Erin and Mila were blindfolded and moved to an unknown location. Only after walking for a while and descending some stairs were they able to see again when the cloth was removed. They seemed not to have left the mansion.
‘It seems like a place within the mansion that I’m not aware of.’
Erin looked around discreetly, trying to figure out where they were, but she had no idea. Turning to Mila, it appeared she also didn’t recognize their location. That meant it wasn’t a space that would be easy to find.
‘Can Aiden find this place successfully?’
Despite her worries, Erin smiled at Mila, reassuring her not to worry, signaling that everything would be alright.
Erin was not too concerned about the situation itself. There was something else that troubled her more. Her eyes narrowed.
‘How did those two manage to escape?’
As she was coming to meet Mila, part of her felt anxious, and yet she half-expected it wouldn’t happen. The two of them were supposed to be in transit to a labor camp on the border by now.
‘Unless someone helped them, they couldn’t be here.’
But who would have helped these two given their desperate situation? That was the question.
What was the reason behind someone putting forth the effort to help them escape? It must mean that there was someone who stood to benefit from this incident.
As Erin’s thoughts deepened, the voices of Gael and Helena suddenly started to rise from ahead.
“I’ve dedicated how many years to the Zahard family since I was fifteen, and to see it all crumble away so uselessly.”
Helena sighed with resentment, then suddenly glared at Gael and yelled.
“You should have handled things properly from the beginning! Leaving that guy alive, you can’t do anything right!”
Displeased as if nothing was to her satisfaction, she didn’t bother to hide her contempt.
“Who was the one who introduced that guy to me?”
Gael’s face contorted with this accusation, and he too let out his frustration.
“Mother! Mother was the one who caused this mess!”
“What? Do you know how much I’ve had to struggle because of your incompetence?”
Helena’s face twitched momentarily, trembling slightly.
“How can you be so ungrateful when I have taken such good care of you, even if you are my son?”
What the two wanted was to safely escape the empire and secure a sufficient amount of money.
Even though it was not the time to fight, as the truly crucial moment was upon them, they were spewing venomous words at each other.
When pushed to the edge of a cliff, true feelings toward each other are revealed, leading to discord.
It was clear they never truly cherished or cared for each other.
Gael enjoyed the comfort of Helena’s protection.
Helena liked having authority over Gael as someone superior.
That’s why their relationship was possible.
But now, they were nothing more than useless burdens to each other.
In fact, without Helena, Gael could gain more benefits, and without Gael, Helena could too.
‘This never went so far in the original story.’
It seemed they no longer had the capacity for rational thought.
The two, who had been reddening their faces at each other, suddenly quieted down.
Catching their breath, they seemed to realize that now was not the time for this.
“Let’s talk after we get out of the empire first.”
Gael and Helena turned to look at Erin and Mila.
“Don’t try anything silly; just stay put.”
Leaving only those words behind, the two went outside, probably trying to meet with Aiden.
“Don’t worry. Things won’t go as they want.”
Erin turned her head towards Mila and whispered quietly.
But Mila couldn’t see Erin’s face properly.
She thought that by being used as bait, Erin had ended up in this situation.
“…Don’t apologize.”
However, such guilt was not what Mila should be feeling.
That’s why Erin spoke even more firmly.
“The one who should be sorry is someone else. I’m just glad you’re safe, sister.”
Erin comforted her.
“…Thank you.”
Finally, Mila’s gloomy face relaxed a bit.
Not long after Gael and Helena left, as expected, Aiden didn’t take long to arrive. The sound of a faint commotion was heard and then the door opened.
Aiden strode into the room.
“Count, are you all right?”
Following behind him, Henry immediately went over to Mila and helped her up.
“I’ll go out first.”
Henry took her out with him. Although she had suffered mental shock and accumulated fatigue, fortunately, she had no significant injuries and was able to walk out following him.
Aiden immediately began untying Erin, checking for any injuries.
“How in the world did you know about this passage…!”
Gael, in a dying voice, said as if he couldn’t comprehend.
By this time, he had already been overpowered by Aiden, his neck grabbed, and was dragged to the floor, collapsed.
“You shouldn’t have started something like this in the first place.”
Aiden spoke coldly.
Looking at the situation, it seemed that Aiden had burst in and taken control of the situation before Gael and Helena could do anything.
There was no opportunity for them to act.
It was at that moment.
Eyes met between Aiden and Erin.
