Chapter 30
Confidence Based on Anxiety
A banquet with central nobles as the guests of honor was underway once again this evening.
Ninia, seated in the Grand Duchess’s seat as always, moistened her lips with the soup. However, perhaps because she felt listless, she couldn’t properly taste it.
‘Do I have a fever?’
Ninia found it difficult to judge her own physical state. It was largely because she had always been protected by holy power, but also because she simply didn’t know how to take care of herself.
Ninia let out a warm sigh. Not only did she likely have a slight fever, but the seat felt even more like a bed of nails because of the guest glaring at her from across the table.
‘It was definitely Lady Mierne.’
It was Mierne who had peeked into the Grand Duke’s bedroom. She hadn’t known Ninia was there, judging by her shocked expression, and she had immediately disappeared down the hallway.
Feeling confused, Ninia also thought that she shouldn’t stay there any longer. The dress she had been wearing was now crumpled under the bed, its shape ruined.
She had no choice but to call a maid to bring her clothes. Finally free from her naked state, Ninia forced her trembling body to move and returned to her own room.
Unlike when she had fled after making eye contact, Mierne at the banquet was now openly staring at Ninia.
Ninia eventually put her spoon down. Although she was keeping her eyes lowered, it would also be impolite to keep staring only at her own lap. As her gaze wandered, searching for a place to rest, it fell upon an empty seat.
‘The Count… he said he wasn’t feeling well.’
Before the banquet began, the servant in charge of raids had brought news of him. He said the Count had taken ill and was bedridden due to a belated travel fatigue. Ninia knew the servant’s words weren’t the whole truth, but she didn’t step forward to question it.
She now glanced at Tarahan out of the corner of her eye. It was so cautious and brief that no one would have noticed she was looking at him.
After she returned to her room alone, Tarahan had not summoned her again.
Today was a quiet day, even for the guests of honor.
The Marquis, who had earlier directed subtly mocking words at Tarahan, had instead received a retort several times sharper and no longer spoke to him during the meal.
“The food must have gone cold by now. What on earth is the kitchen here doing?”
“My apologies. We will bring a fresh serving.”
Instead, the Marquis took his irritation out on others. His growing dissatisfaction was becoming visible even to Ninia’s eyes.
Just as the Marquis was snapping at a servant, Tarahan rose from his seat.
“It’s a good thing you were born in the center, Marquis. Here, even one’s meal differs based on their usefulness.”
With those words, Tarahan walked past Ninia.
The fingers she had neatly placed on her lap curled tightly. Because his words felt directed not only at the Marquis, but also at her.
The dinner ended frozen in that atmosphere. Feeling her empty stomach churn, Ninia had no choice but to return to her room.
“I see the Grand Duke has even forgotten my past contributions.”
Marquis Billian, having returned to his room, was forcibly swallowing his anger. He paced around the room, circling the sofa where Mierne was sitting.
Until Tarahan received the title of Grand Duke, the Marquis had been able to look down on him. And not just that. Wasn’t a lowly half-breed a species that shouldn’t dare to even touch the Marquis’s feet?
And yet, such a man had ultimately ascended to the position of Grand Duke. The Marquis gnashed his teeth and growled.
‘If it benefits Danteore, cut it off and bring it to me.’
It was the Empress’s command. The Marquis also desperately wanted to ruin Tarahan and drag him back down to his original place.
He was the Empress’s faithful hound. But this particular order came with significant pressure.
‘There’s nothing to fault him on.’
Reviving the wasteland and growing crops was also the Emperor’s command.
Although it seemed an impossible task, the Grand Duke had used the waterway construction project to create a plot of land underground.
The central nobles didn’t know, but there were quite a few plants that could grow with surprisingly little light and could be used as food.
Once the construction project was completed, the Grand Duke would have fulfilled even the Emperor’s seemingly impossible order. If the Empress saw that, she would not let the Marquis off the hook.
‘There won’t be a second time.’
Even when the Marquis, in charge of war command, had messed up the outcome of a battle, the Empress had turned a blind eye once.
