The gaze looking at me, the clear smile spreading across the lips, the gentle whisper, the two hands embracing me.

I believed in all of that, but in the end she was the noble lady of that great count’s family.

It’s a fact that will never change, so why did I mistakenly think she would be different from them?

Why did I foolishly believe she didn’t share Felix Ideana’s sins?

Sched bit his blood-stained lips and swallowed a sneer.

Come to think of it, it was a laughable delusion.

What noble would abandon their family and sympathize with the deaths of mere slaves?

Just as Sched took up a sword to kill Felix Ideana for his lost brothers, Louise could become cruel to cover up her father’s sins.

The guards lifted him bound in chains and threw him into a large wooden box.

Thud, his whole body ached as if crushed upon hitting the hard box.

“Louise…!”

As he tried to rise up in defiance, someone pressed down on his head and gagged his mouth.

The lid of the box slowly closed over his pressed-down head.

Through the closing gap of the box, Louise’s blurry figure gradually faded away.

Even then, he felt an intense, raw emotion towards Louise.

He was certain the emotion surging hotly in his chest was anger.

But was it only anger?

Could anger alone fully explain that feeling?

Sched looked down at the disheveled bed.

He thought all emotions would subside after satisfying his lust.

Yet somehow, his possessiveness became even clearer and deeper than before.

Like a madman, he thought it was better that he had crossed the line.

Engagement, status, circumstances, past… He no longer needed to consider and weigh what had been holding him back until now.

The water has already been spilled, so there’s no going back.

Sched Lester just needs to completely possess Riana.

He clenched his fist.

At that moment.

“I’m coming in.”

Along with the unilateral announcement, the bedroom door swung open.

As he turned his head, a woman with blue hair let down stood in front of the door.

Giselle froze in place seeing Sched who hadn’t even properly put on his top.

His gaze wavered for a moment, but soon regained composure.

Though he felt sorry for Giselle, it seemed rather fortunate.

As there was no room left for further excuses to her.

The bed full of traces of lovemaking, the musk and heavy scent filling the room were all transparently clear with nothing to hide.

Giselle looked around the room with cold eyes and walked towards him with clicking steps.

And then.

Slap!

Her white hand struck his left cheek.

“This is for me.”

Slap!

Her hand struck his right cheek again.

“This is for our family.”

Slap!

“This is for that woman.”

Slap!

“This is to make you come to your senses.”

Her golden eyes full of anger looked up at him.

Sched took the slaps without a word.

As if telling her to hit as much as she wanted without any excuses.

Seeing that, Giselle let out a hollow laugh.

“Right, there are many bastards who can’t control their lust and roll around in bed like dogs. Affairs, adultery, scandals? The social world wouldn’t function without such things.”

Giselle muttered, averting her eyes from the traces of lovemaking.

“There are also plenty of bastards who vulgarly shake their hips in taverns. So, you fooling around with a mere maid, yeah, I understand.”

Her effort to suppress her anger could be seen between her bright red lips.

Giselle hadn’t lived seeing only a clean world either.

It’s common sense to learn that trash-like guys run rampant when you’re in high society.

At gatherings of socialites, the main topics were who was secretly meeting whom, who was keeping whom as a mistress at a villa, who spent a passionate night with whom.

So Sched’s behavior wasn’t particularly special, but…

“But at least you shouldn’t have been caught… Right?”

Giselle bit her lower lip, trying to hold back her anger.

She didn’t expect pure love in an engagement without love.

A relationship built on moderate responsibility, affection, and duty. That would have been enough.

But even in a contractual relationship, there was a line that should be kept.

“Were you planning to spread your dirty, disgusting acts all over the place?”

A VIP room not far from the banquet hall.

A place anyone might have passed by or come to rest.

He didn’t even make the basic consideration of what repercussions his hasty fooling around during the banquet might cause.

That angered Giselle even more.

“Don’t let such a scandalous rumor be attached to my name…!”

As Giselle’s anger shook the room, Sched’s gaze stopped on the torso fallen on the floor.

The white sculpture molded after a woman’s naked body was scattered in sharp pieces and abandoned.

Sched, who had been looking at the shattered torso with his eyelids lowered, slowly raised his eyes to meet Giselle’s gaze.

“…Let’s break off the engagement.”

A voice devoid of any emotion.

At that, the face of the proud saint turned bright red.

She hadn’t expected anything great from that indifferent fiancé.

But she thought he would at least say a word of apology.

Or at least offer some kind of excuse.

Though she had no intention of accepting any excuse, she would have thought he showed at least minimal sincerity.

Yet the first words he utters are about breaking off the engagement?

“Do you think that’s what you should say first?”

