Radiant Dragon’s Otherworldly Reincarnation

Chapter 271. You’re Having a Hard Time, Aren’t You (1)

Is it said that life is like the old man’s horse at the frontier fort?

Although a major problem arose when a knight of the duchy fell to the temptation of a black mage, the Schneider Duchy itself suffered no damage.

So, Patrick should have calmed down for the time being….

“Argh, the more I think about it, the more pissed I get.”

…but he couldn’t.

Why? Because he was Patrick Schneider.

“Causing a ruckus in my territory? How am I going to find this cockroach bastard and how am I going to screw him over?”

Patrick said, grinding his teeth.

At that, Isabella, who was lying in the bed next to him, pulled the blanket up to her chest and sat up against the bed.

And then she said….

“Is that all you’ve been thinking about all day?”

“It’s pissing me off, isn’t it?”

“……”

My, whose husband was he to have such a consistently pleasant personality?

Isabella let out a sigh and said.

“Haven’t we already done everything we can?”

“Well, about that….”

Upon hearing Jason’s testimony, a composite sketch of the suspect, believed to be a black mage, was immediately created.

His name was Reed.

Wanted posters filled with information about the man disguising himself as a priest were distributed throughout the duchy, and they tried to find the black mage by cooperating with the Elves and the mages of the Tower of Truth.

However….

“The problem is that we can’t find him.”

That was right.

The whereabouts of the black mage, who had deliberately gone into hiding, were nowhere to be found.

Isabella let out a small sigh and said.

“In the first place, if he could be found that easily, they wouldn’t be having such a hard time failing to eradicate black mages from the entire continent.”

“I know that. I know, but….”

“But?”

“Still, we have to get it done, don’t we?”

“……”

“Don’t we have to make the impossible possible with an indomitable spirit? Right? Am I wrong?”

“……”

Does that even make sense? You bastard of a husband.

Sigh, I don’t know. Let’s just go to sleep.

***

“My, my…. Things are going awry.”

The black mage, Greed, let out a sigh.

Recently, wanted posters searching for him had been plastered all over the Schneider Duchy.

Thanks to that, he could no longer use one of his favorite fake identities, the priest Reed.

It was an identity he had put a lot of effort into creating.

But what was more troublesome was that his plan had been completely thrown off.

“This wasn’t the plan from the beginning.”

Initially, when Greed discovered Jason and enhanced his power, this was the plan he had in mind.

He would turn one human, full of inferiority complex and seemingly weak within the knightly order, into a strong warrior.

Then, other knights would become curious about the secret to his strength and ask him.

At that time, through Jason, he would be introduced to several knights of the Double Dragon Knightly Order, implant demonic energy in them as well, and proceed with their enhancement.

After recruiting the knights of the order to his side one by one in that manner, he planned to meet and recruit the Double Dragon himself when the time was right.

But that plan had crumbled from its very foundation.

Jason was subdued by Patrick on the very first day, and it was even discovered that he had demonic energy in his body.

Thanks to that, the fact that he, a black mage, had infiltrated the Schneider Duchy was now revealed.

Things had become seriously twisted.

“What should I do? If I return like this, I won’t have the face to see the Venerable Master….”

At that moment, a shadow flickered beside Greed, and another figure appeared.

“You seem to be in trouble, Greed.”

“Lust, what are you doing here?”

The figure called Lust was a man wrapped in a black robe, just like Greed.

He covered his mouth with his hand and spoke as if saddened.

“That’s so harsh. Here I am, having rushed from the other side of the continent without turning a blind eye to a comrade’s trouble.”

“Mind your own mission, Lust.”

“Fufufu. Don’t worry. I’ve already done enough of my work.”

At that, Greed’s eyes widened.

Lust.

He was a figure carrying out an important mission in the direction of the Holy Theocracy.

For him to show up here meant….

“Don’t tell me, you did it?”

“Fufufu. It was such an easy mission it was boring.”

“Hahahahaha.”

