Not only that. Ophelia continued speaking.

“There’s no need to marry anyone.”

The reason was simple.

“If they can’t sell me off to get a bride price, Leden will be ruined anyway.”

After gaining someone she could control for the first time in her life, the first thing she did was investigate her brother.

That’s when Ophelia learned that Leden’s economy was already precarious at this point.

To the extent that it wouldn’t last even a year without major help from somewhere.

In the past, Mahanas and Dares had solved that crisis by receiving a dowry from the king of the north who took her as a bride.

Was there any need to repeat that in this life?

Of course, it would be enjoyable to choke her brother’s neck once again. Ophelia already knew the taste of her enemy’s despair.

But knowing that taste, she was tired.

She no longer had the will to use as fuel for her goals.

In this life, Ophelia intended to choose a completely different life. She would choose an ending where she wouldn’t marry anyone, and couldn’t marry even if she wanted to.

Ophelia told the man staring blankly at her the one thing she needed help with.

“If you really want to help me, go and say you want to cancel this marriage and get the bride price back.”

Idren seemed to understand those words well. He didn’t cling to her words like before.

Though he did look down at her with dazed eyes.

Ophelia waited a moment to let him process the situation. She knew he had wanted to marry her. It was such a clearly losing marriage for him that she naturally came to know this fact.

Though she didn’t know his motives.

But was that the only motive in the world she couldn’t understand? Ophelia didn’t know much about people’s hearts.

The one thing she did know was the nature of what dwells in human hearts.

Everyone lived with desires in their hearts. Though the subjects differed, they lived because they had things they coveted.

Ophelia didn’t think that was bad. After all, she had lived a life faithfully pursuing her own desires. Striving to achieve one’s personal wishes was like an instinct for humans.

So the man sitting before her surely had something he wanted as well.

He must have married her, and was trying to marry her again, in order to achieve that.

But Ophelia couldn’t cooperate in fulfilling what Idren wanted. She had no ill feelings towards him, but she had no motivation left to help anyone, so it couldn’t be helped.

It was then that Idren, still blinking like a shocked person, opened his mouth.

“May I ask just one thing?”

Since she had decided to be kind today, Ophelia nodded.

“Go ahead.”

The man then stared straight at her. She was reflected in his eyes like yellow flowers.

He asked:

“Why did you kill yourself?”

Ophelia did not answer that question.

The reason she took her own life was not complicated. She had completed all the tasks she needed to do, was utterly exhausted, and simply wanted to rest eternally.

But to explain that, she would have to talk about her mission, and to do that, she would have to speak of the oath of the golden catalpa tree that she would never obtain, so Ophelia kept her mouth shut. Some things could be damaged just by uttering them aloud.

And isn’t kindness something you bestow only as much as the giver can handle?

Idren stared silently at her lack of response, but did not ask again. It was a wise choice, since she had no intention of answering no matter how many times he asked.

After blinking slowly for a moment, he rose from his seat.

“I will come again tomorrow. Regarding the marriage issue… it would be better to discuss it again then.”

“There’s no need for that.”

This was already a settled matter. No matter what he wanted or chose, the result he would face would be the same.

But the man didn’t seem to understand what was beneficial for himself. He mumbled with a dazed expression:

“Still, I’d like to talk once more.”

Ophelia watched the man speak words that would surely damage his own pride, looking somehow lost. Now he was gripping the doorknob. His broad back, half-turned, looked forlorn unlike when he had entered.

It was then that Idren twisted his body back.

When their eyes met, his like starlight, Ophelia felt a strange sense of guilt.

Perhaps it was because the sunlight coming in from the balcony with torn wooden planks was too strong.

Ophelia knew who had allowed sunlight back into her room. Though it wasn’t important enough to mention separately, that didn’t mean the other person’s actions disappeared.

In the end, she impulsively asked:

“Why are you going this far for me?”

