“Breaking off the engagement… you say?”

Riana’s eyes trembled momentarily at the unexpected words.

The scent of their bodies intertwined and intensified in the close proximity between the two.

“If that which goes against your conscience disappears, will things change?”

His purple eyes suffocatingly constricted her.

Riana held onto her wavering emotions with all her might.

Guilt and fear mixed with passion.

It felt like an icy flame was burning coldly, searing her flesh.

Intense, incompatible emotions tightly entangled and devoured her heart.

Her whole body seemed to tingle.

But Riana wasn’t foolish enough to fall for his absurd temptation.

Even with her mind foggy as if shrouded in mist, she couldn’t let go of reality.

Giselle and Sched were perfect partners, as if made for each other.

Politically, Sched needed Giselle.

Moreover, even if he broke off the engagement with Giselle, there was no way Riana could stand by his side.

Riana grasped Sched’s arm and uttered the cold reality along with her hot breath.

“Your Excellency loves Lady Giselle Marlhein, the Grand Chancellor.”

She deliberately etched the dry reality.

If not, she felt she would be completely devoured by his passion.

At that, veins bulged on Sched’s temples.

Love that woman?

Is she pretending not to know while knowing?

You, being so clever, should know that I don’t love her.

Yet, you deliberately say such things to me, is it to resent me?

Riana was like a cunning devil tormenting him.

While her gaze made his whole body burn hot, she seemed intent on toying with him.

She seemed to enjoy watching him squirm like a hungry dog presented with food.

He wanted to shake that always calm face of hers.

He hoped to see that impassive face crumble and shed tears once again.

And he wished she would desire him as much as he desired her.

“Love?”

Sched let out a derisive laugh.

“… You believe in such a thing?”

Yes, that grand thing people prattle on about.

That beautiful, sublime, and noble emotion that minstrels sing of doesn’t exist.

All that remains is the passion consuming him.

The emotions stirring him were only her thick scent flowing into his veins, the droplets falling like tears from the tips of her wet hair, the shallow breaths flowing from her trembling lips.

Not love, but only the desire to possess her.

“You just need to become my possession.”

Something as noble as love never existed in the first place.

This burning emotion was always base and greedy.

Sched grasped Riana with his strong hands.

And he delved deep into the inner self she wanted to hide.

In the end, he finally discovered it.

Louise Ideana, crouched and hidden in the deepest corner of Riana.

Louise Ideana, deeply hidden in her heart, was dragged out into the world, unable to resist his forceful strength.

It felt like standing naked before everyone.

But even that shame was soon devoured by Sched and disappeared.

The intense sensation engulfing her entire body flowed through her rapidly beating blood.

She didn’t know how to handle the ecstasy she had never experienced before.

Sched roughly kissed her, who was struggling with the unfamiliar sense of happiness, and shouted to the world.

Look, this woman loves me.

She delights in my kiss and trembles at my touch.

Before his proof, she exhaled in pain, and then again in joy.

She couldn’t deny his touch.

The torso placed on the side table shook with a creaking sound.

And soon the white statue lost its balance and tilted.

The hard statue molded after a woman’s torso fell to the floor and shattered.

She realized.

Even if torn and tattered, it was love after all.

Even if in broken pieces, it was love that couldn’t be discarded after all.

At that moment, Riana’s mind went blank.

All her worries and fears returned to a blank slate, and she, wandering in the disappeared boundaries, crossed a line that shouldn’t have been crossed.

[This is the timeline separator]

Riana leaned against the wall, hugging herself and trembling.

Her legs were shaking so much that it was difficult to take steps.

It felt like she would collapse in a corner of the hallway at any moment.

Her whole body ached as if it would break, and was soaked in sweat.

She clutched her disheveled maid’s uniform.

Her entire body still felt hot as if feverish.

But gradually, the reason she had abandoned started to rise.

“Ah…”

Riana buried her face in her trembling hands.

She couldn’t remember how she had escaped from the room.

Outside the window was pitch black, and she couldn’t gauge how much time had passed.

Riana was not a dreamer.

Yet once, perhaps for quite a long time, she had such dreams.

A night of embracing him, kissing him, sharing even the most intimate parts.

A dawn when they would be most sincere to each other, hiding nothing.

Dreams of whispering love in the warmth of his body.

But that it would be like this…

At that moment, the sound of shoes clicking echoed in the hallway.

Riana, leaning against the wall, startled and raised her head.

At the end of the corridor where the lamp swayed, a foot in white shoes approached from the long shadow.

In that instant, Riana’s heart sank.

Giselle Marlhein.

She was staring at Riana.

“Ah…”

A tear fell from her reddened, heated eyelids.

As if reality, momentarily veiled in a hazy fog, was revealing itself, Sched’s fiancée was approaching her, cutting through the dark corridor, gradually becoming clearer.

