Callia’s dumbfounded reaction was something Eric hadn’t anticipated at all.

‘What’s with that blank face?’

Though internally quite flustered by his fiancée’s harmless expression that he’d never seen before, he quickly composed himself.

Whatever trick she was playing, showing emotion would only get him entangled with Callia.

“What, finding new men was always your role. Are you surprised to be on the receiving end?”

At Eric’s cynical question, Callia’s green eyes wavered, betraying her confusion.

But she gradually regained her composure. It seemed she was momentarily taken aback by his sudden aggression.

Yes. This would be the first time Callia had received a notice of broken engagement from a fiancé, so it was natural for her to be shocked.

‘Now that she’s come to her senses, she’ll start acting out—slapping me, cursing, or throwing a tantrum.’

As Eric steeled himself like someone facing disaster and swallowed hard.

“I understand, Eric Schwerin. I’ll support your new love.”

After glancing down at the broken engagement notice, Callia said this with a generous smile.

Callia and ‘generous smile.’ It was as absurd a combination as a gentle and delicate natural disaster. Unless she was being deliberately sarcastic.

‘…Ha. So that’s it.’

Rather than throwing a fit after receiving a unilateral notice of broken engagement and risking damage to her high pride when rumors spread through high society, she would pretend to be composed and end things quietly.

Finding a new fiancé wouldn’t be difficult for the ‘Rabius Lady,’ even if he wasn’t quite at the level of Duke Schwerin.

But to say she would ‘support his new love’? Wasn’t that assuming he already had another lover?

He wasn’t a promiscuous person like Callia. Unlike her, Eric had never looked at any other woman during their engagement period.

Eric became displeased and criticized Callia.

“What? Ha, I’ve never seen a worse woman than you in my life.”

As expected. Callia’s pretense of composure broke, her smile abruptly disappearing.

‘Finally showing her true colors, I see.’

Eric shot a scornful look at Callia and said:

“You’re the most repulsive human being in the world.”

At that, Callia looked at him with welling eyes… and somehow seemed deflated.

While Eric was doubting his own eyes, she soon nodded as if in understanding.

“I accept that. Say more if you have anything else to say.”

Her calm response astounded Eric.

She had no problem trampling on others’ dignity, yet her own dignity was so important?

She was an egotistical woman to a disgusting degree, from beginning to end.

“Damn it, you never change, do you? Sign it now, Callia Rabius. I’ve already gotten Duke Rabius’s signature.”

Eric thrust the broken engagement notice before Callia’s eyes with the feeling of throwing down a duel challenge to a tyrant.

Making his resolve look foolish, Callia briefly scanned the contents of the notice and signed it without any hesitation.

It was worth celebrating that the breakup process wouldn’t be messily prolonged as he had worried.

But Eric thoroughly disliked how Callia decided everything so easily from beginning to end.

“It was horrible being with you. Let’s never see each other again.”

“You’re good at cursing.”

Callia replied nonchalantly and didn’t try to hold Eric back until the end.

Of course, he had no intention of being held back, but Eric had never felt so dirty in his life.

***

Eric believed that his relationship with Callia had ended with that broken engagement.

Then, as if they had been waiting, the elders pushed their daughters or nieces on him under various pretexts, asking if he didn’t need a new fiancée.

But Eric, who had become sick of relationships altogether after his year-long experience with Callia, refused all visit requests and practically secluded himself in his mansion, using the excuse of being busy.

He even took on work that his aides should have been doing and processed it himself, finding a forced peace.

However, that fragile peace was shattered when he accidentally overheard the servants talking.

“Is that true?”

To the young Duke Schwerin’s question about the rumor’s veracity, the old butler repeated:

“If you’re referring to the story that Lady Rabius was hit with food thrown by numerous nobles at the May Festival and apologized in that mess of a state, then yes, it’s true.”

“That’s impossible.”

Eric’s beautiful face, which had reflexively retorted, was filled with confusion.

“Does Duke Rabius perhaps have another daughter?”

“As far as I know, there is only Lady Callia Rabius.”

At that polite and clear voice, Eric’s eyes wavered. Furrowing his brow while looking at the deep green carpet of his office floor, he muttered.

“Albert, either your memory has a problem or my ears have gone strange.”

