~CHAPTER 81~
“If we went back to that time, would you act differently?”
Harbirich could finally answer that question.
If only you and I could remain ‘us,’ I would even abandon my pride. I would beg on my knees if I had to, but I cannot bear to see you in pain.
But there was no one left to hear Harbirich’s belated words.
“I should have eliminated Baron Aiden from the start.”
Harbirich looked at Noah with a cold gaze.
“It was a confession potion! I, I was going to use a confession potion!”
“Hah.”
A confession potion, he murmured quietly.
“If you had seen how much my wife suffered, you wouldn’t be spewing that nonsense.”
“I was deceived too!”
Noah burst into tears.
Her excuses were absurd, and to Harbirich, her pleas seemed nothing but contemptible.
If she had any sense, she would have wracked her brain for some excuse. In truth, Harbirich had no intention of listening to any excuses, but seeing her plead with tears made her look even more pitiful.
“Ren.”
Harbirich called the torture technician.
“Y-Your Grace, Duke.”
He crossed his arms and stared at Ren as he opened the barred door to the underground prison.
An unpleasant, chilling metallic sound filled the prison.
“I-I’ll tell the truth! Everything I know…!”
Noah couldn’t finish her words. Ren stuffed a gag into her mouth to prevent suicide. Her hands were secured to the cuffs attached to the table. One well-maintained fingernail was pulled out, blood splattering onto the prison floor. The metallic sound of her struggling echoed through the room.
Several more fingernails were pulled, the sound chilling and harsh.
The smell of burning flesh wafted several times.
Harbirich gestured to Ren. He emerged from the underground prison, bowing his head slightly. Before him was a woman, tear-streaked and battered from the pain.
“Ah, ah….”
Noah screamed as she looked at her ruined hand. With hands like that, she would never wield a sword again.
Though she had been desperate to become Duchess, Noah had affection for the position she had earned as a knight.
Harbirich looked down at the despairing Noah with a cold gaze.
No amount of pain she endured could compare to the suffering he remembered Lincia enduring in front of him.
“Make the most of being freed from the gag.”
A warning that if she spoke useless words again, her mouth would be gagged.
Even in her pain-clouded state, Noah kept nodding.
“I truly acted for Your Grace, Duke.”
“For me?”
He hadn’t freed the gag to hear such meaningless words. Harbirich frowned.
“I was worried Your Grace might be poisoned.”
“Worried?”
Noah flinched at the sound of the bars being slammed harshly.
A man furious enough to blush with rage spoke threateningly.
“If you were worried about me, it wouldn’t matter if I got poisoned by Lincia!”
He would have gladly taken the poison himself if it meant Lincia would remain unharmed.
But to harm Lincia for such a pitiful excuse? Harbirich gritted his teeth.
Noah looked up at him and stammered.
“W-what do you mean…?”
Harbirich didn’t even glance at her, turning his head away. There was nothing more to learn from her, setting aside his desire to tear her apart.
He commanded the knight.
“Bring Alcide Aiden here.”
Alcide should have been imprisoned as well, but they were kept separate to prevent communication between the two offenders.
Shortly after, Alcide was dragged to the underground prison. As he approached, his screams could be heard through the walls.
Thud, like well-tenderized meat, Alcide was dragged, screaming in fury, until he saw Noah and froze in shock.
Alcide’s wide eyes took in Noah’s condition, and it didn’t take long for him to become obedient.
“…I-I was wrong. I’ll tell everything I know.”
Harbirich could not hide his sneer at Alcide groveling at his feet.
“Do you think I wouldn’t know what you know?”
“…Then, I will drink the confession potion. Please spare my daughter.”
A pitifully false plea.
Harbirich left the underground prison silently after looking at them. He knew that maintaining silence would torment them more than any words.
Even Harbirich feared Lincia’s silence the most.
It was easier to bear being scolded, shouted at, or struck than to face that silence.
Besides, there was nothing to gain even if he interrogated those fools. Harbirich already knew there was only one place to obtain such a drug.
The largest black market in the north.
Harbirich had already sent someone there and discovered where Noah had bought the drug. He also knew she had snooped around to acquire a confession potion. Therefore, her claim of trying to buy one might not have been a lie.
So what difference would it make?
Ultimately, what she bought wasn’t a confession potion, and Lincia fell ill due to poison.
Even if Noah had been deceived, it was none of Harbirich’s concern.
The apothecary was already under investigation.
Before going to Lincia’s room, Harbirich headed to the bathroom.
After the time in the underground prison, a distinct musty smell clung to him. He wanted to wash away the filth and sticky emotions.
* * *
Lincia was still unconscious. Her breathing was calmer, though she occasionally frowned. Harbirich gently touched the corner of her eyes.
At least, she was no longer crying.
Harbirich wanted to choose the first method. He had wanted to ask a hundred times for a harmless drug for Lincia, but he refrained thousands of times. If she knew he had also abandoned the child while being punished for deceiving her, she might never forgive him.
Also.
“Nine out of ten patients develop severe depression. It is not impossible for them to harm themselves.”
Harbirich knew someone who had suffered severe depression and ended their life.
“…Give me narcotic painkillers.”
So he had no choice but to choose the second method.
He tried to shake off the lingering memories of that day.
“Harbirich.”
A thin voice called his name.
He responded anxiously, but she didn’t open her eyes. Realizing Lincia had called his name despite her blurred consciousness, Harbirich reached out with trembling hands and held hers. Her weak, soft fingertips were cold and damp.
He held her pained hands firmly, feeling sorry for them. Images of Alcide with his stiff neck, shouting for the sake of his actions, and that daughter screaming his cause flashed before him.
Even though they acted presumptuously in his lands, he tried to endure and manage them. And this was the result—his household in ruins, unable to protect even one precious thing.
Harbirich realized too late that a ruler amid the wreckage had nothing left to take responsibility for.
All that remained for him was Lincia, wounded by the sharp debris.
* * *
“Do you live without thinking?”
Despite hearing such words from the Duke, Tereo was a thoughtful man.
He judged situations quickly. Even after knowing Julius for a long time, his neck felt unexposed, proof of his awareness.
Even while being interrogated, Tereo noticed that the atmosphere at the Duke’s castle was unusual.
At the center of it was the Princess.
No matter how much he moved in the outer castle, there were limits to what he could learn.
All he knew now was that the Princess had collapsed.
…Maybe, I can go into the inner castle without being noticed?
He had visited the inner castle before to deliver congratulatory gifts, so he knew its layout.
He even knew Lincia’s bedroom—though it had since been moved.
Tereo immediately put his plan into action, stepping toward the inner castle without hesitation.
If Harbirich had seen it, he might have wondered if the knight had seaweed for brains.
