Chapter 5

“Ethan….”

The woman who had once been a maid called the head of the family’s name without hesitation.

Adel slowly turned and looked at the two of them.

In that moment, Adel learned for the first time that when something too unreal happens, the mind instead turns cold.

“Hic… sob.”

The man began to weep, his chest heaving.

“Do you have any idea how I lived all that time you were gone?”

Adel watched helplessly as Ethan’s hands and his whole body trembled.

The man who had seemed like a sturdy castle made of marble was weeping, his entire body shaking like a scarecrow made of straw.

“Not a single moment of the time without you was anything but hell. How could you—how could you abandon me so easily? How!”

So every moment he had lived with her had been hell to him.

At this fresh realization, she felt her breath tighten all the way below her throat.

Once, the head maid had told Adel about Ethan.

She had said that only a few years ago, he had not been so cold by nature.

The ones who had made him that way were this woman here—and Adel herself.

In this moment, Adel was the perpetrator.

She had demanded marriage from him as the price for saving his life, and in the end had severed him from the people he had loved so passionately.

Adel slowly took a step.

Whether she stayed here longer or left without lingering was entirely up to her, but Adel chose to avoid it.

“How can you just leave like this?”

Susan called after Adel in a voice soaked through and cracking.

“You should ask him what he intends to do now that he’s over there.”

Ask what? It was obvious.

The child being eight meant their love went back nine years.

It was from when he was eighteen, now twenty-seven.

She did not know whether it had happened before or after she saved him, but one thing was certain.

That the Adel of that time had no right to reproach him.

Having thought that far, Adel let out a faint laugh.

Then what—did she have such a right now?

There was a common story she had read in some third-rate novel.

A man, the sole heir of a highly esteemed family, falls in love with a maid of low birth.

She and he are each other’s first love.

But he has a partner to whom he is promised in a political marriage.

When his father learns of this, he opposes his son’s love, and the woman, who has conceived the man’s child, leaves him and hides away.

Perhaps in the process, the father threatened the maid.

Because if this became known, the family arranging the political marriage might not receive what had been promised.

And the man who lost the woman vows to God that he will never love again for the rest of his life.

Having thought that far, Adel smiled helplessly again.

What happened to the woman in that political marriage again…?

She could not quite remember, but unfortunately that woman must have loved the man.

And she must have expressed that twisted love and begged for affection. Just like Adel now.

And as time passes, after the man inherits the family title, his first love appears again like a lie. And with a child who looks exactly like him.

* * *

The social circles of the Hessenia Empire’s capital were enjoying a golden age more brilliant than ever.

Enoch Sevan was looking at Duke Zakahari Ivan Sonnier, the greatest topic and pride of that social scene.

The man—with shoulders a handspan broader than others, wearing a well-tailored garment that clung to him without a single gap—took the tie the maid was holding and lifted it himself, his face draped in utter boredom.

The man now tilting his head as he chose the color of his tie was the ill-fated former crown prince sent as a hostage to an enemy nation at thirteen—and one of only two dukes in the Hessenia Empire.

Today, too, he stood before the mirror, effortlessly radiating heavenly beauty.

“It is the day you go to the imperial palace.”

“I know.”

“You must not be late, so please hurry a little.”

“Enoch, I suppose it’s just my imagination that your nagging keeps growing.”

Enoch silently watched his master as he looked at his reflection.

Duke Sonnier’s appearance was beautiful enough to captivate even Enoch, a man himself.

His legs were far longer than other men’s, and his overwhelmingly tall frame was splendid enough to make even men turn and look once.

Enoch still could not forget the moment he first met this man a year ago.

He wore neat clothing, but his face was covered in wounds here and there.

If his face was like that, there was no need to see the rest—his body must surely have been badly injured as well.

But his bearing alone was in no way inferior to any member of the imperial family.

Moreover, his beautiful appearance had not faded at all despite the countless wounds.

His large body, armored in light, was imposing enough to make one feel that wherever he stood was the imperial palace itself.

In that way, he was a man who revealed his imperial blood with his entire being.

His blood-red eyes, possessed only by the Sonnier imperial house, were also enough to inspire awe in the crowd.

On the day he returned after nearly ten years held hostage in an enemy nation, people chattered that a great wind of change would soon sweep the Empire.

