23 – His True Intentions
Elaine’s father, Astus Bart.
He was currently in his candlelit bedroom.
I was sitting on a chair next to the bed.
For quite some time, I stared at the sleeping prince without saying a word.
“……”
How did it come to this?
Just a few hours ago.
I was sitting alone in the dark office.
I couldn’t forget the tears I saw in Elaine’s eyes on the carriage, and I couldn’t sleep.
I regretted not pretending not to know, and it even gave me a severe headache.
That’s why.
To erase the irreversible past as quickly as possible.
I was emptying a glass filled with strong alcohol.
And then I heard it.
-There! There’s an intruder over there!
It was undoubtedly my daughter’s voice that broke the silence of the deep night.
Feeling an unknown sense of crisis, I looked out the window.
Elaine was running in her nightgown.
It seemed unusual, so she hurriedly rushed out.
And then I saw it.
A powerful light that covered the whole world was completely swallowing the darkness of the night.
I could sense it intuitively.
The magnificent scene was a miracle so great that it rivaled the advent of a god.
A tremendous sense of awe, enough to make one kneel down immediately, passionately surged from deep within the heart.
However, that overwhelming light did not last long.
And in the place where the light disappeared,
there was a daughter.
Just from that alone, it was impossible to discern anything.
The prince, dressed in suspicious attire, only added to the confusion.
After all, rationalization always stemmed from ignorance.
The marquis had no knowledge to link the magnificent light and his daughter.
So, for now, he could only rationalize that it was a natural disaster.
On the other hand, he couldn’t erase the rational suspicion that perhaps his daughter was the cause of that extraordinary light.
Suppressing the thought, he moved his daughter to the bedroom.
The prince ordered his subordinates to bring his own bed.
The bloodstained clothes worn by the prince were changed by his subordinates.
Luckily, there was no one else who witnessed Elaine and the prince.
There was no need to worry about rumors spreading.
And so, the marquis sat in his chair, endlessly waiting for the prince to wake up.
Throughout the wait,
the suspicion grew more and more intense.
In truth, the situation was so shocking that it was not easy to guess.
At first.
Judging by the clothes and cloak that seemed pierced by a sword, I thought for sure that his heart had been stabbed.
But nowhere on the prince’s body.
Could I find a single small gasp.
So the blood on his clothes must have belonged to someone else.
Of course, the pierced clothes still remained a mystery.
But even so, it was the most plausible deduction.
Perhaps the crown prince had harmed someone.
That vague speculation.
Without finding any counterarguments, it eventually became the conclusion.
The notorious figure who had persistently pursued the crown prince had naturally intervened, but before I knew it, the marquis had become convinced.
He can’t change his old habits.
In the end, just like in the past, he had committed a heinous act once again.
It seemed clear that he had killed someone and fled.
The traces of blood on the clothes were likely the result of narrowly avoiding an attack.
If I think about his talent from his childhood.
And if the opponent wasn’t that strong.
It was entirely possible.
Since there was quite a bit of blood on the clothes, it seemed highly likely that the opponent had died at the hands of the prince.
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That was the conclusion reached with such conviction.
In the end, it was disappointment and contempt.
The Marquis, still glaring at the Prince, tightly shut his mouth.
The sigh that was about to escape naturally was quietly exhaled through his nose.
No matter how you thought about it, this was no ordinary matter.
If he had just let the Prince sneak in, it would have been enough to acknowledge his own concession.
But the fact that he had come in covered in blood was a problem that was by no means light.
If someone were to discover it.
It could be a dangerous situation where he could be accused of an assassination attempt.
And even if that wasn’t the case.
He could be accused of assisting the Prince in his wickedness.
So it was inevitable to be disappointed.
For an Imperial Prince, his actions were too reckless.
Even though he was known for his notorious reputation, the more he thought about it, the more severe it seemed.
This was not only an insult to Bart, but also a disregard for Elaine.
So there was no choice but to feel contempt.
The Marquis felt deep skepticism.
Was making such an extremely wicked person the Emperor really a good thing for the Empire?
And for his own daughter, whom he wouldn’t even mind poking in the eye.
Could he really not regret making such a person his wife? These two doubts were constantly swirling in his mind.
And then, he remembered the words he had heard from the Emperor.
-They’ve been in a relationship for four years.
Not one year, not two years.
A full four years.
As the Marquis, who received reports about his daughter whenever he had the chance, it was something he couldn’t easily accept.
Every time Elaine left the mansion, she secretly had an escort, but he had never heard a report about meeting the Crown Prince, not even once.
So, it was a story that they had been secretly meeting for a long four years within the Marquis’s walls.
Even the owner of this place didn’t know.
The Marquis’s face distorted horribly.
It was an expression that could belong to the leader of a gang of thieves who had stolen a precious treasure.
“How dare they meet Elaine… and in my own house, secretly, for such a long time…!”
Various unpleasant scenes constantly flashed through the Marquis’s mind as he clenched his fists.
From the scene of the two holding hands to the scene of their lips colliding, and even to the scene of them embracing passionately.
Countless imaginations arose against the backdrop of the mansion.
His anger was boiling hotter than bubbling lava.
He felt as if his blood was flowing backwards, thinking that they had carried out dirty schemes in his own house.
