Episode 138. I thought you were hiding well like a rat.
“What do you intend to do now?”
While on the way to where the carriage they had ridden in was located, the priest, who had not said a word until then, finally broke the silence and spoke.
“First, I must take her home and educate her. So she never thinks of running away again—when I think of how I suffered because of this wench during that time…… even flogging her for an entire month would be insufficient.”
“…….”
Watching Godric speak while grinding his teeth, the priest momentarily lost his words.
He had already set foot in this situation.
Although he had come this far because he could not overcome the threats, seeing the woman being dragged away with a vacant expression, he began to feel confused himself as to whether this was truly the right thing to do.
Should he have not accepted that money offered by the orphanage director in the first place?
Or on the day the wedding was held, should he have not ignored the woman’s plea to help her even then…….
That the choice of that moment, blinded by money, would return as such a troublesome matter was something he truly never dreamed of.
-Try uttering a single word. I will kill you right then and there.
As the appearance that was chilling enough to cause goosebumps rose in his head again, his whole body trembled involuntarily.
In fact, while coming this far, Laurent did not think of the relationship between the two so seriously.
Of course, at the time he first heard that an orphan who fled from a small rural village was in such a relationship with a nobleman residing in the capital, Denver—and none other than the Great Duke of Cheister—he was shocked enough to be aghast.
Was it not natural, for the opponent was a man so famous that it was said even a three-year-old child in this Ruvake would know him.
The head of the Great Cheister family and the young Duke, Raymond von Cheister.
That the partner of such a man was an orphan woman of insignificant status.
Not only him, but anyone would think so.
That they were just in a relationship of that extent—someone who happened to catch the young Duke’s eye and attended to his bedroom.
But—
-……It’s not true, right?
The appearance of him asking as if pleading while tightly holding the woman’s arm.
“…….”
The complexion of the priest recalling that scene immediately turned dark and murky.
Godric, who was possessed by madness, might not have noticed, but it was something that Laurent saw so vividly.
The Duke’s sincerity toward the woman.
That was something that could not be seen simply as a capricious emotion displayed for a time by a man who had everything.
“Can’t you walk faster!!”
At the suddenly ringing loud voice, Laurent’s body, which had been lost in thought, flinched.
In the place he looked after raising his head, he saw Godric grabbing the woman’s thin arm and shaking it violently.
The woman being shaken mindlessly while caught in that arm looked almost like a soul-less paper doll.
Patter—
In an instant, Laurent’s gaze moved upward at something that fell from above.
The weather had not been good all morning, and finally, raindrops were falling one by one through the black clouds.
“Hey, stop that and let’s hurry. It looks like it’s going to pour down soon.”
When he urged toward the back of the man pouring out a barrage of insults, Godric glared at the woman once more with murderous eyes and then moved his steps forward.
Thus, the three people came to leave Elfengreen.
* * *
“Is there a hole in the sky or something. What kind of rain is this?”
Watching the streaks of rain pouring down enough to make his ears muffled, the innkeeper muttered grumpily.
He was a worldly man to the extent that it didn’t matter even if a customer seeking the inn was a murderer, but even such a landlord felt somehow uneasy about customers on a rainy day.
It wasn’t necessarily because he believed in the superstition that customers on rainy days bring an ominous energy.
It was just a sort of intuition of his own coming from long experience.
Anyway, there was that reason, and also with the pouring heavy rain, it seemed today’s business was ruined, and it was just at the moment he thought about closing the door around this point.
Tinkle—
At the suddenly ringing bell, the landlord’s gaze turned toward the door.
“Damn it, talk about bad luck.”
With harsh swearing, the innkeeper quickly scanned the group entering with his narrow eyes.
Two men and one woman.
The landlord, who watched that strange combination for a while, was about to speak when one of them turned this way first.
“Do you have a room?”
“I have a room, but…… are you staying the night?”
At the question asking whether they would rest for a while or stay the night, the man rolled his eyes as if contemplating for a moment and then nodded his head.
Although he was wearing a robe, he had an appearance that looked like a priest at a glance.
The innkeeper, who stared at such a man up and down, opened his mouth again.
“One room…….”
But the words that were coming out ended up becoming vague in the middle.
It had been exactly 20 years since he operated an inn in this spot alone.
