Adrian slowly took a step closer to Elisa. Elisa just stood there quietly, having abandoned all expectations. As she resigned herself, the strength drained from her entire body.
“Answer me, Elisa, please? If I told you that I didn’t know such a bet was even taking place, would you believe my words?”
There was only one single thought that first popped into Elisa’s mind.
Of course you would say that.
Even if it was just for a very brief moment, she found herself so pathetically foolish for thinking that Adrian Oberon’s words might actually be the truth that she felt like she was going crazy.
“Are you trying to tell me that everything I experienced back then was just an illusion? Even though I saw the scene of everyone at the Academy making me a laughingstock clearly with my own two eyes?”
“…….”
“Why? Even you must think that your conscience would sting too much to say it twice, so you can’t speak, right?”
Even if he had ten mouths, he shouldn’t have anything to say. If he had a conscience, Adrian should not open his mouth. No human being could do that.
As Elisa waved her hand as if he wasn’t even worth listening to anymore, Adrian hurriedly added more words.
“……I have never participated in that bet.”
“Ha, ahahaha.”
Adrian Oberon was not human.
Elisa began to laugh, holding her stomach. The sound of laughter echoed alone through the room before cutting off abruptly. It felt as though her vision was turning pitch red with rage.
What did Adrian’s expression look like while she was laughing?
He was as shameless as he was good at acting.
“Garon of Heisen, Isaac of Limester, Dexley of Berwin, Ludovica of Vautien.”
“…….”
“Do you even remember who they are?”
Adrian Oberon still chose to shamelessly keep his mouth shut.
“If you feign ignorance, I will tell you myself. They are vassals of the Duke Oberon’s family, and they were expelled for making a money bet over me. Do you think there is anyone in the Military Academy who doesn’t know the fact that you hung around with them back then? Yet, you say it wasn’t you?”
“I knew you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Why? Why don’t you just say it’s all my persecution complex instead? Say that I, who was mentally ill from the start, made up all those conversations and your friends were unfairly expelled. Why don’t you try claiming it like that altogether?”
Elisa could no longer stand still in her place and converse. She was overcome by an impulse to smash everything she could get her hands on.
Adrian firmly pressed down on the shoulders of Elisa, who was stamping her foot.
“Look at me, Elisa Shooter, look straight at me.”
Fine, let’s just listen to what on earth you have to say. With that mindset, Elisa glared straight into Adrian’s red eyes without avoiding them.
“I didn’t mean it to that extent. I am saying I am different. I was only asking you to believe that I am different from those bastards who made such a low-class bet using you.”
“Go on, keep babbling.”
“I didn’t even receive any disciplinary action.”
“You were investigated by the disciplinary committee.”
“When everyone involved in that incident was expelled, I graduated from the Military Academy.”
“Of course you did, because you are the heir to the Grand Duke Oberon’s family.”
“What about Dexley? What about Ludovica? They were also heirs who would inherit titles.”
There was much to say. Berwin was a family of civil official origin, and Vautien had accumulated wealth through the growth of a merchant group, but because their family history was short, they faced subtle disregard among the high-ranking nobility. They were as far apart as heaven and earth from Oberon, who were called the guardians of the northern border of Sepia.
None of them could command a knighthood like the Grand Duke Oberon’s family, nor could they influence the Military Academy.
However, instead of arguing over such trivial matters, Elisa decided to ask something else. A single fact that Adrian could absolutely never refute.
“Is that so? Then sixteen. On the last day of that semester, in the park, wasn’t it also you who told me that I was the daughter of a prostitute?”
“…….”
“Is that my illusion as well?”
Adrian opened his mouth a few times as if he had something to say, then tightly closed it again repeatedly, before ultimately failing to say anything and dropping his head.
“There’s no need to exert yourself to explain. Because from the start, I never believed that you knew nothing. I am not that stupid. I won’t be shaken by your pathetic wordplay anymore.”
“…….”
“So, just act quietly. Just do that disgusting stuff you are so good at. Don’t act like a fiancé who is genuinely in love for no reason only to lose everything.”
