Chapter 27
Under the flickering light.
Agnes’s gaze shifted from Lionel to the iron door.
The Rebel group, flustered by the loud alarm, looked at each other.
Along with a low curse spat by someone, the man holding the torch ran toward the pile of bombs.
As the hot ember grazed the fuse tangled on top of the bomb pile, sizzle—. With a sharp sound, the flame transferred to the line.
“It’s lit! We have to get out quick before we’re caught!”
Taking advantage of the commotion, the group that had finished their task melted away into another door inside the iron gate.
Leaving the cumbersome torch roughly thrown on the floor.
The thin fuse began to burn rapidly in an instant.
The flame spread creepily along the thin line, and grayish smoke rose thickly.
At that speed, it would explode before Lionel could take action.
“No……!”
Agnes struggled to push the iron door.
Trying somehow to get inside and put out the fire.
But the door, firmly locked with a padlock, wouldn’t open no matter what she tried.
Because of the people tangled in confusion, she couldn’t even call the knights.
“Cough.”
Agnes burst into coughs from the acrid smoke.
Sparks that flew from the abandoned torch were burning other miscellaneous items.
While rubbing her stinging eyes, one of the evacuating audience members from above spotted Agnes and shouted.
“Hey, what are you doing there! Didn’t you hear the alarm? Get out quick!”
That shout stopped Agnes, who had been pulling the door handle.
Swallowing her breath and scanning around, Agnes saw the audience rushing toward the exits.
The fortunate thing was that evacuation was happening quickly,
so if lucky, everyone might escape the theater before the bomb exploded.
Biting her lips hard, Agnes eventually turned the wheelchair and pushed her body into the tangled crowd.
Even as she began fleeing with the people, her head kept turning toward the iron door.
But there was no choice.
There was nothing more she could do here.
Pushed this way and that by the surging crowd, she had barely reached near the audience seats when it happened.
One of the fleeing audience members staggered and crashed into a waste bin.
From the impact, items inside the waste bin spilled out.
Among the objects being trampled under people’s feet, a white box with its lid half-open caught her eye.
“That’s the one Rael was holding……,”
Agnes’s eyelashes trembled finely.
Clean toe shoes were sticking out from the box with its ribbon undone.
Could it be, something he bought to give to her?
The moment Agnes’s white hand reached out as if to pick up the box.
Thud!
Someone pushed the wheelchair with strong force.
From that, a breaking sound came from the wheel joint.
“Move! Why are you stupidly blocking the way!”
Floris, with stage makeup on, lifted her cumbersome skirt and tried to step over the box.
Then her neatly drawn eyebrows shot up.
“Oh my, who is this? Isn’t it the Duchess?”
Recognizing Agnes, Floris placed her palm on her chest with an exaggerated gesture and bowed her head.
An overly formal greeting that didn’t suit the chaos was grotesque.
“I’m so honored to meet you like this. I really wanted to greet you at least once.”
Floris curled her lips and forcibly drew a seductive smile.
In her eyes, mad resentment spread.
“Thanks to you, Madam, I was chased out of the principal dancer position and ended up like this. How is it? Are you satisfied? Just because of some harsh gossip.”
Floris, distorting her expression in an instant, stomped on the wheelchair wheel with her heel.
An unpleasant metallic sound echoed on the floor.
Without giving time to respond, Floris kept spewing her words.
“You’re making a face like you know nothing. Haven’t you heard from His Grace? Or are you pretending not to know?”
Disgusting.
Floris, pouring out one-sided contempt, turned her body sharply.
Then, as if pouring out her past glory into the air, she shouted loudly, pushing through people and running toward the entrance.
“Take care of me first! Who will take responsibility if I get hurt? I’m Floris Loren, the imperial principal dancer, Floris Loren!”
“She was chased out of the principal dancer position because of me……?”
Already in a confused state, Floris’s words were even more incomprehensible.
