Just as the Count of House Berend had destroyed House Helfried, Reina vowed to bring ruin to everyone who carried the Berend name.

Taking their lives alone wouldn’t satisfy her.

She wanted perfect revenge—calculated and merciless. She would tear away everything they loved, piece by piece, and make them watch as their world crumbled.

Only when they were consumed by unbearable agony would death be a fitting end.

With her face stiff and her fists clenched tightly, Reina took a deep breath and slowly let it out.

Anger gave way to despair, and despair to steely resolve. Once she had suppressed the storm raging inside her, she walked calmly towards the door. After tidying her clothes, she glanced briefly at the dishevelled bed before stepping out.

A short distance away, a man stood waiting. The moment he spotted her, he lowered his gaze.

“Yuta.”

His face was as expressionless as always. He clearly knew what had just happened in that room, and yet never let it show. For that, she was quietly grateful.

“Will you be returning to the carriage?”

Reina began to nod, then paused.

She recalled Kaelid’s words: he had told her that she could take a war trophy. There was probably nothing worthwhile left here, but it wouldn’t hurt to have a look around. Besides, if she went back to the carriage now, Kaelid would probably try to pull up her skirt again. She knew that all too well.

“No, I’ll look around a bit.”

She said, lifting the hem of her skirt slightly. There were no corpses, but streaks of blood marked the floor here and there, as if bodies had been dragged away. Her brows furrowed faintly at the sight. This was why she had never wanted to come to a battlefield.

‘Well, not like it matters. Kaelid probably dragged me here anyway.’

That man was excited by violence. Hadn’t he summoned her the moment the massacre — which was too one-sided to be considered a proper battle — had ended?

Reina averted her gaze from the grim remains that spoke volumes and quickened her pace. The metallic stench of blood clung stubbornly to the air, assaulting her senses.

She gave a faint, bitter smile when she realised that she felt nothing in the face of such horror. Perhaps it was because she had been dragged from battlefield to battlefield against her will — it had all become disturbingly familiar.

The dark red. The stench of blood. The fragments of bodies that had once lived and breathed.

Forcing her gaze away from it all, Reina spoke with unsettling ease.

“Kaelid said I could take a war trophy.”

The man following behind her answered a moment later.

“There’s probably not much left.”

“Probably not.”

She hadn’t been expecting much anyway.

The Marquessate of Baltgar was once wealthy, honourable and powerful. But those days are long gone. The house fell into ruin years ago.

The House of Baltgar.

Reina was well aware of what had become of the place.

It was the first to fall in the battle for the throne.

The Ironblood Baltgar—once celebrated for its fearless valor—had boldly sided with the crown prince, leading the charge with unmatched courage. But the result was nothing short of disastrous.

It had been inevitable.

Had the power among the royals been balanced, had the factions kept each other in check, the outcome might have been different. But at that time, the crown prince alone commanded more than half of the total military strength.

In such a lopsided conflict, what choice did the other royals have?

Even if they would later turn against one another, they all shared one immediate goal: bring down the crown prince.

And so, united in that purpose, the allied forces of the other princes crushed the Ironblood Baltgar.

‘The marquess and his wife were said to have died then, right?’

Unsurprisingly, the deaths of the Marquess and his wife did not result in the immediate downfall of the family. The Baltgar family was ancient and noble. Over generations, they had built a solid foundation, supported by loyal vassals and relatives who could continue the family line.

At the centre of it all was the couple’s only child: their infant son, who was left behind.

At the time, he could barely walk or speak simple words. He could not even grasp the fact that his parents had died. Nevertheless, he was placed on the marquess’s throne and his guardians took over, ruling the house in his stead.

Initially, these guardians were those who had truly honoured the legacy of the Ironblood Baltgar. They upheld its name with dignity and strength.

But that stability didn’t last long.

‘f course it didn’t.’

The name Ironblood Baltgar still carried weight. He was naturally seen as a thorn in the side of others. Although the guardians lacked the Marquess and Marquesse’s strength, they still held some sway, having served the noble house for a long time.

The only possible outcome for people like them was death.

One by one, the guardians died. And then another. And another.

Once the foundation began to crumble, it could not be rebuilt.

Even worse, after Baltgar was struck down first, seemingly to set an example, the crown prince’s forces also began to decline rapidly. The war dragged on. Those who had once believed that the crown prince would easily maintain his position began to turn away.

By the time the crown prince met his end, Baltgar had gone through more than five guardians.

Following the death of the Crown Prince, Baltgar was cast aside by everyone. It was shunned and forgotten by the very factions it had once fought alongside.

No faction welcomed the House. And that was no surprise.

The Marquess and Marquess Dowager — once indomitable and known as the Ironbloods — had died many years ago. Their heir was still just a child. The guardians who had protected him had been killed — everyone who had truly tried to preserve the legacy of Baltgar was now dead.

Ultimately, only opportunists remained, seeking to profit from the House’s fading prestige.

As the vassals who had once upheld the proud lineage either died or abandoned the house, its downfall came swiftly. Even for a house with such a long and noble history, collapse was inevitable.

From what she knew, the young Marquess of Baltgar had had at least six different guardians in the past few years alone.

Any relatives who were once genuinely tied to the family had long since passed away.

The people now calling themselves ‘guardians’ were distant relatives at best, barely connected by blood and completely lacking in loyalty. To them, the Marquess was little more than a burden — or worse, a source of opportunity.

‘And the reasons they left were obvious.’

They had been lured in by the name ‘House of Baltgar’, only to discover that it was empty and powerless — not worth holding onto. So they left.

Then others came. Strangers so distant that they couldn’t even be called kin. They arrived claiming to be guardians, drawn in like hyenas to a carcass, hoping to scavenge what little remained.

This cycle repeated until there was nothing left. Baltgar was finished.

In truth, this couldn’t even be called a war.

It was a massacre.

The loyal vassals and soldiers who had once protected the marquessate had disappeared long ago. Now, only a handful of poorly paid hired staff and a guardian, who seemed prepared to abandon the last marquess at the slightest hint of danger, remained.

Reina opened the door at the end of the corridor.

The room inside was already in ruins. There were bloody footprints scattered across the floor and the bed had been torn to shreds. She stepped further in, taking in the shattered glass and broken bedpost slowly.

“This must have been the Marchioness’s room.”

Reina’s voice lingered in the air, but Yuta remained silent.

She brushed a fingertip across the dusty vanity unit and stared quietly at the drawers, which had been pulled open and left in disarray. One of the wooden drawers looked half-smashed, as if someone had hit it in frustration after finding nothing of value inside.

Stepping carefully over shards of broken glass, Reina made her way to the window.

The entire garden stretched out before her. She wondered if it had once been beautiful, back when Baltgar was still standing tall. Now, all she could see were flames rising from scattered corners and soldiers trampling everything without restraint.

A cool breeze blew in through the shattered window, gently brushing her cheek and hair. She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, then turned her gaze back to the room.

‘There really is nothing left.’

Where there might once have been luxurious drapes hanging from the bed canopy, there was now only bare, dusty fabric. Instead of a finely crafted bedside table, there was only a hastily cobbled-together, crude one. The floor was bare, devoid of the rug that would once have kept out the cold. Even the sofa had disappeared. There was no trace of ornaments or jewellery either.

‘So this is how Ironblood Baltgar ends… How pitiful.’

She murmured the words softly, almost to herself.

Baltgar would vanish like this, too.

It left a bitter taste in her mouth.

Perhaps it was because it reminded her too much of the moment the House of Helfried disappeared.