Just as Delphine was about to retort, Ioan coldly added.

“After all, a trophy should quietly adorn the room as befits a trophy.”

That remark was the final blow.

Delphine’s lips moved as if to speak, but unable to find a response, she simply closed them.

The color drained from her face, revealing a clearly hurt expression, and transparent moisture welled up in her emerald eyes.

Seeing this, a flicker of regret crossed Pryde’s face as reason returned to him.

Delphine, head bowed to hide her tears, did not notice this change.

She bit her lower lip hard to keep from shedding tears.

Ioan. How could you do this to me?

“My lady. I…”

“I’ll be going upstairs now. The drawing room is too… cold.”

Delphine brushed past him, struggling to maintain her last shred of dignity.

Lady Pryde, head bowed, left the drawing room.

Glasscock didn’t dare look towards Pryde and hurriedly followed after her.

At that moment.

“…Lord Glasscock.”

Glasscock stopped abruptly at the chilling voice.

In truth, it was less that he stopped on his own and more that he was forcibly held in place by that icy voice.

“W-What is it, Lord Pryde?”

In contrast to Glasscock’s trembling voice, Pryde asked in an even tone.

“Didn’t you visit the shopping district in Sector 2 recently?”

No change in expression appeared on Glasscock’s face.

However, he couldn’t prevent the color from draining from his face at that moment.

“…Well. I do frequent Sector 2. Why do you ask?”

“Ah, I thought I saw you by chance.”

Pryde murmured, hands behind his back, looking down at the man mockingly.

“Scurrying about like a pack of rats.”

“…Is that so. You must have seen me with some friends. Oh, was it Miss Cally? She seemed to have dropped something earlier.”

The man hastily changed the subject, his face as pale as a corpse.

“Me? …What?”

“Well. Why don’t you check for yourself?”

The woman who had been glancing at Pryde reluctantly followed Glasscock out.

Left alone in the now quiet drawing room, Pryde tilted his head slightly with a displeased expression.

‘Has the ideology of those rat bastards spread even to the nobles of Sector 1?’

But why?

They had no reason to sympathize with revolutionary ideas while enjoying their peaceful lives within the barrier.

“…Well, we’ll find out soon enough.”

Once this blizzard stops, that is.

Pryde muttered leisurely, looking at the shaking window.

He had more than enough means to pry open the mouth of that naive noble youth who couldn’t even control his expressions in less than half a day.

The same went for the mouth of a worn-out prostitute.

But that was only in his torture chamber within the imperial palace.

Such things shouldn’t happen in this mansion where his saint resides.

“To think they would dare to infiltrate even this mansion.”

Pryde murmured ominously, all traces of leisure gone from his demeanor.

That damned blizzard.

Until that blizzard, raging like madness, subsided—that was the grace period for those rat bastards.

Night had fallen before anyone noticed.

Delphine stood in front of the dressing table in her private chamber, slowly removing her ruby necklace and placing it in the jewelry box.

Then, as she struggled to undo the buttons on the back of her dress that Anna had fastened, a large hand covered in calluses quietly approached.

It was Ioan.

Although his face remained stern, suggesting he was still in a foul mood, his movements were careful, if somewhat clumsy.

Was this a gesture of reconciliation after their earlier heated exchange?

Delphine watched the man in the mirror as he struggled to undo the tiny buttons with his large, rough hands.

Now she understood a little.

Ioan reacts like a snarling dog whenever his origins are touched upon.

But she couldn’t fathom why he was trying so hard to hide his identity from her.

‘Why do you keep pretending not to know me…?’

What could his feelings towards her possibly be?

Revenge against her father?

A twisted sense of possession? Obsession?

Affection? …Or lust?

Or was it, as he said, simply an ambition to make a trophy of the daughter of his former master, a woman to his liking?

Pryde deliberately ignored her gaze in the mirror.

Pretending to focus on undoing buttons smaller than his pinky nail.

She is confused.

But he himself was just as confused as she was at this moment.

Ever since he realized his feelings were a mix of love and hate, he kept recalling the day he first met her.

The night he lay writhing in pain as if being burned alive in that filthy warehouse.

