Is poison medicine? Of course it was medicine for Kaella.

“It’s medicine for me. Give it to me.”

Speaking blankly with a lifeless face, she weakly held out her hand. Peon took that hand, kissed it, and grasped it.

“It’s not medicine, it’s poison, Kaella. It’s not good for you. You need to get healthy.”

“What does that matter? It’s mine, isn’t it?”

“I threw it away.”

“Why? It’s mine. It’s mine. Give it to me!”

The woman who had been listless all along raised her voice for the first time. She panted despite not having the strength for it. In the end, the only thing she put emotion into was matters of death. Peon therefore tried not to furrow his brow.

“It’s gone. Even if I had it, I wouldn’t give it to you. I can’t give it to you.”

Kaella, exhaling a feeble breath with a tremble, glared at him with intense eyes despite her half-ruined face. Her fine eyebrows contorted as if about to cry.

“Why? Why, why are you doing this? Just say I got sick and died. No one will blame you. Or you can lie and say I’m still alive even if I’m dead, can’t you?”

“No, Kaella. You dying, that in itself is not possible.”

He spoke the words that rose in her eyes.

“Yes. My circumstances are none of your business. I know. That’s why I told you, Kaella. Live your whole life resenting me.”

He never spoke empty words to Kaella. He said this after fully understanding and resolving himself to the weight of his words.

“Then at least cut off my consciousness. As long as I’m breathing, that’s enough, isn’t it? Like Her Majesty the Empress, you can make me like that, can’t you?”

She clung to the Empress’s son who was gradually hardening and threw only words that would hurt him. She wanted to scratch that unblemished face of his all by herself.

She wanted to hurt this selfish man who made her want to die, yet stopped her from dying as he pleased.

To Kaella, he was once love, a fate that came without the ability to resist. But to Peon, she was merely a strategic marriage partner with some use value.

“Then there would still be some use value, right? Wouldn’t it be easier if I just lay there without saying anything?”

A heart too heavy to bear alone eventually gave birth to hatred. Just because Kaella liked him didn’t mean Peon had an obligation to return those feelings. She knew that. That wasn’t why she hated him.

It was because of his selfish behavior – not even treating her like a person when she was thrown away as a Grand Duchess with no title or inheritance, then shamelessly marrying her and keeping her alive to fully utilize the use value of the wealthy Ostein Princess after saving her father.

So she wanted to hurt him badly. As she had hurt, she wanted to make him shed tears of blood while clutching his torn heart. Kaella thought she wouldn’t have been this angry if Peon had just given her the poison.

“You don’t like seeing me interfere here and there like before I regressed, right? Just lay me down so I can’t do anything. It’d be convenient for both of us, wouldn’t it?”

She threw words that a man who saw her merely as a strategic marriage partner and chess piece would nod and agree to, hoping that such a man would be deeply hurt. And ignoring her own contradiction, she glared at him.

“I’m so envious of Her Majesty the Empress. How comfortable she must be, sleeping without knowing anything. I’m so envious. I wish I could be like that too.”

This is all there is between them anyway. Peon was too great an existence for her.

He was one of the axes that held and shook her entire life and fate. To Peon, Kaella was probably just a consumable that was annoying and troublesome, now even daring to trample on the forbidden realm of his precious mother.

“You’re a dragon, aren’t you? If you won’t let me die, can’t you at least do that much? It’s convenient, isn’t it?”

That was the most malice Kaella could muster. Her chest heaved greatly just from raising her voice a little.

“Kaella.”

The husband who would not give her poison, who would not let her hang herself or harm herself with a knife, did not get angry.

“I can do anything for you except letting you get hurt or die. Please stop thinking about hurting yourself, and think about destroying me instead. Order me to live my whole life enduring unimaginable torture you can’t even imagine. Tell me to live as the most wretched dog, suffering humiliation. Come on.”

The mad dragon could do anything. But Kaella, with her eyes wide open, still didn’t say anything. Her silence was a dagger.

“I can feel pain too and know what shame is. So please, tell me anything but to kill you, anything but that, I beg you.”

More than physical torture, Kaella asking to be killed without even anger towards him was the greatest torture and tearing pain for Peon.

It stung and hurt so much that he wanted to tear open his body and crush his bones to forget this pain. He had actually tried it, but still hadn’t found anything more painful than Kaella asking to be killed.

