I Regret The Kindness I Gave You (20 Chapters Left to Complete) - Chapter 16
Let me tell you a story that once shook the entire kingdom, Lud half-closed one eye and then raised it again as he asked.
“So that means that kid becomes king? What happens to the current royal brats?”
“Unfortunately, the detailed contents of the prophecy were not passed down.”
“What the hell, are you messing with me? You said it was the authority to prophesy. If all it does is that little bit and stops, anyone could be a prophet.”
“It is not that person’s fault. The royal family declared it a prophecy containing treason and exterminated the entire family, so the prophecy simply could not be completed.”
“……Exterminated the family? They killed everyone?”
Are they insane? Lud let out a hollow laugh, wondering how it made sense to wipe out an entire family just for one prophecy.
Looking at him like that, Merche spoke calmly.
“That is their way.”
These were things she had learned over Genovefa’s shoulder while receiving successor training.
How the master of a powerful figure finishes things when handling matters.
How many lives die like flies.
It was a position fundamentally incompatible with Merche.
While living in Lupinus Castle as a successor candidate, she had felt that truth countless times.
-You don’t fit in. You truly do not suit the seat I occupy, Merche.
Genovefa had been right.
This place did not suit Merche. From the very beginning, it had never been her place.
Suddenly she looked up and saw Lud muttering curses under his breath.
A face exactly like Genovefa’s. The violet eyes said to be the symbol of Lupinus. A power qualitatively different from the woman who commanded wolves as naturally as breathing.
From the start, this had always been Lud’s place. The moment she could no longer deny it, the foolish obsession she had desperately clung to finally fell away.
Merche let out a deep breath. With every exhale, she gradually erased the twenty-odd years she had lived.
The pitiful days spent wandering alone collapsed like sandcastles washed away by waves.
Days filled with ceaseless lessons passed by again and again.
During that time, Lud had achieved remarkable results, enough to earn the evaluation that he had become quite close to a true noble.
“Ah… I’m dying. Damn it.”
It was the night after yet another grueling day.
Lud flopped onto the bed and stared at the ceiling.
A servant who had brought thinly sliced cheese and wine for the exhausted young master approached him.
As the servant lightly massaged his arms and legs and fed him cheese, Lud quickly devoured it and slowly sat up with his knees drawn up.
“Hey.”
“Yes, young master.”
“Nobles can marry other nobles, right?”
“Yes, that’s correct. Honestly, as long as they’re not slaves… pretty much anything goes these days.”
There’s a former slave right in front of you, you tactless idiot.
He almost glared and swore, but stopped himself.
Swearing had been attached to his tongue ever since he learned to speak. He could not do it now.
-Son. Nobles do not utter vulgar words.
It was something Genovefa had said recently while checking on Lud’s progress every five days.
In other words, she was telling him to fix his manner of speech.
If he snapped back impulsively, another threat mentioning Merche would surely follow, so he gritted his teeth and answered that he would try to correct it.
In any case, since many instructors besides Genovefa pointed out the same thing, it was definitely something he had to fix.
The problem was that it was damn difficult.
Whenever someone appeared whom he wanted to smack upside the head, curses welled up from his gut, but he managed to suppress them with unprecedented patience.
“…So as long as they’re both nobles, anything goes?”
He had been a slave in the past, but that bastard of a father had erased that past, and now he was a noble.
Deciding to consider himself a noble, he asked.
The servant glanced at him cautiously and answered.
“Yeees. That’s true, but… why do you keep asking about that? Do you perhaps have someone you wish to marry?”
There was someone, but it didn’t seem like she would accept.
Recalling the cool eyes of a certain always-calm woman, Lud curled his lips ferociously.
So what? Since when had he ever possessed the noble consideration to respect the other person’s wishes? If he wanted something, he just had to take it.
“For someone like me, I’d be a pretty decent match.”
“…O-of course. Absolutely, young master.”
“My face is decent enough to look at, and my body isn’t half bad either, right?”
“Come on. It’s far more than ‘not half bad.’”
These days Lud at least allowed him to attend during baths, so the servant had seen his young master’s bare body many times.
Especially that part. The part men proudly boast about as their pride…….
Recalling a memory that had been utterly shocking in his entire life, the servant swallowed hard.
No one could ever match our young master’s pride. Definitely.
“Later this castle will be mine, and I’ll become the head of the family too. So the seat beside me is more than good enough.”
Lud muttered as though his mind were elsewhere.
And it really was elsewhere. All his thoughts were directed toward Merche.
Merche’s position was like sherbet that had half melted away.
It had collapsed completely with Lud’s appearance, and it would continue to collapse.
At the very least, there was nothing Merche could have under the name of Lupinus.
If he offered her the seat beside him?
Wouldn’t it be quite an appetizing position? For Merche, who had lost everything anyway, there could be no sweeter offer than this.
“But young master…. you do know, right?”
“Know what.”
“That those of Lupinus blood can only marry the companion they have imprinted on. You heard it from the lord himself.”
“Who cares about that crap. If I want a woman, I just bring her and seat her beside me. That’s all.”
“No! Young master! …Th-that really isn’t possible. It truly isn’t!”
