It was spring. The vibrant spring filled Lucenford to the brim. It was time to slowly put away the winter items and fully enjoy the coming spring.

Even Lucenford, still affected by the aftermath of the war, could not escape the hope that spring brought. The heavy atmosphere was lifting again that day.

A woman who said she was afraid of the cold drank poison on this day that had grown warm. Willingly and stoically, she chose death. Her small body, which had always stood tall, crumbled too easily.

The woman who used to eagerly walk to him to create opportunities to converse with him slumped down. Her body rapidly grew cold. She said she hated the cold. She said it was too terrible and frightening. This can’t be happening.

“…Your Highness!”

The shouts sounded distant and faint. Peon’s consciousness was wholly focused on the woman lying there. Thump, thump, his blood vessels pounded against his temples, striking his brain. Why is he alive? Kaella had decided to die.

“…Ha, the antidote…!”

He thought regression was an opportunity. What a convenient opportunity it was. Knowing well what the future would hold, if he prepared carefully from now on, he could overcome that dark future. Anyone with many regrets would want to regress.

Peon felt the same way. Having returned after countless sacrifices, he thought he would do it properly this time to make those sacrifices worthwhile.

But for Kaella, for his young wife, it seems it was not an opportunity. There was no such thing as hope for her. He didn’t give it to her. So it was his fault.

I was wrong.

As soon as he regressed, he should have quietly disappeared without even catching Kaella’s eye. He shouldn’t have displayed the arrogance of thinking he could do better this time and change things, and should have just disappeared.

I was wrong.

His consciousness shattered like fragments. Memories split apart, his thoughts abruptly cut off into darkness. On top of Kaella’s face, her eyes firmly closed as if completely turning away from him, the image of Kaella lying in that northern tower overlapped.

Like that, what if he loses her like that again? As soon as he recognized the unbearable loss, a bitter laugh escaped him.

This shameless man is worried because he doesn’t have the confidence to endure the terrible sense of loss. So she ran away from him. She ran away to death to escape her cruel and incompetent husband.

From the beginning, she kept trying to run away. How sick she must be of a husband who clings to her so terribly.

“Your Highness.”

Can’t you live for me?

“Grand Duke, Your Highness.”

I’ll disappear from your life, so can’t you just live for me? She’s only twenty years old. Last time too, she was only twenty-five. His trembling gaze did not leave her small frame and pale face, sunken into the bed, illuminated by the fireplace.

“Your Highness, it’s already been three days.”

He regressed, so he knows everything, and this time he wanted to protect her no matter what.

He wanted to send her away only after making things safe enough for her to leave his side. He swore he would. He hoped she would experience a brilliant youth, a mature middle age, and a healthy and happy old age before passing away peacefully from natural causes.

Peon had never once thought about living happily after regressing. He didn’t even wish for such a thing.

If the world became safe enough for Kaella to live in, it was fine even if he wasn’t there. But beyond safety, if she dies now, it would all be meaningless.

His world was dying into darkness. Where is Kaella’s happiness?

Would Kaella be happy if he saves her life? What if she tries to die again? But don’t you have to at least be alive to be happy? Where is the happiness she wants?

It must be because it’s a nightmare.

He understands that happiness, at least the kind he can provide, does not exist for a woman for whom being alive is a nightmare. He understands that she cannot be happy as long as he exists.

“Your Highness. There is nothing more we can do now.”

Peon finally raised his head then. Darinka, who had stayed up with him for three nights taking care of Kaella while sweating profusely, was calling for him.

“Now we can only watch over her. So please go and rest. If Your Highness collapses too, who will resolve Her Highness’s grievances?”

Peon quietly listened to the doctor’s words before turning his head to look at Kaella again. She was still breathing faintly. Her breath was so weak that he had to place his hand under her proud nose to barely feel its warmth.

The man who couldn’t even tell her to live tied that fragile breath to a body that was about to shatter.

He had tied her life with his awakened power, but did not know how to wake her. Not knowing how, he could only wait. Peon gazed at his wife, buried deep in the bed, then stood up from his seat.

*

“Your Highness is being deceived.”

The butler who had been imprisoned in the underground dungeon for three days had his shoulders broken and legs bent.

