“Where are you saying I should go?”

“Of course you need to go back home!”

“Oh my. I didn’t know I had a home.”

“Clea Odoi!”

“I’m sorry, Your Highness, but you shouldn’t call me that anymore since I’m no longer an Odoi.”

Lloyd ordered Clea to return.

But Clea had no intention of obeying his command, which wasn’t even a request.

From the moment she abandoned the Odoi name, she became a commoner.

The gap between her and Lloyd would widen further, but she didn’t care.

Beyond the difference in status, she felt no need to act according to Lloyd’s wishes.

‘What does status matter? I was living just fine as an ordinary person before.’

There was nothing binding her to this world.

The people she could call family were elsewhere. The place he called home didn’t exist here either.

Lastly, there was no one in this world who wished for her to remain here.

‘In this world where everyone exists to hate me, is there any need for me to try hard to live well?’

She smiled bitterly.

This was no longer a place for her to stay.

No one wanted her to live here anymore.

Clea thought the proof of that was the curse on the back of her hand.

The second hand of the clock pattern engraved on the back of her hand showed no sign of stopping.

Watching the second hand tick by felt like being forced to die quickly.

She had thought about dying early, as if rebelling against the fate of dying at a predetermined time.

But that felt like admitting defeat.

Not wanting to act as they wished, Clea stubbornly endured.

After glancing blankly at the continuously moving second hand, she looked past Lloyd at the man behind him.

At the male lead of this world, looking at her and Lloyd with cold eyes.

‘Admund.’

Admund Wilhelm.

Though their time together was short, Clea could tell.

That brief time was more enjoyable than any time she had lived as Clea until now.

She admitted it.

There was no need to deny this in the first place.

Seeing Lloyd’s incomprehensible gaze towards her, she could clearly realize that Admund was a hundred times better.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Didn’t you come looking for me knowing everything?”

Returning to reality, Clea asked Lloyd indifferently.

Her voice showed no respect for him at all.

Perhaps because he had always reigned supreme above others.

Lloyd began to lose his composure once again at Clea’s attitude.

But this time, determined to somehow take her back, he endured and glared at Clea.

Clea did not back down at all from Lloyd’s fierce gaze and said:

“I am no longer an Odoi.”

“If you’re not an Odoi, then what are you?”

“Just Clea.”

“The blood flowing in your body is Odoi.”

“Then all those other people passing by must be Odois too. Since they have the same blood flowing in them as I do.”

“Stop talking nonsense!”

Unable to hold back any longer, Lloyd raised his voice first.

Clea actually preferred seeing him raise his voice.

When Lloyd acted nice in front of her like just now, she felt somewhat disgusted.

So this moment was the most comfortable for her.

This moment when he treated her no differently than usual.

“You like Aria, don’t you?”

“Clea.”

“I have no intention of attracting your attention. And I’ve just accurately pointed out the woman you hold in your heart.”

Normally, if she had provoked him this much, he would have tired himself out and backed down first.

Clea inwardly applauded the fact that he still hadn’t backed down.

She had no intention of being dragged to the Odoi mansion as he wished.

If she were dragged there this time, she would have to live confined there until the brink of death.

Clea had no reason to comply since she didn’t want such an ending. She looked up at Lloyd with a smile.

Lloyd’s expression twisted as if an embarrassing secret had been exposed.

“Why don’t you break off our engagement, have dinner with that noble lady, and then whisper a serenade to her while looking at the moon on an evening night? Don’t you think the time you’re spending with me is a waste?”

To be honest, she felt the time spent with Lloyd was such a waste.

Her time was already predetermined.

No, all human time must be predetermined.

However, her time now was shorter than that of others present.

Though she didn’t know exactly how much time remained, even if there was still a lot left, Clea didn’t want to devote time to Lloyd.

“Why did you suddenly change? You weren’t like this before.”

At Lloyd’s words, Clea openly sneered.

Inwardly, she wanted to tell him that the person in front of him now was not the Clea who desperately loved him, but someone else.

But not wanting to be branded a witch or madwoman, she answered lightly:

“No one remains unchanged. So I suppose my feelings of love for you have changed too.”

