~Chapter 2~
“You mean… that woman is still alive?”
At the steward’s report, the Duke of Lombard—Edwin Nazar la Lombard—furrowed his brow in disbelief.
Bertol, the trembling steward, stammered, “I—I have no idea how such a thing could have happened, my lord…”
Elicia was a noble princess of exalted blood, descended from both the Valdin Imperial House and the Royal Family of Marsen—a woman of lineage so pure that any house would have coveted her as their mistress.
Yet the Duke had spared no effort, nor scruple, to prevent this imperial marriage decreed by the Emperor himself.
The Lombards had long counted the Imperial Family as their sworn enemy.
The previous Duke—Edwin’s father—had fallen in battle because of Elicia’s father.
For generations, the Lombard line had guarded the northern wall of the empire, standing between civilization and the monster-infested black continent beyond.
Then came the great earthquake. A section of the wall collapsed, and the Duke had pleaded for aid from the capital. But the then-Crown Prince—Elicia’s father—dismissed the plea with excuses, ever fearful that Lombard’s mighty army might one day threaten the throne itself.
By the time relief arrived, the crisis had been subdued—but the Duke returned home a corpse.
Bertol could never forget the look in the young heir’s eyes as he gazed down at his father’s coffin.
So when the Emperor later forced this accursed marriage upon him, Bertol had not refused when his master commanded him to procure a deadly poison.
“We’ll dispose of her body in the morning.”
“And the cause of death, my lord?”
“Heart failure from overindulgence, perhaps. Something plausible enough to avoid suspicion from the capital.”
The wedding mass concluded, the Duke had entered the bridal chamber, served his new wife poisoned wine, and left without remorse.
The toxin was not immediate—it left no trace upon dissection—but within twelve hours, it would stop her heart. Bertol himself had secured it; he had no doubt she would be a cold corpse by dawn.
“Then why is she still breathing?”
“F-Forgive me, my lord…”
Had the dosage been insufficient? Was the poison itself faulty?
Bertol could only stammer under the Duke’s piercing glare, his thoughts twisting toward the unthinkable.
“Perhaps she possesses an immunity, my lord? Such things are not uncommon among courtiers.”
“A plausible theory,” Edwin mused darkly. “She is of imperial blood, after all.”
Bertol recalled that morning’s bewildering encounter.
He had gone to the Duchess’s chambers expecting to find a corpse—and instead met a woman perfectly composed, sharp-tongued enough to chastise him for testing her.
Even more unsettling, she had read the document he’d brought.
“But… they said she was illiterate,” Bertol thought.
That was the second impossibility.
The Lombard intelligence network rivaled the empire’s own; information on a mere collateral princess had been easy to obtain. Everything about her—her temperament, her habits, her reputation—was documented.
Unless…
“What if she’s been pretending all along?”
If her whole life had been a performance—a survival act in the viper’s nest of the palace—then perhaps she’d feigned stupidity and secretly built immunity to poison as well.
“Ridiculous,” he muttered, shaking the thought away.
He prided himself on reading people. The woman he had met was nothing but an empty-headed fool—loud, vain, and utterly incurable. Surely this was mere coincidence.
“Then what should we do now, my lord?” he asked at last. “Give the order.”
He already had a solution in mind: another poisoning attempt was risky. Better to confine her quietly, under the guise of illness.
Divorce was impossible. The Church forbade the severing of holy marriage bonds. Noblemen typically resorted to one of two methods—murder, or confinement disguised as convalescence.
But the Duke’s answer was unexpected.
“We’ll wait,” he said. “There may yet be use for her.”
“Use… my lord?”
Bertol blinked, but comprehension soon dawned.
Elicia was the last heir of the dead Crown Prince. Her continued existence—married into Lombard—was not entirely disadvantageous. If she behaved quietly, keeping her title might even serve the Duchy’s interests.
Still, the Duke’s expression was unreadable. Even after years by his side, Bertol could not fathom what his young master was thinking.
At that moment, a panting official burst into the room.
“M-My lord! The Duchess has barged into the administrative hall!”
The Duke’s face twisted almost imperceptibly.
Bertol sighed inwardly. It seemed he would need to prepare a tower for confinement sooner than expected.
“Heavens above…”
I flipped through the massive ledger page by page, my eyes growing wider.
It was a complete record of Elicia’s assets.
“Is this a dream?”
I slapped my cheek—hard. The sting was real.
“Oh, merciful gods.”
Never had I imagined I would utter the very words my devout parents once prayed each dawn.
Elicia’s inheritance from her late father, the Crown Prince, was staggering enough. But the imperial dowry granted for her marriage made it truly obscene.
“Why is the dowry this large? Even for a princess…”
And then it struck me—her position in the imperial line of succession.
Fourth in line. The Emperor had two children by his first wife, and one son by his second. Elicia came next.
“If anything happens to those three,” I murmured, “the throne would fall right into Lombard’s hands.”
The dowry, then, must have been the price for renouncing that claim.
“Still, that’s a bit stingy, don’t you think?”
For the first time since awakening, my resentment began to melt away. My fear, my confusion—all evaporated under the sheer weight of gold.
“All I have to do is act like the spoiled villain everyone thinks I am.”
How delightful that she’d been so infamously foolish.
Beyond her inheritance, there were the duchy’s household funds, imperial stipends, rental incomes, and interest from investments—all of it compounding effortlessly.
“This is… this is obscene.”
I let out a strangled laugh.
Even if I did nothing for the rest of my life—spent, feasted, and indulged every whim—this fortune would never diminish.
I thought of all the things I’d once longed for: the books I couldn’t afford, the fine pens and inks I only admired through shop windows, the elegant restaurants reserved for the rich.
“If only life had been this generous sooner.”
And suddenly, a memory surfaced—the day my parents died in a carriage accident.
“Filio, what’s wrong? Class isn’t over yet…”
“I’m sorry, child. Your parents… there’s been an accident.”
Perhaps that was where my obsession with money began.
My parents, diligent officials of Lombard, had lived honest lives—only for greedy relatives to strip away their meager estate the moment they were gone.
All that was left to me was the small house we’d once shared.
“And just like that,” I whispered, “I became utterly alone in this world.”
