134. You Have Quite the Appetite, Don’t You

2024.02.11.

Eugene Kimfri, having watched doctors bustling in and out, soon turned away from the doorway and headed down the corridor where Tasha stood.

Tasha, who had been gazing outside through a corridor window, immediately turned around upon sensing movement and stood with her arms crossed.

“What exactly did you do to scare her like that?”

Eugene Kimfri answered with a face clearly showing exhaustion.

“She’s not ordinary.”

“What do you mean?”

“The former crown princess consort. She realized we weren’t guarding her—she understood we were watching her.”

Of all the things to say.

Tasha, standing stiff like a rock, nudged Eugene’s side with her elbow as he stared down at the merchants passing by.

“You’re glaring at her like a venomous snake ready to strike, chasing after her—so you expect her not to notice? What could possibly be suspicious about her?”

Eugene remained silent, brushing off Tasha’s nagging voice.

Tasha might not know, but he remembered the day the Pelliese woman entered the palace.

Louise Pelliese.

Lately, the day the former crown princess consort had entered among the women offered to the emperor kept resurfacing in his mind.

It had been Eugene Kimfri’s duty to thoroughly inspect the bodies of the veiled women for any hidden weapons.

Before any woman entered the emperor’s bedchamber, the only person allowed to see her—aside from Bollonico—was Eugene Kimfri.

Though the expressions of the women briefly revealed when their veils were lifted varied, their underlying tone was similar.

Faces flushed with anticipation of life after serving the emperor, or faces frozen in fear of what horrors might await in the tyrant’s bedchamber.

The reason Eugene remembered Louise Pelliese wasn’t simply because she was the only one among so many women with black hair and black eyes.

It was because, in that space between hope and terror, she alone wore an unnaturally calm expression.

And that cold-faced woman died the next day.

With no external injuries whatsoever.

Most women Bollonico voluntarily offered to the emperor were individuals whose deaths would cause no repercussions, so perhaps it wasn’t strange that the emperor treated them like flies.

Yet, until then, the emperor had typically sent the women he took away from the palace with lavish gifts.

He could have killed them, but until now, he hadn’t.

But now, a woman had died within the emperor’s bedchamber.

No one bothered to search the body of the woman, who showed no signs of injury or poisoning, for a cause of death.

They merely assumed she had died of an illness.

The problem was that, upon discovery, she turned out to be the former crown princess consort, and upon seeing the dead woman, Bollonico flew into a furious rage and raged uncontrollably in his palace.

Thus, Louise Pelliese was once again abandoned at Locksenhart, at the edge of the White Forest, where Lancelot Rev confirmed her death.

For someone who had raged so much, the aftermath was surprisingly cruel.

That Marquis Companni’s secret disposal had been under Eugene Kimfri’s surveillance remained a secret no one yet knew.

“Why are you showing such obvious dislike while still insisting on watching her? That’s not like you, brother.”

Eugene Kimfri remained tightly silent.

The matter concerning Louise Pelliese was top secret, unknown even to Empress Marilyn.

Only Bollonico, the emperor, Marquis Companni, and Eugene himself knew the truth.

“Do you really need to drag me into this? Honestly, I don’t want to get involved with the former crown princess consort. That woman makes me feel guilty for no reason.”

“Guilty?”

Seeing Eugene frown as if asking what she meant, Tasha glared quietly at him before answering with a sigh.

“It feels like I’m suspecting and tormenting an innocent, naive woman! Of course, the rumors are terrible. It’s true she was one of Bollonico’s women. But at least when she was with Her Majesty the Empress or me, she was just an ordinary woman. Besides, she often had nosebleeds, fainted briefly last time, and just now, as you saw, she vomited blood.”

“……”

“That kind of thing can’t be faked. Maybe her coming to the palace for recuperation wasn’t just an excuse after all.”

“So what?”

“That heartless bastard. I find that woman unsettling. If she noticed your surveillance, she must’ve noticed mine too. She always behaves properly, never giving anyone a single thing to criticize. Don’t you know how suffocating it is for me, being with her?”

“Letting things happen and chasing after them is the act of a fool or an idiot. It’s better to endure discomfort now than regret it later.”

Tasha opened her mouth to say more, then pouted and fell silent.

Yes, honestly, at least while she was watching Yuan, she could momentarily escape her negative thoughts about Noel.

Her own mind was just as tangled, after all.

Eugene gazed intently at Tasha before turning away.

Though he was using Tasha to monitor the former crown princess consort, it wasn’t satisfying.

Keeping someone constantly within sight and observing them closely was his specialty, not Tasha’s—there was nothing he could do about that.

‘The emperor, Bollonico, and the Pelliese sisters… Is it mere coincidence they keep getting entangled?’