“Thanks to the traces left by Erin.”
Aiden fixated his gaze on Erin as he said so gracefully.
It was an answer to Gael’s question.
“Traces? There can’t be such a thing.”
Gael Zahard muttered as if he couldn’t understand.
However, Erin grasped the meaning of those words immediately.
She had certainly left a trail.
“What have you done?!”
Gael glared at Erin as if he wished her dead and shouted.
At that, Aiden immediately approached him, grasping his shoulder tightly, and said,
“You always have to be careful when speaking to my wife.”
“……”
Gael clenched his teeth under Aiden’s pressure.
The method Erin used to leave a trail was her perfume.
Before following the servant who came instead of Mila, Erin didn’t just instruct her to follow behind.
Erin had sprayed the perfume she usually wore strongly all over her body after asking the madam to do so.
In case Erin couldn’t be located, even if others couldn’t recognize it, Aiden would be able to sense Erin’s scent.
Aiden had also previously found Erin’s fragrance in places she had left empty.
Back then, I just thought it was amazing, but who would have known it would be used like this.
“We’ll talk about how much I worried today when we get back.”
Erin flinched at Aiden’s words, tender yet thorny, and she checked his expression.
“Let’s go back now.”
Aiden smiled softly at Erin, reaching out his hand to her.
But it was as Erin took his hand and rose that suddenly, Helena, who had been silent and fallen until now, sprang up blocking the door.
“There was no need to run from the start. What would be there if you ran away from here with nothing? A life more pathetic and miserable than death itself, that’s all.”
Helena murmured with unfocused eyes, not budging an inch.
“I’d rather die than live like that.”
And in that moment, Helena’s gaze fixed precisely on Erin.
“But I refuse to die alone.”
A madness swirled in Helena’s face, an expression as if she could no longer see anything else.
She was really not in her right mind. Erin sensed it instinctively.
Right now, being in such a state is the most dangerous. Erin anxiously looked at Helena.
‘Having many people on the road to the afterlife might not be a bad thing,’ she thought. Helena’s face twisted strangely, seeming to laugh, cry, and scream all at once.
‘So,’ Helena’s gaze flickered.
‘Let’s die together.’ In the current situation, her smile seemed eerily mismatched with joy.
‘Mother…?’ Gael called out hesitantly, seemingly oblivious to the situation.
However, Helena, ignoring Gael, stared at Erin with a crazed look.
‘So just in case, I’ve prepared something.’ Helena picked up a candlestick illuminating the dark space.
Approaching the wall, she unveiled something hidden, revealing not a decorative piece but explosives.
Suddenly, it seemed like the smell of gunpowder was in the air.
“……!”
Erin and Aiden looked at each other with faces filled with shock.
Years ago, Zahard had dabbled in the weapons business and suffered a significant loss.
It seemed likely that these explosives had been left over from that time without being disposed of.
The weapons produced by Zahard were said to be twice as powerful as any existing ones, but the end products were invariably crude.
‘Still, there were definitely some among them that were really powerful.’
However, due to a high rate of defects, they were thoroughly shunned.
So the explosives Helena had set up were one or the other: defective or truly powerful.
At that moment, Helena, who had clearly lost her sanity, didn’t hesitate to light the explosives.
‘She’s insane!’
Who would have thought she’d actually lose it to this extent?
They needed to get out of there quickly.
But it seemed evidently difficult to escape.
‘Damn!’
But there was Helena, already in the middle of the building, laughing madly.
It seems when a person truly loses their mind, they inevitably create companions in their insanity.
Helena’s laughter eerily echoed in their ears.
They hadn’t realized she was this far gone into madness.
‘Could it be that I’m going to die like this?’
It didn’t make sense. Just because of something like this… Is it the end?
There was still so much time left to spend with Aiden.
But now, it appeared difficult to either stop Helena or escape.
Erin looked at her with a sense of futility in her gaze.
When it became too hard even to run and she tightly shut her eyes, in an instant, Aiden wrapped his arms around Erin, throwing their bodies in the opposite direction as best as he could.
At that moment, along with a deafening noise, they felt the ground shake with the impact.
“…….”
A warm yet solid weight could be felt on Erin’s back.
She was safe.
Erin turned her head.
Erin’s face was shocked for a moment.
Blood was flowing from Aiden’s head.
“Aiden!”
Aiden still held Erin tightly, even though he had already lost consciousness.
