The moment he saw Nick, he thought rage would surge up, making him want to grab him by the collar and cut off his breath just like that.
However, Lionel’s rage cooled down faster than he thought.
Even if he did this, it did not mean Agnes would return.
There was nothing that could be reversed anymore, so what would change if he killed Nick.
“If you wanted to take revenge, you should have done it to me.”
Even in a state where his neck was choked, Lionel’s voice was surprisingly calm.
It was a voice that was neither cracked nor trembling.
Lionel continued his words, looking down at Nick, who was a span smaller than himself.
“Why do you touch someone who did no wrong.”
Nick ground his teeth and shot back.
“I didn’t do it on purpose! How on earth could I have known that the carriage carrying the Duchess would pass through that road at that exact hour!”
Even before those words finished, Lionel realized once more.
The fact that all of this was a result brought about by his own choice, neither Nick’s malice nor a coincidence.
In that early dawn, the reason she boarded the carriage as if being chased was because of him. She must have judged that she wouldn’t be able to leave if it weren’t for that time.
The very existence of himself drove her onto that road.
If he had not been greedy and had let Agnes go earlier…… would Agnes be breathing perfectly fine right now?
“It seems it wasn’t a lie that Duke Valheim fell completely for his wife. Seeing that he is this affectionate.”
Nick spoke mockingly.
“For a slaughterer crazy for war. If my comrades who died at your hands saw this sight, they would feel quite wronged.”
Nick’s hand did more than just choke his neck, as his short fingernails dug into the skin.
The capillaries that burst over Lionel’s face spread out like red dots.
The knights, judging that a really big trouble might happen if they just left it like this, pulled Nick away from Lionel despite the order to step back.
As the blunt hands fell away, air containing the smell of blood and iron rushed into his lungs.
Then, comically, Lionel only then got angry.
At the very fact that his breath was opened up again.
Now, for what he should live, the purpose of life was completely blurred.
Now when both the thing he had to protect and the object to whom he had to beg for forgiveness had disappeared.
Even though he had achieved the arrest of Rebelt, which he had so fervently wished for, no inspiration arose.
It felt as if he had fallen alone into an endless bottomless pit.
Did he truly have the right to breathe, having lost Agnes?
There was no one to answer that question.
Not even Lionel himself.
Even though he had escorted Nick and the Rebelt members to the interrogation room, Lionel could not head anywhere in the end and hovered around that spot.
His body was clearly moving, but there was no longer a thing called purpose in that movement.
He was merely walking as if pushed by someone toward the place his feet touched.
The place he headed to like that out of subconsciousness was eventually the Duke’s mansion.
Since that place was where the traces of Agnes remained thickly, at least.
However, in front of the main gate, there was an unexpected guest.
In front of a furniture covered with cloth, an employee of the Bardo trading company was talking with Simon.
The employee, upon discovering Lionel, bowed his waist startledly and hurriedly.
“Ah, hello. Your Grace.”
The employee hesitated for a moment and continued his words.
“When the Duchess dropped by the trading company for the last time, she packed items, but she left this behind. Thinking it might be something important, I brought it.”
As if he had already heard the news of the accident at dawn, the employee cautiously examined Lionel’s state.
Instead of an answer, Lionel slowly approached like a possessed person and untied the knot of the white cloth where snow had landed.
As the cloth was stripped away, a worn-out desk revealed its form.
It was that desk he had seen in Agnes’s office when he dropped by the trading company last time.
If there was a difference from that time, it was that the topmost drawer was pulled out and placed on top of the desk.
“Why is this like this.”
“It seems the Duchess pulled it out, but perhaps because it is a very old item, it wouldn’t go in, so we ended up bringing it like this.”
At that single phrase saying it was something Agnes pulled out, Lionel lifted the drawer and examined it.
Then, as he discovered the engraving and handwriting carved on its bottom surface, a miserably cracked voice flowed out from Lionel regardless of his will.
“Did…… Agnes see this too?”
The trading company employee, who had merely packed the item and had not examined closely down to the bottom of the drawer, rolled his eyes cluelessly.
Still, the employee answered faithfully out of habit.
