Chapter 152

Julia walks away.

Tia, bewildered by the lack of understanding, tightly holds onto her hand.

However, the Duke can only stare at her back.

He couldn’t bring himself to chase her or to stop her.

Though it would have been easy for the Duke to bring Julia back, he still couldn’t take a step.

‘Dirtied…’

Julia’s words, spoken in a shaky voice just moments ago, echoed incessantly in the Duke’s mind.

It wasn’t a trivial statement.

It wasn’t a feigned act of hatred towards the Duke, nor was it an intentionally hurtful comment.

It was a word that came purely from her heart.

“Ah…”

How did it end up like this?

Surely today was supposed to be a good day.

His relationship with Julia had improved significantly, developing to the point of light physical contact.

He thought only a happy future awaited them.

Yet how did it come to this…

“Ahahahahaha!”

“……”

At that moment, a disturbing laugh erupted from deeper within the forest.

Only then did he realize whose doing all of this might be.

Veins throbbed on the Duke’s forehead.

Regaining his senses, he found himself striding towards the forest.

In the middle of the woods stood a woman, laughing as if she had lost her mind.

The Duke immediately charged at her and grabbed her by the neck.

“Cough! Gack…!”

“How dare you! How could you…!”

Fifty years ago on that day.

He had spared a brash youth who had attacked during his winter slumber.

When he asked him to stop fighting and to confront the Demon King’s army instead, the Duke had scoffed, but seeing the earnestness in his request, he relented.

Even fifty years later, when he had been granted a strategic weapon for himself, he had generously forgiven him.

So he thought he had given up by now.

He believed no one could be foolish enough to make the same mistake four times.

He never thought a human could be this foolish.

“I should have killed you long ago!”

Tightening his grip, the Duke’s nails dug into Leopard’s flesh.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t thought of killing Leopard.

He had even contemplated burying the little brat and the hero who sensed the secret entirely.

But soon he abandoned the thought.

It wasn’t out of affection.

It was because he feared Julia would be saddened.

That alone was the reason.

For the Duke, Julia and Tia had always come first.

He believed the same would be true for Leopard and that little brat.

If they prioritized Julia, they wouldn’t be able to tell her the truth.

However, there was one thing the Duke had overlooked…

“Cough, ack… Now this… is a sight to behold, Schwarz…”

From Leopard’s perspective, Julia, living unaware of the truth, didn’t look particularly happy.

Julia, plunged into deep despair upon learning the truth.

Julia, living happily and smiling without knowing the truth.

It was hard to judge which side was more tragic, but it was certain that neither side represented a happy life.

If there was no happiness in either circumstance, Leopard had no reason to follow reason anymore.

He followed his emotions, acting led by revenge and hatred.

The result was what lay before them.

“Damn it! Damn it…!”

“Cough, ack! Hahaha!”

Leopard, despite being choked, wore a pale face, producing grotesque laughter.

The Duke, overtaken by rage, gradually increased his grip.

This was the first time he had been so severely swayed by his emotions.

Perhaps he was swept away by a stronger current of feeling than when he first saw Julia.

Yet the Duke was no longer the same as he was back then.

“Ugh… Hah, why…?”

“……”

Now, he had learned to control his emotions.

He no longer surrendered to instinct.

Since he had learned to restrain himself after feeling such an overwhelmingly strong desire for the first time.

Freed from the Duke’s powerful grasp, Leopard took a breath and looked up at him with a puzzled expression.

Killing Leopard wouldn’t change anything.

If there was no reason to kill him, then he shouldn’t.

Because Julia would be sad…

“Are you satisfied, Leopard?”

“……”

Leopard slowly nodded.

But he was no longer smiling at all.

His face was sorrowful.

Before long, Leopard’s expression began to resemble the Duke’s.

“Get lost. Go to Julia. Take care of her instead of me…”

“……”

Julia gets lonely easily.

She needs someone she can lean on by her side.

Now, the Duke could no longer stand beside Julia.

Though it was distasteful and unwilling, he had no choice.

He had no option but to let Leopard live and send him to Julia.

“……”

Soon, Leopard rubbed his neck, stood up, and quietly passed by the Duke.

The Duke suppressed the impulse to kill Leopard right then and there, trembling with a rage that would not subside.

“Damn it…”

He loathed himself.

The thought that all of this was not justifiable anger, but mere venting of frustration grew stronger.

Ultimately, it all began with his own deception.

