Chapter 8

“My lady.”

As Ellen reached the bottom of the staircase, Deriel approached. He extended his hand with a respectful bow to escort her. Ellen held out her hand without hesitation.

“Goodness……”

Tera, standing in the entrance hall on the ground floor, went rigid and bit down on her lip.

Deriel took Ellen’s fingertips and pressed his lips to them. Like a man making a solemn vow.

The sight of it was so dignified it gave the impression of purifying anyone who witnessed it.

It was infuriating enough that a knight had been assigned to that insect even temporarily, but for him to be this beautiful. Tera felt her insides twist.

“To show such courteous respect to that lowborn creature!”

The Countess looked ready to lunge forward, eyes blazing. But she couldn’t do that with the Count watching with both eyes wide open.

For the past ten days, Count Nockton had treated Ellen with an unusual warmth, as though she were a different person. So there was no openly tormenting her in front of him.

Tera, his own daughter, had had all her cherished clothes taken away. It was because that beggar had not a single proper outfit to her name. The Count had even gone so far as to strip Tera’s jewelry for the debutante.

Unable to bear it any longer, the Countess had rushed to Ellen’s room to retrieve Tera’s things. But she had the misfortune of running straight into the Count, who had come to discuss the debutante with Ellen, and Count Nockton had erupted, demanding to know if he needed to take the Countess’s jewelry too before she would come to her senses. He had told her to be prepared if she pulled something like this again.

‘That wretched debutante! Just wait until it’s over and she comes back. I will never let this go.’

Having observed the Count over the past ten days, he was fixated on Ellen’s debutante to an almost strange degree. She couldn’t understand it at all. But one thing was certain.

Once it was over, her chance would come. She would make Ellen pay for every humiliation of the past ten days, with interest.

The Countess and Tera ground their teeth as they watched Ellen and the knight walk away side by side.

“Quite convincing, isn’t it. He really does look like a knight.”

“Of course. If I’m going to play the part, I might as well do it properly.”

Deriel deflected the sharp, stabbing gazes of Tera and her mother with easy composure as he spoke.

“Have a good journey. You know better than I do how to conduct yourself there, so I won’t bother telling you.”

He meant for her to come back having raised her value as much as possible, as agreed. Ellen swallowed her contempt and gave a quiet bow.

“Yes, Father.”

Ellen accepted Deriel’s escort and stepped into the carriage.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

Clatter. The heavy carriage lurched as it passed over an uneven stretch of road. The coachman broke into a sweat trying to calm the snorting horse.

“Illegal slave trading and running gambling dens.”

“That’s right. Duke Shurn is someone who never misses a chance at dirty business.”

Deriel glanced out the window at Hess, who was sitting up on the coachman’s box, and spoke. Hess had said her stomach was unsettled from the long journey and had gone outside for some fresh air.

“I’d like to dissect the head of the man who’d sell his daughter to someone like that.”

More than eight days had passed since they departed from Esrod, the Nockton family’s territory, and a great city wall came into view on the horizon. The capital, Kadin, revealed itself in imposing grandeur.

Ellen traced the view beyond the cold glass with trembling fingers.

“I know. How could a man who calls himself a father do that to me.”

“That’s what I want to know.”

“Thanks to him, at least I can make my plans without a shred of guilt.”

The Count had already spent considerably for the debutante. He had stretched himself quite thin in order to raise her value as much as possible.

Of course, that alone wouldn’t be enough to corner him. But what if a catastrophic future unfolded before long?

An event that would drag everyone in the Empire into ruin was slowly casting its shadow.

“Not bad.”

“My plan?”

“Yes. You won’t have to be foolishly victimized the way you were before.”

“This is hardly anything. It’s barely even started.”

“That’s true.”

Deriel looked at her with complicated eyes. Knowing too well how Ellen had lived in her past life made him a little worried about the path she was walking.

‘Is it because she’s my life’s savior that I feel this way?’

Deriel murmured softly with a faint, self-deprecating smile.

“Worrying. That’s not like me.”

“Hm?”

“It’s nothing. Don’t mind it.”

“I don’t think it’s nothing. Don’t tell me you’re worried about me?”

He turned his head silently toward the window. That was a yes. Ellen studied Deriel’s profile with surprised eyes.

“It’s not like that.”

“Then I’m glad.”

Long rays of light fell across the window. Ellen let her true feelings show in a slow, clear voice.

“I’m not going to die this time. I’m going to live, no matter what.”

Me. And……

The coachman pulled the reins as they reached the long city gate entering the capital, and the horse scraped its hooves against the ground and snorted.

The coachman produced a small badge bearing the Nockton family crest. The guard checked the purple scrap of cloth with impassive eyes and waved the carriage through. The coachman cracked the whip and drove into the city.

Ellen looked at the imperial palace rising magnificently in the distance with a faraway gaze.