“Since she pulled out the drawer unit herself, I think she probably saw it.”
Lionel’s Adam’s apple shifted greatly.
‘You knew.’
Agnes had already known the fact that Raul was her biological father.
Since when?
Could it be when she was informed of Raul’s death?
Or from much earlier than that, had she been facing the truth alone without telling anyone?
Just by faintly guessing what kind of heart Agnes had until she made the choice to leave his side last night, his breath became heavily suffocated.
He could not even fathom how long of a hell it must have been for Agnes during that time when she must have thought that the man who took away her legs had killed even her biological father.
Despite being such a wretch.
He was incomparably foul for having been excited that Agnes smiled for him, unable to discern his limbs like a dog.
While having said he would protect Agnes, he had done nothing properly.
The terrorism he believed he had perfectly controlled eventually swallowed Agnes.
Even the resolution saying he would protect her was nothing but a terrible self-righteousness and arrogance.
He should have told her from the beginning. That Raul was alive. That he was her father.
Even if he had only done that, there would have been no such thing as Agnes bearing this entire truth alone.
The problem was always himself.
Lionel turned around as if staggering while gripping the drawer.
This was an item that should return, not to a dog like himself, but to Agnes’s real family.
Even if it was too late now.
☆☆☆
Inside the interrogation room he headed to like that, Raul was pacing around his place with anxious steps.
His footsteps, which had been repeating the same trajectory for a long time, stopped along with the sound of the door opening.
Toward Lionel who was entering the interrogation room, Raul approached urgently.
“……! Did you catch Nick? The knights said that the Duchess met with a disaster, is it true?”
Simultaneously with the question, Raul shook his head.
“It wouldn’t be so. Isn’t that right? There’s no way such a thing could happen.”
“…….”
“Hey, Colonel Valheim. Please give an answer. Why are you only bowing your head like that.”
Without making any answer, Lionel extended the drawer he was holding toward Raul.
“……What is this?”
Raul received the drawer with a puzzled expression and then drew in a breath with a gasp.
No matter how much long time had passed, Raul could recognize it. That this was a part of the desk he had made with his own hands for the child to be born.
“H-How does the Colonel have this?”
“My wife…… used it.”
Even before Lionel’s short answer finished, Raul’s hand began to tremble noticeably.
Raul hurriedly flipped the drawer and confirmed the pattern he had carved as an engraving.
Then, as he discovered the handwriting written beneath it, he gaped his mouth. That was not something he carved.
But he could recognize whose handwriting it was at once.
It was Ilena’s handwriting.
On behalf of his foolish self who had exiled to Sercadia without even knowing the birth of the child, it was a trace left behind by Ilena.
“To our beloved daughter, Agnes’s…….”
The trembling legs of Raul, who was reading down the phrase, buckled.
“Ah…… ugh……. The Duchess is…… really that person…….”
Without even being able to bring out the word ‘daughter’, Raul, while having broken down, held the drawer close in his arms.
In front of him, Lionel finally opened his mouth.
“I am sorry.”
Raul’s shoulders shifted greatly.
“What…… what do you mean you are sorry.”
Raul asked without raising his head, but he already knew.
That that apology was a word related to the safety of the Duchess, which the knights were whispering about earlier.
While holding the drawer close with one arm, Raul approached Lionel as if crawling with his other arm.
And he gripped the hem of Lionel’s trousers.
“The Duchess is safe, right. Please tell me so. It isn’t something difficult.”
“…….”
At the returning silence, Raul curled up on the floor and sobbed.
Saying he was sorry for recognizing her too late, repeating Agnes’s name countlessly.
Then, Raul rose up staggering, grabbed Lionel’s shoulders, shook them, and burst out resentment.
“I, I poured out all the information, didn’t I!”
His voice was cracked like a metallic sound.
“But why did you fail to protect her! Only now, I found out only now. I found out only now that that child is my daughter!”
In front of Raul who was pouring out blame, Lionel did not make any resistance.
Merely,
“……I am sorry.”
He was merely repeating that single phrase.
Being shaken just as he was, according to Raul shaking him.
Like a sword that had become broken and useless.
☆▪︎▪︎▪︎☆
