‘Should I cut him down like this?’

Clea pondered as she looked at Lloyd, who had just tried to cut her down.

She couldn’t help but harbor ill feelings towards him.

If he had let her go earlier, she might have suffered a little less.

Then she wouldn’t have become a tragic woman who, despite having a fiancé, wasn’t loved at all.

And he wouldn’t have become a wretched man who chased after another woman despite having a fiancée.

But for some reason, Lloyd didn’t let her go.

Even she didn’t know why he was doing that.

If only they had parted ways at the right time, their relationship wouldn’t have reached this catastrophic point.

Clea found it somewhat amusing.

“They say that people in love start to resemble each other. I wonder who started to resemble whom first between you two.”

Something similar had happened before.

What she had experienced at the hands of Aria at the Odoi ducal residence was still vivid in her memory.

She was genuinely curious.

There’s a saying that if you keep close to something black, you’ll also be stained black. So between Lloyd and Aria, who stained whom?

Did Lloyd stain Aria? Or did Aria stain Lloyd?

Clea thought that perhaps both of them were stained black from the beginning.

“I will never forget what happened today. Never!”

“Yes, you will never be able to forget it. What happened today, never.”

Despite the blade pressed against his neck, Lloyd’s attitude didn’t change at all.

He glared at Clea, revealing his hostility.

The others watching this felt exhausted.

Even in this situation, he should have been somewhat frightened, but he showed a brazen attitude with some inexplicable confidence.

Clea turned around, still pointing the sword at him.

“Your Grace, what should we do?”

The ducal couple, who made eye contact with Clea, felt like they were having a terrible nightmare.

With weary expressions, they looked at Lloyd beyond Clea.

They had sufficiently prepared countermeasures, hoping that such a thing wouldn’t happen.

They had instructed the knights to monitor Lloyd from time to time. To prevent Lloyd from causing any accidents.

They thought the knights who received the order would be able to sufficiently monitor someone like Lloyd.

But there was one thing they didn’t anticipate.

It was that Lloyd set fire to his own room. They didn’t know he would be in such an unstable state of mind.

The duke made a wry smile as he met eyes with Lloyd.

‘Do you even realize what you have done now?’

Clea was a guest who was supposed to be honored at the ducal residence.

Although not yet a member of the imperial family, it had long been certain that she would become one.

Lloyd not only disrespected such a person but even pointed a sword at her.

This was not something that could be easily overlooked.

Even if Clea showed mercy and let it slide, if this news were to spread outside the ducal residence, the relationship with the imperial family that had been built over the past centuries would turn to bubbles in an instant.

Of course, Clea had no reason to show him mercy in the first place.

The duke had already given up on Lloyd.

“Do as you wish.”

“Father?”

“Lloyd, you still don’t know what you did wrong, do you? And how your mistake has affected the family.”

Lloyd narrowed his eyes, asking what that meant.

Those fierce eyes were by no means the eyes of someone looking at his parents.

If it were the duke of the past, he would have tried to make his son a decent person without giving up.

But not now. Having completely given up on Lloyd, he no longer had the will to protect him.

On the other hand, Clea had nothing more to hesitate about. She had finally obtained the duke’s permission.

She looked at Lloyd again.

“I’ll give you a chance.”

People were surprised by Clea’s words.

They couldn’t believe that she was still willing to give him a chance.

The knights had subdued him, but considering what she had just experienced, he should consider himself lucky not to be sent straight to the underground prison, let alone be given a chance.

But Clea’s thoughts were different.

Sending him to the underground prison didn’t seem like much of a punishment for him. She wanted to leave him with an unforgettable moment.

“Say it with your own mouth. That the position of the ducal successor is not yours, but mine.”

“I am the successor!”

Lloyd couldn’t accept reality until the end.

He still believed in his bloodline. That only he was the legitimate heir to the Percy family.

But on the flip side, apart from his bloodline, there was no basis for Lloyd to claim he was the heir to the Percy family.

Because he had never demonstrated the abilities and talents befitting the position of successor.

“Kneel.”

“What the…!”

As soon as Clea’s order was given, the knights forced Lloyd to his knees.