The only thing allowed to him was to apologize while begging forgiveness.

Yet he dared to speak of breaking the engagement with a relieved face.

“You wouldn’t want to marry someone like me either.”

With a calm yet self-deprecating remark, Sched picked up the shirt strewn to one side.

It was an excessively conventional attitude.

“You, did you drag that woman in from the beginning for this? To break off our engagement?”

Giselle asked Sched, who was calmly putting on his shirt.

Sched quietly looked at Giselle, then turned his gaze away as if unsure.

His confused gaze seemed just like an affirmation.

“If you break off the engagement with me, are you going to marry that woman? You, the head of the Lester family?”

Sched stopped with his lips pressed together at her barrage of accusations.

Well… He hadn’t really pictured any specific future either.

Marriage? It would certainly be troublesome.

No, are we even in a relationship that could lead to marriage? She and I?

He imagined what expression Riana would make if he proposed.

She’d probably turn pale and run away. Or would she glare with tear-filled eyes full of anger again?

The shattered woman’s torso lying on the floor seemed to mock him.

The scattered fragments were sharp as if they would pierce his skin and lodge deep inside him.

But it was clear that he had shared a bed with Riana.

“It’s my fault, so I’ll take responsibility.”

“So how are you going to take responsibility! Are you going to seat that woman next to you as your wife? Fine. Let’s say you do that. Do you think others will leave that woman alone?”

“…”

As if he would do just that, Sched remained silent.

At his preposterous thoughts, the corners of Giselle’s mouth twisted.

“Don’t you know because you’re from slave origins? This is a noble society that runs on reputation and fame. That kind of wench will soon be trampled under people’s feet and become miserable!”

“That’s not for you to worry about.”

Sched turned his head as if her advice was unnecessary.

He knows better than Giselle how great the gap between a duke and a maid is.

Because there was a time when he acutely felt the gap between a count’s daughter and a slave.

A height he dared not even dream of. A position too low to even dare reach out a hand.

Though he knows this, he intended to officially engrave Riana’s name next to his.

It didn’t matter what the gossip columns said.

He never cared much for reputation or honor in the first place.

But if the arrows of criticism towards Riana become too much, he might have to break a few wrists of those shooting those arrows.

Giselle let out a hollow laugh as if dumbfounded.

“Do you feel sorry for me at all?”

Are you so enchanted by that woman that you don’t care about your fiancée?

At Giselle’s question, Sched quietly looked at her.

“…I didn’t know you would take me seriously.”

It really was a tone of not knowing.

Wasn’t it just a contractual relationship?

At that, her white face turned red.

“Our engagement is not a light matter! How could it not be serious!”

“Of course, I never took this engagement lightly either. Not even once. It’s just…”

She appeared.

The one I thought was dead.

Sched paused for a moment, then let out a deep breath and spoke.

“…I’m sorry.”

There was no need for a long excuse.

She was a good partner to the point of being regrettable, and an excellent fiancée I’ll never have again.

But there was no other way.

At that, Giselle’s body trembled.

Because the apology was sincere, because it was sincere without any room for doubt, it was even more so.

She thought she didn’t love him, but the feeling of being dumped first was dirtier and more unpleasant than expected.

Seeing how angry she was and how her chest ached, she wondered if she had liked this man.

“You know you’re really pathetic?”

“…”

“I hope you die during the heretic hunt.”

Giselle poured out words of intense emotion, then slammed the door shut and left.

Riana stood in front of the old mirror in the maid’s room, facing the woman in the mirror.

The woman who had changed into new clothes was dressed more obsessively neatly than usual.

But no matter how much she pulled at her collar, she couldn’t hide the red marks left on her nape.

She wrapped a white neckerchief around her neck and tucked it inside her clothes.

Only then did the red and blue marks that had risen on her nape disappear.

Though she had erased all traces, the expression of the woman in the mirror remained stiffly frozen.

Because the traces left in her memory simply could not be hidden.

Love.

That night, she wanted to think that the intense and deep emotion visible in his eyes was… love.

But that beautiful word must be nothing more than a selfish delusion.

“It was just being in heat.”

Not love, but emotionless instinct.

Before that, she succumbed helplessly.

She closed her eyes tightly, then opened her eyelids again.

‘…It’s okay. I’ll leave tomorrow.’

The woman reflected in the mirror nodded her head.

At that moment.

“You were here?”

A voice thick with hatred was heard.

The maid Janette could be seen in the mirror through the door behind.

Janette eyed Riana warily, like an animal in the field.

“I was about to leave.”

Riana turned around, neatly brushing back her short hair again.

Janette then looked Riana up and down.

“You, in the middle of last night’s banquet you left and… what did you do?”