Chapter 139. That’s Why I Warned You
The iron skewer, rusted in places, was old enough that one could guess its age at a glance, but its pointed tip shone as sharply as a keen weapon.
The man’s face, momentarily hesitating at the sight of her holding the weapon toward him, began to distort hideously in an instant.
“You wench, right now….”
Godric, who used to supply food ingredients to the orphanage, had kept an eye on Deborah since she was quite young.
To be precise, was it from the moment the child, who used to be as plain as a piece of kindling, suddenly began to show the grace of a woman?
With her clear skin without a single speck, her voluptuous body, and her slender waist that contrasted with it.
There was not a single thing he disliked, even down to her always silent and submissive appearance.
That was why.
When that damn director presented that ridiculous amount, telling him to pay for the cost of feeding and clothing her, the reason he agreed to do so without a second word.
The problem was that despite such effort, the girl in question vanished without a trace on the very day the wedding was held.
He searched everywhere while enduring the mockery that he had lost the money he had desperately saved in an instant, deceived by a young girl.
It was obvious where an orphan girl with nowhere to go would hide; for about a month, he clung to the search, gnashing his teeth and vowing not to leave her alone once he found her.
However, the strange thing was that, contrary to his confident initial expectations, he couldn’t find even a single strand of her hair.
It was natural that he couldn’t find her.
Who could have dared to imagine that someone stuck in a rural orphanage would be in the capital, Ruvake, and in the main mansion of Duke Cheister at that?
Furthermore, he could hardly contain his surging rage at the news that the girl, who had entered as a maid by whatever trickery, had seduced the young Duke and become close enough to frequent his bedroom.
If it hadn’t been for that mysterious man who visited a month ago, he might still be living without knowing a thing.
So now, at this moment, his anger soared to the top of his head at the girl’s behavior.
Even if she begged in tears, saying she was sorry and would never do it again, this anger would not be appeased, yet she dared to run wild holding such a piece of metal.
Turning red and blue, Godric, with a face full of fury, was just about to take a step forward when Deborah gripped the metal in her hand even tighter.
“Don’t come any closer!!”
At the sight he was seeing for the first time—from an opponent who was always quiet and still—Godric’s footsteps stopped again for a moment.
“One more step… if you come any closer, I won’t stay still.”
The arm holding the iron skewer was trembling so much that it was clearly visible even from a few steps away, yet the reason he couldn’t move readily was because of her gaze.
Golden eyes filled with venom.
Godric knew those kinds of eyes well.
Empty eyes that looked as if they had nothing left to lose—as if all will to live had been taken away.
He had also learned through long experience that it was best to simply avoid such people.
Just like the opponent before his eyes right now.
Even so… he felt deeply ashamed that he had hesitated even for a moment at the threat of such a young girl.
Godric, who was repeatedly flaring his nostrils in embarrassment, glared at Deborah with even harsher eyes.
“You, someone like you, won’t stay sti—”
Godric, shouting with a flushed face, was about to reach his hand out toward her, but before that, something quickly brushed past his eyes.
It was something that happened in a mere instant.
Godric, who had been frozen for a while with a dazed face, slowly raised his hand and wiped away something that flowed down his left cheek.
Only after seeing the red fresh blood smeared on his fingers did Godric realize belatedly what it was that had brushed past his eyes a moment ago.
“You, you, you—!!”
“That’s why I warned you, not to come closer….”
Had she truly gone mad? Her momentum was so unusual that such a thought occurred for a moment.
Her tone and actions made her look like a different person.
As if what she swung just now was merely the beginning, her expression while holding the iron skewer looked extremely bleak.
“The money you’re talking about… I’ve never even seen it. So don’t take your anger out on the wrong person and go find the person who handed over that money.”
“…….”
“A marriage vow I made myself? Something like that, obtained by dragging me away without anyone knowing and threatening to kill me—you’re saying I did that because I wanted to?”
With her face completely distorted and shivering pale blue, she looked as if it wouldn’t be strange at all if she thrust the iron skewer she was holding straight into Godric’s stomach.