To claim he hadn’t been shaken after seeing a woman vomit blood as if she were dying—twice before his very eyes—would be a lie.

But clearly, suspicious events were occurring around him, and he couldn’t simply let them pass.

It wasn’t due to the Kimfri family’s unique tradition as ‘Guardians,’ nor his duty as commander of the Imperial Guard.

Yuan Pelliese.

‘What exactly were you thinking when you entered the palace?’

Someone so difficult to read—this was the first time since the emperor himself.

What worried him wasn’t the safety of the mad emperor to whom loyalty was hard to give, nor even Bollonico, who was no less, if not more, unstable.

Rather, it was his close friend Noel… and…

‘Clade Euphris.’

As he engraved that painful name in his mind, Eugene’s eyes darkened deeply.

‘What on earth are you trying to do, returning to the world like this?’

***

“What on earth are you trying to do, I have no idea!”

Ariesta shouted, glaring at the tightly shut door.

She stood fuming for a while, then stomped loudly down to the first floor as if to make her presence known.

“I simply can’t understand Clade’s heart!”

Hot tea was poured into a delicate teacup, completely out of place in the dreary atmosphere of the townhouse.

Ariesta, unable to even offer a brief smile to the nanny who had accompanied her all the way from the south, glared at the Rev brothers seated across from her.

Eddie Rev pretended not to hear, casually lowering his glasses as he read the newspaper, while Lancelot sat slouched, looking her up and down with clear disdain.

Startled by his gaze, Ariesta touched her carefully styled hair—done with great effort that morning—and briefly cooled her head.

Ariesta had secured a townhouse right next to this one.

While her father, Grand Duke Drietter, was away hunting and engaging in close conversations with the emperor, she had bypassed the capital’s social circles and headed straight south with only her nanny and a few guards.

Fortunately, she had managed to meet Clade at the welcoming ceremony, and with Eddie Rev’s help upon his late arrival, she believed she had received silent permission to remain as Clade’s partner.

Yet, ever since the ceremony, Clade had secluded himself in his room and refused to see her.

At the same time, he had allowed every woman flooding into the townhouse to enter his room, one by one.

Each time she saw over ten women entering and leaving in a single day, Ariesta trembled helplessly, unable to drive them away.

‘Partner? Can you really endure me?’

That single mocking phrase had become a chain, forcing her to endure the women. Not even allowed to go out as his partner, Ariesta was utterly miserable.

‘I must have sinned, so I deserve to suffer.’

Swallowing her blood and tears, she tolerated the women.

Holding onto hope, seeing Eddie’s friendly attitude.

“Surely you don’t actually intend to stroll around here escorted by Clade himself?—Your Highness. What if His Highness Bollonico in the capital becomes enraged and orders our heads?”

The white hand resting on her lap clenched tightly into a fist.

The knuckles protruding, trembling violently—this small fist clearly revealed how furious Ariesta truly was.

“Abandoning your destined soulmate, His Highness Bollonico, to cling only to a man who left—what would become of Your Highness’s dignity?”

Lancelot’s voice carried subtle contempt as he deliberately dragged out his words.

The moment Ariesta heard the name Bollonico, her blood pressure spiked.

“Don’t you dare mention that damned Bollonico in front of me.”

“Oh my. Blasphemy against royalty?”

“Ariesta has the right to say it.”

Ariesta spat out bitterly.

Just recalling Bollonico’s slick, smug face from their brief reunion before coming south made her want to leap out of bed in the middle of the night and slap him across the face.

“Regardless of Bollonico, do you truly believe you have the right to shed tears around Clade?”

“……”

“If you can’t endure it, why don’t you just return to the capital?—Your Highness.”

“Don’t mock me, Lancelot Rev.”

Ariesta replied, swallowing her tears.

Her tears meant nothing to that damned man—shedding them would only be a waste.

“I… I believe this is a trial I must overcome. I can do nothing but suppress my emotions, sacrifice myself, and wait for Clade. Don’t treat me this harshly too—you, who I came here alone for. We were friends, weren’t we?”

“Who told you to come in the first place?”

Lancelot flared up at Ariesta’s words and mocked with a wide grin.

“You’re the one clinging on desperately, yet you have such high expectations. You really are greedy, aren’t you?”

“Do you always have to speak so vulgarly?”

Ariesta finally bit her lip and whispered weakly in protest.

But to Lancelot, her words didn’t register at all.

“Oh. Then how about this? Back then, no matter how much I warned you, you insisted—yes, insisted—on knocking on Clade’s door ‘just like this,’ annoying him. And when Clade finally came out, you clung to me like a baby monkey, screaming your head off. At that moment….”

“Stop! Stop! Stop!!”

Unable to endure any longer, Ariesta abruptly stood up.