ECD 09

Chapter 9 Everything Changed After I Died

This was the first time since entering this body that I had genuinely laughed.

“Why are you laughing like that?”

Love between Henry and me?

Even a passing dog would laugh at such a thing.

“I was wondering if love without affection or loyalty can even be called love.”

“Then perhaps it wasn’t love, but possession.”

Henry added that.

I stared into the air for a moment, gathering my thoughts.

It had been a long time since I had been this speechless, not knowing what to say.

“Have you ever actually had something of your own?”

I was tired of this kind of wordplay.

If I were someone who knew nothing, I might have found his words interesting, but that was not the case at all.

At my casually thrown question, Henry’s mouth fell silent.

He stared at me for a long while before opening his mouth.

“Interesting.”

His body, which had been leaning slightly toward the table, settled deeply back into the chair.

“Now that I think about it, you seem completely different from what people say about you.”

“That’s too generous an evaluation.”

Irene and Henry had no connection.

Aside from what he had heard through rumors, he probably knew nothing about what Irene had originally been like.

“It must have been a shame to remain hidden in Deborah’s shadow.”

“Not everyone gets to choose where they live their life.”

“Did you never have a chance to step forward?”

Judging by how he kept throwing questions at me, Henry seemed curious about Irene.

“It is easier to say it was the fate of the second child. There is only one place that can shine, so I was simply left in its shadow.”

Those words were not only about Irene’s circumstances.

Rather, they were closer to describing Henry’s entire life.

He had not been born as the eldest son, so he had been born as a prince and forced to serve as a pawn of the Imperial Family.

“I think Your Highness, the Prince, would understand that.”

The fingers that had been dancing over Henry’s knee suddenly stopped.

“How presumptuous.”

It was obvious that I had crossed the line by speaking so boldly to a prince.

But I knew Henry was not the kind of person who cared much about such things.

He was definitely a little different from ordinary members of the Imperial Family.

Because there were things he valued more than honor or appearances.

“You speak as though you know me well.”

The more I provoked him, the more interesting he would probably find it.

“So I was wondering whether I should congratulate you on losing an engagement that would have become a shackle, or comfort you for the grief of losing your fiancée.”

I was suspicious of Henry.

Henry had more than enough reason to kill me.

He seemed to have been born into a position where he could choose anything, yet from the moment he was born, he was someone who could choose nothing.

From the moment he was born as the second son of the Imperial Family, where succession always favored the eldest son.

The Emperor had driven the final nail into the coffin by arranging his engagement to the heir of House Mergen.

The meaning was clear.

Do nothing. Just live as a pawn connecting the Imperial Family and House Mergen.

“I thought you would prefer congratulations to consolation.”

I had no intention of provoking him.

I was simply curious whether Henry really had nothing to do with my death.

Even after I finished speaking, Henry did not readily answer.

Unusually for him, he seemed cautious.

If Henry had killed me, there would have been no reason for him to hide it completely from Irene.

He would not admit it, of course, but it would be easier to control his opponent by making it obvious enough to frighten them.

“It’s an interesting story, but I think there is something you’re misunderstanding.”

Henry spoke in a calm voice, as though he had not been provoked at all.

“Contrary to what you expect, I feel a great sense of loss over Deborah’s death.”

His voice flowed out calmly.

“I can’t shake this unpleasant feeling that, no matter how I look at it, I have lost more than I have gained.”

A person who clearly knew what he was feeling, but could not make sense of his emotions.

There seemed to be nothing more I could get from Henry this way.

“Then, shall I assume that you have no intention of reconsidering and report that to the head of the family?”

I wanted to leave this place where I was facing Henry.

Even while thinking about my death, calculations about what Mergen would gain and lose kept circling in my head.

“I was going to, but I just changed my mind.”

“…It seems your thoughts change rather quickly.”

What scheme is he planning this time?

I looked at him with a calm expression.

“Because an entirely unexpected variable appeared right in front of me.”

Henry’s blue eyes sometimes gave me the strange illusion that I was looking into a mirror.

Perhaps it was because I knew that beneath those beautifully shining waves lay a black abyss.

“I think we’ll have to meet again, Miss Irene.”

He meant that he was willing to negotiate the terms.

Why?

Why had someone who seemed to have no intention of doing so suddenly changed his mind?