Riana unconsciously wrapped her trembling body with her hands.

How should she explain?

There was no room for excuses.

Would it be best to kneel down and beg right away?

Could the spilled water even be cleaned up?

As Riana trembled, Giselle stopped in front of her.

Riana was frozen, unable to even breathe properly.

Giselle looked down at the shrinking Riana.

Her angelic golden eyes seemed to measure each of Riana’s sins.

The undeniable traces were fully exposed to the saint’s eyes.

Riana tightly shut her eyes.

“Lady, Lady Grand Chancellor, I…”

Just as she was about to kneel down and directly plead for punishment.

“…You’ve had a hard time.”

The words that flowed from Giselle’s lips were neither reproach nor anger.

Her voice was mixed with only a bit of irritation and dryness.

Giselle let out an irritated sigh and tossed a heavy pouch onto the windowsill.

“I don’t really like giving and receiving ransoms, but it’s better than not receiving anything, right?”

Giselle lowered her long eyelashes and pointed at the money pouch as if telling her to take it.

For a moment, Riana’s mind went blank.

It was a reaction she hadn’t imagined at all.

“It shouldn’t be lacking.”

Giselle added in a voice that seemed to pity her, yet unable to hide her contempt.

In that moment, everything crumbled for Riana.

She fell into a more terrible and miserable abyss than ever before.

Emotions she thought she had suppressed well poured out uncontrollably.

“Ah…”

Tears fell from her eyes with a plop.

She thought she had become accustomed to holding back tears, but her tear ducts seemed to malfunction and wouldn’t listen.

Giselle passed by the crying Riana indifferently and headed towards the room where Sched was.

The proud clicking of her shoe heels echoed a few times before stopping abruptly.

“And.”

Giselle’s voice was heard from behind Riana.

“I’d like you to leave here as soon as possible.”

The forceful command disguised as a suggestion weighed down on Riana.

“It won’t be pleasant for you either, and it’s not exactly delightful for me to see. Do you understand?”

Giselle asked behind Riana’s back and then resumed walking.

Her footsteps faded away without hesitation, as if she had no intention of waiting for an answer.

Riana collapsed and slumped down in front of the fading sound of shoes.

There had been unspeakably terrible moments in her life several times.

She thought there couldn’t be a deeper despair than that.

But she was wrong.

Riana clutched her chest and swallowed the wet breath escaping from her lips.

A dark mark like a bruise remained in her heart.

Without ever having uttered “I love you” even once, her first love was completely crushed and torn, rotting into pus and decay.

So terribly and miserably that one couldn’t recognize whether it had been love at all.

[This is the timeline separator]

Sched opened his eyes and looked at the empty space beside him.

He pressed his head, where the fever had subsided, and tried to recall his memories.

Had he fallen asleep holding her, who had collapsed as if fainting?

Or… was even that a dream?

Sched looked down at his hands.

Clearly, the sensation of holding her remained vivid.

The touch of her hands clutching him with trembling fingers while exhaling shallow breaths was vivid.

“Louise…”

He had crossed a line that couldn’t be undone.

He had shown all his bare emotions completely to Riana.

It was a raw, primitive emotion, neither refined nor adorned, without courtesy or pretense.

Sched had felt a similar emotion sometime before.

A feeling so intense that reason couldn’t control it.

Surely, Louise had been there when he felt that sensation too.

[This is the timeline separator]

8 years ago.

“Do whatever you want with him, just don’t kill him.”

Sched Lupus lifted his heavy eyelids at the voice echoing in his hazy mind.

His body’s senses weren’t responding as if they were broken.

Pain as if muscles were tearing and bones were breaking.

His lips, tasting a fishy flavor, exhaled rough breaths bubbling with blood, unable to even let out a groan.

Sched tried to move his heavy body, exerting force.

At the same time, with a clank of heavy chains, his body was caught on something and couldn’t move.

Only then did he realize that both his arms were hanging, chained up.

His feet, barely touching the ground, had large shackles and heavy weights attached.

Looking around with blurry vision, he saw black bars in a room without windows.

An unfamiliar space he had never seen before.

The air was filled with the smell of blood along with strange herbs and a burnt odor.

“Awake, are you?”

Turning his heavy head at the human voice, two men approached him while yawning deeply.

And then.

Thwack!

Without warning, a fist flew towards his face.

“The Lupus are really tough. Still alive even like this, huh?”

They pressed a long stick against his abdomen.

“Cough!”

Blood splattered from his mouth along with the pain stabbing his stomach.

Sched’s body was already in tatters.

There was a puddle of sticky blood on the floor where he was hanging, and his body was dyed bright red with blood.

Along with the pain awakening his senses, he realized why he was here.

He had tried to kill Count Felix Ideana.

Because the Count had killed all his comrades and brothers.