I’ll Change My Husband First with an Abduction Marriage – Chapter : 5
It was the knife I told Annie to secretly take into Evangeline’s room.
‘Why is that suddenly popping out here?’
Sir Beltein and I held our breath and hid our bodies beneath the tree.
Then, looking up at the terrace, we listened closely.
Soon, we heard the sound of an argument between an enraged man and woman.
“What the hell were you thinking, pulling something like this?!”
“I’m telling you, I didn’t do it!”
Of course, it was Ludwig and Evangeline.
The two of them had been arguing on the terrace to avoid other people’s eyes.
“Then who the hell would do something like this?
That stupid Hylia?”
I already knew it, but this was the first time, at this point, that I’d heard the two of them talking while belittling me.
In my previous lives, the two of them only started acting blatant right after the marriage.
I listened, thrilled.
“You know I absolutely need the Delphine ducal family’s power to stand against that crazy Crown Prince, right?
You agreed to it, too.
What are you trying to do, acting like this now?!”
“If we break off the marriage before you get the Delphine ducal family in your hands, that’s a loss for me, too!
So why would I do that?!”
“Just yesterday you were crying, saying it was sad that you had to hold the wedding while leaving me behind!”
“That was……!”
Ludwig and Evangeline were talking about my household as if it were their personal property.
And their conversation was the future that would soon come to pass.
Because it was the same in all three past lives.
‘Not this time. Absolutely not.’
As I steeled my resolve and clenched the hem of my skirt tight, it seemed Sir Beltein beside me took it in a slightly different way.
He looked at me with pitiful eyes, then cautiously placed his hand over the back of mine.
A warm, large hand.
I realized anew.
‘When he took me and ran away last time, he never even touched me.’
He had been an excessively knightly knight.
It was the first time he had reached out to me like this in private, so I was a little startled, and also awkward.
Perhaps he noticed; Sir Beltein soon silently formed ‘I’m sorry’ with only his lips and withdrew his hand.
And I didn’t have the leeway to pay more attention to that warmth.
The two people on the terrace began fighting even more violently.
“If you didn’t do it, then what was that jewelry box that was here earlier?
Why is it in your room?
That’s something I gave to Hylia!
And why are the traces of ripping the wedding dress still clearly on the knife that was inside it?!”
“If I really did it, why would I leave the evidence sitting right where you can see it?
Why can’t you trust what I’m saying?”
“Do you think I don’t know how many times you’ve stolen Hylia’s things until now?!
How could I trust you!”
It was a little funny how they were collapsing like a house of cards far faster than I expected.
I had to force myself not to laugh out loud.
‘This isn’t the time to be happy over something this small.’
It was, of course, what I wanted for a crack to form between those two, but.
It wasn’t the ultimate goal.
That was when.
A loud sound rang out between the two of them who had been bickering.
Startled, I looked up and saw Evangeline holding up her hand with startled eyes.
And Ludwig’s face turned to the side, too.
Horrified, Evangeline switched tactics and clung to Ludwig.
“I-I’m sorry.
I was so emotional, I made a mistake……!”
“That’s enough.”
“Ludwig!”
Ludwig spoke coldly and left.
“Go back to the Imperial Palace, and don’t come to the wedding tomorrow.
If you try to ruin it again, I won’t let it slide.”
“Ludwig!!”
But Ludwig brushed off Evangeline as she clung to him and left.
I heard the sound of Evangeline collapsing helplessly to the ground.
* * *
We were a little later than expected from becoming secret spectators to that trashy drama, but we safely escaped the Delphine estate.
Sir Beltein seemed somewhat worried.
“Could it be that Grand Duke Ludwig went back to you, miss, or something of the sort?”
“There’s no way.”
I knew Ludwig well.
He went to see Evangeline because he didn’t want to soothe me while I cried my eyes out, and ended up fighting with her.
It was obvious he’d hate to come back to me and have to see me crying again.
‘Just in case he really does come, I even told Annie to stand guard outside the door.’
I told her that if anyone came, she should say I was crying because I was too heartbroken.
Then Ludwig would turn around on his own.
That wasn’t what mattered right now.
I lifted my gaze to the sky.
A perfectly round full moon was almost giving off a red glow.
‘Crimson Moon.’
It was uncanny that today, of all days, was when the red moon rose.
It was the same in all four lives, but it felt a little strange, stepping on this moonlight today to go see ‘that man.’
“I was always afraid of when I might go mad.
Especially when the Crimson Moon rose, the time when Mother died, it was even worse.”
On a day when this moon rose, ‘he’ would absolutely not be in the Imperial Palace.