Lloyd, who was roughly forced to kneel on the floor, groaned, but the knights no longer treated him as a member of the ducal family.

They knew.

The sudden fire was not caused by someone’s mistake.

Although the exact cause of the fire had not yet been determined, Lloyd’s tobacco pipe, which was found charred on the floor, was circumstantially the most likely culprit.

On top of that, he even injured the knights who existed to protect the ducal family, so how could they continue to treat Lloyd with respect?

“Lloyd, I can’t kill you right now. Because no matter what, you are indeed a young lord of the Percy family.”

They couldn’t directly kill him here without a trial.

Even Clea, who was trusted by the imperial family, didn’t have that authority.

But injuring him was a different matter.

The blade that had been pointing at Lloyd’s neck slowly moved upward. And finally, it stopped at his face.

“This will be self-defense. Because you pointed your sword at me first.”

“No.”

“I wonder how devastated your beloved Aria will be. If an unsightly scar is left on the face of her closest friend.”

Lloyd slowly began to feel afraid.

If he were to lose his successor rights to Clea like this, nothing would be left for him.

And if on top of that, he were to be left with an ugly scar on his face, it would be the end of him in high society.

Lloyd was aware that Aria already had a hard time accepting him.

It was an engagement he had barely managed to obtain by being forceful.

In such a situation, he didn’t want to give Aria a reason to break off the engagement by creating a scar on his face.

Meanwhile, Clea felt joy when Lloyd finally began to waver at her words.

Watching Clea, Lloyd bit his lip.

The day he had always feared, when his relationship with her would be reversed, had become reality.

Blood was already flowing from his lips.

But no one was concerned about this. They were all just watching.

Seeing this, Lloyd finally realized. No one here would help him.

“…You are the successor of the ducal family.”

The answer that came after a long silence was tinged with humiliation.

“Sorry, Lloyd. It took you too long to answer.”

“What? What’s that supposed to mean!”

But Clea had no intention of forgiving him easily.

Clea brought down the blade and stabbed his side, brushing past it.

“You, you!”

“Someone told me. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. This is payback for what Aria did to me.”

Lloyd writhed on the floor in pain he had never felt before.

The more he squirmed, the more the carpet on the floor was stained with red blood.

Clea wished she could inflict even greater pain on Lloyd.

The pain she had felt that day at the Odoi residence.

But she didn’t overdo it, thinking there would be plenty of opportunities for that later.

Clea threw the sword that Odin had bestowed upon her on the floor and spoke.

“From now on, there is no place for you to stay here at the Percy ducal residence. So go live outside, either at the Hersher ducal residence or the Odoi ducal residence where you treated people like inferiors.”

Banishment from the family, imposed on Lloyd.

It wasn’t a punishment that a mere successor could decide, but the ducal couple silently watched this scene unfold.

In fact, they too had nothing to say at this point. Because they were also guilty of raising their child poorly.

So the ducal couple had nothing to say even if they had ten mouths.

But Clea didn’t bother to blame others.

“This is my opinion, but what do you two think?”

Rather, hoping they wouldn’t feel guilty, she asked for their opinion.

The two didn’t want to sin against Clea anymore. So there was only one thing they could say.

“That would be for the best.”

“I agree as well.”

With the permission of the two, Clea spoke with gratitude.

“Then let’s first send a notice to the Hersher family. As they are to become Lloyd’s family, they won’t object to him staying there for a while.”

And so the conclusion was reached. Lloyd didn’t want to be played by Clea’s will.

Desperately hoping to somehow escape this crisis, he tried to crawl out of here, enduring the pain.

But Clea, who couldn’t miss this, caught up to him in a few steps and whispered in his ear.

“When you wake up, you’ll be going to the house of the person you love so much.”

“You, you!”

Lloyd tried to call out to Clea in a vicious voice, but before that, one of the knights stepped forward and knocked him unconscious.

As Lloyd fell unconscious, the room became quiet.

In the quietness, Clea spoke.

“Treat his wounds, and as soon as he wakes up, send him to the Hersher residence.”

No one objected to her words.