One week ago.

The arrogant man’s smooth smile that had been plastered across his face disappeared right after hearing the answer that flowed from his mouth.

Aden threw a blatant sneer as he watched the corners of his mouth, which had been raised high while resting his chin, return to a horizontal position. He shifted his upper body once to adjust his posture.

“What did you just say?”

In place of the unpleasant honorifics that he always used as a symbol of leisure and arrogance, a voice mixed with bewilderment and anger took its place.

Aden listened to Jeffrey’s question with a calm face, grasping the untouched teacup and tilting his chin.

“I said I don’t need it. Rather, I’m puzzled. Suddenly bringing up Marquis Erdi to me and trying to negotiate.”

Aden, with a faint sneer on his lips, tilted the cup he was holding to wet his lips before raising his eyes vertically.

“I absolutely cannot understand why you would say such a thing.”

“Are you being serious?”

Jeffrey, who seemed displeased with this situation, frowned slightly and asked again.

The persistent questioning was so intense that it felt like there was some certainty behind it.

That there was some kind of relationship between Aden and the Marchioness Erdi.

It was a proposal thrown with the confidence that using this would surely solve the problem. Jeffrey offered him Ludmila.

He said he would take Ludmila away from Kedilen and give her to him, so he should quietly disappear.

If he stayed quietly in Havertz territory, he could gain numerous benefits just by keeping his mouth shut.

Aden was so bewildered by his arrogant attitude, as if he had the upper hand, that he wondered who had actually been shot.

But Aden was neither stupid nor confused enough to fall for it.

The man who fired the gun to kill Aden was the Crown Prince.

Starting from deliberately making him participate in the hunting competition, to the information Benjamin had gathered by sending people to the guild, everything clearly pointed to Jeffrey as the culprit.

The Crown Prince had tried to kill a noble he didn’t like at the hunting competition.

If this fact were revealed, not only would he face public criticism and be deposed from his position as Crown Prince, but it could also create numerous rights for Havertz, which he had been trying so hard to suppress.

However, he was just holding back because he hadn’t decided how to wield this yet.

The reason he responded to Jeffrey’s summons was to see his reaction.

Since he was a man with strong pride and an intense greed for what he held in his hands, he would surely come to negotiate.

If Aden could gain sufficient benefits from there, he could keep his mouth shut about anything.

But what he offered was not an apology or negotiation, but a cheap handout that one might see in a marketplace.

Ludmila. Aden was truly unable to contain his pity at his behavior of trying to cover everything with just that one name.

If it had been his past self, he might have been tempted by that offer, but unfortunately, not anymore.

It seemed that the slow-informed Crown Prince hadn’t realized that her name no longer held such value for him.

He no longer had any intention of neglecting his responsibilities and mission as the Duke of Havertz for Ludmila’s sake.

“Duke. This is a chance for you to have everything you want. You can get rid of Kedilen, whom you wanted to kill, and officially take Ludmila after she divorces. Moreover, you can even regain the authority you couldn’t enjoy as a ducal family. Don’t you know that me giving you an empty seat in the Upper House is an honor that any imperial noble would desire?”

As Aden remained silent, Jeffrey, seemingly frustrated, continued to explain how great his offer was and how pitiful Aden’s dullness was for not recognizing its value.

But that was all in the past.

Killing Kedilen and obtaining Ludmila.

It was a proposal that had now become meaningless, and he had never desired authority as a duke in the first place.

Havertz was an outsider to be called an imperial noble, and too barbaric to seek refinement.

“If you want to hear the answer you desire from me, you’ll need to make a better offer.”

Thanks to this, he didn’t hesitate to put down the half-empty cup on the table with a vulgar sound.

Aden silently watched Jeffrey’s lips move as he looked at him with bewildered eyes, then checked the calendar.

“I’ll be staying in the capital for another week. I’ll wait for a better answer from you until then. Well then.”

Aden, who had bowed his head politely in lieu of a greeting, turned around.

Jeffrey’s threats and persuasions alternately pierced Aden’s back as he was about to leave the room with unwavering steps, but they couldn’t stop his footsteps.

Finally, when he grasped the handle of the office door.

“Then you won’t care what I do to Ludmila, Duke!?”

The last desperate cry that flew from behind made his body stop.

“Do you know what Ludmila asked of me? She said she wants to regain her status as a princess. It seems she wants to divorce Marquis Erdi… Unless she’s incredibly stupid, there’s no way the Marquis would let Ludmila go. Then you know what’s left, don’t you?”

“…”

“I will send Ludmila to the gallows if she returns after killing her husband. Killing one’s spouse is punishable by death at most under imperial law. If she doesn’t regain her status as a princess, she won’t be able to avoid the gallows in the end. Is that what you want?”

