If I were to divorce Louis after paying him alimony, I would be left branded as the woman who destroyed her family.
If my family were still standing, it might have been different—but having lost everything, I had no way to defend myself against such a label.

That was how it was.
The society I lived in prized “firsts” above all else, and the moment those were broken, unspeakable stigmas clung to a person for the rest of their life. Especially for someone like me, who had nothing left—there wouldn’t even be a chance at recovery. To be treated as a human being at all in such a world, the reason for divorce could not be dishonorable.

“Trying to resolve our conflict through civilized conversation ends here.”

I would prove that I was not even a fraction ashamed.
And for that, I needed the backing of a power with real influence within the Empire—something that could lend weight to my claim. For my sake alone.

“From now on, I’m going to make you beg me to divorce you.”

“And how exactly do you plan to do that?”

Louis let out a hollow laugh. I stared at him in silence, then took a single step forward. The distance between us narrowed.

“Like this.”

I immediately swept up my skirt and lifted my leg. My knee struck true—squarely between Louis’s legs, right where it counted.
For a split second, the sensation of my knee making contact made my skin crawl, but that wasn’t something worth worrying about right now.

“Aaaagh!”

I’d never learned how to do something like this, yet judging by how cleanly it landed—and by the sight of him collapsing to the floor, sobbing—I must have hit the mark.

“They say if there’s something wrong with you, it can count as grounds for divorce.”

Which regression was it?
Back then, I’d refused to write any longer, sick to death of living as a shadow writer. Louis responded by spreading the word that I was a frigid woman, using that as justification to put an end to our marriage. Apparently, being unable to carry on the family line was considered fault-worthy—regardless of whether you were a man or a woman.

“So how about becoming a genius playwright who got divorced for failing to perform as a man?”

Smiling brightly, I kicked Louis again.

“Kgh—!”

It seemed Louis hadn’t expected me to attack him a second time. Otherwise, there was no way he’d have taken a direct hit like that—twice.

“Y-y-y-you crazy b*tch!”

Trembling, Louis clutched himself with both hands.

He writhed in pain for a long while, letting out miserable groans. Eventually, he collapsed face-down, scraping and clawing at the dirt with his hands. Only then did he belatedly pound at the area near his tailbone.

“Y-you… your husband is hurting this badly, ngh—! A-aren’t you sorry for me? A-aren’t you going to apologize? H-hngh!”

I stared down at him as he cried and thrashed about.

Strangely enough, I felt nothing at all.
Not even a shred of cheap guilt.

Like a child who finds a line of ants fascinating and presses down to kill them, just because they can.

So this must have been how Louis felt—every single time he killed me whenever I regressed.

“You didn’t, either.”

Pulling myself out of the memory, I lifted a chair and brought it down hard on Louis’s hand.

“Even when I cried and begged you to spare me, you never did.”

As though venting everything that had piled up inside me, I struck his hand again and again. Whether he screamed or not didn’t matter. None of it reached my ears.

Crack!

I hadn’t even been hitting it for that long, yet the wooden leg of the chair broke apart helplessly.

“Go and bring some fire.”

I flung the chair aside and looked down at Louis.
It surprised me—to realize that I could do this much on my own, without even borrowing another person’s hands.

Perhaps the reason I’d spent all that time bowing my head and begging so desperately was because I’d made him into something far too great in my mind.

Back when solitary confinement was my entire world, I depended on him excessively. I was afraid of being discarded. Leaving Louis felt like losing my place in the world itself. He had once been a part of me—and, at the same time, my whole world.

Thinking that I had reduced someone like that to this state with my own hands made me laugh.
It was hollow laughter.

I had never imagined he could be this weak.

“Get a grip, will you? Hm?”

On the other hand, perhaps I ought to be grateful that Balthazar’s side had already cleared away Louis’s loyal followers. If they hadn’t, I might not even have been able to attempt something like this… That thought crossed my mind.

To begin with, there hadn’t been a single person in this estate on my side. Maybe it was better to console myself that way.

