The moment she returned to her room, Chloe’s legs gave way beneath her. She slid down the wall next to the door, eventually collapsing onto the floor.

She felt as though she were suffocating.

Clutching her throat, she gasped desperately for air. The harder she tried to breathe, the more ragged her breaths became.

Clear liquid streamed from her eyes, nose, and mouth. Only when she was too exhausted to breathe any more did her body finally calm down.

‘……How could he?’

She could not forget.

The face of the man who had continued speaking of love afterward remained vivid in her mind.

‘You know how much I love Helena. I have played the role of your husband for the past year without causing any trouble, so let me live my own life now.’

At the very least, he could have shown some remorse.

If he had, Chloe would have found it easier to understand him.

Instead, Kallis arrogantly boasted that he had fulfilled his duties as her husband. Seeing him was utterly despicable.

Did he not remember how he had treated her over the past six months?

After ‘that incident’, he had treated her as though she didn’t exist on the estate. He had even encouraged the people of the territory and the members of the ducal household to do the same.

At social gatherings, she was barely treated like a human being. Without any authority, she would have been treated like an insect.

Furthermore, after she had been away from the estate for several weeks, Kallis refused to share a bedroom with her. She was subsequently given a tiny room that was worse than an attic.

And that was not all.

When she fell ill with a severe cold due to her unfamiliarity with the northern climate, he ignored her. He even turned a blind eye when a magical beast invaded the estate and attacked her, leaving her bleeding.

Yet Chloe never resisted, driven by the guilt she felt towards him.

She endured every degrading insult he directed at her in the hope that it might ease his anger.

She believed that their estranged relationship might improve someday.

She hoped that, once his anger had subsided, he might forgive her.

‘It was all for nothing.’

Yet despite all her efforts, the only thing she received in return was yet another humiliation.

***

There were many circumstances that led to Chloe and Kallis’s marriage.

The crucial fact was that neither of them wanted it.

It all began three years ago, when war broke out with the Empire.

The peaceful Kingdom of Valont suddenly received an offer.

They were to unite with the Empire and become part of it.

If they refused, the Empire would declare war — the proposal was nothing less than a threat.

They had to accept.

But they must reject it.

Amidst countless conflicting opinions, the king ultimately chose the latter.

「Although becoming part of the empire may contribute to the advancement of both nations, we cannot turn our backs on our homeland. The Kingdom of Valont refuses to become a vassal state of the Frihid Empire.」

As expected, the Empire declared war upon receiving the King’s response.

In an attempt to minimize civilian casualties, the war began along the barren Rian River, which formed the border between the two nations.

The Kingdom was little more than a minor nation compared to the Empire. Although the Kingdom’s knights knew that defeat was inevitable, they fought with all their might.

They fought to protect their families, friends, lovers, and homeland.

Among them was Chloe, a princess of the royal family.

Born with a frail constitution, she was unable to fight alongside the knights. Instead, she secretly volunteered as a nurse, tending to the wounded day and night, hidden from the royal family.

However, not even their sweat and tears could alter the cruel reality.

Before long, the number of knights capable of fighting had dwindled to almost nothing.

Ultimately, the kingdom’s knight order was forced to take drastic measures. They decided to send their members into the imperial camp.

The bedridden knights were sent to the encampment of the Empire. They were given one of two missions.

They had to either assassinate the Emperor or negotiate successfully with him.

Either way, it was a mission with virtually no chance of success. They would be fortunate merely to return alive.

Ten days passed after the mission began.

During that time, thirty-one knights were sent, and twenty failed to return.

「Negotiations with the empire succeed. The empire finally declares an end to the war…….」

When the twenty-first knight returned from the imperial encampment, the war came to an end.

Astonishingly, the negotiations with the Emperor had succeeded.

「Who was the knight who successfully negotiated with the empire?」

Kallis Arhen, the twenty-second knight and savior of the kingdom, was revealed.

Everyone was stunned by this unfamiliar name. How could someone with such average intelligence and swordsmanship skills have saved the kingdom?

Moreover, wasn’t the House of Arhen a family of counts who were slowly collapsing under the mountain of debt left by their ancestors?

「Kallis Arhen, the Hero of the Century Who Saved the Kingdom!」

However, Kallis’s brilliant achievement erased that insignificant past completely.

Kallis Arhen! Our hero!

His name spread throughout the kingdom. Bathed in a dazzling spotlight, he practically became a god, worshipped by the entire nation.

Initially, the royal family also held Arhen’s achievement in high regard. They bestowed gold, treasure and a noble title upon him.

However, once his fame surpassed that of the royal family, the king recognized the gravity of the situation.