Elisa left the room, leaving behind Adrian who had hardened like a rock on that spot.
Coming out of the room, Elisa took a deep breath. It felt as though the cool air lowered the heat that had rushed up to the top of her head even just a little bit.
Just the single fact that she no longer had to be in the same space as Adrian made it a little easier to breathe.
When she didn’t know she had hurt her foot, she felt perfectly fine even while walking on the deck and dancing, but now, even just standing still, the wound seemed to throb.
She wanted to sit down somewhere right away. Since she hated the thought of returning to her room and being alone with Adrian more than death itself, she would have to find a reasonably empty lounge.
It was while she was walking down the long hallway thinking like that. Someone called Elisa from behind.
“Admiral Shooter.”
When she turned around at the unfamiliar voice, she saw a shadow of a massive physique filling up the hallway. As he, who had been backing the chandelier, drew a little closer, his dark skin and blue hair could be recognized.
Elisa bent her knees slightly to show her respects to Schultz Tugrahan.
“Rise. Rather than that, may I ask why you are wandering the hallway?”
“One must give their husband-to-be the freedom of cigarettes and poker, after all.”
Elisa straightened her waist and looked up at Schultz Tugrahan, shamelessly pretending to be a good-natured fiancée with a lie without even wetting her lips with spit.
Fortunately, looking at Schultz Tugrahan’s expression, he didn’t seem to harbor any particular suspicion.
“I heard you hurt your foot. Are you alright?”
“Ah…… I am fine. My fiancé happens to act so sensitively regarding me getting hurt. He makes such a fuss even though it wasn’t a big wound.”
She felt like her stomach was turning inside out. She had just thoroughly uncovered what Adrian Oberon had done until a moment ago, yet the moment she turned around, she had to explain in front of Schultz Tugrahan how perfect and great of a fiancé he was.
She felt like throwing up.
It was something that couldn’t be done sober. She should have drunk a lot of alcohol beforehand.
“I have one thing to ask.”
“Yes, please ask. I shall answer.”
“If you marry your fiancé, the Young Duke Oberon, will you be unable to stay in the Southern Navy and have to go to the North, where there isn’t even a sea?”
It was a question no one had asked until now. Neither the Queen nor her father cared about Elisa’s status that would change in the future.
The most urgent matter for the Queen was preventing the drain of talent, and the most important matter for her father was that the illegitimate child, whom he had considered useless, safely married the future Grand Duke.
And Elisa had also never asked that question to herself.
That was because she had never believed for a single moment that her marriage with Adrian would last.
“Won’t it turn out that way in the distant future? Since I do not possess a title.”
She naturally did not utter the prerequisite out loud: ‘If Adrian and I haven’t divorced by then.’
“I see.”
“However, Duke Oberon is still healthy, so it is still much too early to discuss the heir’s name already.”
“You mean that even if it isn’t now, such a day could come eventually.”
Not knowing what to answer to the words mentioning a future she had never once imagined, Elisa just offered a small smile. Whichever way he interpreted that smile, Schultz Tugrahan extended his hand to her.
“If you come to Shulid, you do not have to do that. Whenever it may be, you will be by the sea until you desire. I guarantee that.”
Elisa raised her head without realizing it. His eyes, filled with certainty, resembled the deep sea.
“Because the capital of Shulid is close to the sea.”
Schultz Tugrahan’s expression softened slightly as he recalled his homeland. Was it because her own heart grew gentle at that expression? For the first time, Elisa grew curious about something regarding Schultz Tugrahan.
“I heard that originally, the capital of Schultz was inland. When you founded Shulid, why did you move the capital?”
It was an impulsive question. Before she could even process that such a question could be viewed as interest regarding Shulid, the words burst out first.
“That will be for next time. If you grant me a proper opportunity to talk, I shall tell you the rest then.”
“…….”
“I shall look forward to you granting me a little more of your time.”
Schultz Tugrahan left the hallway first, leaving behind those words.
Watching the broad back turning around and walking away first for quite a long time, Elisa murmured like this.
They called him the Blood Lord, yet he knew how to smile too.
☆▪︎▪︎▪︎☆
