I Corrupted The Good Male Protagonist

As I was looking at the letter that I had received from the villainous sister, Adele arrived in the Count’s estate to see me.

Adele’s shoulders were wet from the heavy rain that had started falling at dawn.

I quickly sat Adele down at a table and gave him some warm tea and a towel. 

As I watched Adele carefully wipe his face with a towel to avoid splashing water on the table, I asked, “Adele, Sister Lynette… No. Duke Bliss’ daughter told me that she wants to go with me to see something amazing at the great temple. Do you know what it is?”

I’d been in a pretty bad mood since the morning because of the invitation sent by Lynettia Bliss.

‘Do you dare?’ was written in a cursive script that was utterly coquettish to the point of being suspicious.  Flamboyantly curled, cutesy hearts were lurking everywhere.

“You mean the holy relic that Marquis Claude recently acquired? I guess it has been enshrined at the great temple already. I’ve heard that they will only admit noble visitors with invitations for a couple of days a year.”

He tilted his head slightly and the water droplets in his hair fell onto his shoulders. His hair, which seemed to contain sunlight, was even more vivid than usual. It was incredibly bad for my heart.

Ack! I grabbed the hand that was unconsciously reaching out towards him with my other hand and firmly held it back. I cleared my throat and spoke.

“Perhaps the reason that the Marquis visited the Duke last time was to show off the holy relic?”

I recalled Adele explaining that the Marquis would invariably stop by to brag to the Duke whenever he obtained some high-quality information or a rare treasure.

Balthazar Claude was an extremely vain person in the original novel as well. 

He had a complex about the power that he had accumulated through unseemly methods such as assassination or bribery. 

As a result, he tried to live relatively cleanly for a while, but his characteristic belligerent nature stuck with him.

One night, rumors circulated that the Marquis’ soldiers were going to bury some bodies on his orders.

“Yes. Putting aside whether it is truly a holy relic or not, objects that directly interfere with a person’s mind are certainly unusual. The Marquis said that it’s Anacleto’s relic and he seems to believe that, but… I don’t know. Even though it has some value due to its rarity, it’s hard to say if it’s a relic of the first pope because there are a lot of inconsistencies.”

Adele seemed dismissive. I was curious. 

“It can interfere with someone’s mind?”

“The Marquis claims that evenly infusing a certain amount of divine power into the relic will show events that will occur in the near future. You can see trivial things, like what you will eat tomorrow, or on rare occasions, things that will happen in the distant future. Of course, no one has personally experienced the latter. And even when the priests infused the holy relic with divine power beforehand, most of them didn’t see the future because of some incompatibility.”

Although the odds were slim, if it really was a relic that showed the future, Marquis Claude certainly deserved to be proud. However, Adele didn’t seem to be convinced.

“Didn’t you get an invitation too? Aren’t you curious?”

Adele put the towel down and fixed his messy hair. 

It was almost swept back properly, but I was incredibly flustered. His eyes, glowing sweetly, were enchantingly sexy.

“I’m not particularly interested in holy relics. Isn’t it foolish to think that you would actually be able see the future with such an unproven and uncertain thing in the first place? Even in the old days there were plenty of people who orchestrated schemes using oracles on which the country’s fate depended. Hopefully no one can be tricked with just a holy relic.”

He had a rarely seen, negative attitude. I listened to him quietly because it was so novel. 

“It isn’t a problem when it’s just for fun, but sometimes there are people who get completely carried away with that kind of thing, so I’m concerned that something tiring will happen. If it were me, I’d be more worried about getting my hands dirty by touching something so old and rusty.”

“How harsh.”

As expected, Adele really was a clean freak.  

Adele returned to normal and smiled softly.

“That’s how worthless it is, Anastasia. But you need to socialize. The Count and Countess would be pleased to hear that you made friends with other young ladies.”

“Ughh.”

I groaned and tapped on the invitation with my finger.

It was certainly an interesting relic, but I wasn’t really curious about my future. After all, wasn’t it obvious? 

Besides, I didn’t like the person who sent the invitation.

He immediately added, “Of course, there is no need to overdo it.”

Adele seemed to think that I didn’t want to go because I was tired.

I corrected his misunderstanding.

“Lynettia Bliss has been harassing you, hasn’t she?”

I stuck my tongue out. That damned villainous sister confessed that she had once dropped Adele into a pond and forced him to eat a sandwich with lots of black pepper.

She interfered whenever he competed with Ash and moreover, she embarrassed Adele a lot.

It was obvious from other ladies’ reactions that she hadn’t told me everything.

Adele replied as if he didn’t care. 

“I’m used to it.”

His attitude was overly refreshing. I was pretty upset that Adele didn’t seem to care. 

