Lionel Edmund Valheim. gripped the desk more tightly.
The weight of what he had done pressed down on his shoulders like eternity.
If only he had listened when Agnes said treatment was difficult back then.
If only he had opened even one of these letters that had been sent to Simon.
Agnes would not have been dragged away by Rebelt with eyes that had given up on everything.
‘How could you look at someone like me, so foolish, with such warmth?’
Late regret slowly crept up from beneath his feet, suffocating his breath.
What must Agnes have been thinking when she kissed and stayed by the side of someone like him, who floundered in hatred and behaved like a fool.
His arrogant and solid world began to crumble.
And through the distorted cracks, a fundamental question dug in.
Can it really be undone.
Is his wrongdoing even something that can be repaired.
However, Lionel Edmund Valheim. forced himself to ignore that doubt.
And he clung to a cowardly hope.
It will be possible.
Agnes loved him.
And she still loved him.
It had to be possible.
His breath felt suffocated as if the room were filling with water.
Even standing still, his lungs tightened.
Lionel Edmund Valheim. had to painfully realize one fact.
That now, without Agnes, he could not even breathe properly.
☆☆☆
The time without Agnes passed strangely slowly.
The silence, as if cut into minutes, continued, and every corner of the duke’s estate felt cold as if only proving her absence.
“Where is the Colonel.”
Kalt, who had come out of the empty office, asked Simon while catching his breath quietly.
Simon pointed toward where Lionel Edmund Valheim. was, with a complicated expression.
“He is in Lady Agnes’s room.”
The room right next to the office, which had long remained cold without its owner.
Kalt stopped in front of that door.
Just before knocking, he swallowed his breath once.
The thick blueprint in his hand was slightly damp with sweat.
These days, Lionel Edmund Valheim. seemed like someone who had lost his mind.
The cold rationality characteristic of a soldier had disappeared, and he seemed ready to explode at the slightest touch.
Even Kalt, who had stayed by Lionel Edmund Valheim.’s side for years, had been agonizing over his words these past few days.
This side of Lionel Edmund Valheim. was unfamiliar.
It could not be delayed any longer.
Only by finding the Duchess quickly would his superior return to himself.
Kalt organized the blueprint once more and knocked.
“Come in.”
When the door opened, the faint light from the corridor seeped into the dark room.
Lionel Edmund Valheim. was sitting on the edge of Agnes’s bed.
He was leaning his elbows on his knees and covering his face with both hands.
So still that not even the sound of breathing could be heard.
“Colonel, I have prepared the sewer blueprint of the capital as you requested. And, there are strange complaints coming in from District 3.”
“Continue.”
“Since the eve festival, the water supply in District 3 has decreased abnormally. It could be pipe damage or leakage, but the amount is not small, so it is highly likely not a simple malfunction.”
As soon as those words ended, Lionel Edmund Valheim.’s eyes flashed.
It felt as if even the air trembled for a moment.
“If it is not a simple malfunction, does that mean someone intentionally tampered with the pipes?”
“That seems to be the case. It appears that someone has shut off the pipes of one of the waterways flowing into District 3.”
No one mentioned it directly, but they both sensed it.
Lionel Edmund Valheim. and Kalt both knew.
Agnes is there.
Lionel Edmund Valheim. sprang up from the bed.
“Lead the way.”
His voice split deeply.
“We head to District 3 immediately.”
—
“…This is…”
Raul Herben Guten, who had been taking care of Agnes apart from the others, furrowed his brow deeply.
Agnes’s condition was worsening day by day.
Raul Herben Guten looked at Agnes with pity, as she groaned and endured while biting her lips until they bled.
As Nick had said, Agnes resembled Ilena in many ways.
The gently lowered corners of her eyes.
Her delicate features.
Even the color of her transparent hair that broke clearly when touched by light.
When looking at Agnes quietly, Ilena came to mind more than once.
And…
Raul Herben Guten touched around his eyes.
His clear, silver-gray eyes like a silver plate resembled Agnes’s.
It was an absurd thought, but if he truly had a child with Ilena, it felt as though they would look exactly like Agnes.
Raul Herben Guten shook his head side to side.
But that could not be.
His child had died along with Ilena.
His silver-gray eyes, marked by the passage of time, carried a sorrowful light.
Raul Herben Guten had never coveted the title of Marquis.
He simply wanted to live an ordinary life as the father of a child beside the woman he loved, like a commoner.