As Aden, who had been silent and turning away, showed a reaction, Jeffrey’s eyes glowed with madness as if he had found an answer.

Show a reaction quickly. Come before me and bend your knee. That’s what you should do. His rough breath and eyes desired Aden’s submission.

“Do as you please.”

In fact, Aden’s face, as he turned around and spoke with dry eyes, was more calm and composed than ever.

Jeffrey, watching Aden leave by opening the door, could only follow the empty space where he had disappeared with bewildered eyes.

That day, he had provoked the wrong beast.

The moment the unleashed beast finally bared its teeth at him, Jeffrey thought his future would be covered in pitch-black darkness.

“Your Highness.”

But as if to prove that he was the chosen Crown Prince of heaven, he couldn’t help but smile at the scene unfolding before his eyes.

Jeffrey tilted his chin with raised corners of his mouth as he rolled his gaze to Baron Ferington, the man bowing his head to him, whom he had extracted from the Marquis’s residence where he had been detained.

“We begin the beast hunt once again.”

He had just rationalized that it was because he respected your choice.

That there must have been a good reason why you chose Kedilen over me.

Even if we couldn’t look at the same place, if you chose that path, I could only follow.

Because I was nothing to you. I accepted that I could only be a temporary resting place, a place to stay and leave.

He had erased the traces of betrayal, shaken off the sense of loss, and stripped away the traces you left behind.

Whenever the longing and loneliness that came with it became painfully intense, he would look at the picture you left behind, Ludmila.

Then, as the sun rose again and thinking of you starting your day in a place far beyond my reach, I wished for your happiness.

He had deceived himself. Using the pretty excuse that it was because he loved you.

What he had turned away from, wearing the mask of respect, was anger.

When he faced Ludmila again, the emotion Aden felt upon seeing her expression was not joy.

Disappointment, anger, betrayal. He pushed it away and packaged it as anything but that, but the truth was not so.

It was merely self-deception that overlooked the fact that he too was an ordinary person.

The truth he realized at the moment he finally turned his back and moved away from her.

‘I hope you don’t get hurt.’

He didn’t trust the woman who worried about his well-being until the end with sad eyes.

Even though she said it was a misunderstanding, his pettiness in not accepting her ultimately created this situation.

While knowing that Jeffrey was targeting Ludmila.

Even though he had come here in person to protect her, the confusion that came when he faced his own emotions pushed Ludmila into danger.

He had turned away after facing the despair in her clear eyes, but regret came after just a few steps.

Entrusting his body to the darkness where even the cool silver moonlight had disappeared, Aden regretted his words and actions towards Ludmila who had tried to clear up the misunderstanding and turned his steps.

His steps following her footsteps, who had left resigned to everything, were tinged with anxiety.

The shouts and screams heard from afar, in the scene he faced after opening the door, he could face the reality of his anxiety.

Aden pushed Kedilen aside and performed CPR to revive Ludmila.

He put all his effort into hoping she would rise again, just like when she first collapsed in front of him.

The desperation hoping for her breath to return as he performed artificial respiration was clearly visible on his lips, which had turned white from being pressed by his teeth.

“Ludmila… Please…!”

It was a plea close to sobbing. The stopped hand moved again.

The will to not stop until she came back to life moved Aden’s body, soaked in sweat.

Sweat poured down, and no more desperate prayers flowed from his mouth.

In the silence, only the sound of exertion echoed.

“Ludmila…!”

Aden’s voice, as he embraced Ludmila’s body that had regained breath, was soon tinged with joy.

Kedilen, who had been violently pushed away, lay blankly on the floor, looking ahead.

For a moment, it seemed as if the door opened, and Aden rushed in, calling Ludmila’s name and pushing him away.

His clouded reason returned when his body violently hit the floor.

As he came to his senses, what entered his eyes was Aden embracing Ludmila, and Ludmila in his arms.

That was all.

As the flow of consciousness returned in the blurred judgment, Kedilen realized what he had done.

He had strangled Ludmila with his own hands. He had squeezed that neck until Ludmila, who was struggling, stopped breathing in his hands.

He never intended to kill her. He just, just wanted to persuade her.

That I love you. That’s all he wanted her to know. Because Ludmila denied his love.

It happened because she said such nonsense that what he felt wasn’t love.

Kedilen, who was slowly shaking his head, opened his mouth reflexively.

“No… It’s not. It’s not my fault. It’s all, all Ludmila… It’s all your fault because you tried to kill me… and did such a thing.”

Learned denial and blaming others.

It was one way to protect himself.

“Fault…?”

But he realized it was a wrong judgment when Aden’s gaze, who was embracing Ludmila, slowly turned towards him.