NRAL | Chapter 118

Chapter 118 

Where the Blade Points

Thud! A heavy sound and a sharp pain hit Eleanor’s face.

“Ugh…!”

She collapsed onto the wet, muddy ground, clutching her stomach, and groaned in pain.

Her body was bruised and aching. Her lips were completely torn, blood dripping from them, and as she was dragged along, her skin scraped against the ground, causing pain in her limbs.

Breathing heavily from the pain, Eleanor slowly opened her eyes.

In the blurry vision, she saw an unfamiliar forest around her. The trees, both tall and short, made it impossible to guess the direction of the cave.

Even in the midst of the intense anger blurring her vision, Eleanor thought about the potential consequences of the situation. It seemed she had underestimated her father’s reaction.

‘When I dealt with Baron Griffith, I acted like I didn’t know anything. But now, I’m not as angry about this situation.’

Eleanor scoffed softly. She knew that if things went wrong, it could become a serious problem, but she wasn’t really scared. She had deliberately left behind clues and believed that Ernst would come to find her.

Suddenly, a large hand grabbed her by the hair, yanking her up.

Eleanor instinctively grabbed her stomach with one hand while trying to steady herself with her palm against the dirt floor.

“Tell me again,” her father, the Duke of Astria, demanded, his face now dangerously close to hers. Despite being furious, he wore a calm expression.

“What did you do to Damian?”

It was risky to provoke her father like this, but Eleanor couldn’t help herself. She smiled slyly.

“I made him look like a fool.”

Her taunting words provoked him, and with a heavy blow, her body was sent tumbling to the ground.

The pain felt like her world was turning upside down, and Eleanor couldn’t even breathe properly from the shock.

“You… How dare you…!”

The Duke clenched his fists, shaking in anger. His desire to beat her to death was overwhelming, but his last remaining sense of reason stopped him.

If he kept beating her, things could go horribly wrong. Not just the contract with the Royster Duke, but the investments they had made could fall apart, and that would lead to trouble from investors.

He was terrified of what could happen.

The Duke took deep, erratic breaths, glaring at Eleanor, who now lay on the ground. Her face was dirty with blood and mud, and her legs were covered with red scars and fresh wounds from being dragged across the ground.

Showing this kind of condition to the Duke of Royster would be disastrous. Eleanor had likely planned for this reaction.

“You foolish girl…”

The Duke suddenly chuckled.

“You think you can break the contract with just these small injuries?”

His laughter was bitter, almost mocking. He had always believed that Eleanor was too naïve to understand the realities of power.

“Even if the Duke of Royster sees the scars on your legs, it won’t matter. I can just say it was part of your punishment.”

The law would support him. He was certain of it.

“Getting hurt in a small way won’t cancel the contract. If you want to break it, you’d need to be seriously injured. You thought this would do the job? Foolish girl, have I taught you nothing?”

Finally, Eleanor managed to lift herself up from the ground.

Her head spun from the force of the blow, and her body ached all over, but her mind was clearer than ever. The rustling sound of leaves in the distance, carried by the wind, gave her the clarity she needed.

Her father seemed oblivious to it. But knowing how sensitive he was, she couldn’t afford to leave it like this for long.

She decided to provoke him further.

“I have a question for you, Father.”

The Duke looked down at her, surprised by her sudden defiance. His face had calmed down a bit, likely from taking a few deep breaths.

“Still…!”

“Did you really love your wife, the Duchess?”

The mention of his wife made the Duke freeze, a look of shock crossing his face.

“Could you, as a man, really love anyone? I always thought you only cared about wealth and power, not love.”

His violet eyes flashed with rage, his skin turning pale as he clenched his jaw, struggling to keep his emotions in check.

To his surprise, the Duke reacted even more strongly to the mention of his wife than when Eleanor had confessed to what she had done to Damian.

Could it be that the Duchess held more meaning for him than he revealed?

Or perhaps it was something he was desperately trying to hide.

“Did you, Father, really destroy the Alchestis family’s wealth because of your greed, not because of your love for Astria’s young princess?”

Eleanor asked the question she had been wondering about ever since she heard about the collapse of the Partis Church.

Did you arrange that incident? Did you destroy your wife’s family because you were blinded by your greed for wealth?

Finally, Eleanor voiced the doubts she had held onto for so long.

The question struck the Duke like a sharp knife to the heart.

The Duke lost control of his anger, his emotions boiling over as he screamed her name.

“Eleanor!!”

He had never called her by her real name since she had become the fake princess, and hearing it now was almost too much for him to bear.

Eleanor smiled quietly as her father rushed toward her, still so ignorant of her true intentions.

She reached into her torn dress, quickly retrieving the small hidden object she had prepared earlier.

It was a knife, a small and light one with the Astria family’s crest on it.

‘This…!’

The Duke stopped in his tracks as he saw the knife in her hand, quickly stepping back in alarm.

But Eleanor was already within range, and with one quick motion, the blade was thrust into her own side.

The pain was overwhelming as she felt something inside her burst. Blood poured out, staining her beige dress.

“This… what’s…?” The Duke was stunned, stumbling backward, unable to process what was happening.

Eleanor collapsed, the blood from the deep wound in her side flowing freely, turning her dress into a bloody mess.

“No, no!”

The Duke rushed to her side, trembling as he tried to help her, but the amount of blood was too much. If she didn’t get treatment immediately, there was no way she could survive this.

“No!”

If she died, everything would be over. The Duke screamed in despair.