At that chilling momentum, which suggested she wouldn’t care if she killed the opponent before her and let go of the thread of her own life as well, Godric held his breath and couldn’t move an inch.
“Do you know… what you did today? To him… to that person….”
“Ca, calm, calm down and let’s slowly—”
Seeing the golden eyes glisten more and more with madness, Godric finally opened his mouth, telling her to calm down.
However, the words that were coming out were swallowed back into his throat by the weapon that lunged forward as if to pierce him again.
“Never… show yourself before me again.”
“…….”
“If you appear before my eyes next time, then… one of us, either you or I, will surely have to die.”
That voice, ringing lowly, sounded so eerie that Godric ultimately could not say anything.
Even until the moment Deborah opened the room door and stepped out.
* * *
Even until the moment she left the inn, her whole body trembled like crazy.
She should have done this sooner.
Even if she were to die on the spot, she should have held out until the end without signing that marriage vow.
If she had known that the choice of that moment, made simply to live and escape that situation, would return as such heart-wrenching regret, Deborah thought it would have been better to be killed by them on the spot.
‘But, if I had done that… I wouldn’t have been able to meet that person.’
The fact that there is a person in this world to whom it is not a waste to give one’s whole heart, and that I am a person who can receive such complete love from someone.
Dying as just a pitiful orphan whom no one remembers, without knowing all of that, felt too lonely and miserable.
Deborah’s footsteps, running blindly through the pouring rain, came to a sudden halt at some point.
Although she had walked forward recklessly to get away from the inn, her mind went blank for a moment about where to go.
Since she was kicked out with nothing, all she had in her hand was the iron skewer she had brought from the inn.
Deborah, who stared down at the piece of metal she was still gripping tightly, threw it into a corner of the alley and began to move her feet again.
First of all, she thought she needed a place to avoid the rain.
Perhaps because she was soaked by the rain, or perhaps due to psychological factors, her body was shaking so violently that she could feel it herself from the cold piercing through her whole body.
Under a tent roof or under a stone bridge, anywhere was fine as long as it was a place where she could avoid this cold rain.
Shhhhh—
How long had she walked in that rain, which was pouring down enough to make her ears feel muffled?
At the moment when her senses were faint to the point that her vision was blurred, she heard a humming sound.
Just as she was wondering with a dazed head what on earth that sound was.
“Deborah!”
She realized that the clear shout that pierced through the massive curtain of rain was her own name.
Her golden vision, soaked with water, slowly moved toward the face of the person who called her.
And—
The moment she saw those blue eyes holding the color of water, her dead heart began to beat rapidly.
‘Ah… he came to find me. This person, to me again….’
The hand she blankly stretched out toward the man, however, stopped in midair before long.
“Deborah… what are you doing here right now, why on earth in this rain….”
“…….”
The person looking down at her with worried eyes was not him.
It was someone with eyes that looked exactly like his.
“……Jade.”
At the voice that leaked out faintly as if she were dying, she felt the opponent’s face distort slightly.
Solid hands grabbed Deborah’s arms as if to support her body, which was trembling to a pitiful degree.
“While passing by, I wondered if it might be you. So I got out… for now, get in the carriage. Get in and—”
At her complexion, which was changing from moment to moment even as he spoke, Jade seemed to judge that she was in no condition to talk like this.
So Deborah quietly grabbed the arm of Jade, who was saying they should first get into the carriage he had arrived in.
“No… it’s not that.”
“…….”
Even though she was barely holding her ground by leaning on the supporting arm, Deborah shook her head.
He seemed to roughly know what she was thinking.
She probably thinks she has caused trouble time and time again, or perhaps she is being cautious about getting involved with an illegitimate child whom Raymond von Cheister avoids.
Or maybe it’s both.
He might have let out a hollow laugh at that silly thought, but not a single shred of laughter came out at the woman’s pale complexion, which lacked any vitality.
He wondered for a moment what to do with an opponent who was being stubborn even in this situation—but fortunately, that worry did not last long.
For the body of Deborah, who was holding out with a dying face, eventually slumped into Jade’s arms as if she had collapsed from exhaustion.
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