‘Enoch…… Calent?’

Enoch Calent.

As Natasha Charliee pondered the unfamiliar name, a figure came to mind.

If Kyle’s words were true, the man would share the same surname as ‘Ash Calent’.

However, the shocking fact that the two were actually of the same bloodline was pushed aside. What was even more shocking was the modifier attached to Enoch Calent’s name.

Executed by the Charliee royal family, yet the only bloodline to survive from that family.

From the man’s real name and the described situation, she could easily recognize that it referred to the Calent Count family.

Natasha had also heard the story of how the ancient Calent Count family of the Charliee Kingdom was executed by the royal family several decades ago.

At that time, she was too young to understand exactly what ‘executed’ meant. Curious about the meaning of the words her siblings and maids casually dropped, Natasha approached her parents and asked for an explanation.

‘It means making those who betrayed us pay the price.’

‘Price? Betrayal?’

‘If their demise serves as an example, other families won’t try to climb up in the future.’

Due to the king’s impassioned plea, she didn’t understand the explanation well then either. She could only guess it was a righteous story of her parents suffering an unfortunate event and finally getting revenge.

When she later learned the truth of that day through history books, Natasha finally understood her parents’ anger from the past.

Along with her parents’ actions of covering her eyes whenever that year’s Natasha passed by the castle walls.

‘…If Sieghart had been the last descendant of the Calent Count family.’

If he had coincidentally survived like Natasha and was trying to take revenge on his enemies, the choice of the man who led the execution of the Charliee royals was somewhat understandable.

That man too must have wanted revenge on his enemies. Just as she had and still does.

“Even so…… Why should I be pointed at?”

But why should she be criticized? Why is only Natasha described to people as if she’s the selfish one?

“The end of the Calent Count family is truly regrettable, but it was an unavoidable choice for the Charliee royal family as well. It was simply punishing those who betrayed the country and tried to make the kingdom a vassal state of the Galonde Empire!”

The Charliee royal family had a justifiable reason for executing the Calent Count family. Enoch Calent, both perpetrator and victim, might not have properly understood this fact, but unfortunately, the Count family had merely paid the price for their betrayal.

Of course, Natasha agrees that Charliee’s strong measures went too far.

“But why should I be blamed? Why should my past be deservedly unhappy, and why am I treated as if I’m obviously a selfish person?”

Her voice cracked as if in pain. The eerie sound of scratching the marble floor filled the gaps in between.

Kyle grinned as if finding the woman’s suffering amusing. He grabbed Natasha’s hair again and shouted at her.

“You ask why you’re selfish.”

“…Ugh!”

“Isn’t it obvious when you killed them by framing them for non-existent crimes?”

“Wh-What… are you… talking about……”

“Pfft, did you believe your family’s words?”

The man’s mocking question echoed repeatedly in Natasha’s mind. It was as if he was saying that the truth she knew wasn’t the truth.

“Enoch Calent, that bastard fled to the imperial palace when he was just seven years old and begged for help. My father sent the brat crying for his life to the dog fighting pit, telling him to prove his worth. To a place where beasts fight day and night to survive. He endured there for three years and finally claimed victory. At last, he earned the qualification to be a loyal dog of the Letius imperial family!”

“……”

“And finally, he was reborn as Sieghart Asthart.”

Kyle Letius went on to explain how cruelly and harshly the Letius imperial family drove their newly acquired dog. With his neck and shoulders held stiffly straight, as if to say wasn’t it well done, isn’t it admirable.

Natasha learned in an unwanted way how miserable and harsh a life Sieghart, who had abandoned Enoch Calent, had lived.

Along with how much that man had been violated by the Letius family. How darkly that man’s life had been stained.

“Hey, madam, why do you think that bastard ran so desperately? Out of pity for a family that fell due to a mistake, to take revenge on the royals?”

Suddenly, Kyle changed his target to Natasha. The man who had been muttering to himself abruptly addressed the woman.

Asking if it wasn’t suspicious why Sieghart remained loyal to them despite suffering such humiliation. If the family had been punished for committing a crime as Natasha said, would there be reason to resent the royal family so much?

