I want to treat her roughly and carelessly.

After thoroughly trampling her pride down to the very bottom, I’d approach her when she’s become a rag and treat her warmly.

Then she would look only at me for the rest of her life.

…Just as I did when I first encountered her in that pool of blood.

However, at the same time, I felt a contradictory emotion of wanting to cherish her dearly, to keep her in an unblemished state unknown to those filthy things outside.

Every morning, I’d look into her eyes, kiss her white feet, and offer her precious things.

Pryde realized for the first time.

His feelings for Delphine were neither a childhood first love nor reverence for a saint.

It wasn’t the naive loyalty of simply wanting to protect her, as when he decided to marry her.

It was perfect love and hate.

A muddy mix of things accumulated since childhood, unsure if it was hatred or affection.

Perhaps such feelings had been in his heart from the moment he first decided to marry her.

By making her his wife here in the Pryde mansion, trying to imprint the now reversed hierarchy…

The blizzard called madness continued to blow through the open window.

His body grew cold.

And his head, which had been burning with lost reason.

‘A guest who came to see me in this weather…’

Finally ready to meet him, Pryde roughly closed the window.

“A woman?”

Delphine, who was curled up in the study, asked.

Betty, who was handing her warm tea, startled, quickly nodded.

“Yes. It was a woman.”

Then, watching Delphine’s reaction, she added a question.

“Um… I hope I didn’t interrupt anything earlier…?”

“No. Absolutely not. You’re my lifesaver, Betty.”

Delphine answered firmly, then turned her gaze to the window.

Thick snowflakes had already started swirling.

Starting with this, soon a blizzard will begin, and no one in the empire can wander on the streets.

A woman who came through this weather.

Who is she, and what kind of relationship does she have with Ioan?

“Um… Madam. About that guest.”

Betty, who hadn’t left the study and was hesitating, spoke again.

“Yes. Speak freely. You and I have saved each other’s lives once now.”

Delphine made a slightly self-deprecating joke.

Betty didn’t remember Ioan’s existence, but she did remember that Delphine had saved her life on the day of the rebellion.

“I hope I’m not saying something unnecessary, but…”

Finally reassured, Betty revealed what she had been hesitating to say.

“…The guest who just arrived seemed to know the master well.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, she came knocking on the front door in this weather, saying, ‘Call Ioan for me.'”

At those words, Delphine’s eyebrows raised.

She called him by his name?

Could she be someone who knows the ‘previous’ Ioan as well?

“…Did the guest look like a noble?”

“No. She clearly looked like a commoner. Or even lower.”

Betty must have seen many nobles while working in noble houses, so she’s probably accurate.

A commoner. And close enough to call Ioan by name… Could it be?

While Delphine was lost in thought,

“And the reason I’m telling you this is, above all, the guest’s… well, how should I say it. Appearance.”

Betty, observing her stiffened face, carefully added.

“What is it that you’re hesitating about?”

“Well, the red hair and… the color of her eyes, a little…”

Betty said with an anxious and awkward face.

“They resembled yours, miss.”

“What?”

Betty hastily added.

“Of course! Just those features. The overall appearance wasn’t at all… Though she was fairly good-looking.”

Delphine’s eyebrows raised without her realizing it.

“But absolutely no comparison to you…”

Betty’s voice, frantically speaking out of fear she might have offended her, faded away in Delphine’s ears.

A woman who came through the blizzard.

A face said to resemble her own.

Delphine, furrowing her brow, inwardly spoke to her slave who had left the house.

Ioan. Where on earth have you been and what have you been doing all this time?

Pryde stared at the woman before him with cold eyes.

Unsightly reddish-brown hair.

Dark green eyes reminiscent of a swamp.

She was a woman he met at a cabaret he happened to visit while wandering like a stray dog in District 3 after leaving the Pembrook mansion.

The woman, whose anxiousness was evident on her face as she looked him over, quickly exclaimed.

“You… You’re Ioan, right? Don’t you remember me?”

Instead of answering, Pryde’s lips curled in an unpleasant expression.

Although it was an unpleasant memory, he too hadn’t forgotten that day.

After all, it was the first time he had attempted to embrace a woman.

At that time, Delphine was too far out of reach, a saint that shouldn’t be touched by a lowly being like himself.