“Though I’m approaching seventy, I can remember every meal I’ve eaten in the past week. And I judge my young master’s hearing, with his bright future ahead, to be perfectly normal.”

“Then that would mean you’ve told me a nasty lie.”

Watching Eric repeatedly deny reality, Albert smiled quietly as if he couldn’t help it and held out something.

“It’s sad to have my loyalty doubted by the young master I’ve served since childhood.”

“This is… the Rainfeld Weekly? Do you think I’d be interested in scraps of paper filled with pathetic gossip?”

“I know very well that you wouldn’t, but I believe that this time it will prove this old man’s innocence.”

Eric received the weekly in question and was about to open it when he stopped abruptly.

Without needing to make any effort, the unbelievable news he had just heard was prominently featured on the front page of the weekly he was holding.

「The Natural Disaster of High Society, Lady Rabius

Repents After Food Shower at May Festival」

The article contained what Albert had just told him, but in even more detail.

It said that Callia Rabius, at the imperial palace with countless nobles and even the Emperor present, had been hit all over her body with food by the public, apologized to the saint, and then declared she would never appear in central high society again.

“What kind of ridiculous…”

It was so unbelievable that it seemed like the reporter had written down the contents of a dream.

「…Regarding this surprising behavior that contradicts what Lady Rabius has shown thus far, various speculations continue throughout Rainfeld. Amid opinions gaining the most traction—that she has repented after contracting a terminal illness, or that she received a warning of disownment from Duke Rabius—a priest from the Central Temple offered a new opinion that ‘she must have been admonished by God in a dream’… (omitted) … Meanwhile, the current whereabouts of Lady Rabius, who declared she would never appear in Rainfeld high society again, remain unknown.」

The black and white illustration attached to the weekly depicted Callia, covered in food, raising a champagne glass as if making a toast.

And below it was written:

「”That Callia, as a sign of deep reflection and repentance, will never appear in this high society again.”」

Eric Schwerin thought the woman in that illustration resembled his former fiancée, but he simply couldn’t believe it.

“Callia suffered this treatment and didn’t retaliate at all, but rather apologized?”

She wasn’t that kind of person at all. It wouldn’t have been strange if she had uttered fierce threats to those who threw food at her on the spot and hired assassins, but to apologize?

Eric had never once seen her admit her own wrongdoing.

“Come to think of it, didn’t you say that Lady Rabius accepted your request for broken engagement readily, contrary to your expectations?”

“…She must have done that to save face.”

At the butler’s gentle mention, Eric crumpled the weekly and replied curtly.

‘Callia’s reaction was strange then, but… she couldn’t have really changed.’

Even when Eric heard people talking about Callia at social gatherings he attended after a long time, he believed they must have misunderstood something.

Or the world was conspiring to deceive him.

But even the young Duke Rabius confirmed that the ridiculous rumor was true.

“I don’t know the reason, but she did apologize.”

“She apologized even after being hit with food?”

“Yes. I don’t know if you’ve read that sentence about reflection and repentance, but she said exactly that.”

“Really, she apologized even after being humiliated?”

“I don’t know how many times I’ve answered, but yes. She apologized and returned to the mansion in that mess, then leisurely went south.”

Only after the young Duke Rabius answered irritably and told him to stop asking did Eric move his heavy feet.

Though there was no reason for him to lie, Eric still couldn’t believe it.

So finally, he even went to the saint, who was said to have received the apology, and asked.

“Forgive my impertinence, but is the rumor that Callia Rabius apologized to you true?”

“It is true. …She has always been truthful to me.”

Seeing the saint affirm with a faint smile made it even more unbelievable.

‘They must all be crazy.’

But even while thinking so, Eric couldn’t focus on his daily life.

After watching his master mutter to himself with a gloomy face for a month, the butler subtly suggested.

“If you’re so concerned, why don’t you go south and see for yourself?”

“Ha, who’s concerned about someone they broke up with?”

“I never specified a subject. Isn’t the birth of a new divine beast a very important matter?”

Eric glared at the old butler, asking so innocently and chided him.

“Stop being so sly, Albert.”

“So, shall I prepare the carriage?”

“…I’m going to check on the divine beast egg.”

Eric said gruffly as he rose from his seat and left the office.

Even as he boarded the carriage, he was convinced that his judgment couldn’t have been wrong.