CH 5

Adenmir narrowed the gap between his eyebrows without realizing it. It didn’t feel real, perhaps because it was a story he had never thought about.

‘Are you serious?’ He thought skeptically.

Elodie covered her cheeks with both hands and avoided Adenmir’s prying gaze. “It’s so embarrassing to say,” she murmured in a shy voice.

Suddenly, her cheeks, which were dyed red, caught his eyes. Her cheeks were so red that he wondered why he didn’t notice until now.

“You can’t have someone else on your mind if you have a fiancé,”Elodie continued.

It didn’t seem to be a told lie. Elodie Perdia that he knew was a woman who could not tell a lie. She’d rather be angry and violent than deceitful.

It is said that no one can change overnight, so what she was saying must be the truth….

For some reason, in an unhappy mood, Adenmir asked casually. “Who is the counterpart in this crush?”

“Should I tell you about that, Your Highness?” When Elodie opened her pretty eyes wide and asked again, Adenmir felt like he was stabbed.

“…. No.”

There was no reason to say who you liked.

Even if the interlocutor is a fiancé.

“Anyway, that’s why I can’t keep my engagement to you anymore.”

Elodie tried to lift the teacup and put it back down.

Seeing Elodie’s fingertips tremble like mad, Adenmir speculated that she was nervous.

There was no way the teacup could be heavy.

“When are you going to hand in the divorce papers?” She asked.

Adenmir looked at Elodie’s lips, which always seemed to be talking about breaking up.

‘Break up of marriage, it’s a broken marriage.’

There was nothing that could not be done.

Elodie Perdia was not suited to become an empress, so it was Adenmir’s task to think about what to do when he became emperor in the future.

It was rather a good thing.

She said she would leave on her own and there was no reason to refuse.

Since Elodie mentioned breaking up the marriage first, the Duke of Perdia will not be able to pass the blame on him. That way they can keep their political relationship intact.

But – 

‘Why don’t I want to do it?’ Adenmir furrowed his brow once more as he contemplated this question. 

‘I don’t want to listen to my fiancée’s wishes. She only talks about breaking up the marriage like a parrot.’

The bizarre and sudden opposition to their marriage seemed to come out of nowhere.

He stared at his fiancée, who seemed more impatient than usual.

As expected, it was doubtful.

Saying that you have a crush on someone out of nowhere and talking about breaking up marriage right after.

No matter how much Adenmir thought about it, the greedy Elodie Perdia was not someone to give up the position of empress.

Adenmir watched Elodie carefully. He saw something he hadn’t seen before.

She was in a cold sweat, as if something had been poking her.

He had heard rumors that she had visited the Duke of Perdia everyday to beg to be betrothed to him, and he had already known her feelings when he agreed to the engagement.

It can’t be so easy to break up a marriage after all that.

It was clear that she still had a crush on him, too. Adenmir was convinced.

‘There’s no way she’s going to give up her position as the future empress,’ he decided smugly in his head.

“Princess.”

“Yes, your Highness….” Elodie’s voice was so small and muddled, it sounded as if it was crawling out of her. 

Come to think of it, she couldn’t even raise her face properly.

Adenmir spit out the question he had been harboring all along.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“…….What?”

“If you’re trying to get my attention like this, you’d better stop.”

“……Okay?”

Adenmir, who saw Elodie looking at him with a pale face that had previously been red, got up from his seat.

“There is nothing that can prevent you from breaking up the marriage if you wish, but it’s not a matter to be decided in a hurry….it would be better to discuss it again later.” He threw out his words coldly, gazing down at the still-seated Elodie. 

“………..”

“It would be better to talk about that at the emperor’s – rather, your potential father-in-law’s – birthday banquet, as we talked about earlier in a letter.”

“…………”

Elodie, who said nothing, began holding her head and slumped down in her seat.

‘Are you trying to attract attention by pretending to be sick? It’s not even funny.’ He had no intention to fall for such a farce. Adenmir, who didn’t want to be played, headed to the door.

It was then.

Thud.

Adenmir turned his head to an unusual sound from behind, and saw Elodie collapsed on the floor, helpless.

“Princess?” He called skeptically. 

‘Are you acting like you just collapsed?’

With the intention of seeing how far she would go, he crossed his arms and stared at Elodie, who had collapsed.

It wasn’t long before he felt something was wrong.

“…. Princess.”

“………”

“Princess?”

There was no answer.

Adenmir, who walked with a big stride straight towards Elodie, looked at her condition. Her body was like a ball of fire. Her breathing was unstable and cold beads of  sweat rolled down her forehead.

It wasn’t acting, it was real fainting.

“Princess!”

He shook Elodie’s body to wake her up, but he couldn’t rouse her. He narrowed his eyes as he looked at his unconscious fiancée.

“…. Damn it.”

Growing up with the knights from an early age, he rarely had contact with the opposite sex.

His fiancée Elodie was no exception.

At best, it was all about dancing together at the banquet.

His worries about the fallen person in front of him were brief. Adenmir, who took Elodie in his arms, stormed out of the drawing room.

“Hello!”

He walked in the hallway and looked for people, but he couldn’t find a worker walking around in the annex where Elodie stayed.

As if in a haunted mansion!

It was strange.

No matter how illegitimate the only daughter of Duke Perdia is, how can there be no permanent occupants in the building where she is staying?

It was rare for him to personally visit the Perdia family, and when he did, he tended to not notice it on purpose, but that was not now the case.

Regardless, he couldn’t leave the patient alone, so he went into any guest room nearby and laid Elodie down.

“You do all sorts of things,” Adenmir muttered.

He came here to see what Elodie was thinking and to discuss the emperor’s birthday banquet, but something unexpected happened.

