Chapter 25

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Chapter 25

Gastby’s eyes trembled. He was trying to make his brain work.

Eric’s words weren’t wrong. Raising prices tomorrow would mean next month’s funding would be blocked off.

Calculating this, Gatsby regretted his mistake, but at the same time he felt pathetic. To be humiliated by a commoner! He couldn’t believe it. Along with the influence of alcohol, rationality was nowhere to be found.

“Shallow prick who cares only about money!”

So, Gatsby shouted. Eric’s hand came to a halt.

“This is why commoners shouldn’t receive peerage. It becomes like this! You don’t know how to repay the grace given to you!”

“Was it you who gave me my peerage? What does it matter to you what I do with what I rightly earned—”

“And that half-witted Chloe Rolphe! So blind to money that she married a commoner. She should be ashamed!”

“This bastard wants to get beaten up…!”

Eric lifted Gatsby high up by his collar. Then, as his fist headed towards Gatsby, at that moment—

“Please stop!”

A clear, high-pitched voice emerged between them. It was Chloe.

“Just what are you…”

Her hand trembled as it gripped her fan. She looked at Eric’s hand next to Gatsby’s face.

Right then, Eric felt as though his head was doused with cold water.

Did you hear that?

I’m sure you heard it.

What will you think?

Will you think that I’m a commoner who doesn’t know any grace?

“……”

Eric huffed out loudly, letting go. He rearranged his disheveled vest and proudly straightened his shoulders. Then, he smiled brightly.

“Excuse my actions.”

He was back to his usual self. Relaxed, polite.

He left that place and walked through the gaps between the chattering onlookers.

Chloe looked towards Eric’s retreating figure and Gatsby, who had collapsed on the floor. She then approached Gatsby. As the marquisate’s lady of the house, she had to. At this, Eric felt bitter.

He exhaled in despair, feeling Chloe’s absence as she didn’t follow after him.

Chloe placed a hand over her pounding chest.

She was mostly a listener to other people’s conversations. Ha ha, ho ho. It was difficult to listen to these conversations when people were so loud around them, but she didn’t miss it.

It’s always been like this. Chloe could always hear Eric’s voice any time, anywhere. She never overlooked it. That’s why, Chloe was able to hear that exchange as well.

Anger.

Treating her like an easy woman.

When Eric raised his fist, she felt grateful. However, the part that made Chloe herself angry was what the man said next.

‘Shallow prick who cares only about money!’

‘This is why commoners shouldn’t receive peerage.’

And Eric’s expression after he heard this—he looked so empty, as if he lost something. He hesitated to look at Chloe, and it was so sad and miserable that Chloe’s anger towards him had melted away. Her heart ached.

“Excuse me, Madam.”

At this time, Theo, who looked more sober, approached her with a serious look.

“All I can say is that I’m sorry. I apologize deeply. Those guys were drunk, so…”

“I am not going to accept your apology.”

Chloe cut off Theo mid-sentence and said this firmly. Her clear, transparent gaze turned to Theo and his associates.

“It was dangerous and caused enough of a problem that a lawsuit could be filed.”

“I understand, Madam. I’m really sorry.”

“I apologize.”

“However.”

Chloe held her hands together. Her calm expression seemed to show that she could forgive anything. Everyone’s eyes glinted with hope.

“Everyone would only be deemed to be drunk, so I won’t file the lawsuit for nothing.”

“Thank you, Madam. We won’t forget this grace…”

“But my husband might think differently.”

Chloe smiled and lifted her chin as though to laugh at their vain hopes.

“Eric Aslan is more tenacious than you think.”

Her husband would never stay still. Even if Gatsby would file charges against Eric for assault, Gatsby would just pay this back double.

Knowing this well, Theo and his associates hardened their expressions. Chloe curtsied lightly towards them.

“Then, goodbye.”

She left that place in a slight hurry, but nervousness could not be seen in her gait.

Eric was inside the carriage now.

Naturally, Chloe thought that her husband had already gone ahead without her, so she was somewhat surprised. But, this didn’t show in her face. She sat on the other side, face-to-face with him.

“Are you alright?”

She spoke carefully towards Eric, who was just looking out the window. He turned halfway. There seemed to be a terrible sense of helplessness in his gray eyes.

