CH 64

It was hard to breathe out. Charlotte struggled and took only a few steps, but eventually she fell forward.

“What the…”

Plop! 

There was a pretty loud noise and dust on the dry ground flew around. However, the fallen person could not even scream out the pain.

“Uh……”

Her whole throat was dry. The inside of the mouth was already numb, and the throat was stinging as if it was being rubbed with sandpaper.

Charlotte’s blonde hair, which was once managed well, flowed by and flew around randomly. Dry blond hair, mixed with dust, had long lost its old color.

‘Am I going to die like this?’

Despair hung over the misty green eyes. Charlotte remembered those who had lost all their strength and abandoned themselves.

Knights who disappeared leaving only the carriage and gold. They must have known how dangerous this desolate field was. But nevertheless, they left her alone.

‘…he tried to kill me in the first place.’

When she thought how he had abandoned her with the intention of killing her, her anger rose and she felt a little encouraged. It’s not like he could just kill her, like this……. Charlotte, who opened her eyes, gritted her teeth thinking of two days ago.

“You punks who are leaving me here! You’ll see when Miguel becomes the Duke later! I’ll cut your heads off and let the birds peck your bodies to pieces!”

When Edgar and the knights below him left her alone, Charlotte couldn’t do anything with a golden chest wrapped in her arms. Heavy gold was made up of long and large chunks, making it difficult to lift even one lump properly.

However, she couldn’t leave the gold behind. Charlotte kept cursing those who she thought had put her in this difficult situation without even leaving the horses even though it was getting dark and she was thirsty.

And such an action hastened Charlotte’s misfortune that was still coming.

‘I should have killed her and her baby! That Duchess position is mine! Since she have escaped, she should never have come back.’

The desert where Charlotte was abandoned was the boundary between the northern Anais Empire and the land of barbarians, which turned into a brutal battlefield when the empire overthrew the barbarians. However, when there was no punitive expedition, the wilderness used to be a lawless place where criminals, barbarians, or mercenaries who were expelled from the empire hung around.

“I’m the woman who gave birth to the successor of the Duke! How dare you look at me with those eyes? Leaving me here? Miguel, be a Duke, and I’ll…… Huh, who are you!”

Charlotte’s swearing and shouting brought attention to those in the wilderness. They looked at the fancy carriage from afar and were on guard. But after a long time, they slowly began to approach. And as soon as they judged that there was no one guarding the wagon and Charlotte, they suddenly turned into a band of thieves.

It was unnatural for a flock of bandits aiming for a wagon to find a chest filled with gold and opened their eyes wide. They forgot Charlotte who was threatening them and rushed to get the gold they got by chance.

“No! That’s mine! It’s all mine! Get your hands off of me, you scruffy asshole! Get your hands off me!”

At first Charlotte stopped them fearlessly at the thought of losing her gold. But the men easily subdued Charlotte, and once they had calmed their excitement for gold to some extent, they glanced at her.

“St, stay away from me! Don’t come! You useless things!”

Although dusty, Charlotte was beautiful, and they were the lowest human beings living in the wilderness, who would not hesitate to kidnap and sell women. Charlotte was able to regain her fear and shake off her desire for gold only after they caught her and tied her hands and feet.

“I’m the… Duchess, Duchess. I can’t die in a place like this…….”

It was pure luck that Charlotte was able to escape from them. Just before exploiting Charlotte, the bandits began to fight each other over sharing gold. Charlotte managed to untie the rope and get out of the way when knives began to hit here and there, fists come and go, and blood was pouring in.

But can we say that she was lucky? Nothing remained of Charlotte, who escaped the bandits. There was no gold full of big boxes, no fancy carriage, or even shoes.

Still, life was more important than anything else, so Charlotte ran and gasped. She was afraid that the men would come to catch her at any moment. But the flight, which began without eating or drinking anything, drastically gnawed at her physical strength.

Charlotte collapsed two days after being abandoned in the wilderness. And now she was dying.

“S, save me….”

Under her tangled hair, her rake-like hands came out slowly and tore the grass right in front of her. The grass, which grew in the desolate and dry land, was easily pulled out, but Charlotte’s hand could not even do it.

As if it was the last moment of her life, a drop of tears moistened her eyes and fell down. Charlotte bit her dry lips as she recalled her poor life.

“I’m not going! I don’t want to go, Dad!”

It was a life of exploitation from birth. Her mother abandoned her, and her father sold her, when she was only eight. No one in the world gave anything to her, let alone embrace her.

“Isn’t that Sally’s ring?”

“It’s mine now.”

“Hey! Sally said she broke her head. No way.….”

