Episode 71. The Truth (1)
In the darkness of the room.
Walter sat up in bed and stared at his wife’s face as she lay sleeping on her back.
Her eyes were closed, but the hollows in them showed that Odette had sobbed before she fell asleep.
– You are, really, a bad person…….
What’s the reason. Did she cry because she was upset? No, Walter teased her a bit, and she turned bright red and said how could you say that?
She was so cute and adorable that Walter almost did it again, forgetting that he needed to soothe her.
Walter had never been so proud of his self-control as he was today.
Because his first night with Odette – not really a night, anyway – it had made him more impulsive and instinctive than he had ever imagined.
If he hadn’t been such a strong-willed person, he wouldn’t have fallen out long ago.
And instead of just being accused of a ‘bad man’ by Odette, he might have gotten a divorce certificate in his face from the first day of their marriage.
‘Even so, I don’t intend to divorce you.’
In any case, there’s no point in assuming something that didn’t happen.
Thanks to Walter’s strong reason, instead of preparing the divorce papers, Odette sobbed and glared at Walter, then turned her back and fell asleep.
It was her own protest.
It felt ridiculous to roll over, when she would have been in bed anyway.
Thinking back to last night, she was trying to act like she wasn’t naïve, but it was funny how everything she did showed that she was.
‘But I don’t think she’s naive at all.’
If only Odette had been innocent, it wouldn’t have been so tormenting for him.
Walter’s gaze sank deeply into her sleeping form.
He remembered their conversation in the carriage on the way to Ertmann’s residence.
– Don’t deceive me, Walter.
Odette’s gaze straightened as she looked at him.
She always had no hesitation in seeing Walter.
She had nothing to hide, no emotions to conceal, and no reason to be unfaithful.
But it took a bit of determination for Walter to make eye contact with her.
because he had so many feelings that couldn’t be described in one word, and he couldn’t be completely honest.
The difference between them, seemingly invisible at first, became vividly clear the moment Odette spoke those words.
Walter felt like he was witnessing an invisible line being drawn in front of him.
Because he knows that no matter what happens in the future, he will never be able to tell the truth.
‘It would be better if you hated me.’
Or it would have been better if Odette had been a little less kind.
Then there would be no need to feel so much guilt about telling the truth without hesitation or deceiving Odette.
So Walter thought that if Odette always hated him, he might be able to reveal the truth someday.
At least until Odette brings up the story of her childhood and her goals.
‘It was the first time I’ve heard her talk so much about herself.’
Odette was a person who didn’t talk much about herself.
The fact that she spoke first meant that she trusted Walter that much.
It also means she’s opening up to him.
Walter couldn’t bring himself to tell her the truth in front of that gentle line of trust.
‘……. There won’t be anything to say in the future.’
There wasn’t much he was hiding in the first place.
The ostensible reason for going to the masquerade ball, what he did there, everything that could be said was said.
There was only one thing he hadn’t told.
Why he couldn’t tell Odette about the masquerade.
The reason was simple.
‘I can’t tell her that I went there to prepare for my own death.’
He was preparing for his own death.
* * *
An artifact, commonly known as a holy relic, of which only three exist on the entire continent.
There wasn’t a lot of literature about it, and the records were very unreliable because there were few cases and it was very old.
But there was a common claim in all of them.
[A sacred relic is an object that grants the person’s wish, and the person who uses it disappears after a year or two.]
There was only one reason why it could be considered a holy object, even though it was unclear how to use it, how it worked, or even what its minimum qualifications were.
In fact, there have been people who have had their wishes come true through sacred relics.
And they all died around the same time.
It was treated as a holy object because it was an artifact with the power to reverse time.
Some people were anxious to try the item at least once, but Walter did not even know of the existence of this holy object.
Until he got his hands on it, in a place he had come to die.
* * *
The story goes like this.
A princess who survived as an unwanted child of the imperial palace faces the crisis of an unwanted marriage, she chooses a suitable partner and proposes a contract marriage.
Most people think that this obvious story will have a happy ending.
Anyway, the Princess must have had her own considerations to not propose a contractual marriage to just any ‘suitable partner’.
Until the beginning of her marriage, the Princess believed that her marriage would be successful.
Her relationship with her husband was not bad, and her husband’s grandmother, who was her only in-law, also liked her.