“Have you come to mock me, too.”

He smelled like alcohol. Chloe was surprised this time. Her husband was originally someone who wouldn’t even touch liquor!

How hard it must have been for him that he had to have a drink. Chloe was now completely here for her husband, forgetting that she had been hurt by his words earlier. To the point of foolishness.

“Mock? What do you mean, I’ve never done that.”

“Don’t lie…”

Eric frowned. He swept a hand over his face, his sighs mixed with the scent of alcohol.

“There’s no way you won’t laugh at me. Because I’m a commoner who has detestably dirty blood in the first place.”

“Why are you saying that?”

Chloe was sincerely worried about Eric. She leaned forward.

“Darling.”

Eric’s gaze was gradually raised and headed towards Chloe. As their eyes met, Chloe opened her lips to speak.

“Nobody thinks of you in that way. You’re respected. You’ve constantly brought development through your inventions.”

“……”

Eric opened his mouth as though to say something, but he closed it at once. Damn it. He swore under his breath as he ruffled his fringe. He looked at Chloe, his eyes half-closed.

“You said you don’t believe in me.”

She didn’t know that he would say this here, so Chloe was flustered.

Eric closed his eyes and chose his words.

“You say I did something like that, but you don’t believe in me.”

He leaned over, resting his forehead on Chloe’s shoulder as he muttered.

“I never did anything. I never did anything for you…”

Chloe stopped breathing for a moment due to the scent. Along with the strong scent of alcohol, the pungent cigar smoke clinging to him mixed with the musk cologne he was wearing lingered at the tip of her nose.

One moment felt like eternity. Eric leaned a little more on Chloe.

“But why, why don’t you believe in me?”

“……”

She wanted to say it.

The fact that she heard him call her a terrible woman.

That’s why she didn’t believe anything he said.

But what would be the difference if she did say it?

Chloe smiled helplessly and slowly reached up. She placed a hand over Eric’s hair at the back of his head.

“I’m sorry.”

She stroked Eric’s hair slowly. Eric’s shoulders were tense, but he soon relaxed and closed his eyes. Chloe continued to caress his hair like that.

“…That’s right. I’m sorry.”

This continued until Eric fell asleep. Chloe said sorry to him over and over again. She didn’t know what she was apologizing for, but she was sorry for everything anyway.

The biggest thing she was sorry about was that she married him.

02. Nobile

Dreams are said to be something of a regression. Like going back to the past and living the same life again.

Eric had such a dream.

This was a long time ago. How old was he here? He couldn’t even remember this place.

He was born on the streets and raised on the streets. He didn’t know his parents’ faces, and the people around him were always new and they always died, so he couldn’t remember their faces anyhow.

Bread always came in crumbs, milk was never not spoilt.

It was such a hard life that he had to wonder whether he was living at all. There was no future, there was no present. There was no such thing as everything, only nothing.

All he had was a pathetic life.

It was natural that he would teeter from life and death as he was living in the slums.

It was also cold in the north. And that day, it was especially colder. Later, he heard that it was one of the coldest days that had ever come.

He was huddled under an old blanket that he managed to pick up from somewhere, and he had planks by his sides as his shelter. As long as he wouldn’t fall asleep, he’d be able to withstand the cold.

That’s what he thought.

Until a small girl came to approach him.

The girl without a name was very small. She was so small that it didn’t seem like she’d even reach his waist. The little child crouched down without a plank or a blanket, simply rubbing her hands together to ward off the cold.

He couldn’t turn a blind eye to the girl. He couldn’t pretend not to know that the child would die if he left her alone.

So he gave her his blanket. This sympathy was considered expensive.

He got frostbite and his flesh rotted away. It started with his big toe until it eventually reached his ankle, so he had to amputate his foot in the end.

It was sympathy so expensive that he had to give up his right foot. He regretted it, but it was already in the past. And the girl died. She couldn’t overcome her hunger and eventually died from starvation.

Wretched.

Until when would he have to live this wretched life?

He climbed up to the Pierre Bridge, limping. The river below was high and had a fast current. If he fell from this high, he would die.

He heard from somewhere that before one’s death, their past—their whole life—would flash before their eyes. He asked himself if he had such a life to look back on.

No. He did not. He was always hungry, always in a desperate situation, always just waiting for death.

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