Kedilen, who seated Ludmila in the empty lounge, immediately turned around.

“Shall I get you some water?”

“Tea, please.”

“Then you should brew it?”

Ludmila, who had never brewed tea before, nodded as she watched him hand over the teapot with a relaxed face.

As soon as she sat down, she stood up, passed by Kedilen, and grasped the teapot.

Kedilen, already prepared to receive the tea, was sitting in his seat.

Ludmila, glancing at him from the corner of her eye, put her hand in her bosom.

What was inside the tiny bottle she took out was a transparent liquid.

‘Just one drop is enough.’

Ludmila, staring intently at the liquid, slowly opened the lid.

“By the way, you’ve changed a lot.”

It was then that Kedilen’s voice was heard.

Ludmila turned her head and looked at Kedilen’s back as he leisurely flipped through a magazine spread out on the table.

Tilting her head, wondering what he meant, Kedilen glanced back at Ludmila and curled the corner of his mouth.

“You wouldn’t have done this in the past. Approaching while pretending to be ill and staggering, or asking to be taken to a place to rest. Didn’t you used to refuse, saying a noble lady wouldn’t do such things?”

Ludmila, who had been staring at the eyes that seemed to probe her intentions, shifted her gaze forward again.

As she lightly dropped the liquid from the medicine bottle into the empty teacup, her eyes rippled with tension, but only for a moment.

After diluting the transparent liquid with tea, Ludmila turned around holding the saucer.

“I just used the most reliable method to fit the situation.”

“Situation?”

Kedilen, who took the teacup Ludmila offered, calmly tilted his chin.

Ludmila, who took a seat opposite him, grasped her teacup and stared at him intently.

As her calm red eyes pierced Kedilen, tearing through the silence that filled the lounge, his lips curved crookedly.

Ludmila, who moistened her dry lips with warm tea, exhaled a thin breath and set her cup down on the saucer.

Kedilen, who swept his eyes over the languidness brought by her casual gesture of brushing back her fallen hair, quietly lifted his teacup.

Ludmila’s gaze fixed on his hand as he raised the cup.

“Do you still resent me?”

Just as she was hoping for the cup to be raised, Kedilen threw out a teasing question.

As Ludmila’s gaze moved a little higher, she saw Kedilen’s eyes staring intently at her.

Ludmila shook her head at his gaze that seemed to savor her, sweeping her up and down.

“That day was unavoidable. I couldn’t leave you there in a situation where bullets could fly from anywhere. I know you resent my decision. But Ludmila.”

The teacup that had been raised was set back down on the saucer.

Though she bit her lip nervously and anxiously, Ludmila maintained a calm expression and raised her head again.

“It was the best choice. You know that, right?”

The man’s desperate self-defense proving his innocence was disgusting.

If she hadn’t known anything, Kedilen would have just been a man who ruined her life.

Even if he had abused, tormented, and used her, if it had been limited to her, she wouldn’t have thought of revenge to this extent.

But his greed and ambition were aimed at something farther, and in the end, he brought down the leader of the Send Plateau, known as the beast.

At that moment, the wick began to burn.

The forgiveness that had come from the desire to simply be with Aden, giving up everything, now became the perfect nourishment for revenge.

Her hand gripped the hem of her dress tightly. But her expression remained calm and serene.

Ludmila smiled quietly with an impassive face as if feeling no emotion, and muttered once.

“I don’t mind. I know it was unavoidable. As you said, I have nowhere to go. I suppose I’ll have to adapt to this now. It’s still a bit awkward and difficult to adjust to this life again, but it will get better soon.”

Ludmila, who elegantly tilted her teacup as if to say ‘look at me’, smoothly pulled her moist lips.

“Please don’t take the unfamiliar actions too seriously, thinking of them as part of the process of finding my way. They’re all just steps.”

Ludmila’s words ended quietly, and now it was time for a reply.

Kedilen nodded after staring intently at Ludmila and swirling his cup a few times.

“You’re right.”

With this brief answer, Kedilen’s throat bobbed as he tilted the cup he was holding.

Ludmila’s eyes momentarily filled with joy at getting what she wanted, but she quickly lowered her gaze to compose her emotions.

Kedilen, who had drunk the tea, smiled with satisfaction.

“It feels like it’s been a long time since I drank tea you brewed. Was it always this flavor?”

“Is it not good? It might not be to your liking since it’s been a while since I last made it.”

“Hmm-.”

As Ludmila recited a meaningless excuse with a kind smile, Kedilen shook his head with a low groan.

Ludmila, who had been exchanging appropriate conversation until Kedilen finished the remaining tea, felt it was time.

“Shall we go now?”

Kedilen nodded briefly and then stood up. It was time to return to the banquet hall.

‘I need poison.’

