CH 170

Lloyd Valentine……. No, Eden Valen, the rumors about him spread very quickly.

“They said you defeated the bandits alone?”

“A group of bandits alone? Are you kidding me?”

“Thanks to him, we could live. The bandits caused a lot of damage this year.”

“Did you say Eden? Hey, don’t you want to apply as a knight of the lord?”

“What do you mean as a knight of the lord! He did a great job that even the lord could not solve.”

“Either way, that talent is a waste to rot in the countryside. Isn’t that right? Eden.”

Eden. As people called out his pseudonym, Lloyd looked down at them without a word, expressionless.

“Gasp, are, are you mad?”

Lloyd just stared at them as if he wasn’t interested, but the frightened people began to falter.

‘Well…….’

Aria understood.

When she recalled how she felt when she first met Grand Duke Valentine, she understood the people’s reaction.

“We, well, since when were you so close to call his name arbitrarily? Mr. Valen, plea, please, don’t be offended.”

“Mr. Valen? I didn’t know Uncle could call someone so politely?”

“Sh, shut up! Billy, you punk, why don’t you go and do your job right?”

“Why are you scolding me?”

While Billy grumbled and went to the fields, Aria just stood by the crowds swarming around Lloyd.

None of them knew.

The fact that it was Aria who caught the bandit leader herself.

No one was even suspicious.

‘Thank God.’

It was unfortunate for Lloyd though. It’s better to be careful until the matter is completely resolved.

“By the way, Mr. Valen.”

Then the wives approaching Lloyd whispered.

“Take good care of your wife.”

“Yes, she’s already a weak person, so she must have been shocked. I’m just glad that Mr. Valen is around.”

“Besides, she’s such a good person, so pure and innocent.”

Good, pure and innocent? Hearing the wives’ conversations, Aria frowned.

‘Was I too pretentious?’

Living quietly to not to be noticed, she didn’t expect to get that kind of evaluation.

Even if she didn’t want to hear it, the words she could hear clearly because of her natural hearing were stuck in her conscience.

As she listened quietly, the people of this region seemed to regard Aria as ‘a gentle and naive person who grew up in a wealthy family and knows nothing of the world’.

‘Uh…….’

Aria looked down at her hands without saying a word.

Then she wiped the blood on her hands with the cloth inside the basket so that no one could see it.

“We alone are worried about what the bad guys will do to Mrs. Valen, so how upset the husband must be.”

As Mrs. Palmer said so, she turned to Aria.

As soon as their eyes met, Aria curved her eyes and smiled.

“Oh my gosh. How can she be so cute when she smiles?”

“Even if she has been badly treated, she probably won’t even know how to properly respond. So, make sure you stay by Mrs. Valen’s side, okay?”

The innocent Aria, who did not know about the world, was now interrogating the bandit.

“I already know that you’ve worked with the priest. Tell me who’s behind it.”

It would be better to open your mouth when I’m still nice.

Aria added so, and she pressed the bandit down with deep sunken eyes.

He saw with his own two eyes what his companions had become with a dagger, so the bandit trembled, and said.

“I, I don’t know anything! I’m the last of the last!”

“The bandits seem to be calling the last pawn ‘second boss’?”

Obviously, his companions called him ‘second boss’ in a whisper, but how the hell did she hear that?

What the hell is her ears…….

‘Damn it. That’s why she kept me alive .’

He couldn’t help but mumble inside with a resigned look.

“You begged for your life. It would be better to prove the worth of saving your life.”

The Aria whose eyelashes were trembling thinly was nowhere to be found. With her eyes sunk as deep as the deep sea, she uttered threats to the last remaining bandit.

“I know they worked with one of the priests, but I don’t know who it is! Trust me!”

The bandit rolled his eyes to and fro.

No matter how she looked at it, that was the behavior of someone who had something to hide.

It was as if he was more afraid of telling the truth than losing his life.

“Ah… it’s not my specialty to interrogate. Someone’s coming from Valentine castle soon.”

“Wh, what? What?”

Valentine?

“That Valentine?”

“Yes, the Devil Grand Duke.”

I am the Devil’s wife. Aria’s lips rose in a curve as if telling a secret.

It was an eerie smile that was completely different from the smile that was as bright as a flower.

“I’ll have you taken to the castle and send you to a professional adviser.”

