Chapter 226

Chapter 226

The mundane address written so casually was unbearable to him. Lucius couldn’t stand the thought of asking such trivial questions as ‘So, how is she doing?’ The question burned in his throat, and he sighed, covering his damp face with his hands.

He cursed his curiosity.

He wasn’t interested in petty emotions like wondering how well she was doing after abandoning him. He genuinely wanted to know about her well-being.

After fleeing like that, she probably declared to the Duke that she willingly supported Lucius’s revenge. Therefore, she likely received no assistance from the Duke.

That’s why Lucius had instructed Rosalynn to bring clothes for her for the next few months. However, Lucius, unaware of her situation, stupidly said, “Why come all the way out here when you can get it from the duke?”

She probably couldn’t even make much money.

The chambermaid likely didn’t manage any money on her own. Lucius had been standing near the door, glaring at her.

Foolish. Stupid guy. Instead of providing any financial help, he stood there watching her.

How could she survive in the middle of nowhere with only the clothes on her back?

Moreover, Ponto—wasn’t it one of the places in Galaba most affected by demonic damage?

He was genuinely concerned for her safety, and he couldn’t bear it.

He tried to pretend otherwise, but how much was he hiding? Suddenly leaving like that, wondering how she would survive somewhere.

He felt the urge to chase after her and bring her back immediately.

However, Lucius didn’t say a word and soon left the room. She was the one who left, and he wasn’t broken enough to force her back.

***

The Emperor summoned Lucius after a fortnight.

He arrivedwaited for the Emperor, bowing politely in front of an empty chair where the Emperor would sit. The Emperor came in slowly, leaning his heavy body against the chair, sighing.

“Really, it’s exhausting.”

Arriving first, Lucius waited for him, bowing in front of the empty chair the Emperor was accustomed to sitting in. The Emperor entered slowly, leaned his heavy body against the chair, and sighed.

“How tiresome.”

The reason the Emperor was so tired of Lucius was twofold. One was that Lucius refused to cleanly agree to annul the marriage and step down, and the second was that he wouldn’t completely hand over the son of Effie, the princess.

Of course, Lucius ignored both, no matter how the Emperor tried to persuade him.

The Emperor, who had once ordered Lucius to kill the son of the princess, couldn’t bring himself to do anything now that he knew the boy was with Lucius.

It made him sick to his stomach and feverish to see his smug face, steadfast as an old tree, holding out to the end. But the Emperor could not do anything about it, only grit his teeth and grimace at the fact that Lucius was carrying the son of Princess Effie.

At first, the Emperor had ordered to kill the princess’s son, but after seeing his face, he couldn’t bring himself to say the order. His face resembled the princess’s so much that he couldn’t order his death.

As the Emperor watched the Empress’s son from afar, unable to speak, Lucius said, “This is Edgar. I asked the doctor, and he said it was a name given to him by the Princess Effie,” ending the order to kill with a final strike.

Since that day, the Emperor had been unable to do anything and could only groan in distress.

The Emperor continued his vague and aimless conversation with Lucius, discussing the uselessness of their current confrontation. He pointed out that the Countess had left, and it was time for Lucius to embrace a new world.

“Lucius, don’t you think,” he said, “I don’t see the point of all this opposition between us, and the lady is gone anyway?”

And so it went on for several months, with a lot of stalling, a lot of sitting down, a lot of talking, and a lot of neither-doing-nor-doing.

The Emperor spoke Lucius’ name seriously and said that it was time for him to move on.

“It’s not that I don’t understand your foolishness. I think I have to give you credit for trying so hard to be with her, but she’s gone, and you have a new world to explore, don’t you?”

In those two or three short words, he’d already said that Deatrice had left for the second time. No, if you counted from the first time she left, it was probably a hundred times. Lucius tilted his head in thought, pouting.

“Exploring a new world…,” he muttered.

“I’m sure you’ve heard that the Marquis Boviki is in a lot of trouble for what happened in Galaba.”

The Marquis Boviki was a nobleman of Galaba, the owner of the Ponto estate. The previous Queen of Galaba had been the Empress’s second aunt, and the Marquise Boviki was the Empress’s cousin, so the Marquise Boviju and the King of Galaba and the Emperor of the Empire were somehow connected by a tenuous bloodline that went around and around.

For that reason, the Marquise had always been loyal to the King of Galaba and the Empire, and that was one of the places where he had fallen the hardest.

“The Empress’s family has always been very good at keeping their daughters in business. The Empress is fed up with the incessant calls, and would like to end it with a modest gift and some sincerity. Well, Marquis Boviki is not a bad man. He’s sincere and, above all, his daughter is beautiful. I think her name is Vivian.”