The memory of a red-haired girl approaching him, backlit by moonlight.

“This will make you feel better if you apply it.”

In the young girl’s hand was an ointment used for scrapes.

Of course, such a precious child wouldn’t know of remedies for wounds worse than that.

The girl with an innocent face diligently spread the ointment on his back, which was in tatters.

When she touched the open wounds, it stung and ached even more.

Ioan barely swallowed the groan that threatened to escape.

For some reason, he didn’t want to show pain in front of the girl.

He didn’t want to appear any more pitiful.

Until then, he had kept his mind blank, but when the girl’s small hand touched his wounds, feelings of misery began to overflow uncontrollably.

“…Are you crying? Are you okay?”

The girl asked in an innocent voice, on the verge of tears herself.

No, how could I be okay?

It’s so obvious, so why are you asking?

Did you come here to mock me?

No, that can’t be. This child came to help me.

Even my own mother never cared for me when I was sick.

…So should I be grateful? To the daughter of the man who did this to me?

To the precious young lady of the ‘master’?

The young boy’s mind, muddled with pain, thought confusedly.

He hates the ‘master’ who did this to him. He loathes him.

So logically, he should hate this master’s daughter too, who’s smearing ointment on his raw flesh…

“Ioan. Ioan, are you alright?”

And yet, in his life, she was the first to approach him and call his name so kindly.

Every time she calls his name, his heart flutters.

The empty world becomes full with just her presence.

Why is it that when he looks at her smiling at him, he feels as if he possesses everything in the world?

And yet, why does he feel such humiliation when she offers him ointment or food?

Why?

Why is it that I want to protect this woman alone, even if I have to dedicate my soul to it?

The boy with a broken heart did not know the true nature of his feelings for a long time.

And the same was true for the man who grew up with that broken heart.

Whenever she brought up his status and poked at his pride, a resentment he didn’t even know was inside him would surge.

After all I’ve done to protect you alone.

Every time he saw her mocking him like this, a hellish love-hate burned in his heart.

But when he sees her hurt by his own words, the fiery feelings cool, and in their place, a hot affection rises again.

He felt strange and confused by himself, caught in this whirlpool of contradictory emotions every time he faced her.

But amidst all this, there was one thing for certain.

It was the thought that he never wanted to be beneath her feet again.

He wanted to be the dignified and elegant Earl Pryde before her, if nowhere else.

Not the wretched slave crawling on the ground, beaten.

Not the pitiful boy who was given medicine and food.

…But as a noble man, equal to her.

He had struggled to the point of abandoning his humanity for that, yet ironically, she alone in this empire remembered his former self completely.

Where else could such a contradiction exist?

All those many buttons were now undone.

The dress, losing its hold, fell, below Delphine’s shoulders.

The red marks left by the man this morning were revealed under the fireplace light.

For a moment, the quiet chamber was filled with a strange atmosphere.

Delphine, holding her breath, watched through the mirror as he standing behind her, traced her neckline with a sticky gaze.

She was reminded of those explicit acts that took place on the dining table, on the reception room sofa this morning.

“…Huu.”

Delphine flinched as the man’s chest swelled with a deep breath, but only for a moment.

He unexpectedly retreated without resistance.

“This morning, I… made a mistake.”

Delphine turned around with surprised eyes.

“I will be careful not to force anything against your will, my lady.”

He rubbed his face roughly as he retreated to the bathroom, having spoken with difficulty.

Delphine quickly grabbed her nightgown to cover herself, exhaling the breath she had been holding.

She felt strange.

It would have been easier if he had continued to act like a dog.

Even if her body would have suffered.

He says that act was a mistake?

That he’ll be careful from now on?

What exactly is this man trying to do with me?

She was confused by him, who sometimes charged at her like a hunting dog trying to devour her whole, and then suddenly wagged his tail like an obedient pet.

‘Even though I said such things today…’

…No. Don’t waver.

He’s still pretending not to know me.

It was impossible to know what ulterior motives he had for acting so mildly.

Delphine listened to the splashing sounds he made in the bathtub, then quietly opened the chamber door and left.