Greed burst into laughter.

Considering the mission Lust was in charge of, he had wondered if it would really succeed.

But Lust had succeeded in that ridiculous mission.

Greed couldn’t hold back his own exhilaration and burst out laughing.

“Excellent. It will be much easier to operate in the Holy Theocracy now.”

At Greed’s praise, Lust shrugged his shoulders and spoke as if it were nothing.

“Since my mission ended early, I came here under the Venerable Master’s orders to support you. But….”

Lust let out a sigh and continued.

“To fail to win over a mere heir of a small duchy like this….”

“Hmm, it couldn’t be helped. The plan went wrong from the start, so I have to start all over again from the beginning.”

“I see. Then I suppose there’s something I can help with.”

“Are you thinking of using your specialty? I hear the Double Dragon has three beautiful wives, but will it really work?”

As Greed spoke doubtfully, Lust chuckled and said.

“This is why those who’ve never even been in a relationship….”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

Lust spoke to the flaring Greed.

“Just as a person with enough money wants even more money, a man who has already obtained a beautiful woman will have his heart swayed when he sees a new beauty.”

“Well, that’s….”

“You’ll see when you see.”

And Lust slowly took off his robe.

Then, something surprising was revealed.

The figure revealed after taking off the robe was not a man, but a woman.

And a delicate, pure-looking, blonde beautiful girl at that, who looked as if she couldn’t even break a single flower with her own hands.

No one would ever connect this delicate, beautiful girl with black magic.

But her true identity was Lust.

Among the seven disciples of the Venerable Master, she was a witch among witches who had taken on secret missions and ruled the other side of the world from the darkness of the continent.

With a breathtaking smile, she said.

“Watch carefully. How I’m going to wrap the Double Dragon around my finger.”

***

Even if Patrick earned a lot of money through various businesses and Grand Duke Schneider implemented benevolent governance to help the people as much as possible….

It was impossible to completely eradicate poverty from a country.

Although small in scale, the Schneider Duchy also had slums where the poor gathered to live.

Since the knightly order patrolled intensively, the security wasn’t that bad, but the gloomy atmosphere unique to the slums couldn’t be helped.

But….

“Please eat slowly.”

“Oh my, thank you, Priestess.”

“It’s nothing. Next person, please come in.”

The atmosphere of this gloomy and dark alley brightened.

It was from the moment a female priestess personally came to this alley and began her volunteer work.

Wearing a white, low-grade priest’s uniform with no particular decorations, she had blonde hair like molten gold and blue eyes as clear and transparent as a lake.

Appearing with an innocent, angelic face that seemed to know nothing of the world’s filth, she began her volunteer work by distributing free meals to the poor people in the slums.

At first, only a few people came, knowing of her through word of mouth, but as rumors of her dazzling beauty and gentle heart spread, countless people from the slums soon lined up to receive meals.

And the rumors of her existence spread further and further.

The knights, just in case, strengthened their patrols.

And these days, some knights even started watching her do her volunteer work from afar.

“Hey, what are you doing just standing still in one place if you’re a patrolman?”

“No, this area is densely populated right now, isn’t it? I have to watch over it in case something happens.”

“Did you receive such an order?”

“This much is a field judgment. Besides, you’re not even on duty today, so why are you here?”

“Ahem…. It’s my choice where I want to be on my day off.”

“What’s that in your hand? Surely it’s not the object called a flower, is it?”

“Why? Is it weird for me to be holding a flower?”

“Yeah.”

“You wanna die?!”

As always, the beautiful flower called a woman was bound to attract the bee called a man.

Numerous knights had already lost their hearts to that nameless priestess.

In fact, the knights of the Double Dragon Knightly Order had very high standards.

They had seen countless beauties with their own eyes for a long time, starting with the lord’s wife, Ava, as well as April, Isabella, Elione, and so on.

But you know.

What’s the use if there are many beauties?

When not a single one of them was their woman?