He thought that if he embraced another woman, he might be able to forget her.

He had such thoughts when he coincidentally encountered a woman with red hair.

‘But it was of no use.’

A cold sneer hung on Pryde’s lips.

The woman seemed to have mistaken that smile for a sign of affirmation.

Rubbing her unpleasant flesh against his arm, the woman clung to him.

“Back then, you clearly wanted me. …Even though you left right before.”

As the woman said, his attempt that day had been futile.

Seeing the naked body only reminded him of his own mother who sold her body, and eventually even sold her son for a few coins.

His lust, no, all the emotions he had, always only responded to Delphine.

Like a dog trained to drool at the sound of a bell.

No, in fact, he really was a dog.

A dog in heat for a saint.

“In your base eyes, does everything look that way?”

…So there was no need to react anew to being called base.

Pryde gave a bitter smile at his own unpleasantness and self-loathing.

“Back then, I thought you were just from the Wall Defense Squad or something. Of course, that’s impressive too, but…”

“But people say you’re a marquis! That you’re an extremely important person!”

Pryde looked over the woman with cold eyes.

There was only one reason he hadn’t immediately pushed away this woman pressing her flesh against him.

The question of how this woman remembered that incident, even if he himself did.

‘The previous self’ should have been erased from everyone’s memories.

He had been warned that memories involving intense emotions might not be deleted, could it be because of that?

But there was something that didn’t make sense about that.

Delphine.

Not only did she remember his past, but even the brainwashing about him being a marquis hadn’t worked on her.

…Why?

He could understand why she remembered his previous self.

In her loneliness, she had always been fond of him, like one might cherish an obedient dog.

…Not knowing that very thing was the reason that made him leave the mansion.

But why hadn’t any of the brainwashing about Marquis Pryde worked on her at all?

‘After what price I paid for him…’

Pryde gritted his teeth.

Meanwhile, the woman, mistaking his silence for tacit permission, kept on talking.

“So… about leaving me like that back then. I’ve forgiven you.”

“…”

“So what we couldn’t do then. I’m okay with doing it now…”

At those words, Pryde, finally completely distracted from thoughts of Delphine, openly showed his disgust.

“Leave.”

“W-What?”

“I’ll forgive your rudeness in suddenly coming here today once, considering what happened that day.”

The woman flinched at his icy voice, but only for a moment.

Her pride hurt, she narrowed her eyes.

“…Well. I hear you married the most beautiful woman in the empire in the meantime. Is that why you’re acting like this? Am I not good enough for you anymore?”

Pryde stared at the woman with eyes full of deep disgust.

It was horrible.

This woman made him recall everything he had left behind along with his slave status that day.

Baseness.

Rudeness.

Behavior that would discard pride for money.

Learned helplessness.

…His past, which had nothing in common with her.

He wanted to be a complete nobleman, more than anyone else, especially in front of Delphine.

So he would act until the end.

He would absolutely never return to being that slave boy crawling like a beast through the mud mixed with blood.

“But does that pretty wife know? What you’ve been doing in District 3?”

Instead of answering, Pryde unconsciously reached for his waist.

But unlike usual, the familiar scabbard wasn’t there to grasp.

Right, today wasn’t a day for going out, so he hadn’t worn his sword.

But that wasn’t the only way to kill this woman.

While he was looking for the cleanest way to kill her without spreading the smell of blood, the woman kept running her mouth recklessly.

“Or is it? That you, called a devil beyond even God’s salvation, can’t kill a red-haired woman and let her live?”

Oh. Pryde only now realized.

So that’s why this woman was acting so arrogantly and rudely.

Believing he wouldn’t kill her.

Pryde raised his hand with a face devoid of any emotion.

The woman’s reddish-brown hair was a bit bothersome, but that was different from her lush, pure red hair anyway.

“I-Ioan…?”

Only now noticing the ominous atmosphere, the woman backed away with a face full of terror.

He didn’t want to commit another murder in the mansion where she was, but…

‘It can’t be helped.’

As Pryde reached for the woman’s neck with an expressionless face, as if catching an annoying bug, at that moment.

“…Lord Pryde?”

A soft, elegant voice was heard from beyond the reception room door.