* * *
It looked like Duke Kalinos’s sword might slice Duke Reshaniel in half at any second. I clenched my fists, excitement bubbling up. Well, this might actually be nice. For a moment, I was tempted to just let it all end here. Wouldn’t it be great if we wrapped things up like this? But letting it end like this would be a loss. I’d taken way too much damage because of that mosquito b*stard to let him off this easily.
Even in the middle of this, Duke Reshaniel didn’t so much as flinch. He just stared straight at me, not a hair’s breadth of wavering in his gaze. Which meant he had some kind of counter ready.
I shook my head inwardly, then reached out and grabbed Duke Kalinos’s hand. “Stop it. It’s not like we’re actually going to kill here anyway.” My voice was thick with hatred.
Duke Kalinos murmured quietly. “No. If I aim for a vital point, with a bit of luck, I might be able to kill him.”
Duke Reshaniel shifted, as if to dodge. His clothes came slightly askew.
“No, I’ll deal with him.” I tapped Duke Kalinos’s sword with my hand, then stepped forward and glared at Reshaniel. “Duke Reshaniel, I was thinking I’d tell you why I hate you.”
“…You want to tell me… why you hate me?”
“First. That bouquet you brought isn’t a golden ratio bouquet.”
At the words ‘golden ratio,’ confusion flooded Duke Reshaniel’s face, while Duke Kalinos’s lips curved in a soft smile.
“Second. You’re ugly. Uglier than the mini trolls at the Kalinos territory.”
I’d tried to exorcise him the same way I had with Marquis Berto, but of course, this was Duke Reshaniel I was dealing with. He stared straight into my eyes, looking puzzled, and said, “But don’t you love me?”
Yeah. I knew he’d go there. He had to be at least more shameless than Marquis Berto to make ignoring him feel satisfying.
I blinked and answered in the most innocent, preschooler voice I could muster. “Nope, I don’t love you. Not even a little. I totally hate you. And now I’m thinking I’m just gonna stop caring about you at all.”
The moment I switched to that pre-kindergarten tone, a tiny crack appeared at the corner of his mouth before it smoothed back into warmth. “I see. It seems you can’t express your true feelings properly with the Duke Kalinos at your side.”
“No, that’s not it.” I could feel heat rushing straight to my head in sheer frustration… “What kind of sh*tty brick wall is this?” …Ah. That was supposed to stay in my head, but it slipped right out of my mouth.
The instant I said it, Duke Reshaniel’s lips twisted, and somehow my mood calmed right back down.
I turned my head to look at Duke Kalinos. “Let’s go. He’s not even worth talking to anymore.” I forcibly tugged at Duke Kalinos’s unmoving arm. But just then, knife-like words I couldn’t ignore came flying at my back.
“If you’re not by my side, you’ll only end up miserable.”
My body stopped on its own.
“You make the people around you unhappy. Think about it. Your parents are dead, and you’re leeching off someone else’s family to survive.”
I can’t take this anymore. In that instant, I lunged and grabbed for his throat, only managing to seize his collar, and yanked him toward me. “Get lost. Before I kill you.”
Duke Reshaniel clearly hadn’t expected me to grab him by the collar. His face twisted in surprise.
I was about to shove him away again when I froze. Right by my ear, I heard the faint sound of something brushing against his collar. I focused my gaze on it. It was a plain stone necklace. The kind of thing I would normally have ignored and walked right past. Any other time, I would’ve just wondered why on earth Duke Reshaniel was wearing a necklace made of some random stone, and left it at that. But this time was different.
That stone, isn’t that the lucky stone? My eyes flew wide. Why the hell does he have a lucky stone?
I felt it instinctively. The moment my gaze landed on the lucky stone, his expression had twisted in a strange way. He hastily shoved me away, then slowly straightened his clothes and looked back at me.
I stared up at him, deliberately provoking him, then shifted my glare to the nape of his neck, now tightly hidden as if nothing were there. I really need to find out why that mosquito b*stard has a lucky stone. My gut told me this was definitely not normal.
And just then, while the standoff was still dragging on, his aide, who’d been hovering uselessly in the distance, finally hurried over.
“Y-Your Grace. Fo-Forgive me, but there is something urgent I must report…”
“I’m in the middle of dealing with something important.”
“M-My apologies, but…”
I stared openly at the two of them, both flustered. At the aide’s words, a faint line appeared between Reshaniel’s brows. I couldn’t tell exactly what the report was about, but there was only one thing that could make that b*stard show even that much emotion. The sanctuary. So news about the sanctuary had reached their ears too. Before I knew it, my lips were curling into a slanted, mocking smile.
Duke Reshaniel watched me and murmured. “…I’ll come again another time. Then, it will be a private audience with just the two of us, with no one else at your side.” He glanced down at the bouquet as if it were nothing, then tossed it to the floor. He was clearly dumping trash, and yet, because the one doing it was Duke Reshaniel, the gesture somehow looked elegant.
I silently watched the flowers that had fallen to the ground and his back as he walked away. Only then did my heart grow colder, harder. Right. He’s always treated me like that bouquet. When he needed me, I was like a noble flower. But when he didn’t, I was treated like a piece of trash on the street.
I looked at the bouquet he’d held out to me, now lying on the ground, and lifted my foot. Crunch.
“Ju-Just like you do for the other ladies, could you give me just a single f-flower…?”
“Goodness, Giselle. If it ever becomes necessary, I’ll give you one, so don’t cry.”
…He’d never given me one. Not once. And now that it looks like I might finally slip out of his grasp, he suddenly rushes in with flowers? Coward.
After I’d ground the bouquet under both feet, a rush of satisfaction flooded me. I bit down hard on my lips and glared at Duke Reshaniel’s receding back. Still, that conversation with that b*stard did get me one piece of information that looks like a weakness.
The lucky stone. I definitely need to investigate it. With that thought, I turned my head, and from far off, I felt a chilling gaze on me. The three men I’d told to meditate so they could calm down, Garno, Neslan, and Count Florette, were walking toward me with an ominous air.
* * *
The moment I stepped into the Florette Mansion, I nearly got smacked on the back.
“When you meet that b*stard, you don’t sit there and talk to him! You kick him right in the balls. Here. Right here. Got it, Giselle?”
“You’ve said that about ten times already.”
“I have. Huff… First, drink some cold water.” Count Florette kept fanning himself with his hand. He ground his teeth and muttered, “And that kidnapping incident too! You pretend to be Wot and get yourself kidnapped like that! That won’t do! Right? From now on, don’t ever pretend to be Wot again!”
“Yes…” I was sitting there with my shoulders hunched, getting chewed out nonstop, when a loud clatter came from where Neslan and Garno were sitting, watching me with these worried looks.
Thud. All sorts of magical devices slipped from Neslan’s startled hands and scattered across the floor.
“D-Did I hear that right, in-law?”
“Huh? Ah, you didn’t know? I see. I just assumed you knew, like Lord Garno…”
“Hmm? You didn’t know? Ah, come to think of it, I only just found out myself.”
My jaw dropped. W-What the? How did Garko know I’m Wot?
Tears welled up in Neslan’s eyes, then fell to the floor with a soft plop. “T-The child who he-healed me…”
And I thought I was doomed.
“Y-You will fo-forever…”
…Instinctively, I knew. If I heard the rest of Neslan’s sentence, something would be permanently irreversible.
“I’ll disappear forever and then return later, yes.”
I shot to my feet and started to step back, but then froze. Behind me was the solid body of Duke Kalinos. His arm came around me, and he murmured quietly.
“Wife, where do you think you’re going?”
Comments (0)