In the midst of that, the appearance of that unidentified, beautiful, noble, holy, and seemingly untouched-by-the-world angel was enough to excite the hearts of many knights.

‘I must confess today.’

‘Mother, I’ll be bringing home a daughter-in-law soon.’

‘How many kids would be good?’

The knights loitering around like that were sizing each other up, wondering how to beat the competition and get ahead.

‘What should I do?’

‘Ugh. There’s no trigger. No trigger.’

‘If this were a novel, some thugs would appear right about now and threaten that beautiful woman, and if I saved her then….’

Sorry to interrupt your flight of fancy, but unfortunately, the security in the Schneider fiefdom was so unnecessarily good that there were few thugs.

And even if it were a place with bad security, they wouldn’t even come near a place where knights were watching with fire in their eyes like this.

Because of this, the knights were getting anxious….

‘What are you doing? You idiots.’

Lust was getting annoyed.

It went without saying, but this blonde, beautiful girl disguised as a low-grade priestess was the black mage Lust.

She was gathering attention by pretending to be an innocent girl like this and doing volunteer work in the slums.

She thought that if her existence was revealed, a powerful person from the fiefdom would naturally approach her.

Grand Duke Schneider.

Or the real power, his son, Patrick Schneider.

She planned to snatch either one of them with her poison fangs as soon as they fell into her net.

However, at that moment, Grand Duke Jaycall Schneider was….

“Ava, you become more beautiful with each passing day.”

“You’re too much…. I might become a grandmother any day now.”

“Even if time passes, to me, you are still the sixteen-year-old girl I first met. Your smile from that day will always be eternal within me.”

“Really, you….”

Likewise, at the same time, Patrick Schneider….

“Are you in your right mind? Or not?”

“I’m sorry, Young Master.”

“April, do you know what you did wrong? Or not?”

“That is…. I’m sorry. I don’t know.”

“I definitely told you to stop being so cute and lovely now, didn’t I?”

“……”

“But what are we going to do if you keep getting prettier and more lovely with each passing minute and second…. Hey, hey. Don’t pinch me. It hurts.”

“……”

As you can see….

The two of them were busy.

They had no time to worry about some unidentified, peerless beauty who had appeared in the slums.

So, Lust decided to change her method.

‘The Venerable Master said that to aim for the general, you must first shoot the horse.’

Thinking about it, even in the Holy Theocracy, she had gone through several human intermediaries before achieving her goal.

She just had to do something similar this time.

So, Lust lowered her sights a bit and tried to seduce any one of the knights first, but….

‘Come on, you bastards.’

All the so-called knights of the fiefdom were just hovering around nearby like boys stammering through their first love, acting frustratingly.

To think that these were the knights of the Double Dragon Knightly Order, renowned as one of the top ten knightly orders on the entire continent….

In the end, unable to watch any longer, Lust decided to take the initiative herself.

She smiled with her eyes at a nearby knight and said.

“Sir Knight. Would you mind helping me for a moment?”

“M-me?”

“Yes. I need to move this pot of soup, but it’s a little heavy for me. Ah, what a rude request to a knight….”

“Not at all. It’s not rude at all.”

The designated knight straightened his shoulders unnecessarily and stepped forward, saying.

With the corners of his mouth hooked on his ears, he shot a rotten smile at the other competitors around him.

‘Kekekeke, how about that? You bastards. This is what they mean when they say the brave man gets the beauty.’

What did you even do?

But the knight, whose heart swelled with pride at the fact that his other comrades were looking at him with crestfallen expressions, was….

“Should I just move this?”

“Oh my, it’s dangerous if you do it with one hand.”

“Hahaha. This is nothing.”

“You’re so dependable.”

“Hahahahaha.”

“May I ask your name?”

The knight, who had become the sole recipient of the beauty’s attention, thanked his good fortune and said.

“My name is Oliver A. And the priestess’ name is….”

“It’s Rita Praetor.”

Thus, the lucky (?) man was decided.