I Became A Squirrel Seeking For The Villain [EN]: Chapter 71

The mansions in Daisy Village, where patients stayed, all looked quite similar.

They were all one-story buildings to allow medical staff easy access, and each building housed about six patients.

And to prevent patients from escaping, the windows were placed very high up.

The gate was always guarded by a watchman.

Thanks to the small, high windows, the inside of the building was not visible from the outside.

“Is it this building next?”

Roymond, who had been diligently wandering around, looked around energetically.

He immediately spoke to Patr, who was coming out of another building.

“Ah, High Priest Patr. Since you’ve just come out, come with me.”

“It would be an honor.”

Patr smiled and stood next to Roymond.

He had been waiting for an opportunity, so he couldn’t help but rejoice inwardly when Roymond spoke to him first.

This volunteer work was an annual event.

The date was moved up slightly, but that was because of Johan’s request.

And Roymond was the one who suggested going into the same building together first.

Considering everything, there was no reason to suspect the temple at all.

‘I need to get rid of him quickly,’ Patr thought to himself as he entered the building with Roymond.

Originally, he would have moved more cautiously, but recently Roymond had been persistent, saying he needed to investigate the divine beast.

If the imperial family really started an investigation… the thought alone was terrifying.

Right now, no one was interested, but Roymond, who was determined to reduce the temple’s authority, would never let it go.

‘Besides, he’s making a fuss about getting engaged to Meriel Medest…’

And it had to be the Medest Duchy.

What if Roymond really became emperor and gained access to secret documents that only emperors could see?

Even though all related documents had been destroyed five years ago, they couldn’t eliminate the documents held by the imperial palace.

So, he couldn’t afford to relax while everything was going so awry.

‘I need to nip it in the bud quickly.’

He had swallowed his tears and stopped the divine beast project five years ago, as Libena had told him to, fearing he would get caught.

It felt unfair if it became a problem now.

But in the midst of all this… he received very tempting news from Lizzie, who was sent to the Medest Duchy.

It was Roymond’s weakness that no one knew about.

Even Roymond himself didn’t know about it until recently.

Roymond was quite strong, and there were only a few knights in the imperial knight order who could beat him.

There was no way he would have thought that he might be assassinated.

Besides, Patr was an old man. Assassination by Patr? He couldn’t even imagine it.

Although there was a window above, it was a completely sealed space.

The patients had already been prepped.

Even the terminally ill patient to blame the assassination on had been bribed.

Roymond had dismissed his guards, saying he was just going in for a moment and didn’t want to be bothered.

Thus, Patr and Roymond entered the sealed sickroom.

“Your Highness!”

A young girl who had been groaning in pain staggered to her feet.

“Oh my… Your Highness has really come!”

“Rest comfortably.”

Roymond approached the girl with a kind smile.

“I’ll change your IV drip.”

Patr pretended to care for another patient behind him.

Roymond skillfully changed the IV drip, and the girl smiled brightly, taking out a cookie from the drawer.

“Thank you, Your Highness.”

The cookie the girl handed him was small enough to fit in one bite.

“You must be hungry. I baked it myself during rehabilitation time.”

“Ah, thank you.”

Roymond accepted the cookie with a kind smile. It was then that Patr slowly stood up.

From Patr’s perspective, everything was going smoothly.

“Is Yala flower only used for paint? Do I just need to avoid the paintings?”

“Well, in the water-scarce desert, they add Yala flower petals to kill the scent of rainwater before drinking it as tea. But well, it doesn’t have a particularly good flavor and is close to plain water, so there’s no reason to drink Yala flower tea in the empire,” Lizzie’s letter said Renat had said that.

“However, if you drink that tea, you will almost helplessly collapse. Of course, you will recover soon, but it is natural for your limbs to stiffen momentarily.”

He wanted to poison Roymond a hundred times over, but all poisons came from the temple.

Therefore, if poisoning was revealed, the temple would be the first place to be suspected.