At least in the beginning of their marriage.
“I guess I got the wrong person. I thought you would console Louis well and make him useful, but you only defended your husband every time…….”
“Godmother, it’s not like that. I’m…….”
“Shut up! If you can’t give birth to a child, you can’t even afford to console your husband, what use are you in this house!”
The husband’s grandmother was displeased with her grandson, who continued his extravagant lifestyle, and her anger was always directed towards the Princess.
Since she could not properly manage her husband and contribute to the family by producing heirs, she began to be scolded for just wasting money.
The princess cared for her new family quite a bit, so at first she made great efforts to please her grandmother-in-law.
“Louis, are you coming to the family dinner tomorrow? I told your godmother you were coming. You must come.”
“When are you planning to have a child? My godmother is very worried about the succession…….”
However, neither her husband nor her grandmother-in-law changed.
The more she berated the Princess and her grandson, the more her husband turned away.
He would only get angrier, accusing her of trying to ‘restrain’ him.
“Go inside! I don’t want to see you! I can’t eat my food when I look at your face. Don’t show your face, and I won’t need it in the future.”
One day, when she was eating her usual meal, she heard her grandmother-in-law’s complaint and ended up spitting out all the food she had been eating in her mouth.
The princess realized something was wrong.
This was not the life she wanted to live outside the Imperial Palace.
But what on earth is wrong?
Her husband wasn’t a bad person. Although he was busy with business, he would always buy the Princess a gift as an apology for his absence.
Her grandmother-in-law was not a bad person either. She just disapproved of the useless Princess.
‘Then, maybe it’s me who’s wrong?’
She wondered, but no one answered her.
So, she withered away day by day in the emptiness where echoes of her own questions reverberated.
The idea of living long and thin, like the grass by the roadside, has long since disappeared.
The Princess gradually lost everything she could rely on.
Her half-brother, who was the least helpful person, was found dead one day, and her close friend also moved away due to an unavoidable marriage.
But that didn’t mean there weren’t plenty of hands to reach for help.
“If you need help, you can ask me…… because your brother asked me to take care of you.”
There was a man who said this and acted a little awkwardly.
A man who always looked at her with eyes that he couldn’t bear.
He said he would help the princess and make her happy.
However, the princess was already tired from holding his hand.
Not only does she fall in love with someone new, but also the fact that her unhappiness may be holding someone else back.
This is what happens when you try to escape reality with the help of others.
‘Will the next one be any different?’
If the Princess had been able to make just a little more normal judgment, she would have somehow come up with a good answer.
She was an intelligent woman, and she had the ability to do so.
But no one can save a person who has fallen into pessimism.
The Princess’s spirit was already broken due to the situation that pushed her to the edge of a cliff and the death of a relative.
Misfortune ate away at her without end.
Even though she sometimes thought of abandoning everything and leaving, the Imperial family would never accept the divorce of a Princess who had no one behind her.
It was literally a contract marriage that had completely failed.
The princess was slowly and surely falling apart, and one day she finally jumped off the balcony.
It was an unremarkable death, not many people remembered.
Just one person.
Except for the person who has been in love with the princess for a long time.
* * *
“Your Excellency, here you are again.”
Instead of looking back, Walter stabbed the thing he stepped on.
Slash.
A puddle tainted with blood splashed, and the sound of flesh being sliced echoed sharply near his ears.
The sound was no longer surprising to Walter.
And to Russell, the man who had called him.
Russell clicked his tongue as he looked at the surroundings.
This place, which appeared to be a small garrison originally set up for raids, had already been devastated and there was no one alive.
Only the corpses scattered around indicate that people have lived here.
In other words, even though they were all already dead, Walter was stabbing the hearts of the corpses one by one, as if to confirm that each and every one of them had lost their lives.
The forest, which should have been white with snow, was now red with blood.
It was cruel and relentless.
Russell sighed and took out a handkerchief from his pocket and held it out to Walter.
“You said there wouldn’t be any more battles for a while. They were people too, there’s no need to be excessively cruel.”
“Enough of your nagging.”
“You’re doing this because your heart is hurt. Isn’t it Your Excellency?”
Russell sighed as if he were upset.
His master, Walter, had changed completely since the death of the Fourth Princess.
:O!!!