CH 66

“But why do I have to give up everything and sell out the Marquisate of Lateran?”

Greta didn’t take it lightly. She raised questions as she weighed which option would be more profitable for her.

Eristella answered without pausing as if she expected it.

“Since this has happened, nothing can be changed through the usual boring methods. You know there is no other way than reckless and extreme actions.”

“Coming from the princess who drove me here.”

Greta glared at Eristella resentfully.

“You brought it upon yourself.”

Eristella cut the line.

If Greta hadn’t done everything she did, the situation wouldn’t have gotten this far.

It was then. Greta’s stiff face slowly changed, and she raised the corners of her mouth in a shady manner.

“Right. As Your Highness believes… I have never followed my father wholeheartedly for one moment.”

“…….”

“It was only for my own sake that I followed my father’s orders.”

Suddenly, Greta’s eyes turned red.

“At least having money gives me strength.”

“…….”

“It’s not enough to have an affair even before I was born. With money, I can get away from the person who made my mother sick and caused her to die. That’s how I can have my own power.”

Greta, who had been speaking out of her anger, suddenly fell silent, then calmed her agitation, and spoke slowly.

“I wanted to be the next head of Lateran. Because that’s how I get my revenge.”

Eristella heard about the complicated family history of the Marquisate of Lateran.

The current Marquis of Lateran was Greta’s father, who had remarried shortly after her mother’s death.

And, the existence of Greta’s sister who was her age caused a huge scandal at the time.

Surprisingly, however, Greta maintained a strong external relationship with her sister, who is the same age as herself, so people simply dismissed it as a one-time scandal.

But in reality, it wasn’t.

Greta was struggling to survive and find her place in her family.

“I’ve held her dirty hands several times because of that.”

Greta clasped her own hands. And she murmured self-deprecatingly.

“I smiled at Layla, who often insulted me and my mother, and laughed like I was slow.”

Rather, she even took care of Layla with the utmost ‘sincerity’.

“At that time, I only imagined one thing. At last, taking over everything. I thought that if I looked down at those humans and imagined revenge, I would be able to endure this humiliation.”

It was the ending she always dreamed of.

She believed blindly that day would come. However, not everyone can reach the future they dreamed of.

Watching Greta’s face slowly distort, Eristella quietly listened.

“But… It’s all over. I thought I could trample on someone to get what I wanted.”

In the end, because of that, she collapsed before she got what she wanted.

Ironically, the person who gave her another chance was the princess.

With a complicated gaze and convoluted heart, Greta faced Eristella.

“I thought of a few ways to revive myself while I was locked in my room. The least likely of them was your existence. But you came to me like this.”

Greta squeezed her hand tightly and then opened it. There was nothing in her outstretched palm.

“Everything disappeared… What’s there to be afraid of about an offer like this?”

In an instant, Greta’s eyes changed.

She didn’t blink, but instead gave a vexing smile.

With such a poised appearance, she seemed more confident than hesitant.

In fact, it seemed she had intended to accept the offer from the beginning. There was even a shadow of anticipation on her face.

*******

Eristella quietly left the residence of the Marquisate of Lateran and returned to the grand ducal residence

Immediately, she told Sonia and Charlotte the agreement she had made with Greta.

“Can we trust Lady Greta? Even if she’s sincere now, she could suddenly change her mind.”

Charlotte carefully brought out a point of concern.

Considering all that Greta Lateran had done up until now, her concern was justified.

“Why don’t you rather attach someone to see who she meets?”

“I also think that would be good. It’s something you never know.”

Sonia and Charlotte continued to worry about Greta’s potential change of heart.

Turning her gaze to Heinricion, he nodded slightly as if he was thinking the same thing.

Eristella, who was lost in her thoughts for a while at the advice of the three, slowly opened her mouth and uttered,

“She probably won’t change her mind.”

Eristella reasoned with them.

The person who was most outraged by Greta’s atrocities was Eristella. The person who didn’t trust her the most was also Eristella.

‘Yet, the most important moment.’

Eristella, too, had planned to keep an eye on Greta until the end, even before the deal concluded today.

But the Greta she saw today was wholly determined.

The kind of ending that awaits after the fall of the Marquisate of Lateran was Greta’s choice.

If she wanted to, she could take Lateran.

But the marquisate would be in a state of tatters that any sane person would never want.

It would no longer be able to keep its status even as a nominal marquisate.

All that would remain would be an empty shell of a name, disgraced and stigmatized.

Besides, the lady would have the dishonor of sticking a knife into her family.

If Greta wanted to avoid all of that, she had a chance.

‘Before accepting the offer, if she had put some of her conditions in it, I might have accepted about half of them.’

Greta Lateran was clever in such a way.

However, she quickly accepted the offer.

As if it didn’t matter what would happen after that.

That appearance of Greta remained strangely in Eristella’s mind like an afterimage. After contemplating, Eristella slowly parted her lips.

“That much… Let’s believe in her.”

In a desperate moment where she might not be able to save the emperor if things went wrong, Eristella chose to trust Greta Lateran for the first time.

“If you judge it like that, then I believe you.”

Heinricion respected Eristella’s wishes. He didn’t trust Greta Lateran, but trusted Eristella’s choice.

It was pure faith, without any conditions.

‘Come to think of it, Greta had been my lady-in-waiting for several years.’

‘I didn’t expect her to be like that.’

When Eristella guessed what awl Greta had in her…

Eristella just thought it was to push out the family members Greta didn’t want to admit and take over the family.

She did not see the sorrow in the abyss deeper than that.

For Greta, she had only one true family member. And the place where the piercing feelings of losing her only family were headed… It was not the honor of the marquisate.

‘Maybe she wasn’t interested.’

Eristella had preconceived notions about Greta Lateran.

Bitterness lingered on Eristella’s lips.

*******

Lately, Marquis Brandon Lateran had been on edge. The entire Marquisate of Lateran was embroiled in a scandal due to an incident that happened a while ago, and there were not only one or two things to worry about.

Besides, it was black magic.

It was cleared up as a misunderstanding, but Marquis Lateran broke into a cold sweat.

If just one thing had gone wrong and an investigation against them started… 

It would have been dangerous.

The marquis’s face contorted.

‘She’s been doing her part well, so I thought she was useful, but she made that kind of mistake. It’s pathetic.’

Greta was afraid that the princess had appeared as a ghost, so she made such a mistake.

Lately, he had been reminded of Greta’s arrogance, which made her even more unlikeable.

‘Still, thanks to this incident, I realized something.’

There was a need to organize all the traces in case something like this happened in the future.

“Huh, it’s a pity to throw away the things I’ve recorded so far…”

It was all insurance for later, but that didn’t matter now.

In any case, if they were discovered, their position within the empire would be threatened, as well as by the black wizards.

“…It can’t be helped.”

However, no matter how stealthily they were handled, traces other than physical evidence could not be completely erased.

Above all, the biggest problem was the people who knew that he was involved in black magic.

‘My daughter, Greta. She knows.’

That was why it was even more dangerous.

In the meantime, he had a lot of fun doing business with the information he got from the princess’s palace through Greta and auctioning the items at a premium.

And through that process, he contacted the black wizard and exchanged necessities.

Greta knew nothing about it, but she had already been involved in dealings with black wizards.

So there was also a risk that Greta would soon become evidence.