Aaagh…!

The pain where she was grabbed was so intense she wanted to scream, but no sound came out.

Belladonna stood in place, her mouth gaping and body swaying.

“Where have you been until now?”

Right in front of her, the Pope’s angry voice burst forth.

He emphasized each word as he spoke, roughly shaking the arm that gripped Belladonna’s hair.

Unable to properly open her eyes, Belladonna reached out her arm to steady herself against the wall, but there was nothing to grab onto.

“Tell me where you went!”

The Pope shouted as he violently shoved her against the wall.

Hitting the hard wall, Belladonna collapsed to the floor without even uttering a scream.

“…”

Her shoulder and back hurt badly from the impact, but the shock was even greater.

She had no sense of reality.

She couldn’t believe that the Pope, who had always pretended to be gentle and kind in front of her, was now being violent towards her.

Why on earth…?

“Who gave you permission to go out? You should know that you can’t take a single step outside the Vatican without my orders, so how dare you?”

“…”

“Belladonna, have you forgotten? You are the Vatican’s one and only saint. You’re not someone who can wander around wherever you want, whenever you want! You are the Vatican’s beautiful portrait, and at the same time, a trash can for the emotions of wealthy nobles. Have you truly forgotten that?”

Breathing heavily, Pope Prononce slowly walked up to where Belladonna was sitting on the floor.

Fearing another burst of violence, Belladonna trembled and backed away.

“Did you gain some courage after getting married and seeing the outside world? Or have you insolently developed a sense of self?”

“…”

“Did that ignorant husband of yours teach you such things?”

Prononce Briel seemed to be out of his mind as he spat those words.

His facial muscles twitched grotesquely with anger, and his wide-open eyes shone frighteningly.

“Stand up.”

“…”

“It seems your old habits are coming back. When I first brought you here as a child, just as your holy power was awakening, you were exactly like this. Recklessly disobeying my orders, acting as if you had the will to think and act for yourself.”

It was like that in the past too…?

Belladonna frowned.

His words sounded as if the Pope had been violent towards Lady Saint since she was a child, which was hard to believe.

“Belladonna, I know very well how to deal with people like you. If you don’t nip it in the bud properly from the start, it’s amazing how quickly it grows.”

“…”

“It seems you’ve truly brought back some strange seeds from that backwater place. Well then, shall I treat you like I did back then?”

With those words, the Pope turned around.

He walked with heavy steps to somewhere in the office and returned with a long whip.

Belladonna lowered her head at the chilling gaze that turned back to her.

“There’s no way you can tell me what you did outside, and frankly, I’m not particularly curious, Belladonna.”

“…”

“But one thing is certain. I’ve been treating you too kindly lately. Seeing how you disrespect your father like this.”

Wh-what is he saying?

Belladonna looked up with fearful eyes at the whip he was holding.

Surely he’s not going to hit me with that…?

“It’s all for your own good, so don’t resent your father too much.”

The Pope, who had been looking down at Belladonna for a moment, raised the tip of the whip into the air, breathing roughly.

A chilling sensation enveloped her entire body. Belladonna frowned and opened her eyes.

She couldn’t tell if minutes or hours had passed.

As she barely regained consciousness, her breath caught in her throat.

“Cough…!”

As she forced herself to cough, blood that had pooled in her mouth sprayed out.

She could see a long red stain stretching across the brown floor of the office.

As the liquid blocking her throat disappeared, she felt like she could finally breathe easily.

After lying there helplessly for a while longer, Belladonna slowly raised her upper body and looked around.

The Pope’s office was coldly quiet.

The scenery was exactly the same as before she lost consciousness, but the Pope was nowhere to be seen.

It seemed he had left after Belladonna collapsed.

As she recalled his voice that had pierced her ears just before she lost consciousness, her body began to tremble again.

Exhaling a shaky breath, Belladonna forced her unmoving body to sit up against the wall.

‘H-how… How could he use violence? A man who is the Pope?’

As her mind became clearer, the pain pressing in from all sides began to be felt more acutely.

Belladonna curled up as much as possible, pulling her knees to her chest and hugging them.

Haa… She sighed heavily as she ran her hands over her body full of wounds.

Her arms, legs, back, shoulders, face, and toes. Not a single part was unscathed.

The Pope, enraged for some reason, had lashed out at Belladonna with the whip like a madman, and at some point he had thrown it aside and started slapping her face and kicking her directly.

Belladonna squeezed her eyes shut as she recalled the horrific situation.