Haven’t heard from Lionel. What?
Agnes tried to chase Floris after picking up the box.
But the wheelchair wheels were strange.
When she applied force to move, the wheels twisted and made a creaking sound. It seemed completely broken from Floris stepping on it.
Eventually, because of the misaligned wheel, the wheelchair lost balance and collapsed as is.
“Ugh……!”
Agnes, flung to the floor, struggled to get up while hugging the box to her chest.
Behind such Agnes, a small explosion occurred under the stage at that moment.
“Kyaaak!”
At the explosion sound, the audience panicked and ran outside without distinction.
It was instantaneous.
With people surging out like the tide, the theater became empty like ruins.
Near the stage, only Agnes remained.
“I-I have to get out quick……!”
Agnes tried to stand by leaning on the cane she had kept in the wheelchair just in case.
But even that had been stepped on by people and broken in two.
Agnes gritted her teeth and tried to escape by crawling.
But from the vibration of the air humming from the explosion’s impact, her vision repeatedly turned white and black.
“……Haa, ugh.”
Her head was dizzy.
Her body, her mind, froze in fear.
Hyperventilation came rushing. The memory of that day, that cliff, assaulted her again.
Agnes, prone on the floor, struggled to somehow hold onto consciousness.
At that moment.
She saw someone running toward her from afar.
Jet-black military uniform and jet-black hair.
It was Lionel.
“……Lionel……?”
Agnes instinctively reached out her hand.
But in that instant, the images of Lionel she had seen until now came to mind.
The eyes filled with disgust that suspected her.
The back turning away indifferently.
The cruel lips that spat he wouldn’t believe.
Then suddenly a question arose in her mind.
‘Will Lionel really save me……?’
Learned despair swallowed hope.
If it’s Lionel, he’ll suspect again.
He’ll conclude that even this situation is something Agnes herself orchestrated.
If so, those steps probably aren’t running to save her.
The budding expectation withered in an instant.
The moment faith disappeared, Agnes dropped her outstretched hand.
Lionel wouldn’t save her.
And.
Boom!
With a huge roar, the structures on the stage collapsed toward Agnes.
In the cloudy rising dust, Lionel’s running face was visible.
Lionel’s expression was like a child terrified of losing someone precious.
But,
‘……This must be my illusion too.’
Agnes, with a bitter smile, hugged the sparkling new toe shoes to her chest.
And lowered her gaze.
Because Lionel would never look at her with such eyes.
***
Boom!
A huge explosion shaking the grand theater.
The dome ceiling vibrating, glass windows crying out as if splitting.
People’s screams and murmurs.
In that wave of chaos, only one scene entered Lionel’s eyes.
The wheelchair broken and overturned, having lost its owner.
And Agnes, covered in dust, looking up at him with terrified eyes.
“……No.”
Toward Agnes’s hand reaching out to him, Lionel’s arm rose.
The moment their gazes met. As if time around them stopped, all senses became distant.
But as if urging such Lionel.
The sound of cracks in the structure sinisterly filled the theater.
Regaining his senses, Lionel tried to approach Agnes without hesitation.
“Your Excellency, it’s dangerous!”
“If you don’t want to die, let go.”
Kain grabbed him, but Lionel, growling low, roughly shook off the arm.
And ran toward Agnes reaching out amid the debris.
But, as if it were a lie.
Agnes’s hand that she had extended toward him.
The hand she had stretched like a sole lifeline.
Slowly withdrew it.
Agnes’s expression was stained with despair.
In her beautiful ash-gray eyes, there was neither expectation nor hope for help.
“……Why?”
Lionel swallowed his breath.
Why.
Why aren’t you asking me for help, to save you?
Why are you looking at me…… like someone who has given up everything?
Thump.
Once again, thump.
His heart pounded as if warning.
Something’s wrong.
The moment he realized that fact.
The cracked stone structure above Agnes’s head collapsed.
“No, Agnes!”
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