Don’T Get Caught By Your Husband! [EN]: Chapter 77

Don’t Get Caught by Your Husband! Episode 77. An Unbelievable Truth (2) (77/130)

#Episode 77. An Unbelievable Truth (2)

2024.05.16.

Argh……!

I wanted to scream from the pain where I was grabbed, but no sound escaped.

Belladonna’s mouth gaped open, and she swayed, struggling to maintain her balance.

“Where have you been?”

The Pope’s angry voice exploded in front of her.

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

Belladonna couldn’t even open her eyes properly and reached out to grab the wall, but there was nothing to hold onto.

“Tell me where you’ve been!”

The Pope shouted and slammed her violently against the wall.

Belladonna crashed into the hard wall without even a whimper and collapsed to the floor.

“……”

Her shoulder and back throbbed from the impact, but her shock was even greater.

She felt detached from reality.

She couldn’t believe that the Pope, who always smiled kindly and spoke gently to her, was now resorting to violence.

Why on earth……?

“Who gave you permission to leave? You know you can’t step outside the Papal Palace without my permission. How dare you?”

“……”

“Belladonna, have you forgotten? You are the Papal Palace’s one and only Saintess. You are not someone who can wander around as you please! You are the Papal Palace’s beautiful portrait and, at the same time, a dumping ground for wealthy nobles’ emotions. Have you truly forgotten?”

Pope Pronan Brielle, panting heavily, slowly walked towards Belladonna, who was sitting on the floor.

Fearing more violence, Belladonna trembled and recoiled.

“You went out for a bit after getting married, and now you’ve suddenly gained courage? Or have you presumptuously developed a sense of self?”

“……”

“Did your ignorant husband teach you such things?”

Pronan Brielle spat out the words as if he were out of his mind.

The muscles in his face twitched with anger, and his wide eyes gleamed menacingly.

“Get up.”

“……”

“It seems your old habits are resurfacing. When I brought you here as a young child with newly awakened divine power, you were just like this. Disobeying my orders, acting as if you had the will to think and act on your own.”

It happened before too……?

Belladonna frowned.

His words suggested that the Pope had been continuously violent towards the Saintess since she was a child, which was hard to believe.

“Belladonna, I know how to handle someone like you. If I don’t nip it in the bud, it grows so quickly.”

“……”

“It seems you’ve brought back some strange seeds from that backwater. Well then, shall I deal with you as I did back then?”

With those words, the Pope turned around.

He walked heavily towards 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’ll tell me what you’ve been doing outside, and frankly, I’m not particularly curious, Belladonna.”

“……”

“But one thing is certain. I’ve been too kind to you lately. Seeing how you disregard your father like this.”

Fa-Father? What is he talking about?

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

Is he really going to hit me with that……?

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

The Pope looked down at Belladonna for a moment, then took a deep breath and raised the tip of the whip into the air.

* * *

A cold sensation washed over her body. Belladonna frowned and opened her eyes.

She didn’t know if it had been minutes or hours.

As she finally regained consciousness, she gasped for breath.

“Cough……!”

As she coughed forcefully, the blood that had pooled in her mouth splattered out.

She saw a long trail of red marks on the brown floor of the office.

Once the liquid blocking her throat was gone, she finally felt like she could breathe comfortably.

After lying there weakly for a long time, Belladonna slowly raised her upper body and looked around.

The Pope’s office was chillingly silent.

It was the same scene as before she lost consciousness, but the Pope was nowhere to be seen.

It seemed he had moved after Belladonna collapsed.

As she recalled his voice vaguely echoing in her ears before she lost consciousness, her body trembled again.

Belladonna took a shaky breath and forced her unmoving body to lean against the wall.

‘H-How……? How could he resort to violence? The Pope, of all people?’

As her mind became clearer, she began to feel the pain pressing in from all sides.

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

Haa……. She gasped and ran her hands over her wounded body.

Her arms and legs, back and shoulders, face and toes.

There wasn’t a single place that was unscathed.

The Pope, enraged by something, swung the whip at Belladonna like a madman, and at some point, he threw it away and started slapping her face and kicking her.