For that, he had always been ready to give up the Marquis title.
But his older brother did not believe in such wishes.
And so, at the moment when the Marquis title was about to pass to Raul Herben Guten, he eventually drew his sword.
To kill Raul Herben Guten.
The assassins he sent stormed into the townhouse where Ilena was staying, on a night when Raul Herben Guten was absent.
And they slaughtered everything.
By the time Raul Herben Guten returned to the townhouse, Ilena’s body had already been taken away.
By her younger brother, Adrian.
Adrian only told him that both Ilena and the child in her womb had died.
The shock of losing the woman he loved and his child.
The fact that it had all happened merely because of a succession dispute twisted Raul Herben Guten’s heart completely.
That was when it began.
His disgust toward the system of status.
And so, Raul Herben Guten willingly crossed over to Sercadia.
But what Raul Herben Guten wanted was never this.
Kidnapping the innocent.
Trying to negotiate using another’s screams.
That was not the justice Raul Herben Guten desired.
“I will go on reconnaissance, so guard the hostage well.”
After giving the order in an irritated tone, Nick disappeared beyond the fork in the path with the other members.
In the sewer, only Raul Herben Guten and Agnes remained.
Under the intermittent radio noise, Raul Herben Guten checked Agnes’s condition again.
“Huu…”
With a groan that escaped for the first time, Agnes suddenly bent her upper body and began coughing repeatedly.
“…!”
Raul Herben Guten hurriedly took out a handkerchief and held it to Agnes’s mouth.
Then, upon seeing the red blood staining the handkerchief little by little, his eyes widened.
“Please wait a moment. I will bring medicine immediately.”
At this rate, she might truly end up as a corpse.
“I should have stopped Nick’s plan from the beginning. I am sorry for letting you be swept into this.”
Thinking it could not continue like this, Raul Herben Guten laid Agnes down and pulled his hood over his head.
He made his way through the dark sewer passages with hurried steps.
When he reached a wide central passage where several forks converged,
he saw dozens of torches flickering chaotically in the distance.
Numerous soldiers were cutting through the water flow, searching every corner of the passage.
It was the Imperial Army.
And black uniforms.
Lionel Edmund Valheim.’s unit.
Raul Herben Guten instinctively crouched and hid himself in a hollow in the wall.
“…!”
The Black Iron Knights were searching the sewers thoroughly.
And among them, Lionel Edmund Valheim. stood at the very front.
Mud water and filth kept splashing onto the hem of his uniform trousers, turning them completely muddy.
“Colonel, we will check this place, so please wait outside. The path is dark and filthy.”
“Move.”
Before the words even finished, Lionel Edmund Valheim. shoved his subordinate’s arm aside.
He jumped straight into the waterway as if he could not hear anyone else’s voice.
The water splashed, and filth and mud dirtied his uniform, but instead, his pace only quickened.
That 모습 was closer to a beast than a commander leading an army.
As if desperately searching for something he had lost.
Raul Herben Guten watched that sight for a long moment, then quietly turned back the way he had come.
Agnes’s condition was not something that would improve with just a few drops of medicine.
Above all, Nick was clouded by anger and unable to make proper judgments.
Now was the time to somehow escape the capital and plan for later, not a time to pursue revenge against a traitor.
But as long as Agnes was held, Nick would never give up his stubbornness.
If Lionel Edmund Valheim.’s unit had begun searching this place, it was only a matter of time before they were discovered.
After a brief moment of contemplation, Raul Herben Guten made his decision.
To release Agnes.
If Agnes disappeared, Nick would no longer be able to persist stubbornly.
“Yes, this is the right thing.”
But the problem was the path.
This sewer branched into dozens of passages like an anthill.
It would take time for the Imperial Army to search this vast place, and Agnes would not be able to endure that long.
So Raul Herben Guten deliberately hung a sky-blue ribbon on a rusty nail embedded beside the passage leading to where Agnes was.
After looking around one last time, he quietly hid himself in another adjacent waterway.
After a moment.
Right nearby, the sound of someone’s footsteps suddenly stopping rang out.
“This is Agnes’s…”
And with the following murmur, the water splashed loudly.
Someone had begun running like mad.
Raul Herben Guten pulled down his hood deeply, as if there was no need to look further.
Perhaps, the Duchess would safely return to her husband’s embrace.
☆▪︎▪︎▪︎☆
