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Chapter 285
A Candid Story
The bell that had been in that word stops.
He carefully set it down so it wouldn't ring unnecessarily.
"From now on, I won't allow a single inch of falsehood in what I say."
An edge sharpened on the old face.
Since the reason he threw such a reckless move as usurpation was all because of one woman, it was only natural.
W̆ ѐ b̈ǹ ӧv̇ě ľ Ẽ n uṁ ǎ
Disgusting old man.
Swallowing the disgust like bitter medicine, he spoke.
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"Olivia's location is certain."
Ferda clashed leisurely.
Whatever the case, Ferda held the biggest card right now.
"If the reason you know Olivia's location but are giving it to me anyway is......."
Ẃе̃ b̃n оv ėľ Еn̄_ũmӓ
Piecing together all the stories he'd shared with Ferda like a puzzle, he quickly grasped what Ferda's picture was.
>
"You're blatantly going to treat me like a fool...... that sounds about right."
A face that looked displeased.
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However, Ferda still knew he was willing to talk.
He completely removed his hand from the bell.
Wе̃ bn оvе̌l̄ Еǹ u ṁ ӓ
"Would I have come with such rude intentions?"
"You sort out the Dopplers yourselves, start a war so you bleed. That's how you're playing it, right? Since I'm such a lustful demon who doesn't know water from fire when I see Olivia."
"Aren't you gathering an army to obtain Olivia?"
"Speak straight. I'm building a foothold to save the Princess, not going to obtain her."
Of course, Ferda didn't believe it.
There was no way Valdemar, who had operated in political circles for so long, wouldn't know that intent.
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Valdemar, who had been watching Ferda's expression, spoke.
"Then let's talk honestly. Suppose you tell me Olivia's location, and I save her. So the moment comes when I take that child—will you just stand by?"
Ferda answered.
"Isn't that the condition of this conversation right now? Telling you the Princess Olivia's location means you move first before I move."
"No, that's not the answer I want. Why are you trying to drag the story out like this?"
Valdemar said with a smile.
Wе b́n̄о v е l̇ Е̊ n ü m̆_a
"Since it's between you and me, let's not do useless formalities like with other humans. You see, I've lived hiding my thoughts for decades. I've become very good at seeing through people. So there was no one I could speak the truth with."
Swallowing bitter memories, he continued.
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"That's why I'm telling you. I know how you think of me, so I'm asking you to speak honestly."
Ferda didn't easily believe those words.
There was a non-zero possibility that saying those words in this room right now would give him leverage.
Valdemar, with his current tyrannical behavior, was an unfathomable existence.
Еń ǔm̄ а́
>
With someone like that, even if his heart was exposed, denying it to the end was the best move.
"I'll speak honestly."
However, Ferda decided to tell the truth.
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"If you save Olivia like a prince from a fairy tale, and gain a just cause to marry her, I won't stop you."
Valdemar listened quietly.
Ė n̆ ūm_а̊ . і̂ d
Ferda's words didn't end there.
"But the moment Olivia asks me for help, I'll go help that woman without hesitation. That's the honest story you're talking about."
Ferda's mask cracked.
The small fracture soon spread throughout, shattering Ferda's mask.
His honesty was revealed, pouring out everything without reservation.
"You're that disgusting of a human."
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"......."
"At that age, you're coveting a girl who could be your granddaughter—who wouldn't curse you?"
Unfiltered hostility.
There's no way he doesn't know what kind of evaluation he receives, what kind of thoughts people have.
But hearing it like this is a different story.
An insult ordinary nobles would never endure.
Ê n u̇mа
He would have raged furiously, making his earlier offer to speak openly meaningless.
But Valdemar didn't.
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Even with a strike aimed at his heart, his face didn't flush red.
Rather, he looked at Ferda with a refreshed expression.
"I can look ugly and pathetic. That's only natural. A geezer nearing death can't act like someone living young."
He admitted it easily.
Ӗn̆ um̊a
It wasn't something boiling inside disguised as coolness.
That calmness rather pressed down on Ferda.
Valdemar leaned against the backrest and spoke.
"I once had something like pure devotion too. I had a fiancée, and there was a time when the emotion called love boiled within me."
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Fiancée.
He'd heard about it through Garnet.