“Louis? Have you already given up?”

I grabbed Louis by the hair with one hand and slapped his cheek.

“You should cry and beg too—just like I did. Hm? Can’t you hear me?”

If he was going to crumble from just this much, then all the time and effort I’d poured into this would feel far too futile.

“Milady, I’ve brought it.”

While I was pressing Louis, Shasha returned with the ember.

“You came just in time. Thank you.”

I took the ember from her and immediately tossed it onto the shattered chair. Because the weather was relatively dry, the fire began to spread, growing steadily. When I judged it to be enough, I picked up a chair leg lying a short distance away and thrust it into the flames.

At first, I wondered why it wouldn’t catch, but soon enough, fire leapt up, engulfing the chair leg.

“Hold him.”

I pointed at Louis and glanced toward the knights hovering nearby, hesitating. They’d been doing nothing but watching.

“Do you want to take his place and get scorched instead?”

With no other choice, I stepped toward one of them and brought the flaming chair leg close. Only then did the two of them move, approaching Louis and seizing both his arms.

“I’d like nothing more than to rip it out, but I don’t want you dead just yet.”

I tapped the burning chair leg lightly against the floor, then stamped it out with my foot. The flames vanished, leaving only smoke rising from the charred wood.

Without a second thought, I shoved it into Louis’s mouth.

“Atone to those you killed with that three-inch tongue of yours.”

I was careful not to ram it too deep down his throat. Though the flames had been extinguished, it had been burning fiercely only moments ago. If I forced it all the way in, it would melt his entire throat.

He wouldn’t survive for long. It wouldn’t be strange if he died on the spot.

So I burned it only enough for that three-inch tongue of his to cook.

“Don’t die.”

Louis thrashed and writhed in agony, but it soon subsided—along with the smoke rising from the chair leg.

“Even death is a luxury for you.”

The moment the words left my mouth, I flung the chair leg far away. I was just debating whether to smash his head in next—

When a hand wrapped thickly in bandages came down over the back of mine.

I lifted my gaze. Eric was looking at me with eyes full of quiet sorrow. As though he were asking me to stop.

I almost snapped at him—asking how he dared lay hands on a noblewoman like me—but stopped myself. Now wasn’t the time to punish his insolence.

“Drag him inside.”

I barely managed to steady my ragged breathing as I forced the words out. Then I looked toward Olivia, who was trembling violently in the distance.

“Her too.”

With the servants’ help, we managed to move Louis into my solitary cell. He struggled the entire time. Olivia did too. Still, in Louis’s case, what had just happened had drained him of the strength he used to have.

“Miss Hursel, just keep drinking that and eating, and sit quietly.”

I had Shasha serve Olivia some tea tinged with green and a slice of cake. She eyed it suspiciously, clearly wondering why she was being given such things, but she accepted them without complaint and began to eat.
Thankfully, it seemed to suit her taste.

“Now then—do you finally feel like signing this?”

I crouched down in front of Louis and held out the divorce papers along with a quill pen. He looked half out of his mind. Still, his eyes were unmistakably fixed on me in a glare.

Was burning his mouth not enough after all?

“If you don’t want to go through something like that again, you’d better sign quickly.”

I smiled sweetly at him.

“Y-you—ugh….”

Louis tried hard to say something, even though he could barely speak. That, too, didn’t last long. It must have hurt—he managed to force out a bit of his voice, then gave up. Each time, the smell of burnt flesh wafted from his mouth. Not a scent I particularly wanted to breathe in.

“I’ll explain what this is, at least. That way, you’ll feel more inclined to sign.”

With that in mind, I spoke quickly.

“This document states that you renounce all assets you obtained through the Agatha family, as well as every bit of income earned from my works. Oh—and of course, it records you as the one requesting the divorce.”

I slid the first sheet aside and continued slowly.

“And this second page says that, because you failed to fulfill your role as a man, you came to consider divorce as a gift for me. What do you think? Sounds convincing enough, doesn’t it?”