In addition, the blunt words put more pressure on the bandit.

‘That, that’s a lie!’

The bandit did not want to believe that this woman was the Grand Duchess.

However, the moment he heard the name, he could finally understand the identity of the overwhelming power that swept the bandits all at once.

Because it was a power that could not be explained by any other being.

‘That’s the power of Valentine, the power of the devil…….’

Devil, yes. It was absolutely devilish.

“So who’s behind it?”

“The, the whole temple.”

“The whole?”

“Yes! They told us to bring something in return for ignoring the looting in this province!”

“Something? What something.”

“I don’t know. Only the boss knew! I really don’t know anything other than ordering the things to be sold at an auction house!”

In the end, he was forced to confide everything he knew.

‘The whole temple…….’

So, the Attis branch priests are all in the same league.

‘Perhaps even the lord of this province knew everything and closed his eyes.’

Aria remembered the words of the bandit’s second boss, and she sat across the bed, immersed in thoughts.

She was making plans for the future.

“Did you get things done?”

“Yes. The bandit was sent to the Grand Duke’s ca…”

She was taken aback and could not respond calmly to his question.

Because Lloyd had just come out of the bathroom and was only wearing pants.

Drops of water that could not be wiped off from the bare upper body were flowing along curved lines between each muscle.

“… castle, but from my senses, it seems that he doesn’t know anything other than what he had confided.”

“What a waste.”

Silence came for a moment.

Lloyd’s skin, which was clean off all the blood, was wet with water and gleaming pure white.

As if sprinkled with pearl powder.

Aria was trying to think of something else as she struggled to not give her gaze to that side.

‘Now, not much time left.’

It’s only one month until her coming-of-age.

Aria was healthier than she thought.

By now she should have been as skinny as a skeleton, dying day after day and vomiting blood, but she didn’t.

‘Rather, it seems doubtful that I was time-limited.’

She appears to be a full-fledged, ready-to-become an adult girl on the verge of full bloom.

It was thanks to her consistently eating good herbs. However, even though she was seemingly fine, she did not know when her life would suddenly come to an end.

Because she was still not detoxified.

“Ugh, cough! cough!”

“Aria!”

Like now.

One day, she may collapse without warning.

As Aria suddenly grabbed her neck and coughed, Lloyd reached out his hand to her.

“Are you okay? Where does it hurt? Let’s go to the castle right now…”

Lloyd lifted her up in an instant.

She tried to avert her gaze, but now she ended up inadvertently feeling his skin.

Aria mumbled as she covered her eyes with her palm.

“No, I just got choked.”

“…Really?”

Lloyd narrowed his eyes and asked suspiciously. Only when Aria nodded her head with sincerity, did he sighed.

He said as he laid her down again on the bed.

“You promised me that you would show yourself unconditionally when you are sick.”

“No, this isn’t… it’s not like that.”

It’s just that she got choked while swallowing her saliva because of Lloyd.

Aria turned her head with a blushing face.

She didn’t think he would be right in front of her eyes like that, which is why she suddenly swallowed her saliva out of the blue.

She has a good sense of sight, hearing, and smell…….

‘Smells like perfume…….’

Normally, she didn’t even care about this.

Today, all of her senses were extremely sensitive.

“Dry your hair. You’ll catch a cold.”

Lloyd gave her an absurd look, wondering who was worried about whom, when she said that.

And there was silence for a moment.

He rubbed the corners of his lips with the towel that covered his head and licked his lips slowly.

“I want you to dry it.”

What? Aria lifted her head in surprise.

Lloyd wasn’t smiling like he was making fun of Aria. But he also didn’t frown like he used to when he’s shy.

“Like the rabbit said, I might catch a cold.”

He just looked down at her with serious eyes without any expression.

He sat down on his knees in front of her when she sat on the bed.

In an instant, the eye level dropped sharply. Aria lowered her gaze.

Lloyd took the hand on her lap and tilted his head, placing it on his own head.

“Hmm?”

Asking her back as if urging her. Aria looked down at him, possessed, and she moved her hand slowly.

In silence, only the rustling of Lloyd’s hair under the towel was heard.

“Lloyd.”

“Yes.”

“Your body is all wet too…”

She was telling him to put on some clothes.

Lloyd just looked up at her without saying a word.