chapter 55: A Marital Dispute
Even in marriages born out of love, bridging the gap between knights and mages was a difficult task. For two people who had entered a contract marriage for their respective goals, it was even more so.
With a weak sense of unity as a couple, their identities always emerged first in decisive moments.
Until now, their relationship had been fine since there hadn’t been any major points of conflict. But now, with an incident escalating into a clash between groups, their prejudices and distrust of each other became evident.
Aracila, as a mage, could not trust Damian, a knight. The same was true in reverse.
Even though neither had shown any shortcomings in their roles as a mage or a knight, the deeply rooted rivalry passed down for generations had taken hold of their minds.
“How despicable. To throw someone else to the wolves just to protect your own subordinate.”
Aracila clenched her fists tightly, unable to contain her frustration.
“Is this the chivalry you knights always preach about? How honorable.”
“Why are you blaming me for your incompetence? It was foolish of you to rely on that woman’s words and conduct an investigation based on them in the first place.”
Damian clicked his tongue. Aracila, having heard similar remarks before at the Mage Tower, bristled and retorted.
“And you knights act as if you’re so clean. What does Sisle’s profession have to do with her accusations? If that’s how we’re judging things, then what about Sir Pattinson, who was involved with her?”
“Don’t spout nonsense. Johnny said he didn’t even know that woman.”
“Oh, please. He even gave her his pendant as a gift.”
Aracila scoffed, throwing back her argument. Damian’s brow furrowed even deeper.
“Are you seriously making things up now? From the start, you never intended to conduct a fair investigation, did you? You just wanted to convict a knight no matter what.”
Damian shot back sharply, adding,
“That’s why you keep siding with the accuser.”
Of course, Aracila wasn’t going to sit back and let that slide. She immediately fired back.
“Oh, so any statement that’s unfavorable to your subordinate must be a lie? Not surprising. Knights always act like they’re the only righteous ones.”
“Mages have a tendency to believe that only their opinions are correct. That’s why you people get so caught up in yourselves and cause incidents.”
A heavy silence settled between them after their exchange of sharp words.
Realizing that further conversation would be pointless, Aracila turned to leave the office, brushing past Damian.
But Damian stepped slightly in front of her and spoke.
“Don’t be so emotional, madam. Just because you dislike Johnny for being a knight doesn’t mean you can blindly side with a woman from the streets and wrongfully incriminate someone.”
For a moment, Aracila had hoped he would say something different when he stopped her. Disappointed, irritation flared up in her.
“That applies to you as well. Stop blindly defending the Red Hawk Knights and try looking at the situation objectively.”
Aracila tapped his shoulder as she walked past him. Damian did not stop her this time.
Even though it was summer, the night air felt strangely chilly.
—
She couldn’t let the case be closed while doubts still remained.
Determined to unofficially reopen the investigation, Aracila sought out Philip.
“It’s unfair to judge the credibility of a report based solely on the accuser’s background. Her words could be false, but they could also be true.”
“Aracila, I understand how you feel. But the public sentiment is too hostile right now. There’s nothing I can do.”
Philip let out a small sigh and patted Aracila’s shoulder.
At present, every newspaper in the Setron Empire was publishing sensational articles about Sisle around the clock, stirring up controversy.
People, thrilled to have a new common enemy to attack, jumped on the bandwagon.
Despite never having once demanded money from Johnny Pattinson, Sisle was now painted as a woman so obsessed with wealth that she would do anything to get it.
Rumors—unverified but widely accepted as truth—claimed she had been scamming gullible men for years and was now receiving her comeuppance, and that she had committed similar crimes in the past.
This was exactly why she had tried so hard to keep her background a secret.
If the case were to be closed solely due to her profession or identity, her life would spiral into ruin.
Aracila, feeling a sense of responsibility to ensure that no innocent person was wronged in the course of the investigation, could not stand idly by.
“We can do it in secret. If we keep it unofficial—”
“Sadly, your enemies are within our ranks as well.”