This wicked and detestable Crown Prince felt so unpleasant.
If it weren’t for him being the Crown Prince.
He couldn’t help but have a wicked desire to kill him immediately, tear his body apart, and burn it without anyone knowing.
But still.
This scumbag was the only lifeline that could make his daughter the most noble woman in the empire.
Of course, it was quite rotten.
But as long as the Emperor still loved it, and had shown exceptional potential since childhood,
If I were to cut out the rotten parts, supplement them with new lines, and give it some oil,
It might become a pretty good puppet string.
No, it must be so.
So wake up.
“I will make your spirit shine!”
***
Strange.
I’m sure my consciousness has returned.
But it feels awkward, like wearing ill-fitting clothes.
As if I’ve lost my physical body.
No matter how hard I try to open my eyes,
My eyelids don’t respond.
Every corner of my body, including my hands and feet, seems to be protesting against my will, as if in a riot.
Somehow, I felt like a broken marionette.
Yet, the agony that came from my left chest was still vivid.
Of course, it didn’t actually feel painful.
It seemed to be the pain engraved in my memory.
And then, around the time I began to think that maybe I really had died.
Finally, my eyes opened.
Through my slowly expanding field of vision,
I met the gaze of a middle-aged man with a fierce face staring down at me.
I truly thought my breath had stopped.
The situation was so bewildering.
Even though it was a face I had seen several times before, it felt unfamiliar as if I were seeing it for the first time.
“Your Highness, are you finally awake?”
The moment I heard his voice, memories came alive and revealed his identity.
The man looking down at me with an indifferent gaze was undoubtedly Count Bart.
“……”
I should be relieved.
Although my fingers and toes could twitch, I still couldn’t speak.
To an extreme extent, my senses were slowly returning, making me wonder if I had died and come back to life.
In any case, I was alive.
Perhaps Elaine had saved me at the moment of my death.
So, I couldn’t understand the current situation in front of me.
Why is it not Elaine, but her father who is looking down at me?
And with such a harsh gaze, as if facing a sworn enemy.
“Your Highness, how much longer do you plan to lie around like this?”
His tone was polite, but his gaze and expression were filled with anger.
Strictly speaking, it was an expression closer to disgust than anger.
“There was something… that happened…”
Although weak, a voice finally came out.
“Who did you kill this time? Just who innocent have you harmed that you dare to step into the Marquis’s territory with your blood-stained, filthy body?”
There was strength, but the voice was small.
Extremely restrained, it seemed to be whispering in a hoarse manner.
“Didn’t you say you would marry my daughter? But if you keep causing trouble like this, what am I supposed to do? Is the title of Prince not enough?”
Perhaps the Marquis thought that I had killed someone and secretly fled here.
“Truly, do you want to pretend that the engagement with my daughter never happened?”
The voice was as chilling as a blade slicing through the air.
In this situation, it was best to prostrate oneself.
“I apologize.”
The effect of the apology was not insignificant.
The Marquis showed a slight hesitation.
The intense disgust that had been flickering in his eyes, pushed aside by a sudden confusion, seemed to escape.
However, the Marquis soon resumed his pursuit.
“Do you think I’m doing all this just to hear such a feeble apology? Answer me, Your Highness. Do you truly want to marry my daughter?”
The engagement with Elaine…
The path I had to walk from now on was not a flower path filled with laughter.
I had to hide my identity from the Empress and the Crown Prince’s gang.
And yet, I had to prevent countless disasters that would plunge the empire into crisis without a single failure.
I don’t know how many more crises I will face in the future.
So, in order to survive,
I definitely needed Elaine.
That’s why I needed a valid reason to be with her without arousing suspicion.
It wasn’t my intention from the beginning,
but if I could, there was nothing better than that.
I got up.
My body was completely healed before I knew it.
My mana was overflowing even more than before, to the point where it couldn’t be compared to the past.
Elaine was an essential presence for me, even if I had to make my already strong body even stronger by overcoming crises.
“I truly desire to be engaged to her. Without her, I will never be able to navigate through this treacherous world. So, Viscount, please dispel your anger.”
I don’t know how, but
Viscount Bart had an expression as if he had been hit on the back of the head with a hammer.
***
When Elaine regained consciousness, the first thing she did was look for the Crown Prince.
However, she couldn’t find him anywhere.
Not in her bedroom,
nor in the spot where the Crown Prince had collapsed near the fence.
Even the bloodstains seemed to have been intentionally cleared away.
And then, she discovered it all of a sudden.
A faint light was seeping out from the Duke’s bedroom on the third floor of the mansion.
Perhaps, her father had been watching over everything from there.
Elaine hurriedly made her way to the Duke’s bedroom.
It was still deep into the night.
There was not a single servant wandering around.
Pressing her ear against the closed door, she could faintly hear the voices of her father and the prince.
And then, she heard it.
The trembling voice of the prince, sincerely expressing his desire for their engagement.
The true feelings of the man that he couldn’t navigate through this treacherous world without her.
“Ah-“
She hurriedly covered the exclamation that involuntarily burst out with both hands.
Yet, she couldn’t help but lose strength in her legs and eventually ended up sitting right there.
Her heart was pounding like crazy.
And before she knew it, tears were overflowing uncontrollably.