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Sonia was like a precious flower in the greenhouse. She looked at the world with kind and lovely eyes, and the world loved her as if it was repaying her.
Everything surrounding Sonia seemed to exist only for her. The emotions of defeat, jealousy, resentment, and excessiveness that first made her feel this way became poison that changed her inside out.
But despite her pitiful tears, Derivis remained unchanged.
“Don’t call me that anymore. Your despicable actions caused you to lose your friends, both me and Rosalie.”
His gaze remained fixed on Rosalie as he spoke. His affectionate gaze clashed with his cold voice, piercing Sonia like a dagger. Sonia clenched her fists tightly against her chest and shouted desperately.
“Listen to me!”
“The treatment for Rosalie, whom you hurt, is a higher priority.”
Derivis held Rosalie and strode out of the parlor without looking back.
Waiting outside the reception room, Whitney quickly followed Derivis as he carried Rosalie into the carriage.
⊱⊱⊱────── {.⋅ ✧✧✧ ⋅.} ──────⊰⊰⊰
Derivis stepped into the carriage as Whitney hurriedly opened the door and gently set Rosalie down on a chair. He sat down in the chair across from her, and the carriage pulled away.
Rosalie hesitated in the silence of the carriage, filled only with the sound of hooves hitting the ground, before finally speaking.
“I… I didn’t want you to find out about this.”
“Why?”
There was a mix of regret and anger in his questioning voice.
“…Because I didn’t want to see you grieve the loss of a good friend.”
But soon, the sorrow in his blue eyes began to outweigh everything else. Without even realizing it, Rosalie clenched her fists in bitterness as she met his gaze.
“I wish Sonia’s words were true.”
The situation she’d hoped to avoid had arrived, and Rosalie lowered her head with a heavy heart as he spoke.
“You’ll be sad if you lose a friend, and I didn’t want to see that.”
She lifted her head at his words. He seemed unaware of the already strained relationship between the two. With a trembling voice full of complicated emotions, Rosalie asked him:
“Why… why do you prioritize me even in times like this?”
“Well, that’s just how it turned out.”
Although her voice was shaking, Derivis was calm.
“Without realizing it, I find myself thinking only of you and prioritizing you.”
As always, his blue eyes reflected nothing but Rosalie.
“Sonia hasn’t been my friend for a long time. And now, maybe… from now on, I won’t hesitate to attack Sonia.”
Rosalie couldn’t tell what Derivis was thinking when she said those words. She only thought the remaining emotions he had for Sonia might be holding him back. It was definitely not a pleasant feeling.
Hearing Rosalie’s words, Derivis knelt down and gently removed her shoe. Very carefully, he squeezed her tiny foot as if it were fragile glass that could break at any moment.
“I hope there’s no injury on your instep.”
He brought his lips close to her reddened instep. It was almost close enough for his lips to touch. He held his breath as if he might accidentally tickle her painful instep with his breath.
Wanting her would lead to the path that would bring her to a prison-like palace. However, even the reality he remembered from Nathan’s question couldn’t completely suppress his desire for Rosalie.
“You’re so beautiful for moving forward without hesitation. I can’t even take my eyes off you.”
“Derivis…?”
Rosalie’s face flushed slightly at his actions, which seemed like he was kissing her feet. However, there was no answer.
‘And on the other hand, I keep hoping that you’ll rely only on me and ignore all the threats, despite knowing that you won’t do that. This is probably just my greed.’
Derivis slowly raised his lowered head.
“Do whatever you want to.”
‘I’ll make it happen.’
It was a very small desire that he wanted to allow himself. It seemed enough if he could remain helpful to her. He knew that he would be consumed by even greater sorrow if he didn’t allow even this small desire.
At that moment, the carriage stopped. Derivis silently hugged her and carried her to her room without saying a word. Then, he instructed a surprised Emma to call for a healer.
“Get your foot treated properly.”
“Derivis. You can lean on me if it’s too painful to bear. I may not be very good at comforting, but I might be able to help.”
“You’ve already helped me enough.”
Derivis weakly smiled and added that he would send for the ointment before turning and leaving the room.
Rosalie tried to catch him as he left the room with a sad look on his face, but the pain from her foot made her snap back to reality.
‘He probably needs some time alone with everything that’s going on…’
Rosalie just looked at the door he had left through. Later, the healer came and advised that there may be faint scars due to her delicate skin.
After the treatment, Rosalie opened the door to her office. Emma told her to stay put to avoid aggravating her foot, but Rosalie found it too frustrating to stay still.
After a while, there was a knock on the door, and when she gave her permission, Joey opened it and entered.