“Shut up. If I say it’s fine, it’s fine.”
Lud downed the wine in one gulp and lay back on the bed.
When the servant hurriedly followed and tried to cover him with the blanket, Lud flung it off, his raised violet pupils glaring fiercely up at him.
“Are you crazy?”
“Please, young master. Just answer one thing.”
“I told you to shut up. Put back the blanket you’re holding and get out.”
“All that talk about marriage and such, you’re not possibly talking about Lady Merche, are you?”
“…….”
“Young master—!”
Lud grabbed a pillow and hurled it at the servant who had shouted. He tried to chase him out menacingly, telling him to get lost before he went deaf.
Yet the servant clung to him desperately, kneeling and reciting with a face drained of color.
“You mustn’t. You really mustn’t. That lady is your relative. You know that!”
“……Relative?”
“Yes. According to Lupinus house law, incest is an absolute sin that must never be committed. The lord would never allow it.”
It was a fact he had forgotten. …No. In truth, he had deliberately pretended to forget.
Why were Merche and he relatives? They didn’t resemble each other at all.
Lud froze like a wooden puppet with a terrifyingly stiff expression.
Seizing the moment as an opportunity, the servant hurriedly added.
“In any case, the lady is not your companion. You know that, right? If the lady were your companion, her eyes should already have turned violet, but they haven’t. The lady is neither your companion now, nor can she ever become one.”
It was something he had heard once before.
The story of the Lupinus bloodline and their companions.
Like the black-furred divine beast of the family, those who inherit Lupinus blood imprint on only one person in their lifetime.
Imprinting is decided by instinct, and once imprinted, the companion cannot be changed.
Furthermore, those of Lupinus blood were destined to love only their companion blindly.
Since the parties involved know through instinct whether imprinting has occurred, there is no need to confirm it, though there was a way to verify it with the naked eye.
When a Lupinus imprints, their companion’s eyes change to the same color as theirs.
For example, Elizabeth’s eyes were also violet.
“…….”
Lud clenched his fists so hard his nails dug into his flesh.
He had met Merche just today. So there was no chance he remembered wrong or was mistaken.
Merche’s eyes were still a deep sapphire blue.
A blue reminiscent of the sea, so very far from his violet.
When Lud remained silent, the servant took it as acceptance and let out a sigh of relief.
Trying to comfort his master, he spoke.
“Don’t be too heartbroken. They say when the body grows distant, the heart follows. Before long the lady will leave the castle, so your aching pure love will soon…”
He never finished the sentence.
Flash—Lud’s eyes blazed, and he shot up from the bed like lightning.
“Leave? Why would she. For what reason.”
It was nothing short of madness.
Blazing crimson flames, slick with oil, flared within his graceful fox-like eyes.
Overwhelmed by him, the servant stumbled backward.
“O-once you hold the official successor ceremony… th-then, then she’ll have no reason to remain here……?”
“Don’t spout nonsense. She’s not leaving this place.”
For such a trivial reason. He could never let her go for something like that.
It felt as though someone had set fire inside his head; his thoughts broke off in fragments.
In the tangled mess of threads, Lud obsessively chased only the pretext that would keep Merche from leaving.
You saved me. You healed this shitty body of mine, these cursed eyes of mine, and when I held on you never pushed me away. You did it. You did it for me.
‘…Really?’
Was it really for you?
Suddenly a sneering voice asked him.
He should retort that of course it was, that it couldn’t be anything else. Yet without warning, the memory brushed past him of Merche whispering “I’m sorry” on the day he awoke in some doctor’s clinic after being abandoned in the forest.
The blind younger sister of Merche.
Every time she looked at him, the apology, guilt… and pity in those blue eyes.
“……Don’t make me laugh.”
Even if it had only been pity, it didn’t matter.
He would just block every escape route and hold on to her.
Having reached his own arbitrary conclusion, Lud glared at the servant.
“Merche is not leaving me.”
The moment he forcefully pronounced the words, he heard the faint snap of a thin thread breaking.
It was a strange feeling. He was clearly standing on solid ground. Yet it felt as though he were stepping on sand, being sucked step by step into a bottomless abyss.
Lud ignored even that sensation and denied everything that sharply pricked his nerves.
He let out a chilling laugh devoid of expression.
Male lead reborn without memories — but he still falls for her.
The person he finds displeasing in this life turns out to be his cherished wife-master in previous life…
Xie Zhi and Fang Xianxing who had known each other for less than three days through a blind date sat in the same car in front of the civil affairs bureau. They had a disagreement and failed to get married.
Xie Zhi immediately took out his phone, slid through his contacts, and randomly selected the next marriage candidate.
The woman snatched his phone and hung up. Looking at his phone wallpaper, she awkwardly changed the subject: “An ancient painting, eh? It looks pretty good, it’s just that the person in the painting looks a bit like me.”
When he heard this, he sarcastically mocked her for being so delusional, completely unaware that, the person in front of him was the reincarnation of Wen Ru, the famous prime minister of Yuan Shun whom he most admired…
The female CEO who doesn’t want to get married with a divorce agreement in hand × The male archaeological researcher who will only get married if he’s sure he can get divorced
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