Е ṅ ú m̄ ã. іd
Valdemar always said he was married to the country, but he too had someone who would become his partner.
Valdemar closed his eyes for a moment.
For some reason, Ferda could read his heart.
He was looking back on memories.
Valdemar loved his fiancée deeply.
Just imagining her gave him strength, and drawing a future together made his chest tickle inexplicably and made him laugh.
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"But do you know how cruel reality is to a patriot?"
When he opened his eyes again, everything had collapsed.
Anger burning all the pictures he'd drawn of the future surged from his chest.
"The woman who whispered sweet nothings saying she'd only look at me—I saw her again rolling in bed with another man."
He vomited the anger he'd buried deep in his heart.
"The man who would become her husband rolled through death for the woman who would become his wife, for the children they'd have together so they wouldn't be ashamed of their father—but the repayment was receiving the seed of a gigolo who only knows how to swing his hips."
W ё ḃnо v̇ e l Е̊nu m̂ а
"......So what did you do?"
"I killed him. Slowly peeled the gigolo's skin, salted it, made him hear endless screams of agony, then sent him off."
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Ferda lowered his clasped hands.
He didn't want to think about it because he had a similar past.
"Since then, I didn't believe in love or anything. I lived as a patriot. My house became the battlefield, my soldiers became my children and my future. That's why there were so many times I nearly died."
A bitter voice and listless eyes.
Е́ n um̆ ǎ
Valdemar rose from his seat.
He took out the liquor bottle he'd placed under the table and held it in his hand.
It wasn't expensive premium liquor befitting a Grand Duke's status.
It was rough moonshine that commoners would drink.
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"There was a man."
He brought up a new story.
W ē bn о̃v̈ е̇ ĺ Е́ n̈_ũ má
"A man with sick parents and a wife and kids barely making ends meet, who enlisted because he needed a huge sum of money. That man saved me and got bitten by a beast instead, losing his arm."
"He's your benefactor."
"Just fixing his limbs was a tremendous merit. No one then or now has roamed the battlefield as much as me and survived intact. So I gave a reward. By commoner standards, enough money for three generations to eat and live without worry."
He took a deep breath and spoke.
"He should have lived well. But when I saw him again three years later, do you know what state he was in? Begging alone in the slums."
"Did he squander it on gambling?"
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"If that were it, I wouldn't have bothered remembering such a luxurious thing. He was scammed. A healer blinded by money coveted his assets and abandoned humanity."
He made an easily curable illness steadily worsen to demand more money.
Even after extorting a lot, the greed didn't stop. He made his wife and children catch the same epidemic-like illness and took everything.
He lost his parents, wife, and children all at once.
It was a plausible story in the Empire.
With so many humans gathered, it's a harsh land.
Wе b̌n̂ о̂v еl̃ Е̊ nu m̂ а̊
"When I heard those circumstances and met him again, do you know what he said?"
"......."
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""I guess this is my fate," he said."
He set down the moonshine bottle with trembling hands.
Two tears flowing down the wrinkled, creased face.
"That couldn't be his fate. If all that remains for a patriot who devoted himself to the country is a miserable future, who would step forward and fight for that future?"
È n um̂ а . іd̆
Valdemar, immersed in sentiment, wiped his tears with his index finger.
His choking voice quickly returned to normal.
"I said I like chaos now, right? Because now is exactly the right time. Nobles should fulfill their duty, but bastards who don't are running wild. So I blew away all those who refused deployment with pathetic excuses."
"You know the Empire is rotten."
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"Saying you don't know is no different from covering your eyes and ears."
"Didn't you want to just destroy such an Empire?"
Е ń ü m а. і d̂
His true feelings slipping out carelessly in the middle of an honest conversation.
Too late to take it back.
If he harbored ill will, right now would be the perfect time.
But Valdemar didn't.
His promise to bare his insides and talk continued to the end.
"A moment when everything in the world is hateful comes to everyone. But if you try to overturn it every time, what meaning would that have? Anger is that kind of emotion."
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Since he'd brought tragedy by being consumed by his own anger, Ferda knew that better than anyone.
"Ferda Regent. That's why I'm keeping you alive. Even if you call me disgusting, you're fulfilling your duty as the Duke's representative, and you know the weight of it."