But the Marquis knew well that this was the Empress’s final mercy, granted because she saw a devout worshipper in him.
‘The only consolation is…’
The Marquis’s pacing, which had been circling the room, stopped in front of Mierne. He slowly looked over the woman who was considered a top beauty even in the center.
There had been no progress with the Empress’s command, but Mierne was different. He trusted the woman who had become his niece.
“You must do well.”
Marquis Billian spoke as if telling her to bear it in mind, but Mierne silently kept her eyes downcast.
“Why don’t you answer? Do you want to end up back on the streets?”
At the Marquis’s pointed remark, Mierne bit her lower lip hard. A poisonous glint surged again in her vivid green eyes.
Mierne was originally a woman who sold flowers on the street. Selling flowers in the back alleys meant selling oneself. Mierne had lived that way since before she came of age.
The reason she had managed to arrive from the center to the territory of Danteore without ever getting sick was that life in the carriage was far more comfortable than her past.
‘No hunger, no cold. On top of that, I can always be beautiful and elegant.’
If she could maintain this life, she would do anything. On the other hand, the street life she had tried to forget constantly contrasted with her current existence of pretending to be a noble.
Remembering the past she had forgotten, Mierne raised her eyes and asked.
“Are you absolutely sure His Excellency has no interest in the former Saint?”
Anxiety laced Mierne’s voice. It was a fear based on solid evidence. From what she had heard from the Empress and the Marquis, the Grand Duke’s attitude towards the former Saint was utterly wretched.
Mierne had been confident. She judged that she, a cheap woman, would be far superior at seducing a man than a lofty, purity-obsessed former clergywoman.
“Didn’t the Count guarantee it? He said that now she has someone to look after her, so she’s dressed properly, but when he saw her, she had nothing to wear and was given a dress discarded by the Count’s concubine.”
The source of this evidence was Count Troid.
The Count was still maintaining a connection with the Empress. He had faithfully reported exactly what kind of treatment the Grand Duchess was receiving in Danteore.
“You saw it earlier too. The Grand Duchess’s complexion didn’t look good, but he just left her there.”
This was something Mierne also knew. But now, stories like that alone couldn’t completely erase her anxiety.
“……But.”
Before she saw that scene, Mierne had been confident. That’s why she had gone to Tarahan’s bedroom.
But the room’s owner was absent, and there was the former Saint, her body exposed, covering herself with a blanket that bore the Grand Duke’s scent.
‘Maybe he just needed an object to satisfy his lust.’
Mierne thought as positively as she could. If that were the case, she still had a good chance.
Mierne had not only learned things on the streets but had also completed education under various instructors, under the Empress’s direction, on how to please a man.
She was confident she could send the Grand Duke to heaven, even while acting shy and twisting her body coquettishly.
“Just crawl into his bedroom naked. His Excellency is a virile man; he won’t just ignore you. Especially since he seems to already favor you.”
The Marquis instilled confidence in Mierne. There was no way a blockhead with a tongue that couldn’t even distinguish between tea and filth could satisfy the Grand Duke.
At the Marquis’s words, Mierne nodded. The lower lip she had been biting was already stained with blood.
“I understand.”
For Mierne, it was all the same whether she died after being sent back to the center or died here.
To continue breathing and enjoying this wealth, she absolutely had to ensnare the Grand Duke under her skirt. There was no other option.
‘I will never go back to the way I was.’
Mierne repeated the vow she had made countless times on her way here.
However, what she overlooked was that she unconditionally believed the Marquis’s words. And that she lacked the wit to properly apply his advice.
That was Mierne’s naivety. And that kind of naivety always tends to bring about disaster.
“Aaah-!”
In the dark of night, a woman’s scream echoed through the hallway where lanterns hung.
The servants stationed near the Grand Duke’s room rushed out into the corridor with startled expressions, only to be horrified by the scene they witnessed.
The Grand Duke was dragging a lady by her hair into the hallway. Without a moment’s hesitation, he threw her aside like a sack.