This pain eventually drove him back to madness. Kaella, who punished him with her mere existence, kept her mouth shut tightly then inhaled with a tremble. Peon quickly cupped her cheek, swallowing his own pain without showing it.

“Don’t cry. I’m sorry.”

Rubbing her dry cheek that no longer cried from crying too much before dying, he apologized again.

“I was wrong. I’m sorry. Don’t cry.”

“I’m not crying.”

Let go of this. Kaella tried to grab his wrist with her weak hand and pull it down, but her hand slipped instead.

“I’m sorry.”

I absolutely can’t give you the medicine. I can’t let you die either. I’m sorry for only now being like this. I’m sorry for being a husband who only cared about your use value. I’m sorry for never properly looking back at you and not listening to you. I’m sorry for making you want to die.

“I’m sorry.”

It was cowardly and ugly. For holding on despite being so ugly, for trying to be hurt faithfully according to her intention to hurt him greatly, but feeling it was still lacking in a way befitting Peon, he was sorry and sorry again for that.

“So don’t cry.”

“I said I’m not crying.”

Not shedding tears doesn’t mean you’re not crying. Kaella cried without wetting her cheeks. With tears filling her whole body, she trembled and exhaled a few wet breaths.

She managed not to let tears fall from her reddened eyes. She just held it in tightly, knowing there was no benefit in crying. By coincidence, he had seen her crying like that without wetness in some corner where no one knew.

If a much younger Kaella was crying, he should have comforted her. Peon wanted to beat his past self who had just watched quietly then turned away.

He shouldn’t have rationalized his own behavior according to the taboo with logic like she had to figure it out on her own even if adapting was hard.

When a small, young woman was crying, he should have comforted her even if he had to split his time.

Even a passing orphan would have cared, let alone a sister and wife he had known for a long time. Damn bastard. If he had comforted her then, would things have been different? Was there no way he could have rebelled against the taboo even once?

He wanted to go back. He wanted to go back and comfort her crying. No, he wanted to make it so she had no reason to cry at all. He had wished for it so desperately and came back, yet she was still trembling because of him, crying without shedding a single tear.

“I’m sorry.”

So all he could do was apologize. Kaella insisted she wasn’t crying with her completely reddened eyes. And she whined like a child.

“Give me the medicine. Give me my medicine.”

Because she knew it was the only way to cruelly scratch at him. Knowing that dying in front of Peon was impossible, Kaella was trying a rebellion she had never attempted before.

“I told you I threw it away.”

Peon murmured while stroking her dry cheek. When would she properly pour out and cry the tears that were piled up inside, brimming and overflowing?

“Why?”

She should have tried rebelling earlier to get better at it. Kaella clung to the man who wouldn’t budge even when pushed and asked like a child.

“Why are you doing this?”

She didn’t mean why he wouldn’t give her the medicine. Including all of that, it was the fundamental question of why he was doing things he never did before. This woman was only asking this question now.

“Why are you doing this to me? I’m nothing, aren’t I?”

The princess’s eyelashes and lips trembled as self-deprecation came out without a care. But tears absolutely did not leak out.

“That’s right.”

He kissed her pale forehead.

“Why would I hold onto a woman who is nothing and not let her die, sleep with her in my arms every night, watch everything she eats, and even awaken for the first time in my life because of her?”

The son of the dragon, who was clearly becoming more dangerous and deviating from being human with each encounter with her, starting from that time, murmured.

“Why did I regress?”

He closed her wet eyes that were desperately swallowing back tears, and kissed her eyelids too.

“I’m glad you’re at least curious, Kaella.”

Peon smiled beautifully, as if he was truly happy about that.

*

There are people who don’t tell lies that will eventually be exposed, but some people choose to tell such lies.

‘It’s fine as long as you don’t get caught.’

Beatrice couldn’t understand why they didn’t do something so simple.

As a result of choosing that easy path, she was able to comfortably utilize her position as the Mondé Duchy’s young lady for years – a fresh position with all kinds of possibilities still open and no responsibilities yet.

At the same time, she had a firm grip on the social world without an empress with her beauty, so she could deftly avoid the annoying marriage pressures that noble young ladies usually faced. She was everyone’s lover after all.

“Why don’t you get married?”

So even when faced with a crisis where her lie might be exposed, she had to stand firm without batting an eye.

“Who dares to tell me what to do? How rude. Were you not taught manners?”

