tenebrei's true intentions, she was quick to assess the situation. In my opinion, Jeremiah wasn't dull—she simply trusted people too much, which was why she couldn't avoid the tragedy.
Perhaps recalling the situation while explaining made her sad, for tears welled up in Jeremiah's—no, Azazel's—eyes. Seeing a full-grown adult man crying like a child put me in a complicated mood. I understood why Pudding and Jelly had been picking on her.
That's Jeremiah, that's Jeremiah... she's still a young princess. I kept brainwashing myself, and fortunately Gabriel changed the subject. Nice timing! Azazel—no, Jeremiah—hurriedly wiped her eyes and cleared away the moisture as if she had never been teary.
"Before that, I think we need to organize things. I also have words to convey to Lady Evangelin."
Fortunately, the night was long, and there was still plenty of time.
Gabriel received paper from Kanna. Then Gabriel began to draw something clumsily. Jeremiah watched with sparkling eyes, then suddenly started trying to guess what the drawing was. Seeing that appearance, she really is a child.
"A dog with an axe stuck in its back?"
"It's a lion with the sun on its back."
It was a simplified emblem of the Temple. Anyone who heard would have threatened blasphemy. Though asking a demon to save Jeremiah in the first place was already committing blasphemy.
"This is a person wrapped in bandages, right?"
"It's a dragon coiled around a sword."
"How could that be? Aren't these jagged things the head?"
"It's a crown."
The dragon coiled around a sword was the imperial family's emblem. If even a princess couldn't recognize it, one could guess how badly it was drawn.
"Ah. This is too easy. An earthworm?"
Even to me, the wavy shape looked exactly like a wriggling earthworm.
"It's a snake."
If it was a snake, that meant Azazel. Since she got everything wrong, it was Jeremiah's crushing defeat.
"Just one more time..."
Upset, Jeremiah persisted tenaciously. Her childish appearance, absorbed in guessing drawings, was better to watch than her pretending to be fine just moments ago. Perhaps Gabriel thought the same, for without ruining the mood, he quickly drew something. It was quite similar in shape to the keyhole I had seen before. Having seen it once, I could roughly gauge it. That must be a person.
Remembering that the answers had always been bizarre, Jeremiah offered a different answer.
"An arrowhead that hit an apple?"
Gabriel, who had immediately corrected the answers before, hesitated this time before speaking.
"...It's Lady Jeremiah."
"This is me?"
Jeremiah asked back, bewildered.
"Lady Rohanson... Do I really look like this? Not my current appearance, but my original self."
I shook my head and took Jeremiah's side. This time, it was Gabriel's defeat.
"Sir Gabriel's drawing skills are quite unique..."
Jeremiah trailed off while looking at the portrait Gabriel had drawn. She stared at the paper as if she still couldn't understand how Gabriel's scribble became a person, then clapped her hands as if she had discovered the secret.
"Ah! Is this something like a code? Did you deliberately draw it this way so that even if someone else saw it, they couldn't deduce what the drawing was, right?"
Come to think of it, Gabriel was good at drawing curse arrays... Given his excellent drawing skills, was this actually a case of 'the male lead hiding his drawing skills' or something? But Gabriel had no answer.
Gabriel, are you perhaps feeling embarrassed right now? So you were aware that your drawing looks like scribbles... The tips of his ears, hidden beneath black hair, were red. Is this what they call gap moe?
"I-I'm sorry."
Jeremiah too, flustered by Gabriel's embarrassment, apologized not knowing what to do. And so the impromptu drawing guessing time ended awkwardly.