Chapter 45
Before being abandoned, I decided to abandon first.
Carun, who was a loyal subordinate of Ricardo, would become a victim of their scheme. The reason he would later limp with one leg in the original story was because of what was about to happen.
I remembered Carun laughing while talking about Boris who was left at the training ground when we met in front of the camp yesterday.
“Boris doesn’t cling to me, so it’s very comfortable.”
“That’s a lie. Your eyes look like you miss him. I even saw you feeding a cat in the forest earlier. You were thinking about Boris, right?”
“Haha. That guy says he can’t eat without me. I wonder if he will survive until I go back.”
Even though Carun usually complained that Boris was annoying, he always worried whether the boy was eating well when he couldn’t see him.
He looked rough, but he was also the person who treated me in the duke’s residence without prejudice. Thinking about him being tortured and ending up limping made my chest feel tight, so I stopped walking.
“I will never let that happen.”
Ena looked at me in confusion when I spoke to the empty air.
That afternoon, Ehrenhart almost bumped into someone as he walked quickly inside the castle.
“Ah!”
“Oh!”
He grabbed Ena’s shoulder to steady her and asked if she was okay.
“I-I’m fine. Thank you.”
Ena’s face turned very red, and she couldn’t even properly look at Ehrenhart.
“Where is the madam? I have something to tell her.”
Even though night had not come, the sky outside was completely dark, and heavy rain poured down as if the sky had been broken open.
Normally, they should stay only one day and leave tomorrow, but since it looked like it would rain all day tomorrow too, he came to inform that they would stay here for two days.
“Oh, the madam is…”
Ena finally turned her head and looked somewhere after coming to her senses.
A little away from where they stood, the duchess was walking slowly alone along the long corridor.
“She has been there since earlier. She looks very troubled, so I felt like I shouldn’t disturb her.”
After hearing Ena’s words, Ehrenhart looked at Stella with curious eyes.
The rain was pouring heavily outside the window, but she seemed deeply lost in her own thoughts. Now he understood why Ena said they shouldn’t disturb her.
“Actually, she has been strange all day. Since we arrived here, she sometimes mutters to herself and sighs.”
Ena spoke with worried eyes.
Ehrenhart nodded.
“The weather is getting cold. Bring her a cloak. And tell her that we will stay here one more day tomorrow.”
“Yes, understood.”
After Ena left to fetch the cloak, Ehrenhart looked at Stella again.
She was pressing her forehead with a face full of worry.
Thunder and lightning struck in the gloomy rainy sky.
“Why is the weather like this? It feels ominous.”
Meanwhile, in the study prepared by Marquis Zilan, Ricardo stood by the window with a stiff face.
The castle was built on a hill, so the territory could be seen at a glance.
The small river had turned into a dark, rushing stream.
“If the rain stops even in the afternoon tomorrow, we can cross the river the day after tomorrow.”
Gary tried to comfort his lord.
“Everyone is tired from the forced march. It may not be bad to rest here a little because of the rain. We are used to hardship, but the madam must be very exhausted.”
At his words, Ricardo’s hardened expression softened slightly.
Gary smiled faintly, thinking his words had worked.
Knock, knock.
Someone knocked, and Carun entered.
His hair and shoulders were wet, as if he had been caught in the rain.
“It was good to stay one more day. The ground is terrible. If we leave as planned, the carriage wheels will get stuck in the mud and cannot move.”
Gary nodded, thinking he expected that after hearing Carun’s report.
“But I saw a group of carriages entering from outside.”
Gary and Ricardo became slightly tense.
“Because it was suspicious, I watched them. It seems the marquis called dancers and a band. Their clothes looked like desert tribe style. It looks like the marquis is planning a party because the duke has arrived.”
Carun laughed loudly.
Gary warned seriously.
“Marquis Zilan is a man whose true thoughts are unknown. We must stay alert while we are here.”
Carun nodded awkwardly after being warned.
But he was thinking about the huge wine barrel he saw earlier.
This was a rare opportunity to taste the precious alcohol of this place that was said to be hard to obtain.
He already felt his appetite rising.
Gary looked at Carun with dissatisfaction, while Ricardo crossed his arms and looked outside the gloomy window silently.
Back in my room because Ena insisted that I would catch a cold if I stayed longer, I recalled the scene I saw earlier in the corridor.
Several large carriages entered through the rain.
People wearing exotic dancer and clown-like clothes got off.
From another carriage, people carrying musical instruments came down, and servants were busy moving wine barrels.
It was clearly a party preparation to raise the evening mood.
‘That means the incident will happen tonight.’
In the original story, Carun drank wine mixed with sleeping medicine and signed an important dangerous document while mentally impaired.
One of the dancers who had been urging him to drink was the one who obtained the document.
It was probably one of the dancers I saw earlier.
The problem was the content of that document.
It was a secret agreement that if Ricardo became emperor, he would form an alliance with the hostile desert tribe.
The desert tribe would support Ricardo secretly in the future.
When Marquis Zilan later revealed the document to the world, the empire’s citizens became furious.
Ricardo was seen as a shameless man who used even his enemies to become emperor.
The third prince secretly laughed while Ricardo’s reputation fell into the abyss.
There was no signature of Ricardo on the document, but the large shipment of gold and treasure sent from the desert at the same time dragged him into the scandal.
The incident happened when the crown prince was seriously ill, so public anger toward Ricardo became even stronger.
When Carun, his closest subordinate, was tortured and made to limp, Ricardo suffered deeply.
After that, by the emperor’s order, Ricardo left the capital and returned to his northern territory.
“He built up his strength in the territory while waiting for the right time, then swept everything away at once.”
Maybe that event was the trigger that made Ricardo truly change.
The problem was that after this incident, Ricardo became darker.
When he returned to the capital, he found all the forces behind Marquis Zilan and mercilessly slaughtered them.
Blood flowed like a river in the capital, and his sword was never dry of blood since then.
People feared him and began to see him not as a war hero but as a tyrant.
Eventually, the third prince was also beheaded by Ricardo’s sword.
That period was probably the time I saw in my dream when Stella and Kayla were killed.
Just thinking about it made my chest feel tight and the world went dark in front of me.
Boom—!
Thunder struck outside at the perfect timing, making me shiver in surprise.
Thinking about the series of merciless events felt like eating a thousand pieces of dry, heavy food, and I became afraid of Ricardo again.
The incident was too big, and I was worried about how the original story would change if I interfered now.
But I couldn’t just watch with both eyes open.
“I can’t make Carun lose his leg. Otherwise I might have to leave the capital and go to the frontier territory too, right?”
“Even if I don’t eat this heavy burden, Ricardo will become emperor anyway. He is the protagonist.”
If I avoided this trap, maybe the story would end more simply.
Handling the Guinero family was important, but I had to avoid the trap in front of my eyes first.
After finishing my self-justification, I left the room.
Walking calmly along the corridor, I happened to meet Gary coming down the stairs.
“Is there any inconvenience during your stay? Since the weather is bad…”
“I have something urgent to tell Assistant Gary.”
My expression must have looked serious, because he nodded with a solemn look.
“Please speak.”
Moving to a quiet corner, I lowered my voice and said to him.
