Chapter 101
“Then rest.”
*Thud.*
Along with the short words, the door closed.
Lionel, who returned to the Duke’s mansion, laid Agnes on the bed and then left the room, unable to continue his words any further.
Even before he could move a few steps, the inside of his temples throbbed and tightened.
Lionel stopped his steps right there.
Calte and Simon, who saw that appearance, froze their faces.
“I will call the doctor.”
Calte, who rapidly grasped Lionel’s condition, moved immediately to call the old doctor.
Without waiting for that brief interval, Lionel entered the office and roughly crumpled his body into the sofa.
The old doctor, who arrived a moment later, tried to examine Lionel’s complexion.
Lionel, after making a vague excuse that it was due to fatigue, tried to dismiss the doctor.
“That is enough, so just leave more headache medicine and go.”
“Have you already consumed all the medicine I gave you previously?”
It was medicine to be taken bountifully for a month at the very least. Yet the medicine bottle was already showing its bottom.
The old doctor swallowed a sigh.
“You must observe the dosage interval. I am concerned as the frequency of you seeking the medicine seems to be becoming increasingly frequent.”
“Who said they wanted to hear your nagging.”
Lionel had to exert effort so that a nervous voice would not burst out.
“I will take care of my own body’s condition, so just leave the medicine and go. Do not make me speak further.”
In the end, the old doctor, who failed to break Lionel’s stubbornness, had no choice but to withdraw after taking out a new medicine bottle.
No sooner had the door closed than Lionel shook a handful of headache medicine into his mouth and swallowed it.
The esophagus scraped down by the pills was bitter, but that degree of unpleasantness did not give him much of an impression.
Lionel, while stuffing the newly received medicine bottle into his inner pocket, pulled out a scrap of paper that caught on his hand.
The identity of the paper was Raul’s portrait, on which the bounty offered by the Imperial Family was written.
Before boarding the carriage, he had discovered it attached to an alley wall and crumpled it into his inner pocket.
Whether they had hired a considerably skilled painter, Raul’s appearance inside the drawing was even more vivid than the portrait Lionel had secured.
The luminous light gray pupils resembled Agnes to a terrifying extent.
Anyone who saw this drawing would think so—that the Duchess of Valheim and this terrorist resembled each other somewhere.
“You truly tire wonderfully, never knowing how to grow weary. Our Majesty.”
With Agnes alone, there was no leeway inside his head.
As if concerned that he might perhaps be bored, the damnable Emperor was this time holding out Raul as a bait.
In any case, from the moment Jerome knew of Raul’s existence, had he not known that the Emperor would intervene in some manner?
Still, as the years had passed, he thought that method would have changed a little.
Seeing that he did not thrust Agnes and Raul’s relationship directly to press him but came out in this manner, it seemed that petty method was unchanging.
“Since you are providing a stage, telling me to come up like this, I must willingly mingle along.”
Lionel let out a cold laugh.
In any case, Raul was an opponent from whom there was nothing to gain even if entangled.
Therefore, when Agnes has no affection with her biological father, when she does not even know of his existence—removing him would be the cleanest way to eliminate future trouble.
It was a highly simple and clear fact.
As much as the answer was plainly out, if it were the past, he would have done so without hesitation, but for some reason, Lionel could not make a decision easily this time around.
“…….”
Because he could not help but consider the shock Agnes would receive from his death, if by any chance she came to know of Raul’s existence.
It would be different if Raul were someone not even worth associating with like Adrian, but what if that were not the case?
He did not place great expectations on a human who abandoned his newborn daughter and sought asylum alone, but he wondered just in case.
“It should be fine to at least check.”
What kind of human Raul Herben Guten is. Whether he is a fellow who will harm Agnes, or the opposite.
If it were the latter, Lionel also had the intention to try protecting Raul.
A death during the arrest process was not a rare thing, and it was entirely possible to smuggle him out by disguising it as a death, after all.
Of course, this was a decision that overturned all his common sense.
Since not rounding up the Rebelt was something that did not exist in Lionel’s dictionary.
But if that were the path for the sake of Agnes, Lionel was willing to prevent it even by twisting all the values of his life.
Willingly.
“Taking this opportunity to settle the Bardo trading company concurrently would not be bad either.”
Agnes had not given any particular answer, but Lionel intended to hand over the Bardo trading company to Agnes.
Only, wiped very cleanly into a new shape.
For that, first, he had to publicize that Agnes was completely unrelated to the weapon smuggling Adrian committed.
For the immediate present, to bring up the ownership transfer documents left behind by Ilena carried a risk of Agnes and Raul’s relationship being revealed.
It would be enough to pass over the position of the master of the trading company based on the extent Agnes had contributed to the asset growth of the trading company.
As for Chloe, it would be fine to throw her into prison by citing an appropriate charge. Even if Jerome is behind her, what of it? The investigative authority belongs to him.
