I Became A Squirrel Seeking For The Villain Chapter 71

The mansions where patients in Daisy Village stay are almost all similar in appearance.

 

To allow easy access for medical staff, they were all one-story buildings, and each held about five or six patients.

 

To prevent any chance of escape, the windows were placed very high up.

 

A doorkeeper was always stationed outside.

 

Because the windows were small and near the ceiling, the inside of the building couldn’t be seen from outside.

 

“Is this the next building?”

 

Roymond, who had been diligently moving from place to place, looked around cheerfully.

 

Then he spotted Patre coming out of another building and called out.

 

“Ah, High Priest Patre. If you just finished, come with me.”

 

“It would be an honor.”

 

Patre smiled and stood next to Roymund.

 

In truth, he had been waiting for this opportunity. Since Roymond spoke first, Patre was happy inside.

 

This volunteer activity is an annual event.

 

Although the date was slightly brought forward, it was because of Yohan’s request.

 

And the first person to suggest that they go into the same building together was Roymond.

 

By all accounts, there was no reason to suspect the temple.

 

‘I need to eliminate him quickly.’

 

Patre thought to himself as he and Roymond entered the building together.

 

Normally, he would have acted more cautiously, but not long ago, Roymond had insisted on investigating the Divine Beast.

 

‘If the royal family really started an investigation… the thought alone was terrifying.’

 

Although no one cares now, Roymond, who was eager to reduce the power of the temple, would never let it go.

 

‘And now he’s making a fuss by declaring his intent to marry Mariel Medes…’

 

Of all people, it has to be Duke Medes’s family.

 

If this continues, Roymond will really become the emperor and gain access to secret documents that only emperors can read.

 

Even though all related documents had been destroyed five years ago, the ones held by the palace couldn’t be erased.

 

So, Patre couldn’t relax while everything was going on so annoyingly.

 

‘I must cut the problem off at the root.’

 

He had swallowed his tears and abandoned the Divine Beast project five years ago, just as Rivena advised.

 

If that were to become a problem now, it would feel so unfair.

 

But in the meantime, he received a very tempting piece of news from Lizzy, who was sent to the Duke of Medes’s house.

 

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

 

Even Roymond himself didn’t know until recently.

 

Roymond was known to be quite physically strong, with only a handful of knights in the royal guard being able to defeat him.

 

There was no way he would consider the possibility of being killed.

 

Besides, Patre was an old man. Who would ever imagine an assassination by him?

 

Although the windows were high, it was an enclosed space.

 

The patients had already been prepped.

 

Even a terminally ill patient had been bribed to take the fall for the murder.

 

Indeed, Roymond dismissed his guards, saying it was annoying.

 

So Patre and Roymond entered the enclosed hospital room.

 

“Your Highness the Crown Prince!”

 

A young girl, who had been groaning in pain, weakly rose to her feet.

 

“Oh my god… His Highness the Crown Prince has really come!”

 

“Lie down comfortably.”

 

Roymond smiled kindly as he approached the girl.

 

“I will change your infusion.”

 

Patre pretended to look after another patient behind him.

 

Roymond skillfully changed the infusion, and the girl smiled brightly and took a cookie out from a drawer.

 

“Thank you, Your Highness, the Crown Prince.”

 

The cookie was small enough to fit in one bite.

 

“You must be hungry, so eat this. I baked it myself during my rehabilitation.”

 

“Oh, thank you.”

 

Roymond accepted the cookie with a kind smile. It was then that Patre slowly got up.

 

From Patre’s point of view, everything was going smoothly.

 

“Iarla flowers are only used as paints? Does he just have to avoid painting?”

 

“Hmm, in the desert where water is scarce, they use the petals to neutralize the smell of rainwater and brew it into tea. But it doesn’t taste particularly good—it’s more like plain water—so nobody in the Empire really drinks Iarla tea.”

 

In the letter that Lizzy delivered, it was written that Runart had said so.

 

“However, if you drink that tea, you will almost collapse helplessly. Of course, you will recover soon, but, naturally, your limbs will stiffen momentarily.”

 

He would have liked to have poisoned Roymond a hundred times, but all the poisons came from the temple.

 

Therefore, when poisoning was discovered, the first place to be put on the suspect’s list was the temple.