Peon could not remember, but judging from the skill, he knew it must have been his own doing. He could cause discord among the enemy with a flick of his finger, so inflicting some fractures without even lifting a hand was something he could do even unconsciously.

“She’s a southern woman! The emperor’s niece! She will sell out Lucenford! I have nothing but loyalty for Your Highness! Your Highness is currently infatuated with a woman! How could you do this!”

The underground dungeon echoed with his shouts. Having been treated considerably for three days, the butler, haggard to the point of being withered, yelled like a madman. Peon regretted it. He should have torn out that mouth and shattered those teeth instead of breaking his joints.

“She tried to poison, tried to poison Your Highness!”

“I’m perfectly fine though.”

“Who prepares the tea…!”

“You prepared the tea, you bastard.”

The butler’s words abruptly stopped.

“Her Highness has never prepared my tea.”

“No! The tea is always prepared by the Grand Duchess…! Prepare…?”

The butler who was speaking became confused. The Grand Duchess clearly prepared Peon’s tea? Didn’t she always do that? No, no. That never happened. He, the butler, prepared the tea. But why?

“She has never done that even once since we married.”

When the butler accused the Grand Duchess, Renar and the others looked at the butler like he was a madman.

Kaella had never once bothered to prepare Peon’s tea. At least in this marriage. She never put in that kind of care, the efforts to pour her heart into each little thing.

Before the regression, she diligently selected teas and wines every day, but perhaps that ended up becoming a snare for her in the end? Or did she give up because her husband wasn’t worth putting in such care for?

Peon thought it was the latter as he looked at the butler who partially retained his pre-regression memories. Yes. It’s not surprising.

If Kaella also regressed, what law says this bastard can’t regress too? There were some who showed fragments of their past life even if they didn’t fully regress. Vague and shattered pieces would appear in a fractured manner.

“Besides, our Duchess has no reason to kill me.”

That woman chose to die by her own hand twice.

“I, I saw it! I saw with my own two eyes the Grand Duchess and the investigator engaging in a secret tryst! So she took her own life, didn’t she!”

He should have gouged out that bastard’s eyes. Peon thought he did well to keep the butler alive. There were quite a lot of things he could still do now.

“Your Highness, I beg you. I, Rolf, who attentively raised Your Highness since childhood, how can you not believe me? I’m telling you I saw it! If you leave this be, you will regret it one day! She will sell out Lucenford to the emperor! Someday in the northern tower, tower…!”

Whenever the gaze looking down at him like a noisy insect landed on him, the butler felt like he was being stripped bare. And Peon seemed to detest him greatly.

“Tower?”

“…must lock her up…”

The butler’s parched mouth mumbled. Foam had dried up in the corners of his mouth. He himself did not understand why he was saying these things.

“Lock her up?”

“…because she’s a spy…”

She is a spy. Definitely, but why did he gain this conviction? He could not remember.

“Lock her up and then what?”

The Grand Duke, still fine and unchangingly beautiful despite staying up for three days, smiled.

“In place of indifferent and dull me, will you secretly cut off her food? Quietly starve her to death?”

The butler was trembling before he knew it. Trembling, he averted his gaze.

“It was you, wasn’t it.”

He found him. The butler was overcome with terror at the savagely flashing eyes.

“You ignored my orders and blocked the food meant for Her Highness.”

“I, I don’t know about that, I don’t know what you mean.”

“But you clearly have such a memory, you bastard.”

The Grand Duke declared it.

“I don’t know the reason, but you have such a memory.”

“No, no I don’t. I did not do that!”

But there was a deep-rooted belief about the Grand Duchess that he couldn’t understand the reason for.

That she was a foreigner and would end up selling out Lucenford to the emperor. Even the butler was confused. Why do I believe this so strongly? Why else, because that southern woman will do that!

Peon paused for a moment, lowering his head as if pondering, then raised it again. Where else should he break, tear out, and shatter?

“Your Highness, it’s the truth. I am sincere.”

“Prove it.”

The torture chamber in the underground dungeon had all sorts of terrible tools hanging on the walls, and only a few of the Grand Duke’s closest knights stood far away.

“Those mouths that requested Krine to summon the investigator before I even sent a report.”

The butler’s eyes expanded as much as they could.

“You’re obviously included among those bastards, so try naming the rest.”