“……”
“If you’re not careful, you’ll end up tangled in this as well. Some people are already spreading conspiracy theories that the Mage Tower orchestrated this to damage the Knights.”
If Aracila continued to obsess over this case, her own reputation would suffer greatly.
Philip knew that she didn’t care about such things, but that was precisely why he couldn’t support her this time.
“Aracila, as your mentor, I fully support you. But as the Master of the Mage Tower, I also have a duty to manage my mages.”
“……”
“I trust you understand what I mean.”
In the end, Aracila had no choice but to leave his office empty-handed.
She understood exactly what Philip was implying. But something still didn’t sit right with her, making it difficult to simply let go.
As she trudged down to her research lab, her footsteps slowed. She didn’t want to return just yet.
‘…I have to check one last thing.’
Resolving herself, Aracila left the Mage Tower alone.
She vowed to abandon the case only after confirming this final piece of information.
As expected, Fourth Street in the morning was quiet.
Stepping into the now-familiar wooden building after just two visits, she headed toward the room at the far left end of the second floor.
Knock, knock.
When she knocked gently, there was no response from inside. Soon, Aracila’s touch became as forceful as it had been the first time she came here.
Bang, bang.
After knocking hard enough to nearly break the door, she finally got a reaction from Sisle.
Hearing the sound of the latch unlocking and the door opening, Aracila resolved to get straight to the point the moment she saw her.
However—
“Why are you here?”
The moment the door opened and Sisle appeared, her face was in such a state of ruin that Aracila momentarily lost her words.
“Sisle, you… what happened to your face?”
Sisle’s eyes and cheekbones were bruised a deep blue, and her lips were split. The wounds were fresh, as if they had been inflicted recently.
“It’s none of your concern. Why did you come looking for me? I thought the investigation of the Magic Tower had ended.”
“Who hit you? Did you report it?”
Sisle stared at Aracila with bloodshot eyes before turning her head slightly to the side. That indirect answer—her silence—told Aracila that she hadn’t reported it. Aracila furrowed her brows.
“Come with me.”
“…Where to?”
“To the security forces. You need to report this.”
When she reached out a hand, Sisle stubbornly shook her head and took a step back.
“I was beaten because of the article about me. Even if I report it, it won’t change anything.”
“What do you mean? Was it the Red Hawk Knights who retaliated against you?”
“No. It had nothing to do with them, but instead, it was the customers who wanted to terrorize me.”
Sisle let out a bitter laugh. Most of the customers who came to the shop didn’t even see her as a fellow human being. They treated her like a doll or livestock that they could do with as they pleased.
Still, if they acted violently without reason, they would be thrown out of the shop, so they held back. But as soon as a bad article about her was published, they saw it as an opportunity and assaulted her.
They used excuses like “You need to wake up and live properly” to justify their actions.
Covering her swollen lips with her hand, she spoke coldly.
“If you don’t have any business here, I’d like to go inside and rest.”
Seeing that she was really about to close the door and retreat inside, Aracila spoke bluntly, without any lengthy explanations.
“I know you lied to me.”
“….”
“If you don’t tell me the truth, I won’t be able to help you.”
Sisle blinked slowly. Then, as if she had heard something amusing, she scoffed.
“You don’t need to do that. Even if I told you, nobles wouldn’t understand anyway.”
“You chose to send the report to me because you thought I was trustworthy. I’m different from the knights. I trust you to some extent. So you can be honest with me.”
The knights didn’t even listen to Sisle before labeling her a liar. But Aracila wasn’t like that.
Unlike those rude knights…
“That’s not the real reason I chose you, Aracila. I picked you because wizards are the enemies of knights. I thought you would make sure to frame Sir Pattinson as a criminal.”
“….”
“To be honest, to me, wizards and knights are all just the same—high-ranking people. There’s no real difference.”
Aracila’s lips parted slightly. It was rare for her to be truly shocked, but this time, she was.
As a wizard, Aracila took immense pride in her status and had always lived with the confidence that she stood above knights.