It’s not something to boast about, but the landlord could roughly grasp what a person does and what kind of relationship they have with the people they came in with just by looking at the faces of the customers who entered.
However, no matter how much he tried to piece together the link between the three who just entered, an answer wouldn’t come out.
That was why.
The reason he stopped while asking the question he habitually asked, which was if one room would be enough.
As if noticing that intention, the man quickly looked back at the party behind him.
To be precise, at the old man among the two who was still spitting out curses.
“How about the room…….”
“One room is enough for me and this wench to use.”
‘This wench?’ At the words spat out by the short man, the landlord’s brow furrowed slightly.
Among the deduced pictures, the most plausible one was a father-daughter relationship, but when that option disappeared, his head became even more complicated.
For a very brief moment, the thought occurred if they were a married couple, but the landlord quickly shook his head.
Because for that, the age difference between the two was too severe for anyone to see.
And one more strange point was the woman’s condition, which looked unusual.
A pale face without a drop of blood was one thing, but how to put it…… the way she stared blankly somewhere with an unfocused gaze made her look somehow like a woman who had lost her mind.
Her face looked quite pretty, so how did a young woman end up in such a state—it was when the landlord was clicking his tongue in pity.
“Two rooms, please.”
As the man wearing priest’s robes rustled inside his collar, immediately the sound of clinking rang from within.
The sound of coins ringing cheerfully.
The landlord’s deduction came to an end at that point.
* * *
-Tell me it’s not true…….
-That everything that crazy bastard says is all nonsense…… that he’s a person you’re seeing for the first time today…….
-Speak! Say it’s not! Say it’s something you don’t know!
In her head, that sound continued to ring repeatedly like a hum.
The words he shouted as if pleading, the blue pupils that wavered at that moment.
Only then did Deborah finally realize what the lie she had told was.
Also, what kind of things she would lose in the future because of it…….
Therefore, she could not say any word.
That it wasn’t true, that just as the man urged, it was truly something she didn’t know…… she wanted to say that thousands of times, but she could not bring herself to do so.
Whatever that truth was, it was an unchangeable truth that she had deceived him.
Even though there were opportunities she could have spoken several times, she had cast aside those opportunities herself out of fear of the reaction the man would show.
So she could no longer deceive the man.
Even if she were to be killed by those hands on the spot, she could no longer utter a lie in front of the man who had come to know everything.
-Take that filthy wench and get out of my house right now.
With those cold words at the end, everything had truly come to an end.
That hand she had held and not let go of every moment.
On the day they had decided to leave together.
With the lips that whispered of a dream-like future.
Finally, he himself had put a period to this unstable relationship.
Her memories afterward were blurry, ending with her staring incessantly at the back of the man who turned away after bidding the end.
While vaguely feeling that she was being held by someone and dragged somewhere, she couldn’t think of anything as if a thick mist had settled in her head.
Click.
She regained her senses when her body hit something hard along with the sound of a door closing.
At that time when she was struggling, unable to stand up immediately due to the impact applied in an unprotected state, that chilling voice was heard by her ear.
“This filthy bitch.”
The moment she heard that disgusting voice, her blurry head became even clearer.
Deborah slowly raised her body from the hard floor.
“I thought you were hiding well like a rat, but to think you were hiding in such a place.”
“…….”
At the man’s action of slowly approaching, Deborah took one step back slowly.
“Do you know how many days and nights I wandered around to find you?”
“…….”
“Even after hearing that I was an idiot who lost his entire life’s fortune after being deceived by an orphan wench, I waited only for this moment of finding you while holding it all in.”
At the sight of him rolling his bloodshot eyes, Deborah momentarily gasped.
However, what was strange in the midst of that was the words of unknown meaning that came from his mouth.
An entire fortune…….
Deborah took one more step back so that he wouldn’t notice, and quickly looked around.
“……What are you talking about. Money, I don’t know…… I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You don’t know? Do you think I don’t know that you ran off with that money you received from the director!”
In the precarious atmosphere where the highly agitated man looked like he would charge right in, her heart sank.
“After running away like that, you were at most attending to a young nobleman’s bedroom in a place like this! You whore-like bitch!”
At that moment when the highly excited man suddenly approached her quickly, something entered Deborah’s vision.
A long iron poker that was standing in a corner of the room.
Without a moment to think, Deborah, who picked it up, thrust it toward the front of the man as if threatening him.
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