“The Lady is not there? What do you mean by that?”
The dining room, once filled with the clinking of cutlery, had fallen into a heavy silence.
Realizing something was amiss, the Viscountess furrowed her brows and asked.
“…They searched all around the Pose Duchy but didn’t find the Lady. They have withdrawn for now…”
“And the Duke? Is he alright?”
“All we’ve received is a telegram stating that he’s at the entrance of the duchy. I don’t know more than that.”
…The Lady wasn’t found?
Listening to their conversation, my face began to pale.
According to the original story, she should have been at an orphanage near the Pose Duchy’s marshlands.
The original story couldn’t be wrong.
Then, with trembling eyes, I happened to meet someone’s gaze.
“There was supposed to be a Lady there…”
It was the reproachful eyes of a maid.
At that moment, I realized.
Now all that awaited me was abandonment.
“……”
As the Viscount and Viscountess followed the maid’s gaze to me, sharp pains pierced my heart like arrows.
My hands, resting on the table, began to shake.
The only reason Calypse had covered for me was clear.
‘The contract is still valid, kid.’
Because I had provided the location of the Lady.
‘But if the Lady wasn’t found…?’
My heart pounded with fear.
If the Lady wasn’t found, the contract was meaningless. There would be no reason for Calypse to keep me alive.
I was a spy from the Pose family and an insignificant foreign orphan.
“I must see His Excellency. Aisha!”
Bang!
The Viscountess shouted in surprise, but I didn’t notice as I jumped up and bolted out of the room, nearly toppling my chair.
Thud, thud, thud-
My heart pounded painfully, louder than my running footsteps.
I might die.
No, I would definitely die now.
“Aisha?”
A familiar knight called out to me from across the corridor, but I brushed past him, roughly wiping away the tears blurring my vision.
He had always been kind to me, but once he heard about the missing Lady, he would surely see me as a liar and despise me.
Clang-
I slipped into a storage room and shut the door.
From the moment I infiltrated the Kreutz Duchy, I had memorized the layout of the estate.
I needed to escape.
Standing on tiptoe, I reached up.
“Please, let me reach….”
I wanted to climb on top of the drawer, but my hand couldn’t reach.
Looking around, I saw a chair.
Tap-
Using the chair as a stepping stone, I climbed onto the desk and then lightly jumped onto the drawer beside it.
My movements were as nimble as a flying squirrel.
I was a spy who shouldn’t be in the Kreutz Duchy, an obvious target for elimination.
Clinging to the column next to the drawer like a cicada, I climbed up to the ceiling.
Pushing against the ceiling with my head, I revealed a hidden passage.
‘…Just as I thought, a ventilation shaft.’
A dark, damp tunnel with no light appeared. It led to the garden.
I squeezed myself inside, crawling forward.
The space was so small that even I could barely move.
‘No one would think to look here.’
As I crawled further, I found a hidden passage leading to the garden.
I curled up as much as I could inside.
But my body trembled uncontrollably like a leaf in the wind.
I had to calm down. My goal in this life was to survive.
Alright, I escaped.
Now, no one will find me.
Once I crawled far enough from the entrance, I stopped.
Lying down, I placed my trembling hands on my chest. The terror gradually subsided.
I’ll stay here until nightfall, then escape from the estate.
But after five minutes,
“…….”
And then an hour,
‘Am I going to have to keep running like this?’
That thought suddenly struck me.
Silently, I stared down the straight tunnel.
The dark tunnel seemed endless, with no indication of where it led.
‘Will I have to keep living like this, always on the run?’
Memories from my previous life flooded back.
My parents died early. As a minor, I lived like a ghost among relatives who didn’t care about me.
All I ever wanted was independence.
I worked hard to get a job, but all I got in return were rent and utility bills, and barely enough money to live on.
‘…Is this the end?’
That thought crossed my mind while eating cup noodles at home.
Was I going to live like this forever?
Barely making enough to eat every day in a room less than five square meters?
Without family or friends?
“…….”
And now.
As I stared at the endless tunnel, the same loneliness from my past life overwhelmed me in this one.
“…Hic, sob….”
I didn’t want to cry.
I knew crying alone was a waste, but the sorrowful sobs leaked through my clenched teeth.
I wanted to do better in this new life.
I knew the original story and thought I could live like a normal person with a bit of reincarnator’s luck.
But that didn’t happen.
I was still just me, even in another life.
“…Sniff.”
Swallowing my sobs, I fumbled in my pocket and pulled out a potion.
[Death Potion]
It was a potion spies took to avoid torture.
“…….”
I flicked off the cork with a soft pop.
If I was going to die anyway,
maybe this life could end a bit less painfully.
* * *
“Is this all?”
Calypse held a small sock in his large hand.
“Yes, nothing else.”
The orphanage, which had taken a week to reach, was even more desolate than he had imagined.
A marshland where it was questionable whether anyone could live.
A single shack stood amidst the tangled vines and cobwebs.
Despite searching the area with knights, they found no sign of life, let alone a child.
