I Became the Hero’s Bride! - Chapter 34

IBHB 34 – I feel sorry for you, who doesn’t know the wonders of love

TL: Eevee
Ed: Hungry Panda

Currently, Miwoo was facing the greatest peril he had ever faced in his life. Thanks to Orleia who had claimed possession on him, he’d avoided the fate of a goblin seedbed, but the problem was Orleia herself. To put it simply, a choice between a goblin seedbed or a pierced chrysanthemum. Neither was particularly appealing. What kind of retarded ending was this.

But stuck in turtle shell bondage and unable to even lift a finger, all Minwoo could do was watch the three people beat the crap out of Orkar and pray that Clarice could bring reinforcements before Orkar fell.

To think that Orkar, who once threatened Clarice’s purity was now the last line of defence protecting his. Really, talk about irony. If he’d known this was going to happen he would have hit him less back then.

And then……

“Hidebu!!!!”

Screeching something odd Orkar finally collapsed.

“Hoo. For an oversized sub he was needlessly tenacious.”

Orleia pulled out the dildo she’d stabbed into Orkar’s butt as she complained. No matter how much she’d dug it into him, his surprisingly hard resolve let him stand up again and again, making them work a lot harder than they’d all expected. Well, it’s not like it was too hard for them in the end after all. Now all that was left was… The ‘reward.’ Desperately holding back her laughter, Orleia turned to Minwoo.

“Have you waited long? Darling♪”

Ah f***. Minwoo’s mind went blank. She sauntered over to him all the while waving that giant dildo around. Ah. Please. Help me Mitohi-nim! At the very least couldn’t you wash that damn thing?!

“Not yet, Holy Maiden.”

Orleia froze. Having her imminent happy time interrupted, Orleia glared at Biella. With a mocking smirk on her face, Biella was staring fixedly in one direction. Not only Biella. Eri who was daydreaming about training her future subordinates, Senyun who was drooling while dreaming about her lily-coloured future with her unni, all of their lines of sight converged at the same point.

It couldn’t be.

Orleia’s gaze followed theirs. Biella chuckled as if she was amused.

“That fun, it looks like you’ll have to wait a bit longer for that.”

Clarice was standing there. No reinforcements, no bodyguards, just her alone.

“Unni!”
“Your Highness!”
“Clee!”

All of them exclaimed as if they were shocked. Clarice held a brief moment in her heart for Orkar who had turned to something that couldn’t be seen with one’s bare eyes, and looked at Minwoo who couldn’t disguise his horror.

“Clarice?!”
“Hero-nim. I’m here to save you.”

Ha! Biella scoffed. Clarice looked at Biella with eyes that held not a single trace of hesitation. She was asking what was so funny.

“Save him? By yourself? Kyahahaha! That’s a joke among jokes! You can’t actually be serious?”
“I am serious. I will defeat you and rescue the hero.”
“Wh, what…?”

Biella’s expression contorted. Let alone begging for her life, she actually came to fight? Was she in her right mind? But she faced Clarice dead in her eyes, and she could only acknowledge her brave resolve that burned within them.

Clarice was genuinely here to fight her.

Biella’s expression hardened as she gestured to the trio.

“This is the demon king’s orders! Give that snot-nosed princess a taste of reality!”
“Hold up! Are you serious?!”

Senyun objected. To her if was a natural response. Well of course she was serious, Biella said as she started to repeat her order.

“Are you scared?”

If Clarice hadn’t said that.

“……What did you just say?”
“I asked if you were scared.”

Clarice smirked, with one corner of her mouth noticeably curled upwards. In an instant, the ballroom fell silent. A murderous air enveloped everyone in the room, enough to make all the onlookers gulp reflexively. Biella narrowed her eyes, as if she was amused.

“Just why would this Biella be afraid of the likes of you?”
“Are you not? You always make your followers do your dirty work for you because you are scared to do it by yourself.”

Clarice could feel a cold sweat running down her spine. But if she backed down here, let alone stalling for time, her death would most certainly not be a pretty one. Enduring her ever-narrowing tunnel vision, she faced down Biella as dignified as she could manage.