Especially in this case, unlike the knights who were only interested in protecting their own, she believed she was being fair and trustworthy.
But Sisle’s words just shattered that belief completely.
Had she truly pursued the truth of the case?
Or had she simply acted out of self-indulgence, reveling in the idea of being a wizard that someone believed in—burdened by a personal sense of responsibility toward Sisle?
Was she, in the end, just as biased as the knights, siding with the person who placed their faith in her?
The sudden realization that she might not be so different from the knights gripped her with fear.
As she stood there, uncharacteristically at a loss for words, Sisle quietly apologized as she closed the door.
“…I’m sorry.”
Aracila stood there blankly for a moment before staggering out of the building.
Her mind was tangled with countless thoughts, making her head feel like it was about to explode.
Only after she had walked past Fourth Street did she realize something—she hadn’t even brought up the real reason she came here in the first place.
“…Ah, I didn’t get to confirm it.”
Her murmured words dispersed emptily into the air.
—
* * *
When emotions settle, so does the mind.
Back when he had argued with Aracila, his emotions had overwhelmed his reason, but after a few days, logic resurfaced.
Damian carefully reviewed Aracila’s words and suddenly had a thought.
‘Johnny said he didn’t know who the accuser was, so how could someone connected to him have filed the report?’
Among the people connected to him, only he himself could have known the accuser’s identity.
But Damian was not the anonymous informant.
If anything, when he first saw the article, he thought someone from the other side had either misspoken or intentionally leaked information.
‘Funny. He even gave Sisle his own pendant as a gift.’
Then, remembering something Aracila had said, Damian furrowed his brows.
At the time, he had dismissed it as a lie, but thinking about it again, he realized it could actually be true.
‘It wasn’t his wife who lied to me—it was Johnny.’
The thought stung, as Johnny was a subordinate he had known for a long time, but he didn’t want to stop there.
Looking back, there were many suspicious aspects about Johnny.
If he had been falsely accused, he should have been outraged when he was released—but instead, he seemed oddly unbothered. And yet, he harbored clear hostility toward the accuser. He had even questioned Damian, wary that Aracila might not drop the investigation.
As his superior, Damian had overlooked certain things, but the inconsistencies were undeniable.
To uncover the truth, Damian instructed Collin to investigate the identity of the person who had reported Sisle to the newspaper.
The result was shocking.
The anonymous informant was Johnny Pattinson’s own older brother.
In other words, Johnny’s side had intentionally leaked information to force the investigation to a close.
‘Didn’t Johnny say he didn’t know the accuser?’
Then how had his own brother revealed the accuser’s identity?
Gradually, Damian found Aracila’s words more credible than Johnny’s.
Moreover, he couldn’t understand why Johnny had been so desperate to end the investigation.
Until the accuser’s identity was revealed, the case had been neutral.
If Johnny was truly innocent, he only had to wait—he would have been acquitted soon enough.
But the fact that he didn’t wait…
‘Means there was something to be afraid of.’
That’s why he leaked the accuser’s identity to shut down the case and, still feeling uneasy, even tried to test Damian’s reaction.
For the first time, Damian found his subordinate suspicious.
Should he let it go for the sake of Johnny’s reputation and the honor of the knights, or…
Turning his head, his gaze landed on a flower blooming on a tree branch outside the window.
He suddenly remembered the unfading floral crown that Aracila had won at the hunting festival and given to him.
It was still hanging on the office wall, where she had proudly placed it, insisting that he should display it prominently.
Along with that memory, Aracila’s words of condemnation resurfaced in his mind.
‘You’re despicable. Throwing someone else to the wolves just to protect your subordinate.’
Her deeply aggrieved expression lingered in his thoughts.
With a sigh, Damian finally admitted it to himself.
‘If something is wrong, it should be set right.’
And if someone had helped him, he should repay the favor.
At the hunting festival, where they had participated as a knight and a wizard, Aracila had already helped him once.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ✧: *. ꕥ .* :✧ﾟ. ───
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