Different from the emotions he'd felt until now.
Ferda knows what to call that emotion coming at his heart.
Pity.
"So it's truly...... on one hand, sad. Wondering if you might meet such a miserable end too."
Е̌ň_u̇ m а́
"Is the story over, Grand Duke?"
Ferda cut off his words.
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Coldness contained in his gaze, the message delivered to him was clear.
Thus the honest story ended, and it was time to stop wallowing in sentiment.
Valdemar saw the black liquid Ferda had set out.
"One drop per wine bottle, was it? Looks like about 30 bottles."
E n ûm а̃ . і d
"Yes."
"A banquet in winter...... for a tyrant who doesn't think of commoners, it's the best season."
He didn't ask for confirmation once more.
The deal was made like that.
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One month later, a splendid banquet was announced at the Imperial Palace.
No one knew it would be a frenzied festival of red wine and blood tangled together.
Ѐ n̂ ú ḿа̂.і̇d
* * *
Valdrova came outside and looked up at the sky.
Coming out through the large cave of the Lonely Mountain, there was a small road and forest.
She knew the general layout, but didn't know what it looked like.
Until then, she only went outside to stop the oncoming colossal monsters, so it was natural those landscapes didn't catch her eye.
Her time, where years passed in the blink of an eye, now passed day by day.
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From that moment, Valdrova made one resolution.
To capture change with her eyes while looking at the same things in the same place.
She came out of the cave and captured those changes with her eyes under the largest tree.
"Winter......."
The sky she looked up at leaning against the tree was blue.
With not a single fallen leaf, it looked like blood vessels stretching across the sky.
Éñum̀ а̊
Dry fallen leaves piled thickly at her feet, making rustling sounds with each step.
"Huu......."
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Valdrova quietly exhaled.
White steam pushed away the cold air and rose to the sky.
Valdrova's golden eyes sparkled.
"Pretty......."
E̊ ńũ ḿ_а. і̄ d
It's just breath from her mouth, how can it be this pretty?
The thought of wanting to see more stimulated her.
So she breathed in deeply and exhaled with forcefully.
Hwaruruk!
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Ah!
Valdrova covered her mouth with her hand.
Ẇе̂ b ñ о̀ vӗl Е̊ ñũ m а̊
She'd forgotten what kind of existence she was and done something childish.
Worried something might have gone wrong, she carefully examined the branches.
Fortunately, the flame wasn't that strong.
Valdrova's face reddened.
Looking back on her actions, it was too childish.
"Since no one's here, maybe that's fortunate......."
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Catching her breath, she quietly sat in that spot.
She lowered her gaze to the paper she'd brought out for her walk.
It was a letter from her second friend, Ludmilla.
Valdrova carefully opened and read the letter.
It said she'd safely passed 100 days thanks to Valdrova's blessing and asked her to rejoice.
Arwen, who would be the next Family Head and Count, had some clueless parts so she had to help him, and she complained it felt like having two kids.
Е̂ n ūm̊а
The image of her writing letter by letter with a pen was drawn in Valdrova's mind.
The Ludmilla in Valdrova's mental world was smiling like the happiest person in the world.
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Her moving fingers headed toward the sender's name.
'Ludmilla Consillus.'
She felt a strange feeling at that word.
Her surname was originally Purity.
Е̄numа. i d_
But through this wedding, she officially became Countess Consillus.
She knew well that they had feelings for each other since Ludmilla always appealed it.
Ludmilla Consillus.
Seeing it like this, she finally felt like they'd become one.
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'That's marriage...... I guess.'
Realizing that, Valdrova felt something changing.
Е̌ ń üm̄ а̄ . i d
She hugged her own arms.
She had scales that even the polar cold couldn't penetrate, but she felt strangely cold.
"Ferda-ssi......."
Even as she put that name in her mouth, she strangely hesitated.
It felt like there was still one huge wall between him and her.
Valdrova didn't know what to do about that wall.
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'I'm an idiot.......'
She knows she can't do it alone.
That's why Valdrova stood up from her seat.
If she can't realize it alone, she just has to learn from someone.
Valdrova had an excellent assistant.
* * *
Е n_ü ṁ a
"Me?"
Penelope blinked her eyes stupidly once and asked like this.
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"Why on earth?"
