67. Gift from the Gods

It took some time to turn that murderous intent into action.

Baron Lantskoĭ did not remember Judith who came as his new assistant.

Working under him like that, Judith built trust over several years while gathering information about them piece by piece to prepare her crime.

The two met at the haunted hotel to avoid their affair being discovered.

Then news came that an investor had bought the abandoned hotel and was preparing to reopen it.

Baron Lantskoĭ and Viscountess Borodin rented all the other rooms under an alias for their long-awaited tryst.

That’s why when Katya and Nikolai came, all rooms were already reserved.

Judith decided this would be the day to carry out the revenge she had long waited for.

Since Baron Lantskoĭ left everything including reservations to his assistant, Judith was able to get keys to all rooms.

Around that time, Baron Lantskoĭ had grown tired of Viscountess Borodin and fallen for Judith, so he came to the hotel with Judith intending to end things with the Viscountess.

The Viscountess, who hadn’t expected him to bring company, was quite shocked to discover his assistant was Judith, a student she had cherished.

“Everything you said after that is correct.”

Judith confessed her crime.

“I only regret not being able to cut their throats with my own hands.”

“You, you ungrateful…!”

Viscountess Borodin grabbed the back of her neck, feeling betrayed.

Though she thought of commoners as lower than insects, she had given Judith special treatment unlike other students because she found her useful, yet to be backstabbed like this.

Watching her throw a fit for a moment, Judith took something out of her pocket.

It was a gift her friend had given her long ago.

As she looked down at it briefly, she remembered the last words written in the diary.

「As you said, I received punishment. For the sin of hurting you.

Judith, I’m sorry. You were the first to reach out to the insignificant me. You were my life’s only friend.

Please don’t forgive me. I’ll pray for you from heaven.」

Did you end up like this because of my curse wishing for your unhappiness?

“Now I want to go meet my friend too.”

Determined to die, Judith opened what she held and applied its contents to her lips.

As she tasted the bitterness, strangely she felt no pain.

Surprised, she checked the rouge case again and found it different from what she had prepared.

Katya approached the confused Judith.

“When we fell together in the hallway earlier, I secretly switched it with the rouge case I brought from my room.”

“……”

“The substance that numbed the Viscountess’s tongue was also in the rouge case you gave her before dinner, right?”

Judith had known the Viscountess always applied rouge before meeting Baron Lantskoĭ.

As she predicted, the Viscountess applied rouge after dinner before going to the Baron’s room, and later when she returned to her own room, she was poisoned from habitually licking her dry lips.

“When I supported you sleeping on the bed after the Viscountess was attacked, I felt something small and hard in your chest.”

Wondering what an object that size could be, a rouge case came to Katya’s mind.

At that moment, she recalled Judith giving the rouge case as a gift when she reunited with the Viscountess in the hallway.

“Whether you were really sleeping or came down after committing the crime, having a rouge case didn’t fit either scenario. So I thought about what reason you would have to always carry it with you in any situation.”

“……”

“Unlike what you gave to the Viscountess, that one contained a lethal dose of poison, right?”

Katya was correct.

Judith had carried poison in case of emergency.

From the beginning, she had planned to follow her friend once all revenge was complete.

“The laws of this country should have properly judged these criminals, but failing to do so made you stain your hands with blood.”

Katya felt great responsibility as the Grand Duchess.

Though no life was without complaints and everyone’s wounds seemed biggest to themselves, she hadn’t realized before that even trials had class distinctions.

She hadn’t known at all that other students had suffered such things while attending the same school.

The hardships she had felt were mere child’s play compared to the discrimination and oppression commoners had endured for so long.

“Why should you die when trash like them gets to live? And don’t you think letting them die easily is too lenient a punishment for their crimes? We should make them properly pay. I’ll help you.”

Tears burst from Judith’s eyes at those comforting words.

Viscountess Borodin threw a fit at being called trash.

“Hey! Who do you think you are to talk about making me pay? Do you even know who I am?”

“Do you really not know who I am, Viscountess?”

“Why should I know who you are? Coming to such a backward place for your honeymoon makes it obvious. You must be some lowly vulgar commoner who spent all your hard-earned money to come here because it was your lifelong dream.”