Instead of answering her words, Idren slightly shifted his gaze. Ophelia realized he was looking at the yellow flowers placed on the dresser.

Swallowing as if gulping something down, Idren said:

“I will tell you that tomorrow as well.”

He keeps talking about a tomorrow that won’t come.

Ophelia thought that inwardly, but kept her mouth shut until he left the room.

It was a final act of kindness.

Today, Penrel was not waiting in front of the door. The knight would be carrying out the task he had ordered by now.

Thinking it fortunate he could return alone, Idren quickly walked through the corridor. The servants managing the palace corridors watched him carefully.

Only when he finally reached a place without people did he stop and rub his flushed face. But no matter how many times he wiped it, the burning sensation did not fade.

Covering his face with his hands for a moment, Idren recalled Ophelia’s words.

“But there’s no need to marry you to ruin Leden.”

She had said that with a very gentle expression. An expression she had never shown once during their entire married life.

It was a face he had longed for so much that he even dreamed of it some nights, but Idren couldn’t even be excited by it.

Because what Ophelia wanted from him was too obvious.

“If you really want to help me, go and say you want to cancel this marriage and get the bride price back.”

There wasn’t a shred of malice in those words. It was natural, since Ophelia truly wanted his cooperation.

Idren almost wished she had said that with ill intent to hurt him. Then he could just pretend not to know and offer himself to her once again.

But that wasn’t the case.

Ophelia truly did not need him.

Embarrassment at confidently saying this marriage would be necessary in front of such a woman, and sorrow at being a meaningless existence to her, welled up inside him.

Idren rubbed his heated face again.

Just before, when he realized he was not an attractive proposal to Ophelia, it felt like the ground was falling out from under him.

Idren had to struggle not to show such despair in front of her. If she detected what kind of emotions he was feeling, it would be the height of humiliation.

Though Ophelia didn’t seem to understand him.

“Why are you going this far for me?”

That wasn’t meant to make him miserable.

She was truly wondering. Idren understood Ophelia’s confusion. From her perspective, it must be curious why he was clinging to such a fruitless endeavor.

Idren slowly removed the hands covering his face. Taking a deep breath, he began walking again.

It was true that he was acting foolishly in front of her, but that didn’t mean he had completely lost his judgment.

So he had a valid reason as well.

Though Ophelia didn’t seem to know it.

Idren bit his trembling lips. He squared his shoulders and lifted his head high.

Though Ophelia didn’t even seem to remember, they had already met long ago.

Back then, Idren was not a king.

He wasn’t even a prince, let alone a king. As a child, he was the illegitimate son that the king of Aglante had brought in from outside. His maternal lineage was unknown. Even the king who had slept with her could barely remember her face.

The reason he was brought into the castle was purely because of his two eyes. His yellow eyes were clearly of Sigrashil bloodline to anyone who saw them.

But aside from that, there was nothing else resembling his birth father.

Unlike his black hair, the king had the bright blonde hair unique to Sigrashil. The queen consort, Isde of Brinwell, also had reddish-gold hair.

The children born between them perfectly resembled their parents as well.

The previous king and his queen were an ideal couple. A relationship that started as a political union and became friendly companions, following the most peaceful path. They had three promising sons between them.

Perhaps their family would have lived perfectly like that until death.

If a certain child hadn’t been abandoned in front of Sigrashil Castle one day.

That day’s memory, almost like his first memory of life, remained hazy no matter how many times he recalled it.

The castle walls towering so high he couldn’t even look up at them, and the cold that felt like it would make his extremities fall off. His body shaking nonstop. His vision blurred physiologically from the biting wind.

And cold pale green eyes.

It didn’t take long for Idren to learn that those were the eyes of Queen Isde, who had come to directly confirm her husband’s infidelity.

That day, the queen had her knight who followed her from Brinwell drag the boy with coal-black hair to where her husband was.

The knight brought him before the king as his mistress ordered. That’s when Idren first faced a man with eyes exactly like his own.