As he sighed, he saw a maid passing by through the open door.

In his memory she was the exclusive maid who was always next to Elodie. Her name was Martha.

She was the second worker who came into his sight after stepping into this annex. The first was the worker who had served the tea, but she hadn’t shown her face again since.

“Come here,” he commanded.

“Yes, Your Highness?”

“Your master has collapsed.”

At the words, the worker who glanced inside the guest room nodded as if it was a familiar sight.

“Oh, she collapsed again.”

Adenmir’s eyes widened incredulously. “What?”

“I’m going to call a doctor.”

When Adenmir saw the maid walking backwards, bowing to him politely, it became even more absurd.

‘Oh, you collapsed again, Elodie.’

That’s the reaction to the collapsed master.

He felt like he was losing his mind.

From the fiancée who wants to break up the marriage without revealing what she is thinking, to the situation in this annex – he felt that he didn’t understand at all. 

In any case, he had to wait until the doctor came, so he dragged a chair and sat next to Elodie.

She still wasn’t feeling well, but she didn’t look like she was going to die any time soon.

In the meantime, shame came upon him when he realized that it was his mistake to think Elodie was nervous, with the shaking hands and sweating.

What did he say in front of a sick person?

“Hah…”

As he sighed with a throbbing head, something caught Adenmir´s eyes

“This is….” He didn’t notice because of her long sleeves, but she had a bandage on her arm.

The bandage, which was loosely wrapped, was loosened, and in it…. There was a long, sharp cut.

There was no way that he, who trained every day handling the sword and went to a battlefield, couldn’t recognize the wound.

A stab wound.

Obviously, it was a wound that was cut with a sword. It wasn’t a deep wound, but that wasn’t important.

“Well, what the hell……”

An annex with no resident workers,

The employee who walked away calmly, as if it was an everyday occurrence even though her owner had collapsed.

And a wound on the arm.

Adenmir’s eyes moved to Elodie’s face.

At that moment, the face of his fiancée, whom he had always thought of as boring, looked unfamiliar. 

PHOTO

***

I woke up frowning with a light headache.

“Ugh, my head.”

I didn’t have any strength in my body due to the still-remaining poison, but my body’s condition was much better than before, perhaps because I woke up after sleeping.

Holding my forehead with my left hand, I felt uncomfortable and took my hand off.

Bandage.

While making an antidote, I remembered that I didn’t have to wait if I used my blood instead of water. I accidentally cut my arm with a thread trimmer while trying to poke my finger.

It was probably because of this, combined with Elodie’s weak body that I was still not in good shape days after drinking poison.

The bandage I wrapped around myself was not well wrapped because of my poor skills, but now the bandage on the wound was definitely applied with an expert’s skill.

“He’s an old-fashioned doctor. He said he would never see an illegitimate child and he didn’t come often.”

Although they did not show it openly, there were people in the mansion who hated me as an illegitimate child, and one of them was the doctor of the house of Perdia.

In fact, neglect was a familiar thing, so it was nothing new.

“But where am I? Whose room is this…….?”

When I came to my senses, this bedroom I was in was very unfamiliar.

It seems to be a guest room in the annex, but why am I here?

Then I suddenly realized that I was talking to the First Prince in the drawing room. I could roughly predict the situation; I seemed to have collapsed while talking to the first prince.

Just in time, Martha came inside.

“Miss, you’re up! I brought some lukewarm water. Take your medicine, too.”

Probably Martha wasn’t so surprised at the fact that I collapsed because I’ve been collapsing excessively due to poison in the past few days.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was because they were saying that it was because of the power blooming.

“Yes, but Martha, what about the First Prince?”

“He left as soon as the doctor arrived.”

As expected, I collapsed in front of the first prince.

‘What are you going to do?’

As long as you live, people may fall in front of you.

I swallowed the medicine Martha gave me, taking it lightly.

At any rate, it will be useless because of my power. Whether it is a medicinal drug or poison, it will be purified if it enters my body. Still, if I don’t take it, Martha will be worried.

Rather I’m more curious about how the breakup story ended….

“His Highness told me to deliver this to you when you wake up,” Martha added, handing me a slip of paper.

I read the paper with interest.

[I’ll be at your mansion 30 minutes before the birthday party starts. I’ll see you then.]

“What?”

A strange sound came out of nowhere.

It didn’t make any sense.

“Why don’t you break up our marriage?” I scoffed.

“I don’t know. Could he have a crush on our young lady?”

I snorted and killed the letter by cutting it in half.

“That’s nonsense, Martha.”

In the first place the prince hated our engagement, but he maintained it because of his political interests.

So, if I say I have someone I like, of course I thought the first prince would ask me to break up the marriage. It’s obviously my fault, so he can blame the other person and keep the political interests intact.

The first prince, who insisted on interfering with my independence, was quite annoying, but I decided to put it aside as a priority.

‘It’s okay. We still have a lot of time.’

There are three years left until my sister is adopted, so all I have to do is organize it well.

Preparations for independence are progressing step by step. Until then, let’s save money like hell!

………. I thought.

A few days later, while walking down the hall. I immediately encountered a minor ambush.

“I greet the young lady. Where are you going?”

A familiar face entered my vision. It was a face I have often seen, but it was my first time since I found my memories from my past life.

The moment I saw the face, the sentence from the book came to mind by itself.

[Who would have known? Tector Arold, an aide to the Duke of Perdia, a loyal servant like a dog, would put a sword in the back of the Duke of Perdia.]

Tector Arold.

A future traitor.

And three years later, he would be the human being who swaps the poison during the attempted Estelle poisoning, and then causes us all to discover that I’m not a member by blood of the Perdia Family.