Chapter 105

Chapter 105

Judith stared at Min-ha, who gritted her teeth and threatened him with a little surprise before immediately laughing out loud. He then nodded slowly before holding out his hand toward Min-ha inside the cell.

“All right, I promise. After all, his primary purpose was you anyway.”

“…Do you promise?”

“Yes. You can count on it… I will.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s nothing.”

Judith, who left some meaningful words, avoided giving a specific answer to Min-ha as she asked for the meaning.

Then, raising the corner of her mouth gently, he opened his mouth again.

“Well, I guess that’s all I have to say. I’ll be on my way now.”

“You’re really selfish… both you or Rupert.”

“Well, yes, the paladins will be coming for you in the next five hours, so you can keep your promise to me then. By any chance, if you change your mind in the meantime…”

“Don’t worry, I won’t lie about the lives of important people at stake. The person who has to keep their word is you.”

“Haha. I’m a man of my word, so you don’t have to worry about that.”

At her repeated threats, Judith smiled wryly and soon turned his back without a moment’s hesitation, disappearing swiftly in the opposite direction without a sound of footsteps.

Soon, he was out of sight.

‘He’s so quiet when he comes in and out… that’s why it’s more suspicious.’

As she thought so, Min-ha frowned at the sight of him, which appeared and disappeared in an instant like a shadow falling under the light, as it somehow caught in my mind.

To put it mildly… he felt unfamiliar when she first met him, although after talking to him, she felt strangely familiar instead. Besides, the strange floral scent he’d given off when he was moving earlier seemed strangely familiar as well…

With doubtful eyes, she stared at the spot where Judith had passed as she sighed as if the earth would soon be extinguished.

‘…I shouldn’t be thinking about this right now.’

Thinking that, she sighed and muttered helplessly to the ground as she remembered the situation she was in.

“I bought some time, but… I couldn’t clear my name in the end.”

The thought of being trapped in the imperial tower for the rest of her life made her chest tighten. Still, even though she had no regrets about saving Gareth and Bediviel with this decision, Min-ha couldn’t help but sigh at the thought of her own situation.

As expected, like people said, the outside is different and the inside is different*.

[ T/N: An idiom that means, ‘For one’s behavior and thoughts on the outside to be different from what is inside.’ ]

Min-ha smiled bitterly as she regretted the things she had given up once she had passed the hardship.

‘…He said that if I’m locked up in the imperial tower, I’ll never meet anyone for the rest of my life.’

Could they collect evidence that would somehow clear the incriminating evidence and hope for an opportunity to change the situation?

Before long, negative thoughts about what to do if she was stuck there for the rest of her life seized Min-ha.

She muttered in a tearful voice.

“…I wonder if I could live my whole life without seeing Seth? I would have loved to see Noah grow up and become an adult…”

No matter how much she tried to think positive thoughts, the negative thoughts that clung to her just wouldn’t go away. Leaning her head against the cell bars, Min-ha curled up like she had a moment ago, buried her face between her knees and sobbed quietly.

A scent of flowers wafted through her nostrils. Waking up from crying, Min-ha rubbed her swollen eyes and glanced around.

Then, what came into her sight was the familiar view of the bedroom in the outbuilding of Persen Castle and two women sitting at a small table next to the bed facing each other. She knew at once that one of them was Minase Persen.

‘…Am I dreaming again?’

Like the last time, she was in a dream so vivid that she couldn’t even believe it was a dream.

‘I couldn’t dream when I wanted it so badly, but now…?’

Min-ha scoffed at the timing.

“How could he do this to me?!”

It was then.

As the voice of Minase crying came from the table where the two were sitting opposite each other, Min-ha turned to look at her in surprise.

“I knew he had something he wanted from me, but I also thought his love for me was sincere! But now… you’re telling me it was all an act?”

“….”

“After everything I’ve done for him, how dare he betray me like this?!”

“….”

“No, you’re lying! That’s a lie! Aren’t you mistaken?”

Minase cried out with all her strength she could muster, covering her face with her hands.

At that moment, Min-ha realized that the sound of howling was somehow familiar. It resembled the voice that had been ringing in her head, accompanied by an intense headache, when she first encountered Rupert Guinivis.

‘Back then, all I could hear was only Minase’s voice crying.’

She gazed at Minase, who was crying more desperately than when she heard her voice, as though she felt sorry for her.

