I Regret The Kindness I Gave You - Chapter 27

It was all predetermined from the beginning.

From the moment Genovefa told me to leave the castle until I arrived here.

It was a trap set solely for her.

Why didn’t I realize it? Someone as thorough as Genovefa would never let me go so easily.

I was so disgusted with my own dullness that I couldn’t even breathe easily.

“Imprison the criminal in the underground dungeon.”

Merche closed her eyes.

Even as the family knights approached and dragged her away at Genovefa’s command, she surrendered herself to their rough hands without any protest.

I didn’t know what was so clear. If only I had thought differently, I could have grasped the answer that was almost within my grasp.

What Genovefa wanted was not her ruin. What she truly desired from Merche was her death.

−Being kind is definitely an advantage, but still be careful.

−If you’re kind to just anyone, you might invite great trouble.

I don’t know why Elizabeth’s advice comes to mind only now.

Merche, resting her head against the damp and cold dungeon wall, blinked her tired eyes slowly.

Where did it go wrong?

Should I have not discovered that person in the prison cell? If only I had never met him. Would this not have happened then?

As I pondered my memories and reached that thought, Merche bit her dry lips once again, disgusted with herself.

No matter how much Rude falsely accuses me and drives me to the edge of a cliff, it doesn’t change the fact that this is his place.

Having seen him in the arena, I can’t defy it. No matter how many times I reconsider, I should have saved Rude there.

“…Sir Comeo.”

You were right.

Merche muttered weakly. The way she had lived her life, not befitting her status, was wrong from the start.

Why did I harbor such an arrogant attitude? Wanting to be kind to everyone. Wanting to give kindness to anyone who wasn’t inherently evil.

…No. No. Merche shook her head, letting out a quiet laugh.

It wasn’t actually arrogance. What had been gnawing at her was simply a deficiency.

−Christine is afraid of Merche. Our child is so repulsed by that child that she cries out of fear, yet you still insist on taking in Merche and raising her?

−Don’t talk nonsense. Merche is the one who saved Christine when she was about to die. Merche is Christine’s savior.

−Are you still saying that? How long will you be immersed in your delusions? I’m so sick and tired of you whenever you’re like this!

−Oh, please. You should stop it too! Merche is the child entrusted to me by the Primordial Sea. How can I abandon such a child…? I can’t do that!

I knew from a very young age that the family and parents I grew up with weren’t real.

Especially how my father was harsh on me. And how my mother, blindly devoted to the sea, raised me solely out of a sense of duty.

I could never say they were bad people.

Because they ended up not abandoning Merche, who wasn’t even their biological child, and raised her.

Moreover, Merche’s adoptive mother tried her best in various ways to give her love.

That’s why Merche loved her mother.

But a fake can never compare to the real thing. How different was the love her parents gave to her younger sister Christine compared to hers.

How sweet was that immeasurably vast and unconditional love. Merche felt it every single moment.

Even though she knew she was a fake, she desperately coveted what belonged to her sister.

She just wanted to be loved. The kind of love that Christine received.

So she pretended to be a person with a lot of love. Giving love to others and treating them kindly, holding onto the petty hope that maybe one of them would reciprocate the love she desired.

In the end, it was that hope she had foolishly clung to that had caused all these consequences.

Acknowledging that fact, Merche felt a sense of relief and closed her eyes, exhaling deeply.

…From sometime, the sound of footsteps on the water-soaked floor could be heard from afar.

Merche just listened with her eyes closed, and when the footsteps abruptly stopped in front of her, she slowly opened her eyes.

“You still remain a noble lady even when thrown into a place like this. Whereas I’m just a lowly slave even when dressed in gold-embroidered clothes.”

“…Sir Rude.”

“What’s with the ‘sir’ again? You called me just Rude earlier. Don’t pretend to be virtuous now. It’s about time you become honest, having come this far.”

The two people intersected in a situation completely opposite to the past.

Merche, imprisoned behind bars, looked at Rude outside the cell.

Rude soon sat down on the floor nonchalantly and leaned his body towards her without hesitation.

“Merche. You’re smart, so understand it at once. If you stay like this, you’ll die. At the very least, you’ll be hanged, and if you’re unlucky, you’ll be torn apart and eaten by wolves. And no one in the world will clear your false charges or reveal your injustice. You know that too, right?”