Belladonna squeezed her eyes shut as she recalled the horrific situation.
Tears streamed down her cheeks from her tightly closed eyes.

‘It hurts…….’

It was painful.

The physical pain was one thing, but it was even more painful to imagine how difficult the real Saintess’s life must have been.

It was hard to believe that the Saintess, who always seemed so noble and elegant, was actually locked away in a room in the Papal Palace, subjected to violence and forced to use her divine power.

After awakening as the Saintess, she had already noticed that the Pope and the Saintess did not have the ideal and affectionate father-daughter relationship that they portrayed to others, but she never imagined that the Saintess was being so thoroughly exploited.

‘Moreover, she was confined, unable to take even a single step outside the Papal Palace…….’

The Saintess’s life was so extreme that it was a wonder she hadn’t gone insane.

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

Belladonna staggered to her feet.

Every part of her body seemed to scream in agony each time she took a step and moved her body, but she still wanted to escape this terrible place.

She reached the door of the office and stopped, about to turn the doorknob, and looked down at herself.

“……”

Her dress was dirty and torn in several places.

Her exposed face, neck, and arms were covered in ominous wounds, and blood continued to pool and drip from the unhealed injuries.

The priests would be shocked if she went out like this…….

She briefly considered showing the priests her appearance and denouncing the Pope for who he truly was, but she felt that she wouldn’t be able to handle the aftermath.

Besides, she couldn’t speak right now, so she couldn’t communicate effectively. People would be more likely to believe the words of the eloquent Pope than her.

‘They’d be lucky if they didn’t think I was crazy.’

Belladonna sighed and sat back down.

Let’s at least heal the most noticeable wounds and then go…….

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

As she concentrated, blue light flowed from her fingertips.

After a while, Belladonna, who had roughly cleaned up the wounds, stood up.

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

Looking around in a much better physical condition than before, she noticed a new dress neatly folded on the Pope’s desk.

She chuckled when she saw it.

‘He healed my wounds and even left me clothes to change into?’

The whole situation was so surreal that she felt lost, wondering how long and how much violence the Saintess had been subjected to.

Belladonna walked towards the desk with a bitter expression.

Her heart ached as she thought about how the Saintess must have felt, whether she felt the same emotions as she did now, and how lonely, tormented, and exhausted she must have been.

“……”

She clutched the new dress on the desk tightly and barely held back her tears.

* * *

After that, until the Emperor’s birthday celebration, Belladonna didn’t take a single step outside her room.

Perhaps because the birthday celebration was just around the corner, the Pope had stopped operating the confessional. Moreover, she was afraid and scared of running into him if she wandered around the Papal Palace, so she asked Rosie to bring all her meals to her room.

As she stayed cooped up in her room, she naturally couldn’t investigate the Saintess.

Belladonna thought about the key that was still in her drawer and lay down on the bed.

‘I’m dizzy…….’

Ever since the day she was abused by the Pope and self-healed, she had felt tired and nauseous even with the slightest movement.

This must be because I used my life force to use divine power…….

Belladonna frowned and closed her eyes.

It was still early dawn. If she didn’t sleep now, she would end up staying up all night.

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

And if I can’t show my divine power properly…….

As she recalled the Pope’s cold and sharp eyes, her body trembled involuntarily.

Just hold on for today, just today…….

She wasn’t sure if she would be able to tell the Pope that she should return to Gribalta now, but she felt that she had to safely finish the birthday celebration, which was the purpose of her visit here.

‘Escalion, I miss you…….’

As she thought of Escalion, her eyes welled up and her nose tingled.

Belladonna sobbed and buried her face in the pillow.

She missed the short, comfortable, and happy married life in Gribalta that she had with him so much.

She might get beaten again, she might get seriously hurt, but as soon as the event was over, she was going to talk to the Pope and go back to Gribalta.

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

No matter what, somehow, she would.

‘But can I do it……?’

As she thought of the sharp whip the Pope had raised, her whole body stiffened.

Moreover, she felt frustrated about the Saintess’s records, which she hadn’t even found a clue about yet.

Hope and despair came alternately.

Belladonna was caught up in endless thoughts that led to another, and in the end, she couldn’t sleep a wink until dawn.