So Charlotte saw that all the actions and thoughts she had done were justified. She had to take away what she likes because others took her things away. You should not have held what you had in your hand, and you should take what you see in other people’s hands, win it, and enjoy it as if it were yours. That’s the definition she knows, the way to live the world.

‘I didn’t do anything wrong. She! And her son took everything from me. It’s what I deserve, but she took it from me.’

Charlotte breathed heavily and poured all kinds of curses on Herace, Erzen, and Ezekiel. She lost everything and she was dying like this because of them. She (Herace) was going crazy to think that she and her son (Erzen) would be laughing at her (Charlotte) and taking her son’s place.

‘It’s unfair. I’m going crazy because it’s unfair. It’s unfair. It’s unfair. It’s unfair. I’m like this and they’re…….’

The injustice reached its peak. Charlotte opened her eyes wide instead of her immobile body. Bloodshot eyes grew to the limit. If she stopped breathing like this, her expression would harden like this when she dies and be left in the wilderness.

But instead of death, another guest came to Charlotte. The bug, with its curious golden eyes, landed right in front of Charlotte and made eye contact with her.

[……mother, my poor mother.]

Charlotte’s eyes trembled at the familiar voice, and her lips rose upward as if she had heard something pleasant. Charlotte answered ‘It’ with her dry mouth open.

“All, all right, you damn monster.”

The bug flapped its wings several times as if it understood her iron scratching voice. And when the bug flew away leaving the wilderness behind…….

Charlotte had disappeared, too.

***

Erzen climbed onto the bed with a sullen face as he watched the clouds in the dark sky. Then the nanny next to him advised him and covered the child with a blanket.

“Summer is coming soon, but it’s still chilly at night. You have to sleep well under the blanket.”

The child nodded roughly and turned his head away. He was still young, but he vaguely knew that the attitude of adults in the castle, as well as the middle-aged woman who has become his nanny now, changed at some point, not because they didn’t care about him.

“Okay, go to bed now. If anything happens, please call me.”

The nanny, who noticed that Erzen was not very happy with her, hesitated a little with a disappointed look and stepped back. Erzen clasped the blanket tightly when he heard the door closing.

“Mom…”

Herace didn’t come at all. Erzen, who waited for his mother from the afternoon until late at night, began to sniffle in disappointment.

Can’t we see each other again for a while? Is she in a strange house over that hole again? Or did I cry a lot so she went away? All sorts of thoughts stirred the child’s small head.

‘If I cry a lot, won’t Mom come? My mom always came to me when I cried.’

Erzen shook his small head, thinking as if he would burst into tears right now.

‘No. Then my Mom will cry too.’

The child knew. That when he cries, his mother cries, too. He missed his mother, but he didn’t want her to be sad. Erzen rolled himself up in a ball and quickly wiped away the tears that were leaking.

When he straightened his body to force himself to sleep, there was a scary and dull sound that rumbled from a distance. Erzen shrank his neck to a sound similar to the sound of a beast, and the light flashed at the moment.

“Uh, Mom……”

Thanks to a few experiences, the child knew the existence of thunder. Soon that distant sound would come closer and lightning would flash more frequently.

But knowing didn’t mean he wasn’t afraid. Erzen sang Herace’s name a few more times, and when he realized that his mother would not come, he covered himself with the blanket to the top of his head. As soon as he covered his eyes, he could hear the thunder one step closer. Erzen covered his ears and closed his eyes tightly.

It was when her vision adjusted to the darkness. He thought the window was rattling, and the wind was swaying the curtains. And at the same time, a familiar voice crept into his ears.

“Erzen.”

“Hey? Brother Miguel?”

Erzen was delighted by the familiar voice and lowered the blanket. The sparkling eyes of the child were full of joy.

“Hello.”

As expected, Miguel was sitting right next to the bed. But Erzen’s expression turned pale as soon as he saw Miguel.

The blue eyes trembled with fear. Miguel was calm even though Erzen’s whole body hardened when he saw him.

The golden eyes flashed more curiously at the lightning. ‘It’ propped up its chin with its long nails and showed off its sharp teeth. The long red tongue fluttered, disturbing Erzen’s view, and a gentle voice came out.

“I’ve come to ask you the favor you promised me, Erzen.”

“Ah……Ah……”.”

‘It’ bent its eyes like a crescent moon and distorted its four vertically torn pupils. Erzen trembled and pointed his finger at it, and it snatched Erzen’s wrist with its scaly, disgusting hand.

“Will you give me one thing as you promised me that time? Huh?”

It was mellow, but there was also a hint of urging. The strength of Erzen’s wrist became stronger and the child’s hand became white. Erzen was terrified and couldn’t say anything, shaking and screaming, he said.

“I don’t wanna!”