“I will kill you. If I kill you and bring you to Ophelia, she will also face reality……”

Avoiding the hands of the man rushing towards him without even trying to hide his hatred and jealousy, Idren twisted his body and retorted.

“Yes, she will realize the reality that you killed her beloved husband.”

He deliberately emphasized the word ‘love’.

Ophelia said she loved him. Just that alone was enough for Idren to know that he was above this crazy bastard.

As if the 2nd Prince also knew that, he screamed.

“There’s no way she loves you!”

“Ophelia doesn’t seem to think so.”

And honestly, Idren thought he was quite worthy of being loved now. It was about time Ophelia adored him.

It was the humble hope of a man who couldn’t remember the days when he was grateful just to be by her side, that human greed knows no bounds.

The other party didn’t seem to agree with that.

Reaching out to grab Idren’s neck, the 2nd Prince wailed.

“I’m, I’m better than you! I’m more handsome, and our status is similar now! Besides, you know nothing about Ophelia! I… her more….”

He couldn’t bear to listen anymore. Striking the man’s head with the chair leg he was holding, Idren shouted.

“You’re the one who knows nothing!”

He couldn’t say he knew everything about his wife either, but there was one thing he knew for sure.

Ophelia hated Netepel Luntalis. How much did she hate him that she went after him as soon as she returned to the past?

Furthermore, she would hate for Idren to get hurt by this man’s hands.

He wondered if Hazel took good care of Ophelia. He couldn’t help but worry that Mahanas might have harmed Ophelia.

Although Ophelia didn’t have any chronic illnesses, she wasn’t very healthy either. Mahanas was moving quite fast when he fled, so Idren worried she might have gotten injured being dragged around by him.

The more he worried, the more his thoughts concluded that he needed to return to her quickly.

Even if he couldn’t return, one thing was certain – he had to kill Netepel.

It wasn’t because he was bothered by the man saying he was more handsome. A man with such a twisted inside could never make Ophelia happy.

It was then that the ship rocked. The oil lamp on the table fell to the floor. Fire instantly spread around the shattered glass.

Startled, Idren backed away from it, and Netepel sneered and grabbed him by the collar.

“Even playing the role of a beloved husband will end if your face gets burned.”

Idren grabbed the wrist of the man trying to throw him over the fire. The 2nd Prince may not know, but before becoming Ophelia’s husband, Idren’s life was quite arduous.

Meaning this wasn’t the first time someone tried to burn him.

“Ophelia would be upset if I got burned.”

And it’s a failure as a husband to upset one’s wife.

Using the arm he grabbed, Idren flipped the man over. The man screamed and writhed as he fell into the fire.

Without looking back at him, Idren flung open the door of the room he was trapped in. Daylight flooded his vision and a fishy smell assailed his nostrils.

“Catch him! The prisoner has escaped!”

People on the ship swarmed towards him. Running to the deck to avoid them, Idren surveyed the surroundings. Land could be seen in the distance.

Confirming that the flag at the port belonged to Egelhamot, Idren let out a hollow laugh. He couldn’t believe his luck could be this bad.

Looking back, the half-burnt Netepel Luntalis was staggering out. He looked sickening. His appearance had completely left the realm of humanity.

One thing was certain – something like that shouldn’t dare interfere with Ophelia’s life.

It seemed he would have to do something Ophelia hated. Swallowing his upset stomach, Idren uttered what might be his final taunt.

“Unable to be loved, and now your handsome face is burnt, you’ll never be able to face Ophelia.”

Netepel Luntalis scowled with an unrecognizable face and shouted at him. It was a sound closer to a beast than human language. Goosebumps automatically ran down his spine.

When the man reached out his arm towards him, Idren grabbed that dripping flesh and threw himself into the water along with the man.

The attack was sudden.

“Soldiers have entered the palace! Run!”

When someone outside the door screamed like that, Dares was intoxicated with alcohol and a bit of aphrodisiac. Since everything was boring now, it was more out of habit than for pleasure.

Before his dull mind could even judge, the door burst open and knights poured in. Dares blinked to clear his blurred vision and got up from his seat. It was then that a woman walked out from behind the knights.

