Chapter: 158
“What the hell are you talking about!”
Bang!
The usually composed Duke could not contain his anger and shot to his feet.
But in the end, the Duke could not bring himself to raise his voice any further.
Because.
“……If it really was because of me.”
Her voice came out in broken fragments.
“If Mother and Father…… died because of me……?”
Tears fell one by one, wetting her knees.
“I’m really sorry, Brother. I’m sorry to Lari too. Sob, I’m sorry.”
Her trembling shoulders looked so incredibly frail.
I felt my mouth go completely dry.
‘How cornered must she have been?’
In truth, it was inevitable.
This wasn’t a matter of whether her heart was strong or weak.
‘Everyone…… is pointing their fingers at the young lady, calling her a witch.’
Everyone was attacking the young lady as one.
They were shouting at her, telling her that everything was her fault, demanding that she apologize and pay for her sins.
……Wouldn’t it be stranger if she didn’t break under all that?
The Duke stared blankly at the sobbing young lady.
“……”
For a long while, his lips moved soundlessly.
Then he squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his teeth.
……As expected, he must have been struggling to contain his surging emotions.
“I was branded a witch, so our family’s reputation fell as well. And Lari ended up being stigmatized as the witch’s friend……”
The young lady also seemed to be on the verge of panic.
I felt that I had to calm her somehow.
“It’s, it’s all my fault.”
“Eva.”
“I’m the one who did wrong. If only I had done things right from the beginning, if only I had tried a little harder……”
“Eva!”
When I called out to her almost as a shout, the young lady finally slowly raised her head.
The moment our eyes met.
I stiffened my shoulders.
……And for good reason, because the young lady’s eyes were completely empty.
“Eva. Do you remember when I was in trouble because of the marriage arrangement with Count Gusto?”
I briefly bit down on my lower lip before speaking as gently as I could.
“Back then, you told me this. That when a friend is in trouble, it’s only natural to help them.”
“……Lari.”
“You also told me not to blame myself for something that wasn’t my fault.”
The young lady’s clear, ringing voice suddenly came back to me.
“When a friend is in trouble, it’s only natural to help. Even if it were a complete stranger, if I heard such an outrageous story, I’d roll up my sleeves and help.”
I even remembered how she had sharply narrowed her eyes and scolded me once again.
“But what are you talking about! This wasn’t Lari’s fault in the first place!”
“I want to say those exact same words back to you.”
Facing the young lady, who I couldn’t even tell was truly listening to me,
I continued slowly and clearly, putting strength into every word.
“Eva is my precious friend, and I don’t want you to blame yourself over something that isn’t your fault.”
For the first time, a faint tremor passed through the young lady’s previously vacant eyes.
Like a small pebble tossed into still water.
Ripples slowly spread across the surface.
“So…… could you rely on me, just a little?”
I forced myself to smile as though everything were perfectly fine.
“So that I can help you, Eva.”
“……”
Tears overflowed once again down her pale cheeks.
“Ugh, sob, hic, waaaaaah……!”
And just like that, the young lady burst into loud sobs like a little child.
After the young lady’s visit came to an end,
the Duke and I silently made our way outside.
Even though I knew this shouldn’t be happening, I couldn’t help feeling increasingly dejected.
‘I have to clear the young lady’s name as soon as possible.’
I recalled the face of the Mother Superior I had seen last.
If she couldn’t clear her name, the young lady would have to remain confined to this convent for the rest of her life.
And she would be expected to repent for her sins for the rest of her life.
At least because she was the Duchess of Claudius, the Mother Superior had said, she wouldn’t receive extreme punishments such as being burned at the stake or imprisoned.
“What a merciful sentence this is.”
The Mother Superior had said that smugly.
I felt anger suddenly surge within me.
‘Seriously, what part of this is merciful?’
Being told to repent for a crime you never committed—what kind of ridiculous nonsense was that?
As I ground my teeth in frustration,
I narrowed my eyes.
‘In the original story, the young lady was taken to Saint Alph’s Monastery because she had tormented Seraphina.’
But things had changed so much from the original story now.
And yet……
‘How long am I going to keep being held back by the original story?’
My chest felt suffocatingly heavy, as though I had swallowed a boulder.
I couldn’t seem to break free of it……
‘Wait. The original story?’
Suddenly, my eyes widened.
‘In the original story…… what was the reason the young lady was confined to the convent again?’
Back then, the young lady had not been accused of being a witch.
Instead.
‘Poisoning.’
That was it.
In the original story, the young lady had been accused of trying to poison Seraphina.
The events in the original story had gone like this.
Just like the young lady now, the young lady in the original story had a hobby of growing various flowers and roses.
One day, when the conflict between the young lady and Seraphina had reached its peak,
the young lady had decided that they should make peace and given Seraphina a bouquet of roses.
And not long after receiving the bouquet, Seraphina had collapsed right in front of the Duke.
‘In the novel…… the roses were naturally portrayed as though they contained poison.’
However, the exact mechanism of the poison was never explained.
It was a novel that had thrown any concern for factual accuracy out the window from the beginning.
And from the reader’s perspective, the only thing that mattered was the sensational event of ‘the villainess poisoning the female protagonist.’
No one was particularly curious about how the poison actually worked.
So naturally, the readers understood that the young lady had tried to poison Seraphina.
And the young lady had received an enormous amount of abuse and condemnation.
‘At that time, Seraphina had definitely……’
She had developed a high fever, seen things that weren’t there, and even burrowed into the Duke’s arms, saying she was scared.
Which meant.
She had developed a high fever and delirium.
‘Wait.’
I swallowed a startled breath.
The symptoms Seraphina had suffered in the novel, the symptoms the previous Duke and Duchess of Claudius had shown before their deaths,
and the symptoms Her Majesty the Empress had suffered from this time……
‘All three are exactly the same.’
Then couldn’t this incident also have been caused not by the curse the Grand Temple was claiming,
……but by poison?
However.
‘They said no poison had been detected on any of Her Majesty the Empress’s belongings.’
After Her Majesty the Empress collapsed this time, everything she normally used, as well as all of her food, had been thoroughly examined.
Including the roses the young lady had given her, no trace of poison had been found on any of the items.
That was precisely why it had been so easy for the Grand Temple to push the narrative that a witch had placed a curse on her……
“Lari.”
At that moment, a subdued voice calling my name brought me abruptly back to reality.
“Ah, Dietrich.”
It was the Duke.
The Duke, who had been looking at me with a complicated expression, suddenly spoke.
“I’m sorry.”
“Pardon?”
“Earlier…… I wasn’t being rational, was I?”
The Duke continued with a sigh.
“I should have comforted Eva. Instead, I left it to you again.”
“……That’s……”
“I’m the one who’s supposed to protect that child.”
At the same time, his handsome face slowly twisted with pain.
“I’ve already lost my parents forever, so I thought I would protect that child no matter what.”
“Dietrich.”
“And yet, like this, even that child…….”
The Duke’s voice broke helplessly at the end.