Lloyd frowned.

It was a habit he showed when he didn’t get the answer he wanted.

Clea didn’t care whether he showed that habit or not.

She was willing to be slapped if that’s what he wanted.

If only he would stop tormenting her by putting her in the middle.

“Were you so displeased with my closeness to Lady Aria?”

It was Lloyd making strange assumptions again.

This time Clea narrowed her brow.

But people only see what they want to see, and Lloyd, mistaking Clea’s expression for hitting the mark, smiled and knelt down.

Clea and Admund, who were watching, began to feel flustered.

Unaware of the two’s feelings, Lloyd proudly declared:

“From now on, I’ll only look at you. So stop being stubborn and come back. Stop troubling me and my friend here.”

Looking down at Lloyd, who was making the blatant lie that he would never look at Aria Hersher again, Clea let out a hollow laugh.

‘Might as well entrust fish to a cat.’

How many people in the empire would believe those words enough to stake collateral on them?

Even his parents, the Duke and Duchess, would back out if asked to put up a forfeit on this promise as a vow.

That’s how low Lloyd’s credibility was in Clea’s mind.

‘Anyway, you and that person will all end up going to Aria Hersher.’

Everything had flowed according to the original story so far.

So the promise would be broken soon enough.

Clea thought that not only Lloyd, but even Admund standing behind him would one day drift away from her side.

Unlike Clea, Aria was a beautiful woman loved by everyone in this world.

Thinking of Admund eventually leaving for her, Clea felt the pain in her chest intensify.

‘By then, I’ll be dead anyway.’

Already accustomed to the suffocating, tearing pain, she still maintained a calm expression on her face as she turned her gaze to Admund.

Admund was watching how Clea would act. He wanted to see clearly what choice she would make.

Whether she would really erase Lloyd completely as she had told him, or use him as a kind of chess piece to provoke Lloyd.

“I don’t believe you.”

Both men flinched at the words that came from her mouth.

Though her gaze was still on Admund, what mattered to Lloyd, who was kneeling and looking up at her, wasn’t that.

“Even if you rip out your heart and beg me to believe you, my heart has long since grown cold.”

Clea grabbed Lloyd’s chin in front of her.

Though not as handsome as Admund, Lloyd had a fairly good-looking face befitting a supporting male character. Clea grabbed his face and pushed him away.

Never imagining he would be rejected by Clea, Lloyd was pushed back weakly and fell to the ground in a ridiculous state.

Prioritizing honor above all else, he couldn’t get up right away despite falling in such an embarrassing manner.

That’s how great the psychological shock was as he stared at Clea.

‘Foolish Clea. Do you still have lingering feelings for such a man?’

Could there still be lingering feelings after all that suffering?

The moment she saw Lloyd fall, she almost instinctively moved to support him.

But Clea didn’t.

“Are you curious why I suddenly changed?”

Considering her lingering instinct pathetic, Clea shifted her gaze to the man in front of her.

“Admund.”

In a gentle voice she had never used with Lloyd.

As if truly trying to provoke Lloyd, she called another man’s name as she moved.

The gazes of both men in the room were fixed on her.

But neither opened their mouths.

On one side was a look of utter disbelief, while the other showed relief for the first time.

Admund, who had been worried about what would happen if Clea decided to go back when the proud Lloyd even knelt down, felt his tension melt away.

“The person I love now is this man.”

Clea, who had somehow reached right in front of Admund, was smiling.

Unlike before, there was no trace of mockery.

She explored Admund’s lips right there.

Admund did not push Clea away.

He had no desire to separate from her lips touching his.

Admund looked down at her, recalling what had happened last night.

The night they had passionately explored each other.

Lloyd stared at his friend and fiancée with a hardened expression.

Clea pulled away from the kiss and said to Lloyd:

“Since I’ve already discarded even the Odoi name, isn’t our relationship over? Lloyd Percy.”

She saw the dumbfounded look on the face of the man who had always looked down on her arrogantly.

Clea thought the sight was sweeter than ever before.