A knight, arriving late, handed him a small, torn sock, presumably the child’s.
‘Could this be Eve’s sock?’
Calypse closed his eyes.
Even though it was the Pose Duchy, this place had been untouched by humans.
After the war, it became a barren land where no one could live.
If the Lady had been here, as Aisha said, she couldn’t have survived.
The tattered sock was proof.
‘I never even got to call your name.’
How am I supposed to mourn you?
Clenching his hand around the sock, it disappeared into his palm.
The faint hope sparked by Aisha’s words vanished.
“Withdraw.”
“Yes!”
He roughly shoved the sock into his pocket and climbed into the carriage.
The Kreutz Duchy left the Duktia Kingdom without even greeting the Pose Duke and headed back to the Frozen Kingdom.
Rumble-
The carriage jolted along the rough road, but the large man inside showed no reaction.
He couldn’t even feel sadness anymore.
He had simply returned to the state he was in before Aisha had given him hope.
A state where he had no reason to live.
‘…Now I have no reason to live at all,’
He closed the curtain of the slightly open window.
‘I have no right to live.’
That was the only way Calypse, who couldn’t protect his family, could atone.
‘The succession of the Kreutz Duchy will be entrusted to the Marquis Lilith.’
The day he decided to die, Calypse imagined the aftermath of his death.
If he died, the Kreutz Duchy would be in turmoil for a while.
But the Marquis Lilith family, a branch of Kreutz, had always been ready to take over since his direct lineage disappeared.
They had been eyeing it eagerly.
Though he didn’t like them, the Lilith family would do well.
Unlike Calypse, they were always enthusiastic.
Several days passed as he wrestled with these thoughts, and the Kreutz knights finally arrived at the duchy.
“Your Excellency, we have arrived.”
Calypse opened the carriage door, still wearing his mask.
The butler, who had been waiting, greeted him with a grim expression.
“I heard the news. It’s best if you rest for now.”
“I will.”
He answered obediently and walked past the butler, who looked slightly surprised.
The butler hadn’t expected the Duke, distraught over not finding his daughter, to accept his suggestion so easily.
It didn’t matter.
Soon, the head of the Kreutz Duchy would be replaced.
No more would the cheerful, vibrant people around him have to watch their step because of him.
The young heir of the Marquis Lilith would bring laughter and joy, filling the estate with sound.
That was right.
He had no reason to live.
“Your Excellency.”
At that moment, a knight guarding the entrance rushed over.
Something had clearly happened, but Calypse didn’t want to hear it.
“Unless it’s urgent, I…”
“The child seems to have run away.”
Calypse’s steps halted.
Suddenly, Aisha’s face, which he had forgotten, popped into his mind.
Her twin blonde pigtails.
Her big blue eyes.
Her cheeky demeanor and expressions.
Had she run away?
“Find her.”
“Yes!”
His heart, which had been ready for death, began to pound.
Abandoning his plan to return to his room, Calypse threw off his heavy fur coat and rushed into the estate.
The butler, who followed him in confusion, asked,
“What are you doing…”
“We need to find that child.”
“What? We’ll find her. Your Excellency, you should…”
“No. She’ll be hard to find.”
She was a spy.
“Your Excellency!”
At that moment,
A knight emerging from a storage room approached with a tense expression, holding something.
It was the death potion.
“This potion was found in the storage room. We searched the area, but the child…”
It was the potion spies used to avoid torture.
If that was the case,
“Your Excellency!”
Suddenly shoving the knight aside, Calypse gave orders.
“I’ll be resting in my room. Keep looking and don’t let anyone into my room!”
There was no time.
Quickly removing his mask and wrapping himself in a robe, he transformed into the gardener and ran out of the estate.
“Aisha! If you’re there, answer me!”
His usually calm voice was now frantic and broken.
“Aisha, come out if you’re there! It’s just me!”
Aisha couldn’t have left the estate yet.
The entrance to the Kreutz estate was heavily guarded.
“Aisha!”
She was just a little girl.
But the thought of her running away filled him with a fear greater than death.
“Aisha! It’s the gardener!”
But no matter how much he searched, he couldn’t find the blonde hair or any sign of a child.
No way.
His legs stopped abruptly.
Had she already taken the death potion?
No. That child wouldn’t do that. She wanted to live so badly.
“…Aisha, please…”
At that moment,
“A, Mister….”
He was clutching his face in despair when he heard a faint sob.
Calypse immediately looked up.
Inside the garden.
Somewhere in a corner.
Without hesitation, he ran to the pile of fertilizer and soil, revealing a drainage tunnel.
And inside the damp, dark tunnel,
“A, Mister… I did so many wrong things, I thought I should die….”
Aisha was curled up and crying.
“Aisha.”
“…I want to live.”
Her small, trembling voice echoed, and Calypse felt something break inside him.
It felt like he had found a reason to live.
Even though there were many reasons to die, just the thought of saving that child made him want to live desperately.
Adopt her, Duke !!! Thank you