But what Enoch felt when he was summoned by the Emperor and entered the audience chamber was quite different from what people had said.

The Emperor treated him with a consistently crooked attitude, as if dealing with a tiresome matter, and he merely stared blankly at such an Emperor; no grave current passed between the two.

The Emperor looked at Enoch, left an order that he become Duke Sonnier’s aide from then on, and emptied the audience chamber.

When only the two of them remained, Duke Sonnier walked slowly toward Enoch.

And after looking at him for about three seconds, he left exactly two words.

〈I like… you.〉

And after that day, what Sir Enoch Sevan, who had become the duke’s aide, considered most important was the booklet in which he recorded the evaluations Duke Sonnier left for each person he met.

The booklet was divided into exactly two kinds: the “I like them” booklet and the “I don’t like them” booklet.

The titles were enough to draw mockery from others, but to Enoch they were the most precious information of all.

Because the duke’s binary classification of people was always right.

Anyone he said he did not like invariably had already caused trouble or was about to cause it.

Once prepared, Zakahari strode outside on his long legs without any particular explanation.

“What is my schedule today?”

With that, he climbed lightly into the carriage and set the cane he always carried upright between his legs.

The red jewel of unknown origin embedded in the cane’s handle flashed in the sunlight.

“After you have an audience with His Highness the Crown Prince, you are scheduled to go to the D Club Casino.”

In truth, Zakahari had little that could be called a schedule.

The place where Zakahari had stayed for the past ten years was a land of barbarians located farther north beyond Seronne, a lake as deep as the sea at the edge of the Hessenia Empire’s border.

Enoch had thought that the blade of Zakahari’s revenge, honed for ten years in that barren land, would soon turn toward the imperial house.

He had believed without doubt that the man who had once been crown prince of the Hessenia Empire would rally the nobles and attack the imperial house.

But far from swinging the blade of revenge at the imperial house, he was merely swinging a cane set with a red jewel and dominating high society.

“I’m not going there.”

“Why…?”

“It’s boring.”

In that moment, Enoch was thrown into immense confusion.

Zakahari’s simple, clear binary standards did not apply only to people.

“Last time, you clearly said, ‘Interesting.’”

“…Is this something to make such a confused face over?”

Until just a short while ago, he had always given the assessment “Interesting” after playing cards at the D Club Casino.

It had been only a year since Enoch began serving at his side, but this was the first time he had changed his words.

In addition to the “I like them” and “I don’t like them” booklets, the “Interesting” and “Boring” booklets were also very important to Enoch.

And yet he changed his words so easily.

But Enoch was curious. He was truly maddeningly curious.

Since childhood, he had been unable to let go of anything he wanted to know, even reading books during the academy’s physical training period that everyone else attended without fail.

“What on earth… is the reason?”

At Enoch’s question, Zakahari narrowed one eye.

That expression looked exactly like the one he wore when meeting a fool, and Enoch’s mood suddenly worsened.

But for Enoch, there was no other emotion in this world that overcame curiosity.

“Is it a matter of whether a certain person attends or not?”

At Enoch’s repeated questioning, Zakahari waved his hand as if telling him to walk a little farther away.

“Enoch, you overestimate me too much.”

“Pardon?”

“The reason is that it’s boring. What more reason do you need? I merely said there isn’t any because it’s boring.”

“I am asking why something that was interesting before became boring.”

At Enoch’s words, Zakahari’s chest shook as he snorted.

“There is no reason.”

“No, there is. Isn’t it time you told me?”

Enoch certainly believed so.

That this man, sitting before him and flaunting his presence, surely harbored another intention.

Enoch, so curious about everything concerning Zakahari, could never leave this man’s side.

He had lived for ten years in that barren land barely worthy of being called a kingdom—the Kingdom of Crute.

He had been only thirteen when he left Hessenia for that place.

According to what he had heard, he had lived a life worse than a slave in the Kingdom of Crute.

But in just one year, he had established himself as a perfect member of the Hessenia imperial family.

No trace of the barbarians remained anywhere in his manners.

If, when he returned to Hessenia, he had not brought back as prisoners the chieftain of the most powerful tribe among Crute’s allied kingdoms and his subordinates, Enoch would not have been curious about his true nature either.