You are at the End of the Downfall

Peon had very little left to himself. Even Lusenford, which the Emperor had carelessly thrown at him and was now crawling with traitors, wasn’t truly his territory.

There were extremely few people he could call truly on his side, or places where he could attach his feelings and give his heart.

They could be counted on one hand. His mother. A sword, and along with a few trustworthy subordinates, plus his father whom he came to know through regression.

It was important to know exactly what belonged to him and who was on his side. So now that he knew precisely, he should have been satisfied with this.

The chivalry and sense of mission to protect Lusenford had disappeared, making him rather free. He wasn’t short on money, and having gained freedom on top of that, wasn’t it more than enough?

He should be satisfied, he should be grateful for having this much now, but he couldn’t.

“Do you remember seeing me?”

Before regressing, he hadn’t wished for much. He just wanted to stand alone, gain recognition, and become a little more unburdened. He only wished for his mother’s well-being, Lusenford’s well-being, and others’ well-being, with hardly any personal greed.

He had never been greedy. From birth, he hardly needed to be greedy. After regressing, he had gained even more wealth and power. Having become more complete, he should have wanted for nothing.

Yet at the same time, he learned what deficiency meant.

“I… I came to get you.”

From before regression until experiencing death and up to now, the woman before him had taught him what deficiency meant, despite his having everything.

Kaela. The only being he wanted to possess because he had never possessed her. Yet a being he could never have. She hadn’t come to him with her whole existence but had only planted one-sided feelings in him.

She made him know piercing loneliness he had never known before, wretchedness incomparable to what the Emperor gave him, shabbiness he had never felt before, and jealousy that melted his insides.

“Do you remember?”

He didn’t want to know. At the same time, he was painfully glad to know. She was his only ecstasy and happiness, after all. Even if the moments together were painful, even that pain was sweet.

So, even if it hurt, he just wanted to be together. He had never wished for her to be entirely his. Without giving up, letting go, or losing, he wanted to be by her side, bearing even her pain himself.

“Yes, I saw.”

Kaela nodded very easily to his difficult question. So she saw. Peon looked down at his trembling hand holding the spoon.

Let me feed her just this one spoonful and then ask. He had to ask a question he absolutely didn’t want to ask. He had to drag out something between them that he just wanted to bury and not know about.

He had committed too many wrongs against Kaela. Since he was still a sinner, he shouldn’t resort to any deception or cowardly avoidance. But he really didn’t want to ask.

“Didn’t you scream?”

She spoke in a small voice, not knowing his feelings.

“Yeah.”

His mouth went completely dry. Peon nodded with a blank face. Now he finally understood just how torturous the punishment Kaela had given him was.

Looking at her was sometimes like pain that scraped against bone. He could only look, unable to get closer because his sins were too deep. It was always one-sided.

“You…you smiled.”

She smiled in those deep waters when she couldn’t possibly have smiled. She smiled at him. Peon looked down at the soup bowl.

“Even though you were scared.”

He was terribly scared of this moment too. Even though he had experienced death, he was still so scared.

“Why did you smile?”

Did she smile meaning that no matter how hard I, who killed you, tried, you would die anyway? Probably that’s it.

Kaela, who had been staring intently at his violet eyes trembling with fear, asked back.

“You don’t know?”

Peon felt his blood run cold. It must be a rebuke asking how dare a sinner who should know dare not know.

“If you don’t know, I won’t tell you.”

Kaela muttered, turning her head away sharply. No, if I don’t know you should tell me, if I knew, there’d be no need to answer…… While he was dazed, she glanced at him and added.

“It’s not really important.”

“How can anything not be important?”

Everything related to Kaela was important and needed to be known.

“I’m asking because it’s important to me. Why did you smile?”

Even though she knew exactly why he was asking, Kaela still wouldn’t answer.

“I told you it’s nothing.”

Then she smiled faintly at him again. It wasn’t a smile for him but self-mockery. Did she do this deliberately knowing his heart dropped every time she smiled like that? No, she who was indifferent to him wouldn’t care about such things.

Having thought this far, Peon wanted to rub his face for a moment. Every thought was miserably wretched.

“You’ll probably figure it out soon. It’s really nothing.”

Kaela chuckled softly. It wasn’t from joy. Even so, the fact that the noble princess’s inner thoughts were so easily visible was a matter that wounded her pride.

It was always like this in front of Peon. So this time would be the same. How long would he love such an easily bored and uninteresting Kaela?

‘How long will it last.’

Like a moth drawn to flame, she had leapt into a relationship whose end she could see, just to experience it one last time. Even if she burned to death, this time she would only receive and not give at all, so she would have no regrets.

‘No, maybe.’

Kaela looked again at Peon who was watching her like a thirsty person seeking water. As soon as their eyes met, his pupils dilated, and he stared even more intensely as if to devour her.

‘Maybe it will last longer than I think.’

It seemed clear that the death of a mere human named Kaela would at least have some impact on him. In the abyss that had suffocated and enveloped her for many years, she had seen Peon’s desperate face.

****

What on earth was it? Peon was too confused by something he had never experienced before.

[If you don’t know, I won’t tell you.]

[I won’t tell you.]

[I won’t tell you.]

