Chapter 5
For a moment, Leonhardt’s eyes remained frozen. Then they shifted—not toward Elize, but toward where Damian was standing.
He’s looking at Damian instead of me?
One of Elize’s eyebrows slowly rose.
Apparently, he was offended that she had told him they were breaking up in front of Damian.
Feeling as though she had been completely ignored, Elize frowned involuntarily.
“Your answer?”
“……I don’t understand. You want to talk about something like this here…….”
His eyes still hadn’t left Damian, and they burned with fury.
“Do you really have to do it in front of someone like him?”
There was a hint of resentment in his low voice, which sounded almost like an animal growling.
Elize barely suppressed the urge to click her tongue and spoke.
“What does the place matter? The important thing is that I want to break up with you. Why do you keep changing the subject?”
Looking at Leonhardt’s face reminded her of what had happened in the future, and anger kept surging inside her.
But letting her emotions get the better of her would only interfere with the perfect revenge she had planned.
I need to calm down.
She forced her pounding heart to settle and gave him a cold sneer.
“Anyway, I’ve said what I came to say. Our relationship is over.”
After glaring at him one last time, she gestured toward Damian.
“Let’s go, Damian.”
“W-Wait a moment, Lady Elize!”
Leonhardt had completely lost his usual composure.
Stammering, he grabbed her again as she tried to leave the garden.
“Ah…….”
He had grabbed her so tightly that a small groan escaped her.
That was when Damian, who had been silently watching them until then, stepped forward.
“This is exactly why she’s breaking up with you, isn’t it, Sir Gellina?”
He swiftly struck Leonhardt’s wrist—the hand that was gripping Elize—with the hilt of the dagger he was carrying.
“Ugh! What the hell are you doing……!”
“That’s how much it hurts.”
There wasn’t even a trace of a smile left on Damian’s face. Only coldness remained.
“Elize must have been in just as much pain. Honestly, the knights of the Arianthon Empire aren’t even taught basic manners.”
Returning to his usual expression, he exaggeratedly looked Leonhardt up and down before shaking his head.
“……!”
Only then did Leonhardt’s eyes move toward Elize’s reddened wrist.
His lips parted slightly in shock.
He hadn’t expected her wrist to swell so badly from merely gripping it.
Shocked, he could only stammer wordlessly.
As a knight trained in aura, he knew his strength was greater than that of ordinary people.
But he had never imagined that merely gripping someone’s wrist a little too tightly could cause such swelling.
“That’s right. You were always like this.”
Only then did Elize truly look at Leonhardt, whom she had deliberately kept from seeing clearly all this time.
Now she could finally see him for what he really was.
The Golden Lion of Arianthon. Leonhardt von Gellina.
He had never once looked like a man who loved anyone other than himself.
That was why, even until the very end, he had kept the words I love you on his lips while setting her on fire.
And this man calls himself a hero?
Elize withdrew her gaze from Leonhardt and coldly turned away.
“But we can’t end things like this. Without a valid reason……!”
His voice, filled with indignation, came from behind her.
But Elize didn’t turn around.
“Do lovers really need some grand reason to break up?”
She merely murmured in a low voice.
“I don’t love you anymore.”
With those words, she took Damian’s hand and quickly left the garden.
Damian, being dragged along beside her, maintained a broad, delighted smile.
Elize glanced at him from the corner of her eye and murmured while suppressing a laugh.
“Let’s go to the temple.”
“Yes. That place is much better than here. Excuse me for a moment.”
He lightly grasped the sleeve of her dress.
“Hm?”
“Let’s go quickly.”
At that moment, Elize felt her body float into the air.
Before she knew it, she was standing inside her bedroom in the temple.
“Ah…….”
Only then did Elize remember that Damian possessed magical power comparable to Ian, the Arianthon Empire’s Tower Master.
Someone like him came to save me even though he had been attacked so badly that his entire body was covered in blood.
Without realizing it, she looked at him with a wistful expression.
“Ah, Elize.”
“Y-Yes?”
“What is that look in your eyes? It’s almost as though you’re asking me to kiss you…….”
“……I’m not.”
She gave a small laugh at his teasing confession.
Perhaps because she was with Damian, the nauseating feeling Leonhardt had left behind was gradually fading.