When Beatrice spoke in a low voice as if shooting daggers and raised her eyes, young ladies couldn’t make a peep, and foolish gentlemen quickly apologized.

But this person claiming to be the manager from some unheard of company called Insenidrachen replied nonchalantly.

“This is being quite polite. I’m using honorifics and even suggesting a solution. Where can you find such a kind creditor?”

“You just spoke informally.”

“‘Sir’.”

The man who grinned and added the missing honorific had an ordinary appearance but somehow seemed extremely dangerous.

Unlike the men who had always been honored by just a glance from her, this man who smirked at her from the start and asked ‘when will you pay the money’ first was clearly not a noble.

Beatrice held the view that all men were the same whether noble, commoner, or back alley thug, so she wasn’t afraid of him. But she was strangely displeased.

“What kind of solution is that?”

“Then what else is there? Your father, the Duke of Mondé, has been ill for 10 years and doesn’t show his face.”

“I am my father’s proxy.”

This company that had taken over all of Duke Mondé’s debts to become the new creditor wanted to meet Duke Mondé. What would they do if they met? They would just pester about the debt like they were doing to Beatrice now.

So Beatrice had no choice but to come out instead. Her mother, the Duchess of Mondé, was living with a bottle these days and was in no condition to come out, and of course her father in the basement of Mondé Castle couldn’t come out.

“Imperial law isn’t that simple, miss. The debtor is your father, and even if you bring such a proxy document, you still have to pay the money.”

“I’m paying the interest, aren’t I?”

Beatrice said irritably.

“Even that has been irregular and insincere.”

“How curious that someone who just plays with money speaks of sincerity.”

She laughed as if it was amusing.

“Such things aren’t important to nobles.”

In fact, there were bastards who were so honored just by the fact that the Mondé Duke’s daughter was in debt to them that they didn’t know what to do.

Beatrice acted as if being connected to her in any way was some great privilege. So there were quite a few creditors who completely erased the debt and settled it cleanly.

Of course, there were also bastards who made dirty demands without knowing their place, using that as bait. She made sure such bastards met an appropriate end.

That was also a decent way to settle debts. But the man in front of her was impervious to both. Despite having the air of a back alley thug, he spoke of imperial law.

“For someone like that, you’ve been quite diligent in taking on debt. I’m diligent in getting money back. If you spent money, you should pay it back. By any means necessary.”

The debt taken out in Duke Mondé’s name was still enormous even after settling small amounts here and there. Honestly, it was impossible to pay back.

But what did that matter? She was a noble, and would become an even more precious existence.

Covering up and settling debts was for the underlings to take care of. They should either cover it up on their own, or gratefully accept whatever was thrown to them and back off. Demanding like this was presumptuous.

Above all, making her feel ashamed like this crossed the line.

“Why did you buy up all our debt?”

It was spread out widely in bits and pieces, so it was easy to deal with by plugging up one side when they complained, then plugging up the other side when they complained. And since it was spread out little by little, of course the interest on each was small.

But this company that had cleaned up and taken over Duke Mondé’s debt while Beatrice was in Lussenford, it was impossible to tell who the company owner was.

“What do you want?”

Beatrice hated beating around the bush. She just wanted to quickly exchange what was needed and be done. She didn’t want to waste her precious time in such an unpleasant place. She was really busy. Because a big event was fast approaching.

“What else would a creditor want besides the debt?”

The man replied as if she was asking something obvious.

“83 million requete. Pay it back. Including interest.”

It was an absurd number. She wanted to argue about where they were playing with numbers, how it could be 83 million requete and not even dinars. But somehow she had an ominous feeling that she might have borrowed that much.

“Sell the castle, sell the townhouse, sell the villa. The young lady should also marry well and bring in some money. It should be manageable if you sort things out properly. Don’t you have an excess of paintings and jewelry?”

“I need these things to marry well!”

“Then you can sell them after you get married.”

Nobles had no source of money besides business or strategic marriages. This man, despite being vulgar, seemed to know the noble world quite well.

“Let me meet Duke Mondé. The young lady seems unwilling to marry, and a daughter’s marriage is the parents’ responsibility after all. As a creditor, I can’t neglect to check on the debtor’s health condition either.”

The same words had been exchanged for several minutes. Beatrice told another lie to cover up her previous lie.

“I do have someone I could marry.”