 

In other words, Roymond also likely wasn’t considering poison.

 

‘He’s probably only wary of that tea Runart warned him about.’

 

But slipping something into food was easy. Just put the Larla petals inside the cookies you baked.

 

As a backup, Patre had scattered Larla petals under the patients’ beds.

 

If Lizzy’s information is false, Roymond will not fall.

 

If that’s the case, then he can just go out again as if nothing happened.

 

If Lizzy’s information was true, killing Roymond, whose body had frozen and collapsed, was easy.

 

And the patient would confess to the crime.

 

Of course, the patient didn’t have that kind of energy, so Patre had to assassinate him himself.

 

‘As for testimony… they just need to say he suddenly showed monstrous strength.’

 

The outside view is blocked.

 

No matter how he looked at it, there was no way they’d get caught.

 

No one who didn’t know about Iarla Petals would ever suspect an old man like Patre of killing a strong man like Roymond.

 

‘I can’t trust anyone else.’

 

And Patre was not the kind to assign important jobs to other priests.

 

The fewer people who knew, the better.

 

The temple had kept secrets for so long precisely because of that belief.

 

The only person he truly trusted was Rivena.

 

‘If this works, I’ll have to kill Lizzy secretly too.’

 

Lizzy, who was obsessed with becoming the real Yurika, could be a threat.

 

Although he tried to appease her for a while, Patre had no intention of keeping Lizzy alive for long.

 

“I’ll eat well.”

 

Roymond immediately stuffed the cookie the girl had given him into his mouth.

 

Patre watched the scene quietly with a pounding heart.

 

“Huh? What’s… what’s happening?”

 

Sure enough, Roymond began to sway shortly after.

 

Patre carefully drew his sword behind him.

 

‘As expected!’

 

Just as he was about to stab the fallen Roymond in the heart—

 

Suddenly, with a loud crash, the wall collapsed.

 

‘W-What? At a time like this?’

 

Patre, who still hadn’t figured out the situation, was frozen with a bewildered expression on his face when Roymond grabbed Patre’s wrist, which was holding the sword.

 

“I place you, High Priest Patre, under arrest for the attempted assassination of a member of the royal family.”

 

Roymond’s body—and even his tongue—showed no signs of paralysis.

 

‘I’ve been tricked!’

 

Patre instantly understood.

 

Seeing how easily Roymond moved, it was clear that his staggering earlier had been an act.

 

Then all the information Lizzy had passed on—was it all fake too?

 

‘No, wait… didn’t he staggered when I gave him the picture with the Iarla petal in it, just in case? Did he take that into account?’

 

Patre also felt burdened by the thought of doing something big based only on Lizzy’s words, so he decided to do his own verification before making a move.

 

But with this outcome, it was clear—he had walked right into an elaborate, deeply laid trap.

 

Of course, realizing that now changed nothing.

 

Roymond declared triumphantly,

 

“Did everyone see it?”

 

At the same time, knights rushed through the collapsed wall and captured Patre.

 

That would be the case, since everyone had witnessed Patre raising his sword at the fallen Roymond.

 

“Kyuung.”

 

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

 

“Kyuuung.”

 

Though she had been turning into a squirrel far too often lately, it had been a complete success.

 

They had set up a perfectly sealed-off space ideal for committing a crime—

 

‘But I was watching the whole time.’

 

Yurika had been watching everything from the high ceiling, and when the moment came for everyone to witness the assassination attempt, she had signaled to Yohan.

 

Yohan is a wizard who can break down walls like that in an instant.

 

She never planned to waste time catching small fry one by one.

 

If she was going to destroy the temple, she had to start with someone like the high priest!

 

And to catch someone like that, a charge like treason was essential.

 

‘Gotta make the best use of the information the enemy doesn’t know!’

 

What they could never know was that Yurika could turn into a squirrel thanks to Runart’s drug.

 

That’s how she was able to plan something like this.

 

Of course, it wasn’t just Yurika who did it. It was a collaboration between many people.

 

So, it was something that had been planned since Lizzy came to the Duke of Medes a few days ago.

 

Yurika recalled the day she started that plan with a relaxed expression.

 

That day, when she and Mariel both burst into tears.

 

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