That meant Roymond wasn’t considering poisoning either.

‘At best, he’s only wary of the tea Renat warned him about.’

But it was so easy to have him ingest it through food. All he had to do was put Yala flower petals inside the cookie when baking it.

Just in case, he had also scattered plenty of Yala flowers under the patients’ beds.

If Lizzie’s information was false, Roymond would not collapse.

In that case, he could just go out again as if nothing had happened.

If Lizzie’s information was true, killing Roymond, who was stiff and collapsing, would be a piece of cake.

And all he had to do was have the patient who had already been prepped confess.

Of course, the patient didn’t have the energy to do that, so Patr had to do the assassination himself.

‘As for the testimony… he can just say that he saw a monstrous power at that time.’

The outside view was blocked.

No matter how he thought about it, there was no way he would get caught.

Others who didn’t know about the Yala flower petals would naturally never think that an old man like Patr would have killed a strong man like Roymond.

‘I can’t trust anyone else.’

And Patr was not the type to entrust such an important task to other priests.

The fewer people who knew the secret, the better.

The temple had been keeping secrets for a long time because of its beliefs.

The only person he truly trusted was Libena.

‘If this succeeds, I’ll have to kill Lizzie secretly too.’

Lizzie, who was blinded by becoming the real Yurika, could also become a threat.

He had soothed her for now, but Patr never intended to keep Lizzie alive for long.

“I’ll enjoy it.”

Roymond immediately put the cookie the girl gave him into his mouth.

Patr watched the scene with a pounding heart.

“…Huh? Why… why is this happening?”

And sure enough, Roymond began to stagger.

Patr turned around and carefully took out his sword from behind Roymond.

‘Yes!’

Just as he was about to plunge the sword into Roymond’s heart, who was collapsing,

Suddenly, the wall collapsed with a crash.

‘S, suddenly? In this situation?’

Patr, who had not yet grasped the situation, froze with a bewildered expression, and Roymond grabbed Patr’s wrist, which was holding the sword.

“I arrest High Priest Patr for the crime of assassinating a member of the imperial family.”

His body, as well as his tongue, were not stiff.

‘I’ve been tricked!’

Patr quickly grasped the situation.

Looking at Roymond’s light movements, it was all an act.

Then was all the information Lizzie gave him false?

‘No, but… didn’t she say he staggered when he was gifted a painting with Yala flower petals in it, just in case? Then did he calculate that too?’

Patr also thought that he had done all the verification before acting because he was hesitant to plot a big plan based solely on Lizzie’s words.

But with this result, this was really a full-scale, very deeply dug trap…

Of course, there was nothing to be solved even if he realized it now.

Roymond shouted triumphantly.

“Everyone saw it, right?”

At the same time, knights rushed out of the collapsed wall and captured Patr.

That was because everyone had witnessed Patr holding a sword to Roymond, who had collapsed.

“Coo.”

Yurika, who was watching the scene, jumped lightly from the collapsed wall and climbed up a tree, smiling.

“Cooing.”

It seemed like she was turning into a squirrel too often these days, but anyway, it was a complete success.

Creating an environment that was perfect for committing crimes in a sealed space where no one was watching…

‘Actually, I was watching.’

Yurika, who had been watching everything from the high ceiling, signaled to Johan when everyone could see his assassination attempt.

Johan was a wizard who could destroy walls like this in an instant.

From the beginning, she had no intention of catching small fries and solving the problem step by step.

If she was planning to destroy the temple, she had to catch at least the High Priest!

And to catch someone of that level, there had to be a charge of treason.

‘I have to make good use of the information the enemy doesn’t know!’

What they would never know was that Yurika could turn into a squirrel thanks to Renat’s drugs.

That’s why she could plan this.

Of course, Yurika didn’t do it alone. Several people did it together.

So, it was a plan that had been in place since Lizzie came to the Medest Duchy a few days ago.

Yurika recalled the day she started this plan with a relaxed face.

The day Meriel and she had cried so much.