The place where Leonid was.

In this life, he would not die because of her. And neither would she.

No longer would they cause each other pain.

……Unaware of the future that had already changed because of her, Ellen’s eyes, clear as emeralds, shone with quiet light.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

Having arrived in the capital late the previous evening, Ellen set out the next day at noon for the restaurant she had reserved.

The main boulevard of Kadin at midday was bustling with people coming and going. Ellen stepped out of the carriage and was guided by a restaurant attendant to a terrace on the second floor with a sweeping view of the street below.

Hess looked around curiously and asked something she had been wondering about.

“Um, by the way…… the knight hasn’t been seen since we arrived at the hotel yesterday.”

“He said he had urgent business, so I told him to go ahead. He’ll be back before the imperial ball, so don’t worry.”

“Ah, I see.”

“It’s all right. The Empire’s public safety isn’t great, but this is Kadin. There’s the imperial army here to protect the capital, so there’s no need to fret.”

Ellen read the unease in Hess’s expression and reassured her in a calm voice. Then she picked up her cutlery and thought about Deriel’s situation.

He had turned back time to two days after the day she saved him, as repayment for the life debt she was owed.

He had saved her at the moment she needed it most, so he had given her the same in return.

‘Deriel said it took him half a year after winning the succession struggle to settle things in the spirit realm.’

Of course, that also worked in Deriel’s favor.

‘He said that since he knows how he won, he can cut the time of the succession struggle down dramatically.’

Because he carries the memory of his victory intact, he said he might have the chance not only to win the war but to save the subordinates who had been lost in it.

“That’s a relief then, Miss.”

Hess finally let the worry ease from her face.

Ellen understood the Empire’s security situation better than almost anyone. She had fled across the entire country with the Guild’s help to escape Leonid.

Security in the capital was quite solid, but the moment you left Kadin, things deteriorated rapidly.

Without the Illiard Guild, said to be the finest in the Empire, she would have encountered serious danger more than once during her escape in her previous life. The security situation was just as poor now as it had been then.

‘That’s how bad the Empire’s condition is.’

The only reason Leonid was branded a tyrant was because he had seized the throne through blood. The one who had truly ruined the Empire was the incompetent current Emperor.

Ellen swallowed a bitter taste as she thought of Leonid, who bore not only the false charge of being a cursed prince but also the undeserved blame for the Empire’s decline.

‘The wrongly fastened buttons have to be set right.’

And to do that, the first button had to be placed correctly.

Her grip tightened on the cutlery in her hand.

This debutante had to go perfectly. She had made a deal with the Count over it.

“Miss. I’ve never been to a restaurant this grand before.”

“Neither have I.”

“That’s true, isn’t it. This is the first time you’ve gone out properly like this, Miss.”

A little while later, the table was filled with rich dishes. But Ellen was so deep in thought she didn’t even notice the food had arrived.

“Aren’t you eating, Miss?”

“Hm?”

Only at Hess’s prompt did Ellen notice the food and move her cutlery.

But the movement stopped before long.

‘Leonid.’

Thinking of the imperial palace where the debutante would be held brought him to mind.

He would be wandering through hell, already carrying deep wounds……

‘If only I can stop the nanny incident somehow. Might there be a chance to keep that faint ember of hope alive?’

Ellen wiped at her stinging nose and picked up a piece of meat. Bright sunlight fell across the white tablecloth between her thoughts.

The sounds of carriages rushing past and people walking the boulevard drifted up to the table.

Having eaten a reasonable amount, Ellen looked down at the street below, straightened her clothes, and rose from her seat. It was time to go to the dressmaker the Count had reserved.

Instead of taking the carriage directly from the restaurant, Ellen decided to walk a little with Hess. She wanted to shake off the thoughts that kept crowding in.

Walking through a busy street would make the brooding fade, surely.

She walked and walked in the sunlight. Then, at some point, an unpleasant gaze that had been following her closed in without warning.

She spun around in alarm. Three well-built noble men had instantly surrounded Ellen and Hess.

“Why…… are you doing this?”

“We have no business with something like you, so stay out of it.”

They shoved Hess aside as she stepped in front of Ellen with a terrified face, and moved toward Ellen.

“Nice face. Really gets the blood going. Haven’t seen you around the capital before. Which family are you from?”

“Get your hand away.”

Ellen’s expression went cold as she knocked away the hand reaching for her face. But the man didn’t flinch and instead tried to grab her by the back of the neck.

It was at that moment.

“Aaagh!”

A scream tore out of the man as though his insides had been ripped apart. A man who had appeared in an instant had wrenched the man’s arm backward.

“W, who are you?”

“Do you know me?”

Dark black hair and eyes deeper than blood.

There was only one man in the Empire with those crimson eyes, the very symbol of a curse.

“Your…… Your Hi, uugh!”