Cedric’s face had noticeably become paler in just a few hours.

Bianca was determined.

However, every time she looked at the severely injured face of her dear husband, her heart became infinitely heavier.

Bianca, who had her small lips bitten, finally slowly opened her lips.

“Your Grace, you’ll be okay. And we’ll find you soon…”

But Cedric, fixedly staring out the window, showed no reaction at all.

He seemed like a person who had fallen deep into the abyss of thoughts, unable to hear or see anything.

And at that moment, Cedric’s inner struggles were not much different from what Bianca could see.

In his mind right now, memories with Rebecca were unfolding one after another.
No, to be precise, it was the day when Rebecca declared the divorce.

The harsh words she spat out continued to haunt me.

And her expression as she heard those words.

“You suffocate me with your obsession. No, you, as a woman, have become absolutely unbearable!”

“I regret accepting the marriage with you. Even if it was an engagement by a manakin, this… undoubtedly something went wrong.”

I wanted to inflict pain.

Because she, who bound herself with loveless obsession and tormented me, was resented.

So, I uttered sharp words like a dagger.

“I’d rather… you disappeared somewhere I don’t know.”

And that dagger seemed to precisely pierce Rebecca’s heart as I intended.

She lowered her head without a slight movement.

Her small lips opened again only after a long while.

“If I were a woman from another noble family, not a fallen Kachiis, you would have believed in my heart.”

“Then our two lives… wouldn’t have been so twisted, right?”

Looking at Rebecca asking that, I wondered what I thought back then.

…Ah.

As always, I was irritated by Rebecca, trying to change the conversation when it became unfavorable.

Her peculiar Southern accent was unexpectedly annoying.

In her eyes, which looked at herself, resentment and tears were thickly mingled, as always.

I thought the complaining would start soon.

But that day, her reaction was a bit different from usual.

“…No matter how many times I turn back, as long as I’m not more than nine, our end will be the same.”

Rebecca recited as if she had resigned.

But her following voice was filled, as always, with resentment and affection toward Cedric.

“But you will come to love me someday. Because you are the man destined for me by the heavens. And then, at that time, you will…”

Rebecca, with tears pooling in her eyes, clenched her teeth and continued speaking toward herself.

At that moment, she seemed like a person possessed by evil.

“At this moment, you will bitterly regret it.”

Those words were nothing short of a curse for Cedric at the time.

Since then, our emotions became more intense, and eventually, it led to the point where Rebecca declared divorce and slapped herself.

For a long time, Cedric’s lips, who recalled that day, let out a long sigh.

“In the end, Rebecca was right.”

While pondering the harsh words he had spoken, Cedric couldn’t help but regret repeatedly.

If he hadn’t said such harsh words, if he hadn’t looked at Rebecca with such eyes. If only he hadn’t…

“Rebecca might not have disappeared like this.”

No, there might not have been a divorce with her in the first place.

Now, the only blame for the vanished Rebecca lies in the rights according to the secret divorce contract.
I discarded my husband’s rights with my own hands. So, even if Rebecca disappears like this, there was nothing I could do about it.

The past self who created such a situation was deeply resented.

But even so, I couldn’t just let Rebecca go like this.

If that happened, really… I felt like I would never be able to forgive the foolish self from back then.

“I must find Rebecca at all costs, whatever it takes.”

Around the time when an anxious sigh escaped, the carriage slowly began to stop in the middle of the mountain.

Suddenly, looking out the window, Cedric saw the knight commander standing outside, opening the carriage door with a polite gesture.

“Your Grace.”

In that brief moment when the knight commander bowed, Cedric’s questions poured out directly.

“Did you find traces of the Duchess? What’s the direction? By any chance, did you feel any aura similar to a man’s… together?”

An hour ago, when they met at the last place where Rebecca’s aura was felt, Cedric asked the same question.

At that time, fortunately, there was no aura similar to a man’s at all.

That answer was the only thing that gave Cedric a sense of relief.

However, now, the answer that came out of the knight commander’s mouth was completely different from before.

“The Duchess’s aura is heading towards the upper part of this mountain. It’s not the summit, but it seems a bit higher. However…”

The knight commander hesitated for a moment and spoke again.

“This time, the aura of a man is felt together.”

“…”

“…A half-blood demon man.”

In Cedric’s calm, lake-like blue eyes, there was a profound impact.

“Not only me, but all the knights with tracking magic felt it too. We met here and went up together… but.”

While the knight commander’s words continued, Cedric felt his mind momentarily distant.

As his complexion turned pale for a moment, Bianca couldn’t hide her worried expression.

“Your… Your Grace…”

But at this moment, Cedric didn’t hear any surrounding sounds.

Rebecca and Adrian.

Only scenes of the two meeting and whispering love to each other kept coming up, and the lava-like anger rapidly seeped into the depths of his heart.

The man who got off the carriage immediately jumped onto the black horse that the knight commander was riding.

“From here on, let me lead the way.”

Leaving only the words for others to follow, Cedric rode away in a single breath.

As his gaze became more intense, the black horse’s mane fluttered more roughly in the wind.