Chapter 104
“Shall I say it again, Your Grace, the great Duke and hero of the Empire?”
Hunts continued speaking with a twisted smile.
“The one who ruined your wife’s legs was none other than you.”
“And that carriage that was loaded to the brim with supplies to save your Order of Knights… Boom!”
Hunts brought both hands together before spreading them apart playfully.
As though imitating the moment a bomb exploded.
He burst into loud laughter at his own gesture.
Then, as though he had run out of breath, he clutched his stomach.
“I heard that bridge was pretty high.”
“It’s amazing she survived after falling from there, isn’t it?”
“Not only did she survive.”
“She even ended up becoming the Duchess.”
Unable to distinguish between talking to himself and carrying on a conversation, Hunts continued muttering.
“Miss Chloe told me.”
“She said Miss Agnes begged for her life like that.”
“And yet Your Grace answered over the radio without the slightest hesitation.”
“‘There will be no negotiations.'”
“…”
“How cold-hearted of you.”
“Our Duke.”
Hunts had already crossed the line.
Yet Lionel could not utter a single word.
He simply stood there, frozen in place.
The sounds around him merged into one continuous ringing.
As though metal were grinding inside his ears.
The box he had buried deep within himself because he never wanted to open it was finally forced open before his eyes.
And from within it…
The cruel truth revealed itself.
「There will be no negotiations.」
His own voice, the one that had answered the radio transmission requesting a hostage exchange, vividly echoed inside his ears.
‘This… isn’t right.’
This couldn’t be true.
The strength drained from Lionel’s hand that was gripping Hunts.
Suspecting the truth vaguely and facing it directly were on entirely different levels.
He wanted to deny it.
The fact that a single order from him had sent the carriage carrying Agnes plunging into the abyss below.
But it was a truth too vivid to deny.
Only then did the final puzzle piece finally fall into place.
Only then did he understand why Agnes reacted so sensitively to the sound of radios and the smell of gunpowder.
Lionel staggered forward.
His vision rapidly darkened as though the ground itself had tilted beneath him.
“Then the scream I heard through the radio back then…”
The scream that had come through the radio after he declared the negotiations over had not been an auditory hallucination…
It had been Agnes’s scream.
“I…”
Lionel’s voice sank heavily toward the ground.
“I destroyed her.”
Riiiiing—
The piercing tinnitus tore through his ears.
He had destroyed Agnes’s legs.
Her dreams.
And her life.
It was a sin whose weight could never be compared to the wounds he had inflicted through his indifference and cruel words until now.
“Haa… Hngh.”
Every breath he took became a blade that pierced his throat and lungs with guilt.
Taking advantage of Lionel’s shock, Hunts tried to quietly slip away.
But it was a ridiculous attempt.
Before he could even take a single step, Hunts was seized by the knights and thrown to the ground.
Even while being pinned down against the floor, Hunts reached out toward the money pouch.
“My money!”
“Nobody touch it!”
At that moment, Lionel’s military boot stomped directly onto the back of Hunts’s hand.
A dull crunch echoed.
Hunts let out a scream.
“Aaagh!”
But Lionel seemed like someone who heard nothing.
His long fingers covered his deathly pale face.
Between them, his pale blue eyes wandered aimlessly.
Before his mind could even process it, his legs moved first.
At first, they were merely quick steps.
But his stride gradually lengthened.
Until eventually, it became a frantic sprint.
“…I have to go to Agnes.”
He had to return to the ducal estate immediately.
To Agnes, who had lost everything because of him.
To the one who had been his salvation, whose wings he had shattered with his own hands.
While bearing a sin that could never be forgiven.
This was not determination.
It was the desperate confession of a sinner going to face the punishment he could never escape.
☆☆☆
The moment he arrived at the ducal estate, Lionel instinctively realized it.
Something had gone terribly wrong.
The mansion was in turmoil.
Servants had gathered around the corridor leading to the bedroom.
Among them, Simon was running around while clutching a ring of keys.
The closer Lionel got, the heavier the air became.
Lionel came to an abrupt stop in front of the bedroom.
Agnes was nowhere to be seen.
The maids were knocking desperately on the bathroom door with tearful faces.
The elderly physician anxiously wiped the cold sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief.
Before he knew it, Simon was standing in front of the bathroom door, trying to insert a key into the lock.
But perhaps because of his panic, all that echoed was the loud clattering of metal as his hand kept slipping.
At that moment, the elderly physician spotted Lionel standing there in a daze and hurried over.
“Your Grace!”
“Something terrible has happened!”
Those words alone made Lionel’s insides twist painfully.
Like cotton soaking up water, his entire body absorbed the ominous atmosphere hanging in the air.
“What do you mean, something terrible?”
“Lady Agnes suddenly ran into the bathroom, and she hasn’t come out for hours!”
The elderly physician hurriedly continued.
“It seems something must have triggered her trauma again.”
Lionel’s eyes became bloodshot.
The anxiety that had been crouching inside his chest surged upward.
“But why all of a sudden?”
“I specifically ordered that neither gunpowder nor radios were ever to be used anywhere inside the mansion!”
“I swear we didn’t use either of them.”
“We removed everything that could possibly trigger Lady Agnes!”
“Then why has Agnes suddenly become like this?”
“We don’t know either.”