It wasn’t easy for Ludmila, sitting quietly in the mansion, to obtain poison.

Not only was it not an easily obtainable item, but it was nearly impossible to secretly acquire something like poison while Kedilen’s eyes and ears were everywhere.

But there was a way.

Baron Ferington.

Once Kedilen’s aide and now in danger of becoming a death row inmate for committing a serious crime, that man was Ludmila’s only chance.

Kedilen readily agreed to her proposal to meet him, who was still detained in the mansion before trial.

She gave various reasons, but saying she wanted to see the man who had tried to kill her in person must have been effective.

Thanks to this, Ludmila, who met him without any problems, made a deal with Baron Ferington.

She would submit a petition in exchange for the poison.

When she proposed that if he still had the poison hidden in the mansion that he had used to try to kill her, he should hand it over, Baron Ferington, after much deliberation, gave her the drug.

It wasn’t an extreme poison that would lead to death just by touching the lips, but it was a deadly poison that would gradually infiltrate the body through the blood vessels and eventually bring death.

The moment she held the poison in her hand, Ludmila’s purpose became simple and clear.

She would feed Kedilen tea laced with this poison. But it would be troublesome if it was revealed that she had done it in the process.

There was still one man left who needed to become a sacrifice before she could follow Aden in death.

It would be inconvenient to be suspected as the culprit before obtaining the status of imperial princess, returning to the imperial palace, and killing Jeffrey.

That’s why she chose the charity event.

The sight of Kedilen dying at that place where numerous dignitaries participated was the perfect picture she could paint.

The first drug she fed Kedilen was a sleeping pill.

Killing him when they were alone could raise suspicions, so it was most important for him to show signs of staggering during the charity event.

Ludmila’s eyes, scanning Kedilen who had returned to the charity event tilting a glass of champagne, were waiting for him to stagger.

The time would soon come.

Until then, she strolled around the charity event venue, smiling leisurely and exchanging conversations with people, as if to prove that there was no problem with her return.

“My lord!?”

It was then that a scream broke out amidst the softly resonating music.

Ludmila slowly turned her gaze to where the startled people’s eyes were focused, and discovered Kedilen staggering and collapsing.

Looking at this with eyes tinged with peculiarity, Ludmila quickly erased her emotions and hurriedly ran towards him.

“Kedilen?! What on earth…!?”

Ludmila approached him as he sat on the floor, grasping his shoulder with the most surprised expression and voice she could muster.

Kedilen’s eyes were cloudy as he staggered and shook his head.

As people’s murmurs grew louder, Ludmila quickly raised her head.

“A doctor… Can someone please call a doctor!”

At her scream-like voice, some people dispersed. Meanwhile, another man approached and grasped Kedilen’s shoulder.

“It would be best to move him to the lounge for now.”

“Please do.”

Ludmila nodded with an anxious face, biting her lip, and stood up.

The man supporting Kedilen, who was still unconscious and staggering, led him out of the charity event venue.

Ludmila left the venue, saying she was sorry for causing trouble, with an expression that seemed to be maintaining calm by suppressing the fluctuation of emotions.

The people who had left the charity event venue with Kedilen first were already gone from the corridor.

But knowing where they were headed, Ludmila moved her steps at a fairly quick pace towards where they had gone, with anxiety.

‘Now, one drop.’

Ludmila, putting her hand in her bosom, recalled the final act of the stage as she passed through the darkly fallen corridor.

It would be over after the doctor came to examine him and she gave him the medicine.

As her thoughts reached that point, a helpless smile flashed across Ludmila’s lips.

If it had been this easy to end, she shouldn’t have gone to Aden then. If she hadn’t asked him to kill her husband, would something have changed?

Although the word ‘if’ has no meaning in a retrospective story.

If so, would you have been alive? Ludmila, who bit her lip tightly, came to an abrupt stop.

A quiet and dark corridor with no one around.

Although the scenery was not much different from the quiet night she had faced in the Send Plateau, the air surrounding her was different.

Serenity and coziness.

Unlike that place filled with the quiet sound of insects and the chirping of wood pigeons, this place was full of things that hurt the ears.

If possible, she wanted to return there even just once.

She felt the desire to see the scenery she used to face with you just one more time.

But knowing she didn’t deserve to, Ludmila held back a bitter smile.

It was time to go now.

Ludmila, who had been standing like a stubbornly rooted tree, stepped forward.

Clack-.

It was then that the heavy sound of shoes was heard.

As Ludmila raised her head at the sound coming from the dark end of the corridor, her eyes caught the silvery light and lattice shadow pattern created by the moonlight piercing through the window.

But when the shoe sound echoed once more and a cool leg revealed itself into the chilly scenery, Ludmila’s eyes couldn’t help but become dazed.

Aden.

It was the moment when the man who had become a ghost appeared in the pale moonlight.