“If that false charge becomes my crime, then so be it.”

“Yes. That false charge is your crime. So, Merche.”

He spoke with a humorless face.

“Beg me.”

Beg me to save your life, to get you out of here. Beg me to spare you, please. Then I’ll save you.

“Just as you saved me, I can save you too.”

“…”

“But if I get you out of here, you’ll stay by my side forever. Until you die, by my side. Living as mine.”

“…So that’s what you wanted from me from the beginning. That’s why you created this situation and imprisoned me here.”

“It’s not such a bad deal. What could I possibly do to mistreat you that badly? The way I treated you a bit roughly before… I was just being stupid. I won’t do such stupid things anymore. If you want, I’ll even make a vow.”

He was clearly in an extremely advantageous position, holding her lifeline. Yet, as he told her to beg for her life, he somehow seemed even more impatient.

Revealing his barely concealed desire and anxiety, he stared at Merche intensely.

Merche remained silent for a long time, and when Rude’s impatience turned into muttered curses, she finally answered.

It wasn’t the answer Rude so desperately wanted, but a quiet lament bordering on self-mockery.

“I regret being kind to you.”

“…What?”

“I regret even the small affection I gave you. In the past, I… shouldn’t have been kind to you.”

As if struck by something, Rude’s face stiffened.

“…Ha. Yeah. I had a feeling it would be shitty like this.”

This is how you reject me, isn’t it?

You really have a knack for getting on my nerves in many ways, Merche.

He raised one corner of his lips crookedly with glimmering eyes.

A rough curve that seemed to be drawn perfectly on his face with its deep features.

“If you put it that way, I have something to say too. You know what?”

Looking down at Merche with a chillingly flickering gaze, Rude spoke in a horrifyingly low voice.

“I… didn’t want to hear those words. I hated that kindness you showed me.”

He got up nervously and grabbed the iron bars with a bang, delivering his final ultimatum.

“Nicely babble and break that lofty pride of yours and change your mind. If you keep acting up like today until the announcement ceremony, you’ll die just like that.”

Rude left, his mud-stained clothes fluttering.

The cold wind he stirred blew harshly into the already frigid underground dungeon and then vanished again.

As the chilly silence filled the dark space, Merche laughed weakly.

Ah, it seems I wasn’t the only one foolishly deceived.

Genovefa has managed to deceive even her own son under a pitch-black lie.

Even if I beg Rude for my life, it’s just that. Genovefa will kill me regardless.

Despite the sorrow piling up like snowflakes, her eyelids, weighed down by fatigue, only grew heavier.

Then, in a daze, Merche’s vision flickered.

Before long, it was a day when the snow had become quite fierce.

Now, with only two days left until the successor’s announcement ceremony, and the castle bustling, Rude encountered a somewhat familiar wolf.

All wolves are supposed to remain in the training grounds unless Genovefa instructs otherwise.

But that wolf was blatantly running outside the training grounds.

The wolf, which had been galloping with frightening ferocity, finally stopped in front of Rude.

“What? What do you want?”

“Grrr.”

“…Hey. Don’t tell me. You’re that wolf from back then, aren’t you?”

“Grr!”

“Are you crazy? If you keep acting like this on your own, you might even die at the hands of that mad family head. Do you have a death wish or something?”

Now that he looked closely, this wolf was the one that had been annoyingly hanging around Merche before.

The wolf Merche had sworn upon when she said, “I will not marry Louis Fondo.”

As a direct descendant of the Lupinus family, Rude also possessed tremendous strength, but the wolf persistently bit and dragged his clothes.

It seemed to be saying that there was somewhere to go and to follow it.

Wondering what it was trying to do, he roughly followed its lead, and to his surprise, there was a woman there, tightly bound with ropes and thrown among the wolves.

Although she hadn’t been torn apart yet due to a few wolves guarding her, it was clear that if left like this, she would soon be devoured whole by the other wolves drooling with their tongues hanging out.

“Aah… gasp… s-save… me…!”

The moment he saw the face gasping as if she would die at any moment, Rude recognized the woman.

Karin. The close maid of Merche, whom she had been so protective of.

As Rude chased away all the wolves, Karin, who had been crying in fear, belatedly stopped her sobs.