The accusation of Trinity’s murder against Baroness Oppenheimer was cleared through a trial.

Accordingly, Baroness Oppenheimer was to be given substantial compensation.

There was no other way to make up for the hardships she had endured in prison.

“You’ve been through… a lot.”

Jieselgrante spoke with difficulty to Baroness Oppenheimer, who was looking around inside before leaving the prison.

In truth, there was something else she really wanted to say. But if she apologized, Baroness Oppenheimer would be confused.

After all, she didn’t know that the person inside Jieselgrante was Trinity.

Then Baroness Oppenheimer took out a parchment and began to write something.

“It was really tough. I’ll never set foot in a place like this again.”

On Baroness Oppenheimer’s face, one could read both bitter pain and a somewhat relieved emotion.

“How are you feeling?”

“Although I can’t speak anymore… I’m still happy and grateful to be able to leave prison. It was really hard living just waiting for the day I’d die. And unjustly at that… Anyway, thank you. I heard that Duke Amaterasu worked hard on my behalf.”

After reading the words written on the parchment, Jieselgrante hesitated for a moment.

In fact, after learning that Baroness Oppenheimer could no longer speak, she had searched high and low.

To see if there was a way to heal her severed tongue when she eventually rescued her from prison.

She had consulted with Cabelased about it, and thanks to his excellent information network, they were able to find cases where tongues severed in accidents had regrown.

So she was looking into that.

The words that she might be able to speak again almost rose to the tip of her tongue, but she swallowed them.

She didn’t want to give her false hope.

As Jieselgrante was heading out like that, she suddenly stopped, and Baroness Oppenheimer asked.

“What’s wrong?”

“I just remembered I have some business to attend to here.”

Saying that, Jieselgrante glanced at the man beyond the iron bars.

Baroness Oppenheimer nodded as if she understood and left the prison first.

“…”

Jieselgrante, who had been watching Baroness Oppenheimer’s retreating figure, approached the man who was sitting with his back against the cold stone wall, staring blankly at something.

“Have you heard the news that the Empress’s punishment has been decided?”

Only then did Joshua raise his head. And he met Jieselgrante’s gaze.

Joshua’s gray-tinged green eyes were trembling finely.

“Are you scared?”

Jieselgrante bent her knees slightly to meet Joshua’s eye level.

She could clearly see Joshua’s expression contorting in real-time as she faced him more closely.

“Have you come to mock me?”

Joshua glared at Jieselgrante with narrowed eyes as he spoke.

“…”

“Duke Amaterasu. It wasn’t just you. Besides you, many others came to laugh at my current pathetic state.”

Jieselgrante swallowed softly.

“Ah… I see.”

Her voice, which had leaked out to her own surprise, was so calm and composed.

It was because she had no intention of mocking or ridiculing Joshua.

She could feel Joshua’s obvious gaze pouring over her face.

It was as if he was trying to figure out what expression she was making now, what thoughts she was facing him with.

“It seems you didn’t come to mock me. Then why did you come to see me?”

Jieselgrante nodded to indicate her agreement with Joshua’s words.

At that, a glimmer of hope began to flicker in Joshua’s green eyes.

“Has it been revealed that the mark on Cabelased’s body was fake? Of course. There’s no way someone else could be born with the mark of the Heavenly Descendant besides me…”

Seemingly judging his own words to be somewhat plausible, Joshua nodded and added:

“Then it would be troublesome if the position of the next Emperor were left vacant.”

She was somewhat curious how thoughts could spread so conveniently to one’s own advantage, but she didn’t bother to ask.

Instead, she said what she wanted to say.

“That’s not it. Shu.”

Joshua’s expression instantly hardened at Jieselgrante’s dry voice flowing through her teeth.

Blinking slowly a few times, Joshua asked.

“Duke Amaterasu… Did you just call me Shu?”

Joshua’s voice was trembling finely.

“Yes. Shu.”

Jieselgrante once again uttered Joshua’s childhood nickname.

Joshua, who had been glaring at her as if he wanted to tear her to pieces, soon opened his mouth as if he had realized something.

“Princess Trinity, my sister, must have told you about my childhood. Is that it?”

To Joshua’s gaze asking if his thoughts were correct, Jieselgrante shook her head slowly with a faint smile on her lips.