At this rate, the dignity of the monarchy would undoubtedly decline. Furthermore, the possibility of Kallis committing treason could not be dismissed outright.

While searching for a way to restrain Kallis, King Valont XV came up with the perfect solution.

He would marry his daughter to Kallis, thereby binding the hero to the royal family.

By welcoming Kallis into the royal family, Valont could grant him boundless privileges while ensuring that the throne remained beyond his reach.

Chloe, the third princess, was the ideal candidate to become the hero’s wife.

Her elder sisters were already engaged, and it would have been immoral to arrange marriages for the younger princesses before they had reached adulthood.

Chloe had originally been destined to marry the noblest of men. Although some protested that Kallis was an unsuitable husband for a princess, the match was considered worthwhile if it meant keeping the Hero of the Century under the Crown’s control.

Valont unilaterally informed his daughter that her marriage had been arranged. As a precaution against any possible incident, he did not reveal that her future husband was Kallis.

Surprisingly, Kallis readily accepted Valont’s offer.

With a ducal title, an immense territory befitting a duke, and a monthly allowance from the royal family, he could not ignore such extraordinary compensation.

In truth, Kallis had never intended to involve himself in anything as troublesome and complicated as treason, so the offer came as a welcome surprise.

On the long-awaited day of the wedding, Chloe finally came face-to-face with the man who would become her husband.

To her astonishment, the man standing before her to receive the wedding blessing—her future husband—was none other than the Hero of the Century.

According to her father, the man had fallen in love with her at first sight and asked for her hand in marriage.

Did that mean the hero who had saved not only the kingdom but also her peaceful life had fallen in love with her?

‘The hero himself fell in love with me and proposed.’

A proposal from the warrior who had saved the kingdom—nothing could have been more fantastical.

Since Chloe had always admired heroes, falling in love with him seemed inevitable.

Their newlywed life was pleasant enough, though Chloe found it strange that Kallis showed little active affection despite supposedly being the one who had proposed to her.

“You truly are an intelligent woman. The duchy could never have prospered so greatly without you. You are not only my wife but also my benefactor.”

She believed that trust and support were also expressions of love.

The members of the ducal household and the locals were all kind to her. Thanks to them, Chloe — who had spent her whole life in the royal palace — quickly settled into married life.

Those peaceful days seemed as though they would continue forever.

Until that incident, that is.

Around six months after the wedding, an enormous scandal erupted, shaking the entire kingdom.

「The Unfortunate Cinderella」

The Million Paper, the kingdom’s largest newspaper, published an article about Kallis’s former lover.

It recounted the tale of a woman who had devoted herself to him selflessly, only to be cruelly abandoned the moment he became a hero.

It was a story that Chloe had never heard before.

Had the man who supposedly fell in love with her and proposed actually been in a long-term relationship with someone else?

However, Kallis left the estate as soon as the article was published, leaving Chloe with no opportunity to question him.

She found out the following day through another article published by the same newspaper.

「An Unfortunate Hero Following the Unfortunate Cinderella?」

The article stated the following.

[It is true that he had a longtime lover whom he dated before and even after joining the war. However, he never intentionally abandoned his beloved. All of this was the work of the royal family. The royal family forced him to marry the princess, and as a subject of the kingdom, he was in no position to refuse.]

‘What does this mean? Didn’t Father tell me that it was His Grace who proposed to me?’

After reading the newspaper, Chloe could not hide her confusion.

However, that was only the beginning.

As the kingdom’s leading newspaper, the Million Paper did not concern itself with the royal family’s displeasure. Instead, it spread the duchy’s scandal even further.

Kallis continued to make revelations without restraint.

The terms of their agreement were clearly stipulated in the contract, and he had not violated any provision that would justify the royal family withdrawing their support. In principle, therefore, there was no reason for that support to be terminated.

To make matters worse, follow-up articles about Duke Arhen evoked widespread sympathy for him. The public accused the royal family of treating the ‘Hero of the Century’ as though he were being sent to a brothel.

‘How could you possibly do such a thing to His Grace……?’

Meanwhile, Chloe became the target of condemnation within the duchy.

“Husband, can we please discuss what happened……?”

“Husband?”

“…….”

“You clearly have no idea how disgusted I have been while living with you for the past six months. Never call me that again, Chloe Valont.”

Even Kallis, who had maintained an amicable relationship with her during the first half of their marriage, turned against her.

Faced with a husband who claimed that married life with her had been dreadful, Chloe could not bring herself to ask if he had ever loved her.

It was only much later that she realized that everything she had believed was a lie.

Ultimately, all that remained was the love she had nurtured entirely alone.