chapter 60
The enchanted crystal made by the wizard Clara had linked to Melanie’s wanted status was itself garbage, but since it had hardly been used the mana stone inside was intact.
For Clara it was actually a profit to take that instead of debt.
Mana stones were hardly being supplied these days; she could take it and sell it at old value.
Given how she’d been pretending to love Polyus all this time, the result was very good.
“Polyus, aren’t you perceptive at all? Tsk tsk, I was a fool to follow someone like you.”
“Grr, Clara. What are you—”
“Lady Clothilde escaped you first, then me. We escaped your pond in order of intelligence, and the one who couldn’t get away till the end, Lady Ingda, fell!”
Clara laughed heartily.
It was a bold side of her that Polyus had never seen because she’d always been acting cute and innocent in front of him.
She lifted her middle finger at Polyus as a last insult.
“Idiot, eat this.”
Clara giggled and left the place of business. Polyus, abandoned even by the last fish he had trusted, collapsed and sat down right there.
‘Clara never loved me?’
Thinking about it felt strange.
From some point on Clara never showed jealousy, she’d just nod approvingly at whatever he said as if it were always great.
If she really loved and cared about Polyus, shouldn’t she sometimes scold him or try to stop him?
‘But I got intoxicated by Clara’s sweet words…’
Polyus steadied himself by gripping the wall, feeling dizzy.
Come to think of it, starting a business without sufficient preparation and suddenly selling the building—those had happened at Clara’s prompting.
‘Could it be she was using me from the start?’
If so, when had he been trapped?
‘You toyed with my trusting, pure heart?’
A darkness seemed to creep across Polyus’s vision.
To think he’d been done in by the girl who used to smile so innocently and pretend to love him.
Why did a jerk like Damian succeed while a good man like him got dumped by a woman?
Too pure a man… unlike a bad man, must he suffer like this?
If there was a god, He wouldn’t do this to me.
‘No — not yet. There’s still a chance.’
Polyus grabbed his head and thought.
‘There’s still the marriage petition… the marriage petition remains.’
He hadn’t formally gotten engaged to Josephine, and he hadn’t officially broken his engagement to Melanie. The marriage petition still sat with the Beldert family.
Then…
Polyus made a firm decision and knocked on the study door of the count’s house.
“Father, please choose me as Melanie’s betrothed.”
He had said in public that he would be engaged to Josephine, but before the Beldert petition was formally submitted to the Ingda marquessate things had exploded, and on paper Polyus had nothing formally tied to Josephine.
People would whisper a bit, but after all Polyus had been the first to be betrothed to Melanie.
“She’s already engaged to Damian, what are you saying?”
But Count Beldert responded flatly, his face showing no effort even when he tried to recall relevant thoughts.
His blatant attitude—showing he thought it nonsense—angered Polyus.
Isn’t this my son? Shouldn’t he at least make an effort to listen?
He felt particularly down because his father hadn’t been like this in the past.
‘I have to go back to the start.’
This treatment started after he broke up with Melanie.
Everything had begun to change since then.
Polyus tried to keep his composure and continued.
“The marriage petition submitted to the Beldert house doesn’t specifically name who marries whom, does it?”
Marriage petitions went between houses. That’s how noble marriages worked.
That was why Melanie could whimsically change her intended to Damian.
“Don’t be absurd—”
“Damian is the man who will stab you in the back, Father.”
Polyus said this to Count Beldert as if asserting a fact.
After all, Polyus did know what his father was vulnerable to.
Seeing Count Beldert flinch, he seized the moment and continued.
“Do you still see Damian as your son? You saw clearly that Damian appeared only after you left the banquet and seduced Melanie.”
“……”
“Damian obviously left home. He’s drawn a line saying he isn’t a Beldert. Perhaps Damian becoming engaged to Melanie might be more dangerous than Melanie being taken by some young man of another house.”
Count Beldert fell silent for a moment before speaking.
He had gone himself to that gathering, the sort young men attend. It stung his pride that Damian only showed his face after the count had left.
“But you’re already that Ingda girl’s—”
“It wasn’t a formal engagement, was it? Father knows better since you didn’t submit the petition.”
Seeing Count Beldert close his mouth again, Polyus became certain his father was gradually taking his words seriously.
“Furthermore, if I become engaged to Melanie, it will prevent the Ingda marquessate’s name from being directly appended to ours to some extent.”
After saying that, Polyus nearly let out a long sigh in front of his father but managed to hold it back.
He didn’t want to sound like he was saying, “I’ll make Melanie regret throwing me away.”
‘I didn’t expect Josephine to be so reckless. Without consulting me, she dared to touch the royal family’s disgrace.’
He had no choice. This was not the time to be proud.
He had to do whatever it took: get engaged to Melanie—the Marquis of Clothilde’s daughter—and drive a wedge between her and Damian.
“That makes sense.”
“Right, Father?”
Polyus smiled innocently in front of his father, like a good son. It was the pleasing, obliging smile the count liked—unlike Damian’s.
But Count Beldert was thinking something else.
‘It might be good to correct his habits with this opportunity.’
All along Count Beldert had considered Damian his son.
Even though Damian ran away and renounced the name, saying he’d never come back to the Beldert name and that he didn’t think of him as his father—of course, Count Beldert expected he would return. After all, Damian had foolishly left without taking any valuables.
He was sure when Damian returned he would punish the boy for his insolent words.
Yet the boy expected to return soon; a week passed, then a month, then years, and Damian’s whereabouts remained unknown.
“Count, it seems Master Damian really left with intent.”
“What? He went without a penny—how could that be?”
A week after leaving, a month, years—Count Beldert finally found it strange.
Still, he didn’t search for him eagerly.
If something terrible had happened or he’d been kidnapped, wouldn’t someone have contacted the Beldert household?
‘Since there’s no news, maybe the damn fellow is with the Eington marquessate.’
The Eington marquessate was the late countess’s family.
“Grandfather, do you know where young Master Damian Beldert is?”
When Damian’s whereabouts became unknown, someone asked the Eington marquess out of curiosity.
But the Eington marquess shouted and froze the atmosphere.
“Why would I know where that damned boy is? Not a chance. If I see him I’d rather kill him myself!”
“I’m sorry, sir. It’s just—he left the Beldert house a long time ago and there’s been no news…”
Count Beldert, belatedly hearing this, nodded.
Indeed, the Eington marquess would likely not have sheltered Damian.
Damian’s maternal family had never liked him. They disliked him even more after he weakly ran off without settling heirs and left empty-handed; maybe they assumed he’d gone to relatives’ houses, but where then?
Still, Count Beldert wasn’t overly worried.
‘Should I care for the son who publicly shamed me by leaving home?’