“You’re completely wrong. Shu.”

Jieselgrante stared intently at Joshua’s wavering eyes for a moment with her mouth closed. Then she continued.

“First of all, I didn’t come to mock you. I didn’t come to see you either. The person I came to see was Baroness Oppenheimer.”

Joshua’s pupils began to shake violently.

Even though he didn’t speak, she seemed to know what his state of mind would be like now.

Joshua had always been treated as the most important person in the world, overflowingly so.

The words Jieselgrante had just given to such a person held great significance.

‘You are not special, you are not an important person to me.’

She knew how much those words could ruin Joshua’s mood.

‘It must feel like the world is crumbling.’

Joshua retorted in a trembling voice.

“Do you mean you just happened to run into me while coming to see Baroness Oppenheimer?”

“That’s right.”

Looking at Joshua’s face, frozen in shock, Jieselgrante continued.

“Baroness Oppenheimer suffered too much because of your mother’s greed. The wounds on her body might be healed. But the wounds inflicted on her heart will linger for a long time.”

Looking at Joshua’s face, which seemed somewhat thoughtful, Jieselgrante continued.

“…Shu, you knew everything, didn’t you? How the Empress, no, your mother tried to deal with me, how she killed your father. Don’t say you didn’t know. You knew but did nothing. You only reaped the benefits of what your mother did.”

There’s no need to take on the wrongs of one’s family.

But if you at least knew, couldn’t you have done something?

So Joshua had been a bystander to everything the Empress had done, and that too was ultimately Joshua’s choice.

“Therefore, you are an accomplice in everything.”

With those words, Jieselgrante straightened her knees, which she had bent to match his eye level.

Accomplice. Joshua would know well what that word meant. And the Empress, who was an accomplice with Joshua, was facing execution.

‘Why don’t you tremble in fear until the moment you die.’

Jieselgrante boarded the carriage with a somewhat troubled mind. The reason for this was not just because of Joshua and the Empress who were about to die.

This morning. That is, before she went to the imperial palace and coincidentally encountered Joshua, Cabelased had said:

‘I’d like to spend this evening together if possible. Is your schedule alright?’

Was it just her imagination that his expression and tone seemed somewhat meaningful at that time?

‘It seemed like he had something to say…’

Because Cabelased’s psychology was hardly predictable, she was about to ask why he was acting that way when Count Preston spoke to him first.

As their conversation lengthened, Jieselgrante had to leave the Cardia mansion, promising to catch up later.

‘Well… I’ll find out when I meet him later.’

Thinking that, she turned her head towards the window when the carriage stopped.

Jieselgrante’s face was reflected in the large glass window of a busy street lined with high-end shops.

She stared intently at her own appearance.

Her purple eyes, which had been like charoite, were now as deep and blue as the sea, and her ashen hair, which had looked cold, was now shimmering golden.

All of it felt like an indicator showing that there was no going back to how things were before.

There’s no way to get back what was taken.

Just repaying them by taking what’s theirs. And that end was approaching.

It was the moment she decided that when this revenge was over, she would truly forget Trinity’s life and live as Jieselgrante.

The carriage, which had stopped briefly, started moving.

“…”

Just then, the wind that blew gently rustled a few strands of Jieselgrante’s golden hair.

The breeze coming through the window gap felt especially refreshing today.

She turned her head forward, brushing aside the hair tickling her cheek.

By the time the scenery outside the carriage showed the now-familiar Cardia mansion, the sun was already setting.

Jieselgrante, who had gotten off the carriage, paused for a moment to look up at the sky before entering the mansion.

She was captivated by the beautiful yet alien scenery of the sun dyed golden and the sky painted over with blue and red pigments.

It was then.

“Jiesel.”

A soft and low voice called out to her.

She slowly turned her head to take in the sight of Cabelased walking towards her.

“Are you just returning?”

Cabelased nodded and asked in return.

“How about taking a short walk with me?”

She too had just been thinking that the weather outside was too nice to go straight into the mansion.

The breeze was quite refreshing as the harvest season was approaching.

“Alright.”

And so the two of them set out on the walking path leading to the garden.

“…?”

But Cabelased was indeed acting strange.

It seemed certain that he had something to say, but it was unlike him not to get straight to the point.