Tears flowed down her tightly closed eyes, running down her cheeks.

‘It hurts…’

It was painful.

The physical pain was bad enough, but imagining how difficult the real Lady Saint’s life must have been was even more painful.

It was hard to believe that Lady Saint, who had always seemed so noble and elegant, had actually been locked up in a room in the Vatican, subjected to violence and forced to use her holy power.

Since waking up as Lady Saint, she had already noticed that the Pope and Lady Saint’s relationship was not as ideal and affectionate as it appeared to others, but she couldn’t have imagined that Lady Saint was being so thoroughly exploited like this.

‘And to think she wasn’t even allowed to take a single step outside the Vatican, living in confinement…’

Lady Saint’s life was one that would be strange not to go mad from.

‘Let’s at least go back to my room for now…’

Belladonna staggered to her feet.

Every part of her body screamed in agony with each step and movement, but still, she wanted to escape this terrible place.

As she reached the office door and was about to turn the doorknob, she paused and looked down at herself.

“…”

Her dress was filthy and torn in various places.

Her exposed face, neck, and arms were covered in ominous wounds, and blood continued to pool and drip from injuries that had not yet healed.

If she went out like this, the priests would be shocked…

For a moment, she thought about showing herself to the priests and exposing what kind of person the Pope was, but she felt she wouldn’t be able to handle the aftermath.

Moreover, she was currently unable to speak, so effective communication would be impossible, and people would likely believe the eloquent Pope’s words over hers.

‘I’ll be lucky if they don’t think I’ve gone mad.’

Belladonna sighed and sat back down.

Let’s at least heal the most noticeable wounds before going…

She closed her eyes and placed her hands on her wounds.

As she concentrated, a blue light flowed from her fingertips.

A moment later, Belladonna stood up after roughly treating her wounds.

She felt slightly tired and dizzy, but thought she could manage to walk to her room.

Looking around with her body in a much better state than before, she noticed a neatly folded new dress on the Pope’s desk.

She gave a hollow laugh as she saw it.

‘He left clothes for me to change into after treating my wounds?’

The whole situation felt so natural that she became dizzy thinking about how long Lady Saint must have been living with such violence, and how many times it had happened.

Belladonna walked towards the desk with a bitter expression.

Her heart ached as she thought about how Lady Saint must have felt, whether she felt the same emotions that she was feeling now, and how lonely, painful, and difficult it must have been for her alone.

“…”

She tightly grasped the new dress on the desk and barely managed to hold back her tears.

After that, until the day of His Majesty the Emperor’s birthday celebration, Belladonna did not take a single step outside her room.

Perhaps because the celebration was approaching, the Pope had stopped operating the confessional, and she was afraid of encountering him while wandering around the Vatican. So she asked Rosie to bring all her meals to her room.

Naturally, being cooped up in her room without moving meant she couldn’t investigate anything about Lady Saint.

Belladonna thought of the key that would still be in her room’s drawer, then quietly lay down on the bed.

‘I feel dizzy…’

Ever since the day she was beaten by the Pope and had to heal herself, she felt tired and nauseous even with the slightest movement.

This must be because I used my life force to use the holy power…

Belladonna frowned and closed her eyes.

It was still before dawn. If she didn’t sleep now, she felt like she would end up staying awake all night.

‘Then I might not be able to properly exert my healing power.’

And if I can’t properly show my holy power…

As she recalled the Pope’s cold and sharp gaze once again, her body began to tremble uncontrollably.

Just get through today, just today…

Although she was unsure if she would be able to tell the Pope that she needed to return to Griblata now, she felt that she at least needed to successfully complete the birthday celebration, which was the purpose of her coming here.

‘Escalion, I miss you…’

As she thought of Escalion, her eyes reddened and the tip of her nose tingled.

Belladonna buried her face in her pillow, sniffling.

She deeply missed the short, comfortable, and happy newlywed life she had in Griblata with him.

Even if she might get beaten again, even if she might get seriously hurt, she was determined to tell the Pope and return to Griblata as soon as the celebration was over.

It didn’t matter if she couldn’t regain her voice right away.

No matter what happened, no matter how, she had to.

‘But will I be able to do it…?’

Thinking of the sharp whip the Pope had raised, her entire body stiffened.

Moreover, she felt frustrated about the records of Lady Saint, for which she had yet to find any clues.

Hope and despair alternated in her mind.

Trapped in an endless chain of thoughts, Belladonna ended up not sleeping a wink until dawn broke.