“Though social status has nothing to do with vulgarity, since you insist on harping about class, I’ll oblige.”

Katya suddenly pushed the back of Viscountess Borodin’s knee with her foot.

Caught off guard by the sudden attack, her legs buckled and she ended up on her knees in a prostrate position.

Katya decided to teach proper etiquette to someone who acted up just because she was a boyar.

“How dare you kick me?”

As the Viscountess tried to stand up, Katya took a broom nearby, held it upside down, and struck her shoulder with the handle.

“Aack!”

“Tsk tsk, where do you think you’re going? Your posture is incorrect.”

“I won’t let this slide!”

Thwack! The broom cut through the air and landed on the student’s flesh with a sharp sting.

“Bend your waist.”

Thwack!

“Place both hands respectfully on the floor.”

Thwack!

Katya corrected her posture by tapping any body parts that deviated from the rules while giving instructions.

Viscountess Borodin, who had been twisting her body in displeasure, suddenly felt a sense of déjà vu.

These were the words and actions she had used on commoner students.

Moreover, this posture—

“When making your first greeting before the sovereign and his consort, you must lower yourself as much as possible like this.”

“W-what did you just say…?”

Viscountess Borodin doubted her ears as she looked up at the woman who had forced her to kneel.

The face seemed familiar somehow.

Forest-green eyes with thick, stubborn-looking arched eyebrows. Even the upturned lips that are full of mischief.

“Ka-Katarina?”

Just then, Nikolai walked in front of her.

More precisely, he stood beside Katya.

“Do you not recognize me?”

The dye had washed off in the rain earlier but wasn’t visible because of the darkness around, but now under the central room light it showed clearly.

Seeing his silver hair gleaming in the light and his cold face, and reconsidering Katya’s words just now, the Viscountess threw herself to the floor in a worshipful position in shock.

“I have committed a mortal sin, Your Highness!”

Though her activities were limited to the South and she had never seen the Bloody Grand Duke in person, his appearance matched exactly with what she had heard through others.

Those who had seen him all unanimously said he had an awe-inspiring face where beauty and fear coexisted to a chilling degree.

Now that she met Nikolai, she understood what that meant.

Having ignored him without interest and thinking he was a commoner, only now did his face properly register in her eyes.

But seeing how Katya called herself the sovereign’s consort, did that mean they were married?

But that wasn’t important right now.

They said the Bloody Grand Duke simply killed everything rather than trying to fix what displeased him.

Which meant her own life was in danger for daring to treat the Grand Duke like a lowly commoner.

“Mortal sin? Why say such hurtful things? I should thank you for giving me cause to return Molnitsky Girls’ Academy to state control.”

“P-pardon?”

“I had been wondering why as the years passed, donations to Molnitsky Girls’ Academy increased while conversely, the quota for commoner students decreased. Not content with just laundering nobles’ money under the guise of donations, you dare do such vulgar things to students?”

Nikolai stabbed his sword into the floor with murderous eyes.

Though it was still sheathed, Viscountess Borodin trembled as if her head had been cut off just from seeing it.

“You scorned my people calling them lowly, and not satisfied with that, you insulted me and my consort. I will thoroughly punish each of your crimes in ways that will make you wish you had been killed by your student’s hands today.”

“I-I was wrong, Your Highness! Please, please forgive me just this once. I’ll never do it again.”

“I tend not to believe in repentance that only comes when punishment looms.”

Viscountess Borodin’s wails echoed through the room.

Judith stared blankly at the saviors who had appeared before her.

She thought no one, not even the gods, would hear her prayers crying out from persecution and pain.

Even Mishpat and Tzedakah, the twin gods of justice and judgment among the seven gods, did not punish these monsters.

So she had no choice but to stain her own hands with blood.

She thought her revenge had failed when everything was exposed.

But this wasn’t the end.

The Grand Duchess whose eyes met hers slowly smiled at her.

Someone once said.

The seven gods in heaven cannot soothe everyone’s hearts, so they send leaders in their stead to places their eyes cannot reach.

Judith realized these people were gifts sent by the gods.