Rather, he would burrow into the deepest underground in the capital.
He would be hiding his body in his own hideout, prepared in a corner of a vast catacomb where even starlight could not reach.
Bringing only Sir Beltein, and holding an unlit lantern, I arrived at the entrance to the catacombs on the outskirts of the capital.
A gravekeeper who looked like a corpse that had risen from the tomb tilted his head.
“I never thought someone would come to pay respects on a night like this?
And with an unlit lantern, no less.”
Without a word, I smiled and held out a single silver coin.
Not a currency in circulation, but a silver coin made as a burial good to be placed in the mouths of the dead.
Seeing that, the gravekeeper, whose brow was nothing but bone, frowned, but in the end stepped aside from the door.
However, he stopped Sir Beltein, who tried to follow behind me.
“What is this!”
“Only the client himself may enter.
That is the rule here.”
At the word ‘client,’ Sir Beltein looked bewildered.
But I didn’t have time to explain everything.
I gave the order once more.
“Wait here.
I’ll come out safely.”
“…Yes, miss.”
In the end, I succeeded in entering the grave alone, holding the empty lantern.
This very place was a secret residence that the Mercenary King Gerald did not even let his subordinates know well.
Thus, after a complicated process, I succeeded in meeting Arpad’s secret identity, the Mercenary King Gerald.
And at last, I was able to throw out these words.
“Please abduct me.”
* * *
Hearing the excessively radical contents of my commission, the Mercenary King Gerald—no, Crown Prince Arpad—seemed flustered.
No, not just that; he was looking at me as if I were the most absurd thing in the world.
“If Your Highness accepts my commission, then in return, I can ensure Your Highness ascends the throne safely without going mad.”
I was certain.
‘There’s no way the Crown Prince can refuse this proposal!’
In truth, in the past three lives, he went mad every single time.
Once, as a mad tyrant, his head fell only a week into his reign, and the remaining two times, he died without becoming Emperor.
And every time, it was his father who killed Arpad.
The Emperor did not trust his son.
He was wary, thinking he might go mad at any moment and ruin the country.
And since Arpad did, in fact, go mad and die in all three of my past lives, the Emperor’s suspicion was justified.
That was why he was backing Grand Duke Ludwig, his nephew, rather than his own son.
‘That’s why the Crown Prince created the fake identity of the Mercenary King Gerald.’
Gerald’s mercenary guild was, in effect, Crown Prince Arpad’s private army.
To oppose his father.
So the Crown Prince couldn’t help but want to avoid the truth about ‘Gerald’ being revealed to the Emperor.
With a smile full of triumph, I stared straight at Arpad.
His ruby-like red eyes flashed in the darkness.
His platinum hair was like moonlight spun on a wheel.
He had an especially beautiful face.
Not merely beautiful or pretty, but a beauty so inhuman it felt as though it could bewitch anyone who looked at him and steal their gaze.
The corner of his elegantly shaped lips curled upward, drawing a threatening smile.
“Hoo…….”
He let out a languid sigh.
And in his red eyes, the sharpness from just before vanished without a trace, replaced by madness.
‘Huh?’
Before I could even be flustered.
The next moment, Arpad drew his sword and held it to my neck.
The cold, sharp flash of metal clung to the nape of my neck.
“Ugh…….”
Refined, cold madness lay in Arpad’s gaze.
“You see, I hate those who try to control me.”
I felt like I knew who he was thinking of.
The Emperor.
The father who did not trust his son and, in the end, killed him.
“I don’t know how you found out the connection between the Mercenary King and me, and with what confidence you dared to touch my reverse scale, but.”
“…Kgh!”
The blade moved closer.
The sensation of it touching bare skin was goosebump-inducing.
He was acting as though he were lightly lifting a wine glass, but it was a clear threat.
A warning that he could cut off my head at any moment.
But.
I clenched my teeth.
‘I’ve already died three times.’
Of course, I’d died with my head cut off, too.
If I stayed still like this, I’d die again after a miserable and horrific experience.
If so, it would be better to end it neatly and quickly right here.
‘If you’re going to do it, then do it!’
I put strength in my eyes and glared at him challengingly.
Biting down until I tasted blood on my lips, I took one step forward.
I felt the sensation of the sharp blade slicing my skin.
The smell of blood pricked at the tip of my nose.
But I did not hesitate.
“!!”
Instead, it was Arpad who stopped me.
When I stepped forward without fear, he pulled the hand that was holding my head back.
So my neck would not be cut deeply.
Thanks to that, it ended with only a slight wound.
There was only one thing that meant.
‘Yes!