If he hadn’t assaulted Julia in the first place.

If he had found Julia and taken responsibility for her sooner.

If he hadn’t deceived her and Tia, none of this would have happened.

“It’s all… my fault…”

He thought incorrectly.

He had assumed it was okay as long as he didn’t get caught.

In the end, he would have to pay for it like this.

The struggles up to now had merely cultivated pain to delay that future a little longer.

He just realized that.

Blood tears streamed from the Duke’s eyes.

*

“Shall we sleep here tonight?”

“……Mmm.”

After walking for what felt like ages, we reached an inn.

I checked into the smallest room with Tia.

Tia no longer asked me where we were going or why we were leaving.

Though she had asked me several times along the way, I ignored them all.

‘What should I explain…’

I was in the same quandary again.

I had no idea how to tell Tia.

It drove me insane to think about telling her that she was an unwanted child born from a rape.

Yet now I had to reveal that the rapist was, in fact, her Uncle Duke, who had been looking after her all along.

It felt too harsh.

For both Tia and me.

Just thinking that such difficult things only seemed to happen to us made my heart ache.

“I’m sleepy. Let’s just sleep. After a nap… once I gather my thoughts, I’ll tell you something. Sleep well.”

“Mmm.”

“……Do you want to sleep in my arms?”

“……”

Tia shook her head for a moment but then froze.

It seemed she looked at my face.

Her expression suggested she might burst into tears at any moment.

Truthfully, I was the one who wanted to hold her.

“Mmm. I want to sleep in mom’s arms…”

“Okay. That’s right. Come here. I’ll hold you.”

As if she sensed the truth of the situation, Tia quietly came into my embrace.

Warm.

Heavy.

Suffocating.

And adorable.

I pressed my lips against the top of Tia’s head and tried my best to calm the turmoil within me.

‘Do I really… have to explain…?’

As Tia closed her eyes and began to drift off, that thought surfaced.

It wasn’t that I was making excuses out of fear of speaking.

This was truly something Tia neither wanted to know nor needed to know.

Considering that she would live her life believing she was my adopted daughter, I had no choice but to tell her about the secret of her birth.

But this was irrelevant.

It was something she could do without knowing.

Nothing beneficial would come from knowing about it.

Let’s consider it as if it never happened.

Until now, Tia has lived just fine without her father, right?

Knowing that trash was her father would be far worse than growing up without one.

Objectively speaking, it made sense.

‘Let’s just forget it.’

The time spent in the villa will be wiped clean from our lives.

Initially, Duke Dragania, or that lizard bastard, never existed in our lives.

That’s how it must be.

Let’s completely forget.

Even now, that bastard is probably watching me gloomily, but it’s okay.

That bastard can’t chase me anymore.

If he intended to catch me, he would have done so long ago.

He seems to have decided to let me escape.

“Ugh…”

At that moment, I spotted something faintly shining in the darkness and almost choked.

The ring on my left hand.

It was the betrothal ring.

Startled, I hastily threw the ring away into the corner of the room.

“Ha… Ha…”

I was filled with chills.

I almost married that scum.

I nearly became eternally bound by that contract.

My astonished heart would not calm down.

“I need to sleep…”

With Tia’s warm breaths as a lullaby, I forced myself to try to sleep.

I had to wake up early tomorrow and embark on a long journey again.

I want to live as far away from the Duke as possible.

“Haah…”

Yet, every time I tried to fall asleep, flashes sparked in my mind, causing my body to shudder.

Memories of the past flickered by like a parade.

The horrific dragon that had violated me, digging into my skin.

The Duke who had smothered my mouth and taken me.

And the Duke smiling kindly as he reached out to me.

Thinking that they were the same person, realizing it was all a deception made it hard for me to breathe.

My heart raced, my head spun, and pain coursed through my body.

When I opened my eyes, my vision was unfocused, and when they were closed, flashes appeared.

“Ugh, ughhh…”

I immediately threw off the blanket, leaped over the foxes strewn across the floor, and rushed to the bathroom.

Clutching the toilet, vomit spewed out.

Even then, my insides felt as if they hadn’t improved at all.

Looking in the mirror revealed a corpse-like figure of a haggard woman.

It was the first time I had seen the Holy Maiden in such a state.

“Ahahaha!”

A hollow laugh escaped.

I was a Holy Maiden.

It’s as if I’m talking about someone else’s story.

But it’s my story…

---