“Your gaze was so intense that even my hair turned bright red, Elize.”
“Pfft…….”
She finally burst out laughing at his continued teasing.
Even as she laughed for a while, however, she felt a little guilty.
He must have always been this humorous.
Her prejudice against him had been lifted, but there were still things she needed to confirm.
Having made up her mind, Elize brought him over and sat him down at the table.
“Damian, don’t take this the wrong way.”
“I already feel offended.”
Damian continued joking, apparently wanting to make her laugh even more, but Elize wiped the smile from her face and looked at him seriously.
“I’m joking. How could anything you say offend me? Tell me.”
Realizing the change in atmosphere, Damian finally fell silent.
Elize sighed softly before asking,
“Have you ever…… kidnapped children?”
“Kidnapped?”
He tilted his head slightly, then seemed to remember.
“Ah. You mean those filthy, scruffy children living near the border between the Arianthon and Deblen Empires.”
“……Yes.”
She didn’t care if he really was a villain. She had promised to love him, and she intended to keep that promise.
But she still needed to know the truth.
Were the rumors about Damian true, or were they merely malicious lies?
“They were so dirty that I washed them.”
“……What?”
“I washed them. They wanted to seek asylum in the Deblen Empire, and I absolutely hate seeing filthy children wandering around the streets.”
He frowned as though even thinking about it disgusted him.
“So you didn’t kidnap them…….”
“Why would I? I washed them, gave them new clothes, built a new orphanage, and sent them there.”
Regardless of his intentions, that meant he had ultimately done something good.
“……Then what about the northern nobles of Arianthon? Did you kill them?”
“That was for a rather unpleasant reason I don’t really want to tell you about.”
“Tell me.”
“They tried to assault women from the Deblen Empire.”
“What……?”
Her voice involuntarily rose.
“As you know, the Deblen Empire was a vassal state of the Arianthon Empire until a hundred years ago. Because of that, some Arianthon nobles still look down on the people of Deblen.”
“I didn’t know…….”
“They already had countless mistresses, yet they wanted to take a commoner woman who already had a husband as another mistress. It disgusted me, so I simply put a sword through their backs.”
Elize’s eyes narrowed.
Since she had never lived as a noblewoman, she had never imagined that such circumstances were being kept hidden.
But the three men must have known that Damian had built an orphanage for the children and that the nobles of Arianthon had been the ones to provoke the people of Deblen first.
They had known the truth and still spread malicious rumors about him to the people of Arianthon—and to her.
“I knew it.”
After learning the whole truth, she rubbed her chest in relief.
She would have loved him even if he had truly been a villain, but knowing that he had done good deeds rather than evil ones was certainly better.
“I’m really glad.”
“Glad about what?”
Damian didn’t seem to care in the slightest about the rumors surrounding him.
Elize looked at him with a hint of envy.
Maybe he’s just thick-skinned. Or perhaps he’s already become completely detached from it.
After all, as the crown prince of an empire, he was bound to be surrounded by all kinds of rumors.
Elize abruptly stood and began searching through the tea cabinet.
Then she brewed the tea leaves she treasured most and placed a cup before him herself.
Damian stared at the steaming cup.
Instead of drinking it, he merely held the handle and spoke.
“You said you had something to tell me.”
“Yes. But you might not believe me.”
“I’d believe you even if you told me strawberries had grown where you’d planted blueberries.”
“Thank you for saying that, but…….”
Damian had said he loved her because she was perfect.
But Elize knew better than anyone that she wasn’t perfect.
Perhaps that was why she had failed to notice the signs of betrayal that the three men had been showing her all along.
“Tell me. I’ll believe anything you say.”
Perhaps to show her how much he trusted her, Damian straightened his posture and looked directly at her.
His behavior gave Elize a little courage, and she slowly parted her lips.
“……I saw the future.”
“Hm?”
“I don’t know whether I saw the future or returned from the past. But anyway, in that future…….”
She swallowed nervously.
“The two of us died together.”
“We died?”
Damian asked in disbelief.
“Yes.”
Her voice lowered as she continued.
“At the hands of Leonhardt, Ian, and Esit.”
At Elize’s answer, Damian’s pupils widened dramatically before narrowing like a cat’s.