Even if someone brought up fairness in the investigative process, it did not matter.
From now on, Lionel intended to wield the power given to him.
Justice and principles—let the dogs have such things.
Lionel did not intend to make the same mistake twice.
He would not do the deed of losing something important twice by being blinded by a desire for revenge.
According to his selfish and greedy nature, Lionel did not intend to let go of anything whatsoever.
Agnes as well, and the revenge against those who killed his house and family as well.
The moment he so resolved, Lionel suddenly bent his upper body forward.
Along with a feeling of his stomach twisting, before he could prevent it, the medicine regurgitated and poured onto the floor.
Lionel looked down at the trace fallen on the floor and crumpled his expression.
“……You do all sorts of things.”
It took quite a while longer for the nausea rising from his yet again upside-down stomach to settle.
Only after he found the spirit to barely move his body did Lionel leave the office.
Whether quite a bit of time had passed in the meantime, darkness had already settled outside the window.
Lionel rubbed his tired eyelids and moved his steps to the bedroom where Agnes would be.
Ever since the event at the observatory occurred, if Agnes was not visible to his eyes, anxiety surged in.
However, even after arriving in front of the bedroom, Lionel could not open the door in the end.
Because it felt as though thrusting his face in right now would only produce an adverse effect.
For the time being, there was no room for doubt that not catching Agnes’s eye would be more helpful in calming her emotions.
He failed to bring stability to Agnes.
In the end, Lionel leaned his back against the bedroom door and slowly sat down onto the floor.
In order for this relationship not to be ruined further, it might be right to let her go as Agnes wished.
But his choice was firm. There is no reversal.
Lionel unbuttoned his shirt, and taking out Cedric’s dog tag that he was wearing around his neck, held it up against the moonlight.
*Clink.*
The cold metal engraved with Cedric’s name shook minutely inside his palm.
That sensation evoked the thoughts driven deep down into the depths of his inside—the guilt of failing to protect his younger brother, and the debt of returning alive alone.
Lionel leaned the back of his head against the door and mumbled lowly.
“You should have survived, not me.”
If it had been so, everything would have been less of a mess than now.
He had no face to see Cedric, who had followed someone shaped like this as an elder brother.
A sound that could not be discerned whether it was a laugh or a sigh leaked out.
Lionel knew all too well that he could not turn the blame for all this situation onto anyone.
It was not the fault of the Emperor, nor Bardo, nor the Rebelt.
Every choice up to reaching this spot right now was entirely a result piled up by his own hands.
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Meanwhile, Raul, who was curled up in a corner of the shelter, had already been unable to achieve proper sleep for several days.
‘That our daughter was born.’
The daughter of Ilena and himself.
His mind was disheveled by an existence he had not even imagined.
What became of that child? Is she still alive? If she is alive, is she at the trading company?
There was a mountain of things he wanted to ask, but Hunts did not show his face at all since that day.
If it were not for the wanted posters spread everywhere, his heart was in a state where he wanted to run out of the shelter right now and make inquiries regarding the child.
Raul, unable to endure further, raised his body.
“Where do you intend to go.”
Nick, who was sitting on the opposite side, instantly turned his eyes up.
“I want to get a bit of fresh air for a moment. I will return shortly.”
“Do not break away from the shelter.”
“I understand.”
Nick, who cleared the path surprisingly submissively, stared at Raul heading toward the front door for a long time.
Then, as soon as Raul completely vanished outside the door, he snapped his head in motion.
Thereupon, a few crew members who recognized that meaning rose from their seats like shadows.
“The knights who are patrolling?”
“They do not come around the shelter, so you may rest assured.”
At the crew member’s words, Nick also raised his body.
And before others could notice, they slipped out through the back door all at once and moved rapidly along the bypass leading behind the building.
“To the safehouse where the bombs are hidden, we only need to go about two more blocks.”
The reason Nick chose the shelter as a place to hide his body was not merely because it was an area excluded from patrols.
A location where it is easy to secure bombs—that was the real reason he chose the shelter.
Nick moved his steps while being careful not to make a sound.
Then, between an alley and an alley, he discovered knights standing in front of the notice board placed on the opposite side and raised his hand to signal.
As Nick gripped his upturned hand, the crew members halted their steps all at once.
The knights in front of the notice board were in the middle of collecting Raul’s wanted posters.
“Why are we told to retrieve only this gentleman’s wanted posters? While leaving all the other Rebelt fellows’ posters as they are.”
“The guard captain said so, though? Regarding this nobleman named Raul or whatever, they say he already contacted the Imperial Family. They said he decided to receive a new castle and a marquis title in exchange for handing over the Rebelt fellows?”
Another knight clicked his tongue.
“No wonder I thought it was strange. From the time they told us to lift the bounty only on this gentleman. Then what becomes of the crimes he committed in the meantime?”
“What are you asking for. It means they will close their eyes to it. Has it been just once or twice that the high-and-mighty people do that?”
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