“The only unusual thing was that she had her meal after seeing Your Grace in the corridor—”
The maid had barely begun answering nervously.
Crash!
A sharp shattering sound erupted from inside the bathroom.
That noise instantly severed the last thread of reason Lionel had been clinging to.
“Move.”
Without even realizing whether he had shoved someone aside, Lionel kicked the bathroom doorknob.
Bang!
The door burst open with the sound of the handle breaking.
The instant it opened, Lionel rushed inside.
The very first thing he noticed was the faint scent of blood drifting through the air, mixed with the smell of water.
Cold water splashed across the bathroom floor.
Beneath the stream of water, Agnes was crouching while clutching a shard of broken mirror.
Her entire body trembled like a leaf.
Her soaked hair hung down, covering her face.
She did not seem to realize Lionel had entered.
Holding his breath, Lionel slowly approached her one step at a time.
He did not want to startle Agnes.
When he finally stood directly before her, he first turned off the water.
Then he carefully reached out and grasped the mirror shard.
“Relax your hand, Agnes.”
“You’re hurting yourself.”
Then a faint voice, as though it might snap at any moment, escaped Agnes’s lips.
“…The sound.”
Without looking at Lionel, Agnes continued staring blankly into empty space.
“The sound of the radio…”
“It won’t stop.”
“The sound of the radio?”
It was as though Agnes were trapped within her own time rather than reality.
At the same time she spoke, she tightened her grip even more.
The sharp edge of the mirror dug deeper into her flesh.
Bright red blood dripped onto the bathroom floor.
“Even if I do this…”
“Even if I do this, the sound of the radio won’t stop.”
“I thought if another place hurt instead…”
“But I guess that wasn’t it.”
Only then did Lionel realize it.
Why Agnes had been hurting herself.
The radio sound Agnes spoke of…
It was undoubtedly the sound of his own voice refusing the negotiations.
As though Agnes’s cold body temperature had been transferred to him, Lionel’s teeth began chattering uncontrollably.
“There isn’t any radio here.”
“So, Agnes…”
“Give this to me.”
“You’re bleeding.”
Lionel tried to soothe Agnes as calmly as possible.
Perhaps it worked.
Agnes slightly loosened the hand gripping the mirror.
Just as Lionel was about to remove the shard from her loosened grasp—
Only then did Agnes seem to recognize his presence.
Her gaze slowly rose toward his face.
“…Your Grace?”
At that very moment.
Just like what had happened in the sewer.
Agnes’s pupils suddenly dilated.
“Ah…”
Along with that short gasp, Agnes’s entire body became rigid.
This time, Lionel saw it clearly.
He saw exactly where Agnes’s gaze had landed.
What terrified Agnes…
Was the Black Iron Knights uniform he was wearing.
The moment Agnes saw Lionel’s uniform, she suddenly began resisting violently.
“N-No…”
“I don’t want to…”
“Go away…!”
“Agnes!”
Agnes’s hand convulsively clenched shut.
The sharp edge of the mirror, trapped inside the fist she instinctively squeezed, threatened to dig into her palm once again.
Lionel reflexively grabbed her wrist.
Terrified, Agnes twisted her body in resistance and tried to pull her hand away.
In the struggle, the mirror shard shifted between their hands.
Its sharp edge sliced through Lionel’s palm and fingers.
Blood splattered.
Yet Lionel did not let go.
Instead, he pushed his hand even deeper forward and completely enclosed the mirror shard in his own hand.
Then, using force, he pried Agnes’s hand open and finally took the shard away.
Clang!
The sound of the broken mirror hitting the floor echoed throughout the bathroom.
Afraid Agnes might try to hurt herself again, Lionel immediately pulled her into his arms as though imprisoning her within his embrace.
Agnes violently twisted her body, trying to escape the arms that had suddenly wrapped around her.
She pushed against Lionel’s chest with all her strength.
She rammed her shoulder into him.
She struggled desperately.
But even that did not last long.
Agnes’s body, already weakened to its limit, gradually slowed.
At last, she went limp in Lionel’s arms.
In contrast, Lionel’s breathing grew increasingly ragged.
The guilt and terror boiling within his chest tightened around his throat.
“It’s okay…”
“It’s okay.”
Lionel kept murmuring the words like an incantation as he continuously patted Agnes’s back.
Then.
A voice, almost like a sob, came from Agnes as she buried her face against his chest.
“Please…”
“Don’t.”
It was such a tiny whisper that one had to strain every nerve just to hear it.
Yet to Lionel, that voice returned louder than any thunder.
“Please…”
“Don’t blow up the bridge, Your Grace.”
Unable to distinguish the past from the present, Agnes pleaded like that.
Lionel’s movements stopped.
No.
It would be more accurate to say that he could no longer move.
Only now had everything become clear.
The panic attack in the sewer had not been caused solely by the sound of the radio.
The true source of Agnes’s trauma was none other than…
Himself.
Agnes had been his salvation.
And only now had his world finally begun to revolve around her.
Yet to Agnes…
He was nothing more than a merciless perpetrator.
The one who had made her fall.
The one who had destroyed her so completely that she could never fly again.
That was the truth.
Lionel Edmund Valheim… was Agnes Bardo’s hell.
☆▪︎▪︎▪︎☆