Dares realized that the woman’s silhouette was somewhat familiar. It was his daughter, Ophelia.

His daughter, who now seemed to be a complete adult, was dressed lightly unlike the heavily armored knights. She was wrapped in bright and delicate cloth, well-groomed as if she were still living in the palace.

His daughter stood before him.

“Father, it’s been a while.”

And before he could even ask what was going on, the child said with a radiant smile.

“I’ve come to take the throne.”

The daughter immediately put her words into action.

She had the knights remove the royal family’s sacred symbol from his neck and confined him to the room. Dares couldn’t think of anything even as his limbs were tied to the bed. The aphrodisiac his daughter had shoved into his mouth just before confining him made his head hazy.

As he just stared at the ornately decorated ceiling of the bed, the door to the room opened.

Seeing his daughter walking in, Dares said the first thing that came to his mind.

“You resemble your mother.”

It was a senile, nonsensical remark. Ophelia blinked.

“Me?”

She knew nothing about her mother. There was no one in Leiden Palace to teach history to a princess to be sold off.

When she was young, she might have been curious, but she was an adult now.

Rather than the tragedy of a dead woman and the sordidness of her royal family, Ophelia wanted to know the whereabouts of her beloved husband. She wanted the man who knew how to embrace himself into his wife’s arms to be in her arms again.

She met the blue eyes of her father, who was staring at her as if agreeing with her retort. It was a unique color of the Mevasa royal family.

Dares’ words were wrong. She did not resemble the dead woman. From head to eyes, anyone could see that she and her father were parent and child.

But Ophelia did not point out the old man’s blurred vision. The humans with Mevasa bloodline all seemed to be missing something.

Even she herself wasn’t normal, was she?

There was something else she had to do. Ophelia sat on the edge of the bed where the old man was tied up.

“I cut off Mahanas’ head and hung it on the castle gate. My husband taught me that and it’s quite effective. I thought I should try it sometime, and now I have the opportunity.”

“…..The Aglante Archduke taught you such a thing.”

“Because he’s a good man.”

Even if he wasn’t kind, Idren was a good man to her at least.

No, actually good or bad didn’t really matter. Ophelia corrected herself.

“I should say a man I love.”

“….”

“Because he’s a once-in-a-lifetime man for me. Precious things are always like that, aren’t they?”

If you let go, they never come back.

Knowing that fact, Ophelia could push all of Leiden over a cliff if it meant getting Idren back.

That’s how you protect love.

Not knowing that, when Haslen was in danger, she had prostrated herself to be trampled in order to save him. She lost the other person right before her eyes and gained a lesson instead.

If you really want to protect something precious, you don’t put a leash around your own neck and hand it over, you put a noose around the other person’s neck.

Dares wouldn’t understand this feeling. What would her old father know about love? Even she had only found it after wandering through several lifetimes, so how could someone who hadn’t even died once know?

She didn’t want to continue conversing with someone who had lived a shallow life. Ophelia pressed the dagger she brought to his chin. The man tied up took a short breath at the blade targeting the thin flesh covering his larynx. He seemed to finally grasp the situation.

To the old man trembling as if afraid of the imminent pain, Ophelia asked.

“Father, do you know anything about mythology?”

Talia Luntalis rubbed her throbbing forehead. Her body swayed on the bumpy floor.

She had no idea how many days had passed. Since being captured by Netepel Luntalis’ army, she had been trapped in a wagon covered with black cloth.

By her estimation, it seemed to have been well over a month, but even that was uncertain. It had been quite a while since she had seen light, and even meals were irregular.

By the time they nearly reached Tesendot, they were caught by rebels pursuing from behind.

Rahelika said the 2nd Prince seemed to enchant people with some sort of sorcery, but the ones who captured them were knights in their right mind.

“Please forgive our disloyalty.”

A count whose face she knew pleaded like that, saying his family was being held hostage and he had no choice. Talia did not agree with those words. Forgive their disloyalty? In the first place, wasn’t it disloyalty they committed without permission?

The one fortunate thing was that they did not pursue Rahelika and Lesith.

Talia thought of her husband and sister, who were not at all close to her, whom she hated to death. They would have reached Tesendot by now.