“You were going to use goblins to desecrate Hero-nim. Same with Orkar. Even with me, you were going to use three people to take me down.”
“Ha! And you are calling this Biella a coward just for that?!”
“Not only that. When you kidnapped me you used Orkar to sully me, and the ones who violated the boys you kidnapped were always your followers, never yourself. You only ever watched from afar.”
“Codwash! Biella just didn’t want to dirty her hands-”
“And your first love?”

Biella stiffened. Her face gradually turned whiter and whiter. A critical hit. Clarice continued.

“Did you not want to dirty your hands when you kidnapped your first love as well?”
“Wh, what… How do you…?”
“Isn’t it odd? Normally when you love someone enough to kidnap them you wouldn’t have others rape them. If you could you would do it yourself. Because then at the very least you could have their body.”
“Th, that is!!”

Biella’s eyes shook. How?! How does this bitch know of what happened then?! Chaos and uncertainty swirled around, making a mess of her head. Biella finally found a counterargument. But Clarice didn’t let her say it. She pushed onwards.

“You were scared, weren’t you?”
“……!!”

“When the one you loved rejected you, that left a scar on your heart. So even when you kidnapped your first love you couldn’t lay your hands on him yourself. Because you knew very well that even if you did you would never earn his love. Because if you were resented against, no, hated straight to your face your heart would shatter to pieces. So that’s why you used your followers. Because you were too afraid to face your love.

“So, as you looked on at your followers violating your first love you would have felt satisfied. Unlike yourself who lacked the courage to even approach your first love, your followers, who could and would roughly violate your first love, was more than satisfactory for you to derive your pleasure from.”
“S, stop it!”

It was a shriek. Clarice’s words and the memories from back then, mercilessly stabbed at her heart.

“You knew very well that you weren’t an existence that could be loved. You knew perfectly well that you would be easy to hate. So you forcibly kidnapped and kept men, and always had your followers rape them, never yourself. Because then they’d resent your subordinates instead. Because you wanted to ‘have’ love, but was afraid to be hated.”
“Just what, and just what do you know about it you bitch?!”

Unlike her bitter words, her voice was full of tears. Internally, Clarice was very surprised. It worked a lot better than she’d expected. From what she’d heard from the tourist about her life and times and her actions thus far, they were conclusions she’d drawn after some good solid thinking but surprisingly it seemed to be all true.

……she was starting to feel kind of sorry for her.

Clarice imitated Orleia and smirked as cockily and arrogantly as she could.

“It’s alright to cry if you want. You can run away if you want. Because that’s your disgraceful true self.”
“What?!”
“Did you honestly think people wouldn’t be able to tell if you disguised it behind that immature way of speaking, juvenile actions and childish delusions? This coward.”
“Uu, uuuu, uuuuuu, No, Biella is not a coward…!”

Having been driven to her limits, Biella was starting to sniffle. Clarice hammered the final nail deep in the coffin.

“I am different from you. Unlike you, I am not a coward that flees from love.”

Biella’s eyes instantly shot wide open. Hero. That was it. To rescue the hero she loved, Clarice came all the way back on her lonesome. She wasn’t like her. Not a coward like herself…

In that instant, the world turned crimson.

“Kuk?!”
“Clarice?!”
“Unni!!”

In the blink of an eye, Biella had her hand wrapped around Clarice’s throat.

“I, am not, a coward!!”

Biella picked Clarice up by her neck and threw her away, hard. Clarice’s body tumbled and bounced before she hit the wall with a dense thud. Her whole body hurt. Her breath wasn’t coming properly. But she couldn’t even stand.

All of a sudden Biella was right in front of her eyes as she raised her foot high-

“Could a coward! Stomp! On you! Like this?!”
“……!!”
“Could a coward! Stand! On top of you! Like this!!!”

She couldn’t even scream. Her internal organs felt like they were being churned and shredded. Clarice hunched up and desperately endured the pain.

“This bitch?!”

Senyun angrily summoned a fireball. But under her feet, a black aura immediately shot up and bound her. Not just Senyun. Ericia, Orleia, they too, had their limbs bound by the black aura.

“Interlopers can go fuck the hell off!!”

With her shout all three of them were thrown to the wall. Having been satisfied at their disgraceful collapse, Biella pulled Clarice up by her hair. Glaring at Clarice’s glazed-over eyes, she snarled like a monster.