“Callie has left Countess Seth’s mansion, and four knights including Toronto are tracking the target.”
Rosalie couldn’t believe Callie’s words, so she went to find Sonia herself to confirm. Today’s reaction from Sonia confirmed the truth of those words.
‘I didn’t expect her to throw a teapot…’
The kindness that had saved the people in the novel was now gone. The Sonia she knew was no longer there. It was a realization she had to make, and in a way, it saddened her.
“It would have been better if she had begged and apologized.”
Rosalie looked down at the instep of her foot in bitterness then turned to face Joey.
Sonia, who had committed an irreversible action to cover up her mistake, would eventually act again and not be easily taken advantage of.
“It’s funny how people find things difficult the first time, but easy the second time.”
Joey gave her a puzzled look as Rosalie muttered something incomprehensible.
“Anyway, according to the report that just came in, it seems like Callie isn’t leaving the Empire and is just planning to hide in a village on the outskirts of the Empire.”
“They’ll be closing in on her soon. We must not miss it.”
“Yes. I will make sure we don’t miss them.”
Joey replied, bowing his head. Sonia was right. The money pouch and Callie’s testimony weren’t enough.
All they had to do was pretend that it was lost, and that was it. The Count of Amins was not a small family that could be made to go through that loss.
“Get out now.”
At Rosalie’s order, Joey turned around and left the office.
If there was not enough evidence, they would fill it. Sonia’s reaction was clear, and they just had to wait for the right time.
⊱⊱⊱────── {.⋅ ✧✧✧ ⋅.} ──────⊰⊰⊰
That night, Rosalie couldn’t concentrate on her work due to her restless mind. She mechanically flipped through a book without even looking at it, feeling agitated on the couch.
At that moment, the door suddenly opened.
“Rosalie~.”
“Nathan…”
Rosalie slammed the book shut with a loud noise at the sight of him, who hadn’t even knocked. Nathan poked his head out of the door and opened his mouth.
“How is your foot?”
“It’s okay. Why?”
“Um… I just wanted to chat?”
Nathan shook the bottle of alcohol in his hand. Rosalie contemplated the brown alcohol that sloshed inside the bottle before finally speaking up.
“Come on in.”
Rather than spending the night reading a book that she couldn’t even hold properly, she thought it would be better to drink and get some sleep. Nathan accepted Rosalie’s offer and entered the room nonchalantly.
“So, what do you want to talk about?”
“A heart-to-heart talk? I feel like Rosalie and I could be at least on that level.”
Rosalie chuckled and handed him a glass of alcohol as he sat down on the couch.
They sipped their drinks. The conversation was small talk and meaningless, but it was enough to ease Rosalie’s complicated mood.
“So I’m thinking of what to bet with Erudit on the card game~.”
“Don’t tease him too much.”
“His reactions are funny, though.”
Nathan didn’t seem to mind the mild scolding and refilled his glass. One drink turned into two, and by the time the bottle was half empty, Rosalie’s face was slightly warm.
“Is there anything you’re curious about me, Rosalie?”
“Well…”
“For example: What kind of relationship do I have with Devi?”
Rosalie’s eyes twinkled at Nathan’s words. This was definitely something that wasn’t in the novel and something she was curious about. When Rosalie’s eyes lit up with an uncommon curiosity, Nathan smirked and broke the rhyme.
“I’m a created being.”
“A created being?”
Nathan burst out laughing at Rosalie’s indifferent attitude. Normally, she would have frowned, but her face remained unchanged.
“My first memory is of a man gleefully injecting me with a strange drug. I later learned that I was a test subject. He wanted to create a killing weapon that surpassed human abilities. So after the experiments were over, I fought, over and over again.”
Watching Nathan talk lightly about something heavy, Rosalie simply tilted her glass.
“Devi got me out of there. When I told him I couldn’t live with the noise, he cleared out an entire street for me.”
It seemed that the sparsely populated place where she first met Nathan was made by Derivis. Nathan seemed to recall that memory, looking into the distance before shrugging his shoulders shortly.
“Since then, I’ve been doing him favors because he begged me to. Quite a bland story, right?”
“Yeah, it’s bland. More than I thought.”
Rosalie replied lightly, and Nathan burst into laughter. With the rising buzz of alcohol, Rosalie twirled the liquid in her glass.
‘Is this something that Chaerin made in advance…? Even the completely distorted story doesn’t feel like it’s from a book anymore.’
It wasn’t the story she knew. But the vividness of their life’s narrative, the parts that weren’t written in the novel, was too compelling. She couldn’t believe it was all made up.
‘And I’ll probably feel it even more in the future.’
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