“It’s because Charliee framed his family! To cleanly eliminate a prestigious family that threatened the royal family!”

A moment later, the cruel truth burst out from between the man’s rough lips. The devil’s whisper echoing from a deep pit slowly rose through the air and pierced her eardrums.

Ah, ah!

Despair swept through the surroundings. The chilly wind surrounding her froze her senses. Her vision darkened and her ears became muffled, but only the worms made of words flashing through her mind remained vivid.

Aaagh!

Unable to bear the pain, Natasha bowed her head and lay face down on the floor. But Kyle Letius did not stop and repeatedly evoked terror.

“The longer the tail, the easier it is to catch. They were caught by the Galonde Empire while freely using their shadows and backers. The assassins there confessed everything. That they had disguised themselves as servants in the Calent Count family and secretly created evidence of treason!”

It’s a lie.

There’s no way the words of this man, who only wants Natasha to suffer, could be true. It’s obvious that he’s trying to torment her with lies as usual.

But…

The face of her father, who would occasionally become upset because of the Calent Count family, suddenly came to mind.

One day, the king frowned while reading the newspaper. The wrinkles of fatigue and anger that deeply creased his previously smooth forehead lasted only a moment before the king couldn’t contain his anger and shouted.

‘Damn offspring! How irritating!’

Young Natasha, startled by her father throwing the newspaper, hugged her teddy bear. The headline of the thrown newspaper bore the name of a familiar family.

The Calent Count family.

It was a family that the youngest princess, who was learning history from her tutor, knew very well.

She wanted to show off what she had learned and receive praise from her father, but she kept her mouth shut at the sight of the man’s rare display of fury. Instead, she asked her nanny who was sighing.

‘What does irritating mean, nanny?’

‘It means annoying. Those troublesome people are bothering His Majesty the King.’

‘Bothering dad? I don’t like that…’

Thinking there must be a reason for James Charliee to be so angry, Natasha nodded.

People bothering our dad! The young Natasha thought of things that bothered her. Like the bugs that swarmed at dawn.

‘Then shouldn’t we get rid of them?’

The servants always got rid of the annoying bugs.

Natasha, who had only started speaking a few years ago, didn’t know the exact meaning of ‘get rid of’. The little girl didn’t know much difference between bugs and people either.

It was a statement made with innocent intentions. Suggesting that annoying things should be cleared away.

At that time, King James Charliee froze as if he had realized something upon hearing Natasha’s words. The man, who had instantly calmed down, quietly took in his daughter with his red eyes.

“Ah……”

Whether the cruel information her brain was receiving was truth or well-crafted lies, there was no way to know. Because the family that could determine the truth no longer existed.

But Natasha instinctively recognized this as the truth. After accepting the belated truth, the puzzle in her mind finally started to fit together.

She seemed to understand why the man from her past life had hated her so much.

‘You don’t know. Because you’re a wench who’s lived mixed among impure blood, as they say.’

The reason he treated her blood as lowly.

‘If you’re not stupid, never get involved with the imperial family again. Getting involved with the imperial family once because of the princess is enough.’

The reason he strongly warned Natasha not to get involved with the imperial family.

‘I hated that woman’s eyes. Terribly so.’

The reason the man so despised her eyes as well.

Everything.

Yes, there were reasons like this.

Come to think of it, even if it was a forced marriage by Kyle Letius’s order, he couldn’t have despised an innocent woman at the time to such an extent.

‘Your very standing so loftily before me is deception and wrongdoing! How can you so shamelessly show those red eyes before me? How can you live together with Sieghart, smiling?’

The words of the woman who claimed that Natasha standing before her with the name Calent was itself deception and wrongdoing, who inexplicably despised her terribly, put a period to her reminiscence.

“Haha……”

Rough breaths poured from her lips. Pretending to let out a hollow laugh, she vomited out sorrow in the guise of deception.

Sieghart Asthart.

So this was the real secret you were hiding.

When everything was revealed, even as you stood firm as if deserving of my hatred, the truth you kept your mouth shut about.

The afterimage that would drop me into hell.

Was none other than this.