Capitulo 46

Chapter 46 – The Night of the Ultimatum (2)

The great hall had become so cold that it seemed it could freeze death itself.

Elden had left the room, leaving Lermian, Deron and Blund behind.

Or rather, he had left them behind.

Lermian, who had collapsed on the floor with a miserable expression, struggled to get up.

Once, he staggered heavily and had to hold on to the round table to keep from falling again.

“….”

With his right hand on the table, he opened his left and looked at his palm.

It was the hand that had slapped Elden.

The heat still lingered.

The stabbing pain was still there.

The unhappy feeling had not changed.

The once clean hand, which had never inflicted violence on anyone, now conveyed a strange, dirty feeling.

The hand that had become like those she despised, the hand that had done to others what had been done to her, felt repulsive and hateful.

She clenched her fist tightly.

Her nails dug into her palm, drawing blood as she clenched her fist with all her might.

He felt the pain of the nails digging into his flesh, but strangely, it didn’t hurt.

He bit down on his molars.

The veins in his neck stood up.

She clenched her fist tightly, gripping her left hand with her right as if she were whipping herself.

She opened her hand.

Red juice oozed from the crushed skin.

“…Blood.”

Lermian muttered absently.

The same had gushed onto Elden’s cheek, where she had scratched him.

Not only had she slapped him, but she had also drawn blood.

Of course, compared to what she had suffered as Erinsyia, it was a mere scratch and a few drops of blood, but the desperation of a broken conviction could leave an indelible scar even with a single cut.

She lowered her hand.

He raised his head feebly.

The skylight in the ceiling glowed with splendor.

A wry smile escaped him.

Now he should be enjoying a moment that shone brighter than the skylight, smiling triumphantly instead of letting out a hollow laugh and reveling in this bitter regret.

How did it come to this?

Where did he go wrong?

Why did he wish he was happy?

Why did he say he hoped she would not be miserable because of him?

Without any qualifications, how could he have such an extravagant wish?

And why did those wishes seem sincere?

“Happiness….”

Lermian, chewing on Elden’s wish with a vacant expression, looked at Deron and Blund.

A grimace.

Seeing their pitiful faces, similar to Erinsyia’s, made him laugh in vain.

Their miserable state mirrored her own miserable situation, and it was laughable.

It was laughable how she, who had obsessed over a single annoying flea and burned the entire stable, now expected her own wounds to be recognized as Marien’s.

Y.

It was absurd how there was a slight sincerity in her proposal to Elden, which made her laugh hollowly.

Clack, clack.

Lermian, brushing the blood from his left hand onto the round table, approached Deron and Blund.

“ You two are really lucky.”

Lermian’s voice, gravelly and reverberating in the deadly silence.

As that voice drew closer, Deron and Blund’s faces were filled with the same despair as Erinsyia’s.

“Yes, yes…?”

“ They are lucky because now their chances of being pardoned have doubled.”

Lermian stood in front of the two kneeling.

His blue eyes, once as bright as the sunlit sea, had lost their light, becoming dark and aimless, drifting directionless in the vast ocean.

In place of the lost light, there was a dark cloud of loss and regret.

On the lost path, a thick sea fog prevented seeing ahead.

His eyes, having lost everything, looked at his hands, resting on the ground.

Hands dirty from greedy eating.

Hands as ugly as their vile personalities.

They had always done it.

They begged not to step on their hands.

Because they had to study.

Because they had to research.

Because they had to record.

They had begged not to step on their hands, but these two had only scoffed at those pleas.

Clack.

“Let’s see how well they can hold on. Whoever holds up the best will be today’s winner.”

Lermian took a step closer and stomped Blund’s hand with the heel of his shoe.

The pointed heel dug mercilessly into his hand.

“Gaaahhhh!”

Blund writhed in pain, twisting his body like a squid.

As if whipping herself for turning a clear pond into a mud pit to catch a lobster, she squeezed even harder.

“P-please…! It hurts so much.”

She lifted her foot.

The deeply scarred hand became visible.

He moved to the side.

The terrified face of the instigator, the source of all this chaos, Deron, came into view.

Holding a grudge for Elden, who had refused a desperate hand held out at the academy and fled despite a desperate hand held out in the marriage duel, he stomped hard on Deron’s hand.

“Mmmmph!”

Until he broke it.

Until he crushed it.

The conviction that she was different from them.

A conviction not to exercise violence like them.

A conviction shattered in a single slap, she stomped on Deron’s hand as if stomping on her own broken conviction.

And he thought.

Yes.

Do you wish me to be happy?

Don’t worry.

At the end of this vendetta, I will be happy.

I’ll be happier than anyone else, as if mocking your wish.

Let’s see how you try to escape.

I’ll watch with my own eyes to see if hope awaits where you arrive, or if regret does.

“Mmmmph…!”

Let’s see how you try to run away to the end.

Do you think I’ll let you go?

**

There’s a saying that all history is made at night.

Night, different from day with its light and darkness, ends today and begins tomorrow according to its own rules.

Night, when things that are not done during the day are done clandestinely, was also a time of violence and plunder, and a time of fear for those who followed superstitions.

For this reason, in some regions curfews were imposed to protect their people from the dangerous darkness.

Rest and restlessness.

Through the double-edged night, tomorrow is planned, and Gelwood fears tomorrow through restlessness.

The tomorrow of marital bereavement, doomed to disaster, made even an old man, dulled to crises by so many battles, uneasy.

Y.

When Elden arrived at his office that night, Gelwood felt as if his fears had come true.

What Elden held in his hands and had engraved on his cheek seemed not only unsettling, but ominous.

Finally.

The things Elden held in his hands began to be placed one by one on the desk.

The note was opened.

The note, which was supposed to contain only supportive sentiments for the intended candidate, had violated the rules by including secret details of the second evaluation.

There were no words to be found.

A mana log was posted.

It contained a violation in which three candidates had threatened the safety of one of them.

There were no words.

Another mana record is raised.

The supervisor, who had expressed concern about leaving a long queue, had indeed left a long queue and had been caught.

It contained an ethical violation of conducting secret surveillance unofficially after officially removing the shackle of being a judge.

There were no words.

And finally.

“This is the mark left by the Grand Duchess.”

When the ethical violation of physical violence against a final candidate, an individual, was aired, Gelwood had to bow his head on behalf of the ducal family of Winterfell.

While a single slap to someone suspected of harming Erinsyia was no big deal, the evidence Elden had was enough to pose problems for the family’s tradition and the greatest festival in the northern territories, forcing him to bow.

In addition.

He officially declared himself retired before the final evaluation began.

Despite having no clauses to stop a retiree, the Grand Duchess’s stubbornness had stopped him, and if he had suffered significant damage because of it, Gelwood had no choice but to bow his head.

And that meant.

They had no choice but to officially acknowledge that the three remaining candidates were now down to two.

“…What is it that you wish for?”

“I only have one wish.”

Elden pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket.

It was a piece of paper with a few clauses and a stamped area at the end.

“What is this…?”

With a faint smile, Elden looked at the ducal seal of Winterfell on Gelwood’s desk.

“It is an ideal that both parties desire.”

A pardon for original sin not committed.

An apology for original sin despite not having committed it.

Freedom from unjust detention and unjust suppression.

The obligation to fulfill what was promised in return.

The duty Elden had fulfilled to the best of his ability.

The right of a human to live as a human.

The will of a free person to pursue peace and romance.

Y.

The right to escape the brothel.

It was a piece of paper that encapsulated all of that, the achievement of a long-awaited wish.

The next day.

The public agenda of matrimonial mourning, with seven days to go, was changed to a completely private one due to personal reasons.