“Because I can’t make a proper judgment after settling everything in one go.”

Henry smiled his usual warm smile and held out his hand to me.

I simply stared blankly at his hand.

The carriage bearing the Imperial insignia left the gates of the Mergen estate smoothly and silently.

Inside the carriage, which did not shake at all, Henry quietly watched the Mergen estate grow distant.

“Why didn’t you finish things today?”

His aide, Mellick, asked while looking at the completely empty negotiation documents.

Henry, who had been staring at the Mergen estate for a long time, shifted his gaze to the documents.

Have you ever actually had something of your own?

I thought you would prefer congratulations to consolation.

Those words kept echoing in Henry’s ears.

“What a strange thing.”

Irene Mergen.

Deborah’s younger sister, who had almost no presence at all.

He had seen that weak woman from a distance before.

Pale as a ghost and sickly-looking, she had been so insignificant that she had never sparked even the slightest bit of his curiosity.

“But that look in her eyes felt eerily familiar.”

Yet the gaze she had given him today was enough to erase all his memories of her from the past.

“She was excessively presumptuous, yet she cleverly slipped away as though she knew exactly where my limits were.”

“We could simply charge her with insulting the Imperial Family.”

“But that’s exactly what makes her interesting.”

The corners of Henry’s lips rose.

“I almost lost my temper and responded like a boy going through puberty.”

There had clearly been dangerous triggers scattered throughout their conversation, like mines buried just beneath the surface.

But the process of avoiding them and probing each other was rather…

“It seems you enjoyed yourself.”

“Yes, fun. I suppose that’s exactly the right word.”

Henry put a period to this feeling of his.

“I thought there was nothing left in Mergen that could interest me, but my instincts told me otherwise. This is definitely not the end.”

“It would be a waste to throw away such an opportunity just for fun.”

At Mellick’s words, Henry laughed loudly.

“What should I do? I think I want to keep watching Mergen a little longer.”

“Mergen’s future is obvious, isn’t it? Sir Abel has returned. He will become the next head of the family. Since he is someone whose disposition is difficult to read, things may become even more troublesome for Your Highness in the future.”

“Hmm.”

Henry made a puzzled expression.

“What if Deborah’s twin younger sister became the heir instead of Abel?”

“That will never happen. The vassals have already made their position clear.”

Mellick shook his head as though the idea was completely impossible.

“Even Mergen’s servants call Lady Irene a foolish young lady. Isn’t she someone whose only accomplishment is holding flowers in her hands instead of a sword or a pen?”

“Hmm.”

Henry recalled the Irene he had faced.

Holding flowers in those hands with those eyes…

“Then those flowers must be poisonous herbs.”

It made no sense.

How many different kinds of people had he encountered in his life?

At the very least, he had the eyes to distinguish predators from prey.

Irene Mergen.

He did not know how she had hidden her claws and lived like that, but if she had deceived everyone so perfectly, then she was a person far beyond his expectations.

You sound very certain.

He remembered those words, with a hint of mockery toward him hidden beneath a voice that fell like dew upon grass.

“You said sending Irene Mergen to negotiate the broken engagement was the head’s decision.”

“Yes. I have no idea what he was thinking. I can only assume he went mad from the shock of losing Lady Deborah…”

“Giving up the bloodline connection would be a terrible move for Mergen.”

“What?”

Mellick reacted to the suddenly serious tone of Henry’s voice.

“Power passed down through blood. The unique power of Mergen, which even the people of the Empire consider sacred.”

“But…”

“If they lose that legitimacy, then this time it will be Chloe’s child. In the next generation, the child of some noble. And after that, even the child of some common villager.”

“……”

“Once a single staircase is placed before them, everyone will try to climb it. The name Mergen will probably become something worthless.”

“It is an unavoidable course of events.”

Mellick shook his head firmly.

Even House Mergen, a family that had left a great mark on history, would inevitably fall if it lost its power.

That was simply how things worked.

“Apparently, the head of the family doesn’t want that yet.”

Henry’s gaze moved away from the documents.

He turned his head toward the carriage window.

The scenery passed by quickly.

“Perhaps a huge change has begun in this stagnant place. If we don’t want to be swept away by it, we need to stay alert as well.”

“Could it be that your position changed in just a few hours?”