“Prepare yourself. To you, who dared to slander me I will never let you die gracefully.”

At that moment a small smile surfaced on Clarice’s face. But having been caught up in her rage, Biella didn’t see it, and raised her fist.

A long, painful beating followed. As if to prove that she wouldn’t let Clarice die easily, she controlled her strength just enough that Clarice wouldn’t break. Even although she could kill her oh-so-easily with a simple twist of her neck, she let her experience hell with just a fraction of her strength.

But-

“What are. What are you, you bitch…?!”

No matter how much of a wreck she was, Clarice endured, and stood up again. Biella, facing her, unconsciously took a step back.

“Why are you looking at me with those eyes?!”

Eyes. Biella wondered if she should just rip them out of her head with these two hands. But she couldn’t. As if doing so… Would be the same as admitting she was a coward.

“Stop it! Clarice! Why are you still standing?!”

Minwoo yelled, unable to watch on. He was tormented. He wanted to run over and tear Biella apart limb from limb. Why the hell was she standing up to her like that?

“Because I came to rescue you, Hero-nim…”
“What?!”

Clarice opened her mouth, and what came out was a quiet voice like a dying ember. When she tried to take a step towards Minwoo, her legs gave out from beneath her. But she still wouldn’t give up. Clarice stood up once more, and said her true feelings, feelings that, if she didn’t say them now, she might never get a chance to say.

“Because, I love Hero-nim. I cannot hand over the man I love to someone like her. My hero that always saved me! I want to save you this time!!”
“……You.”

Minwoo’s eyes flashed. It seemed like he wanted to say something, but Biella was quicker.

“Urk!”
“Enough of your soap opera.”

Biella grabbed Clarice by her throat and lifted her head up. She just couldn’t listen to them. If she did then she’d go insane just like those fools. Biella decided to finish Clarice off. In the life-and-death situation where Clarice was slowly but surely being strangled to death, she barely managed to say.

“I, pity, you…”
“What?”

Biella was so shocked all the strength left her hands. Pity? Me? Clarice looked pitifully into Biella’s eyes and said.

“I feel sorry for you, who doesn’t know the wonders of love.”(1)
“This motherfucking bitch?!”

That’s what you meant by pity?! In her anger Biella slammed Clarice deep into the floor. It was strong enough to incite a gasp! from the surroundings

Haa. Haa. Biella awkwardly stood for a moment to calm her ragged breath, before she started cackling maniacally.

“Ha. Haha. Kyahahahahaha!! Who’s the pitiful one?! You little bitch!!”

This overwhelming difference in strength. No matter how much Clarice ran that mouth of hers this was nothing she could ever hope to catch up to. Leaving her body to the best High!(2) feeling, Biella yelled.

“Clarice! The hero you so passionately declared you loved can’t even move a finger, trapped by me! Sage? Female knight? Holy Maiden? All of them are also stuck in the walls with nothing to do but suck their thumbs! Now I have proven there is no one who can surpass Biella! You foolish girl! I will trample you! Bow before Biella’s wisdom and strength!!”

And just when Biella lifted her foot to stomp on Clarice.

“Wh, what… I can’t move?!”

Biella finally realised something ‘wrong’ that had surrounded her body. The feeling of her strength fading away from her hands and feet. This feeling of all her power being drained from her. It was not unfamiliar.

It was then. From the doorway, a cold voice was heard.

“- I have casted the seal.”
“?!”

Biella finally understood. Just how Clarice had known her past. Just why she had come alone to face her. Just why she had so aggressively taunted her to make her angry.

“This voice is the t, tourist?!”

She could tell even if she didn’t turn around. Since she was the person who first undid her seal how could she. If only she hadn’t been a woman, she’d have kept her by her side and been the best of friends.

The tourist took the cloak of invisibility off and walked in front of Biella. Before the entered the ballroom, Clarice had given it to her in order to cast the seal. Looking at the grimoire in her hand, Biella realised that what she was thinking was right, and despaired.

Damn it.

I’ve been had.

“How does it feel? To be sealed without any warning while you were drunk on your own excitement?!”

The tourist opened the grimoire and declared war.

“Now! It won’t even take me a second!! To seal you off!!!”(3)

It was the beginning of revenge.