A face so beautiful it was hard to believe he was human tilted as if gauging something.

“So that I can feel your sincerity.”

With your utmost effort, just like when you accused the Grand Duchess.

*

Beatrice knew the old facilities of Lucenford Castle quite well. In her childhood, when she came here and had nothing else to do but run around everywhere, she had to at least rummage through and play in all sorts of places to keep from getting bored.

So she was able to move around quietly in Lucenford without drawing much attention. She knew how to walk smoothly with silent footsteps.

That’s how she had also secretly entered and exited the Solei Palace where the emperor resided without making a sound. Plus, she had magical tools she had personally developed that could hide her presence and appearance to some extent. Fortunately, those had remained in her trunk. That was the only relief.

‘Still, I didn’t have to do these things myself in Krine…’

Beatrice stifled a cough and carefully chose where to step in the shadows.

If she had held a party, all the women and men here would have flocked to her anew, and they would have gathered information for her on their own.

All she had to do was sit still, sift through the information coming in, and select what she needed. But now was not the time for that, so Beatrice had to move herself.

The information she overheard was terrible, and even that was all strange rumors.

“I heard the butler is imprisoned in the underground dungeon. That Yarfa kid was also kicked out, you know.”

“He wasn’t just kicked out. His wrists were sliced off.”

“What? His wrists were cut? Oh my, how terrible. What on earth did he steal?”

Cutting off the wrists was a heavy punishment given to thieves.

“Where have you been? You don’t know?”

“I said I was in Pueten and only came back this morning. What happened?”

“He dared to steal Her Highness the Grand Duchess’s belongings. He kept yelling that the butler ordered him to do it.”

“That crazy bitch, she would do that just because she was ordered to? Why did the butler order such a thing?”

“How would I know?”

Why else would he order it. Because when doing something big, you need several lowly hands too. But it seems to have failed.

Moreover, Beatrice was anxious because she couldn’t find out where Kaella was or what she was doing, or where Peon was. She looked for Darinka, but Darinka was absent too.

‘Then who’s the one that’s supposedly sick.’

With high probability, it was likely Kaella, who frequently fell ill and had minor ailments, that was sick. Did she receive some kind of shock? It would be great if she became so sick that she could never get up again. Then Peon would return to her. But reality seemed far from what Beatrice wished for.

‘I guess this won’t do after all.’

She waited three days but no better news reached her ears at all. But it’s not as if Peon called Beatrice and questioned her about her relationship with the butler either.

No one said anything to her, but she felt anxious and intimidated for no reason. Of course, even if the butler babbled on, Peon could not touch her as she was the daughter of the Duke of Monde. But it was hard to endure this situation where no one paid any attention to her.

Beatrice chewed on her lip, thinking of the purpose she came here for.

To restore her relationship with Peon, which seemed to have grown distant due to his marriage, back to how it used to be, and to further strengthen the prohibition on gold. In this current situation, there was only one way for her to achieve her goal.

“I would like to see His Highness the Grand Duke. I am planning to return to Krine, so I should inform the lord of the castle before leaving, should I not?”

“His Highness the Grand Duke is currently outside.”

Beatrice set out very boldly to find Peon.

“Ah!”

The head maid, whose work had increased after the butler’s imprisonment, guided Beatrice without showing any hint of displeasure or annoyance.

She attended to guests with no superfluous actions, displaying only the necessary etiquette without exaggeration, as if she served a very old noble family in Krine.

“His Highness is over there.”

Behind the castle, near the northern exit where weapons sometimes moved in and out, Peon was not alone as he stood there. He was expressionlessly watching something being loaded onto a wagon.

As Beatrice approached him, she instinctively tried to smile. But the smell of blood coming from somewhere stopped her smile. What was being loaded onto the old wagon was a person.

His teeth had all been pulled out, his jaw shattered, and where his eyes should have been, there were black holes with dried blood running down. His limbs were twisted, rendering him unable to move.

The knights roughly loaded the man, who was covered in blood from head to toe and little more than a living corpse, onto the wagon and mounted their horses. The wagon quietly started to move.

It took Beatrice a long while before realizing that person was the butler who once strutted around Lucenford Castle wearing the finest clothes.

In the middle of spring, she felt a chill.