Actually, she had somewhat anticipated things would turn out this way.

Rahelika, who did nasty things alone while being oddly innocent, seemed to have taken Talia’s words to go to Aglante and Tesendot at face value, but Talia thought they might not be able to cross the border.

She didn’t voice that thought. Ominous words bring about ominous events.

In fact, Talia had once wished her annoying sister would just die. And now, the safety right before their eyes had become uncertain.

Still, Lesith would have taken good care of Rahelika.

Talia knew her husband loved her hateful sister.

Lesith Amaren had actually proposed to Rahelika, not her.

When she heard that news in the past, Talia was really upset. If nothing else, Lesith was the man she had met first.

Lesith was the one she encountered when she led a delegation to pioneer trade routes to Tesendot.

Back then, Tesendot was a poor kingdom. They seemed to try to hide their financial difficulties in front of the envoys of allied nations, but they couldn’t cover the sky with their palms.

The mines that fed the country were nearly exhausted, and being located in the cold north made farming difficult as well.

If it were her usual self, she would have just passed by such a worthless country.

In fact, that’s what Talia intended to do.

Until she met the kingdom’s pride, the 2nd Prince.

“I am Lesith Tesen, the second prince of this kingdom.”

Even if he was called the pride, he was a prince of a country inferior to her own autonomous region. The world was full of men better than him. Among them were plenty who would vow lifelong affection and trust to her, whether true or false.

Clearly, she knew that fact.

“My name is Talia Luntalis.”

At some point, Talia found herself smiling like a fool in front of the prince of a small country.

That wasn’t the only stupid thing she did.

Talia established a branch of the trade guild in that poor country. In that tiny country, she even collaborated with a Leiden merchant.

It was absurd. Tesendot was no different than a bowl with a broken bottom. Rather than investing in that barren land, it would have been better to reclaim tideland.

Talia did that knowing full well. To everyone who knew her, she just brushed it off saying she wanted to try something new, but in truth it was because of the foolish passion of youth.

The following year, Lesith Tesen came to Egelhamot. Talia secretly hoped that man would acknowledge knowing her.

She soon learned that mere acknowledgment wasn’t important at all.

“I wish to take Your Majesty’s first daughter, the 1st Princess, as my lifelong companion.”

Her cruel and unjust father did not give up Rahelika, the precious treasure of his wife.

That proposal, which never even reached Rahelika, came to Talia like an opportunity bestowed as charity.

“The 2nd Prince of Tesendot proposed to the princess. Will you marry him?”

If she were in her right mind, she would have refused.

But in that moment, as if enchanted by something, Talia just nodded.

The worst deal she made staking her life brought only losses until the end.

Even after grinding Lesith Tesen to the bone to put him by her side, Talia couldn’t fully cherish him. Whenever she saw his face, Rahelika, who always mocked her, came to mind and hatred covered everything.

“You, just stay by my side and die.”

One day, she had drunkenly cursed like that.

The man she ruined in place of Rahelika had agreed to those words with an expressionless face.

“Gladly.”

So I should have kept him by my side until he died, but when the moment of choice actually came, stupid words came out of my mouth.

If telling Rahelika to run away with him wasn’t stupid, then what was?

Because of her words, Rahelika and Lesith were set to live well in Tesendot. She had told them to collect all the trade guild’s assets and send them to Tesendot, so even that poor country would become somewhat livable.

They wouldn’t need to mind others’ eyes, so the two could live like lovers. Even if the man was always like a wooden statue in front of her, he would be kind to the woman he really liked, so there would be no discord.

In the end, it was miserable that she couldn’t surpass Rahelika until the end, and it was absurd that she felt somewhat relieved amidst that misery. Talia covered her face with both hands and laughed bitterly.

It was then that the carriage stopped with a thud.

Part of the cloth was lifted and dazzling light poured through the gap. As Talia squinted at the suddenly brightened view, the door of the wagon opened and a man was thrown inside.

Startled, Talia hurriedly approached the man who appeared to be unconscious. Just before the wagon’s cloth was covered again, Talia was able to see his face.

The man lying with his eyes closed as if dead was the Archduke of Aglante.