“…I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s true, Duchess Persen.”

At that time, the voice of the woman sitting across from Minase was heard.

She stared at the woman who replied firmly as if to drive a wedge between her and the sobbing Minase. Somehow, her voice seems familiar though it could be her imagination. Min-ha tilted her head and looked at her, but still, she couldn’t recognize the woman through the veil she wore over her face.

‘Who is it, that person…?’

Curious, she studied the veiled woman carefully as she spoke in a hushed voice.

It was Viscount Rupert Guinivis’s plan to steal secrets from the Marquis of Florence’s camp that led the Marquis to become a warrior, and that led to the downfall of the Florence family.”

“….!”

And, the woman’s words were so astounding that it was difficult to believe.

‘…So, the beginning of all this is because of Rupert Guinivis?’

As she approached Minase, who was wailing in surprise, with a surprised face, Minase soon lifted his tear-stained face and glared at the woman in front of her, before asking reproachfully.

“Why? For what reason? What would he benefit from my downfall? Surely, he was hell-bent on making me the crown princess, so why did he set this up? Why…?!”

“It’s because the former crown prince and the current Emperor liked you more than Viscount Guinivis expected. If the Duchess had really become the crown princess, or even the empress, you would have won the Emperor’s favor and wielded great power, and that would have disrupted his plan to easily manipulate you into a scarecrow empress who wasn’t favored.”

“…That’s why he drove my father to the brink of death and ruined my family? Simply to make it easier for him to manipulate me?”

“….”

“Is the reason why he told me to go ahead with the wedding talk with the Duke of Persen among the marriage talks that came to me because Duke Persen doesn’t even like me in the slightest and because he’s a subject trusted by the emperor?”

“Yes. The Duke of Persen was one of the Emperor’s closest key confidants and one of the foundations of his power.”

“…Are you saying that Rupert made me the wife of the Duke of Persen in order to use me as a chess piece to bring down Duke Persen, and by extension, the Emperor?”

“That’s how it is.”

“…Then, all those years of constantly whispering love to me and promising me a rosy future were all… for that? All of that was… a lie?”

In response to the woman’s next words, Minase muttered in utter despair, her eyes completely dead as she stared into space as if even the last ray of hope she’d ever held onto had been crushed.

I loved you.

…I trusted you.

Minase, who had been deceived by all of it, seemed as if she could barely stay sane.

With her body trembling, she uttered to the woman.

“Then, why is he now actively helping me and Duke Persen get divorced? Is that his plan, too?”

“That’s…”

“Tell me, come on.”

“…It’s because of the enormous alimony that the Duchess will receive from the Duke of Persen after the divorce.”

“…Alimony?”

“Yes. Viscount Guinivis planned to send you to the border after collecting the alimony… He even bought a mansion for that plan.”

“N-no… No, that can’t be. He always promised me to divorce the Duke of Persen and live with him once everything was settled. And that mansion… I’m sure he bought it for that.”

“I’m sorry, Duchess, but the love of Viscount Guinivis, whom you so firmly believe in, has already turned to another woman.”

“…What?”

“This is the proof.”

As she spoke with each word piercing Minase’s heart, the woman soon pulled several letters from her bosom and held them out.

Receiving the letter with trembling hands, Minase read the contents one by one.

“Ha, haha…”

After a few moments, having read all the letters the woman held out, she crumpled the letter roughly in her hands and sobbed.

“How could he… how could he do this to me?!”

“….”

“…I did everything I could for him. I tried to become a crown princess I didn’t want to be and was sold for money to get in an arranged marriage, only for our future he promised me… but did I even exist in that future he had planned? Is that true?”

“….”

“What was it in the end that I was so desperately trying to protect? Even if the whole world was pointing fingers and it wasn’t the right thing to do, I still wanted to protect it… Though in the end, all he wanted was what he would gain from my divorce, is that so?”

“….”

“How, why, he… he—!”

Throwing her head down on the table and clawing at her beautifully tied hair as she wailed madly, she seemed to lose her mind.

Min-ha frowned as she watched Minase crying incessantly after being confronted with the truth she didn’t want to believe—the love she believed was her everything was made of lies. At the same time, as if Minase’s pain was her own, her heart felt like it would break as her anger toward Rupert, who thoroughly betrayed her, was increasing.

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