Kaela’s prim voice kept repeating in his head. Her pretty face wearing that utterly unreadable smile floated around. He was dying to know but couldn’t figure it out at all.

Should he buy and offer her something? But for a princess raised so preciously, most gifts wouldn’t even qualify as presents.

Kaela was the person with the highest standards and most refined artistic taste that Peon knew. Despite being in Lusenford, which was sloppy and barren beyond compare and valued martial prowess over art, she was always humble too.

She maintained perfect manners even though it wasn’t worth it. She was such a noble lady that a worthless, heartless, and incompetent husband didn’t dare to look up at her.

And since she was beautiful too, it was only natural that this pathetic being, who could no longer tell if he was human or dragon, had his heart completely stolen.

Since Beatrice had done something wicked and ended the Crown Prince’s engagement banquet there, Peon had fewer things to worry about.

If it had continued without incident, surely swarms of men like ants would have approached Kaela asking to dance and talk while he was busy meeting various diplomats to clean up the Crown Prince’s mistakes.

Those bastards who would cater to all her tastes and preferences might be better than a violent husband who even starved her to death. No, they probably would be.

‘Damn it.’

Kaela had every right to meet other men. Even if she changed men twelve times a day while sitting in the Grand Duchess’s seat, Peon would have to thoroughly overlook it. He had to. Since Kaela had endured, he had to endure too.

Just imagining it made him angry and gave him an inferiority complex to the point of pain, but how much more painfully did Kaela suffer?

Still, he wanted to know, wanted to get closer, and even though he knew he wasn’t qualified, he wanted to become someone even slightly more important to Kaela. She had already firmly gripped his soul and shaken him to the roots long ago.

‘Does she mean the reason for smiling is so obvious there’s no need to ask?’

There’s a saying that women are impossible to understand. Whenever he heard people say Beatrice Ravalley was hard to understand, Peon was puzzled.

Where else could you find someone as simple and obvious as her? Honestly, he found the gentlemen pathetic when they wrung their hands not knowing how to please Beatrice.

Why worry so much about accommodating such a woman?

BANG!

The woman before him trembled and pounded the table with her fist. The sound was quite loud. Since it was a stone table, only her hand would hurt. For Peon, who could lightly kick and send that table flying, it wasn’t threatening at all.

“Are you listening to me?”

“Not at all.”

Beatrice Ravalley’s face sitting across from him turned red and blue with anger.

She was sturdier than Kaela, so while Kaela couldn’t regain consciousness for three days, Beatrice had only suffered terribly. Even now her body hadn’t recovered, but she had to come out because she needed to stop the merchant group from seizing Monde Castle.

“Our demands aren’t that unreasonable. I need some foundation to earn money to pay you back.”

Beatrice Ravalley is hard to understand? When she’s this obvious? Peon carelessly brushed aside the black taboo that Beatrice was spewing while glaring at him with venom-filled eyes, with a look of contempt.

“Stop doing things that won’t work.”

As a representative of the Insenidraken merchant group, it wasn’t as if Peon used some great magic to change his appearance whenever he met Beatrice.

He had only lightly changed his body and face with an illusion, but she couldn’t even see through this much yet tried to use the taboo. It was so ridiculous it sometimes made him angrier.

To think he had been oppressed by such a person since very young and had his wings clipped before he could properly awaken.

Though he was directly involved in watching Beatrice flounder as she fell without even knowing why, at times like this he wanted to just grab that neck and snap it.

“Mother made a mistake while drunk. You know my father had been bedridden for so long. You believe what people say when they’re drunk?”

Her face, turned pale blue, was trying desperately not to lose Monde Castle. No matter how you look at it, there must be something that needs hiding in Monde Castle. Like Duke Monde’s buried corpse, for example.

“They say in wine there is truth.”

With each casual response from Peon, her face would turn deathly pale and then bright red.

Just the fact that she wasn’t even managing her expressions now showed that Beatrice Ravalley was still caught up in the nobility’s unique sense of privilege and chosen people mentality.

That confidence, that assurance that no one could treat her carelessly because she was nobility. It was really strange. Kaela was of much nobler birth than the mere Monde ducal family, yet she was so intimidated she couldn’t even properly get angry.

Is it because she was mistreated too much, or because it was Peon who broke her spirit? Probably the latter.

“I can take control of this country.”

“Ah.”

“Really. I’ve even won over the Crown Prince’s side.”

“Why don’t you show some results before saying that?”

“You’ll see soon. If it doesn’t work out, then you can take all the townhouses and even the villa.”

“We’re going to take everything now.”

Every time he dealt with her, he felt this – there are no smart people among the wicked. They do wicked things because they don’t know better.

Endlessly arrogant, she didn’t think for a moment that she might fail, her overconfidence and ego were excessive. His teeth ground harder thinking of how people had suffered at the hands of such people.

“Just one townhouse in Craine with the villa. I’ll definitely show you results. Just delay the seizure a bit, and I’ll bring something better.”

Considering the period Peon suffered under the taboo and the time Kaela suffered, it wouldn’t be bad to watch her struggle a bit more. Every moment would be terribly painful and mortally anxious.

“What kind of better thing?”

However, it wasn’t entertaining. Peon wondered if Kaela was sleeping soundly.