I spoke quietly to Adele.

“Adele, I don’t want you to become inured to all of the things that are hard for you. And even if you can’t control your anger and end up revealing your negative emotions some day, I don’t think it will lead to the disastrous ending that the Duke envisions.”

I didn’t take Adele lightly.

He was an extremely patient man. He was meticulous and without flaws.

If the image that he had cultivated could be blown away by a single mistake, the Duke would have abandoned him long ago. 

Adele Magnus spent his entire life faking his emotions. He was considered to be virtuous by everyone. That hadn’t just happened by saying ‘let’s become a good person’ or ‘I’ll work hard’.

I decided that it wouldn’t be a problem as long as he found a suitable way to compromise. 

The Duke had said that Adele lacked humanity. However, even if Adele truly was similar to a psychopath with antisocial tendencies, as the Duke feared, that didn’t mean he would definitely become a criminal.

“What if you’re wrong? In fact, I’ve already made a big mistake in the past and even in the future there’s a good chance that my emotions might overflow, so what would you do if I’m only pretending to be able to control myself in order to look good in front of you?”

The eyes that gazed at me were like dewy, crimson camellia flowers in a frozen snowfield.

“You’ve been acting this entire time, haven’t you? Did you think that that would suddenly become a problem now? I like the fake you and the real you. You’ve spent nearly your whole life pretending and it’s already become part of you. I don’t want you to completely change all at once just because of me. It’s natural to make mistakes, change your mind, or figure things out through trial and error. People don’t necessarily go straight to their destination.”

(t/n: that’s such a nice quote!!!)

Also, to be honest, it made me happy that he was trying to look good in front of me… My heart was pounding wildly… Ah! Get it together! 

“A-Anyway, it’s all about starting with the little things.”

I stuttered a bit. Adele let out a sigh. 

“Anastasia, my mistakes are not as small and loveable as yours are.”

Adele thought I was being too optimistic.

Just like I did in the past whenever he told me to have hope and not give up.

I smiled mischievously as I wondered if he understood my feelings of frustration now.

“That’s why you need to practice. The problem is that you rigidly suppress yourself and then explode all at once. If you learn how to express your emotions little by little, you’ll be able to figure out what’s reasonable, right?”

Duke Friedrich didn’t want Adele to live as his true self. 

However, even the Duke wasn’t completely heartless.

Assuming that he would continue to socialize, as long as he properly adjusted how he hid and revealed his emotions, the process would bear fruit in the end. 

I thought this was the perfect timing, just before Adele reached adulthood.

Wasn’t this the best time to try to change? He wasn’t too young, nor was he a full-fledged adult with an inflexible mindset.

“So I’m going to try to get on your nerves a bit in the future.” 

Adele looked puzzled at my determined words.

“… Pardon?”

I laughed gently. 

“Don’t worry! I’m confident that I can handle your anger! Since I’ll let you know how much is appropriate, you can use that as a reference!”

Adele’s eyes widened and he immediately rejected what I said.

“I will never get mad at you.”

He was so cute that I didn’t know what to do. I covered my mouth with my hands and snickered.

“You’ll see.”

The following day, the beautifully dressed, villainous sister came to see me. 

“Anastasia! This Lynette has come to pick you up!”

It was incredibly natural. Adorned with pearls and wearing a pale blue dress, Lynettia Bliss was still bewitching. Feather ornaments were placed on her head and every time she tilted her head, they fluttered softly.

I frowned.

“Didn’t you get my reply? I clearly said that I wasn’t going.” 

Do you not have any eyes? No, isn’t it more like you don’t have a conscience?

“Please don’t give me such a heartbreaking rejection. As I promised you at the party that day, there will be no further harassment of Lord Magnus. Anastasia, won’t you give me a chance? You don’t know me very well yet. I’ll prove to you that I’m a better person than you think!”

Look, I already know sister well.

How many crazy things did you do in the original story?!

“And my legs hurt so much because I walked all the way here. By now the other young ladies have already arrived at the great temple, so they must be waiting for us. I boasted that I would bring Anastasia by any means, but…”

The villainous sister bit her lip firmly while making a sorrowful expression. It was obviously an act.

“I know you like my face, but that’s it. So how can I trust you?” 

I was just telling her how I felt, but suddenly she burst into laughter.

“Ahaha! Do you really think that I’m going to all of this trouble just because I love your face? There’s no way. Surprisingly, I’m a well grounded woman. Of course, of the many people that I have met in my lifetime, you are the most beautiful. You have a lovely voice and honestly, it’s all a bit too much. All of the nobles who saw you at the party were stunned for so long that they spilled their drinks or broke their plates. But Anastasia, I’m interested in who you are as a person as well.”