The Emperor turned his head and looked at Arasila, who had come forward and stood up. Her blue eyes were staring at him calmly and intelligently.

“What is it?”

“Although this gathering was arranged to uncover the treason of the deposed Crown Prince, we also have criminals we wish to accuse.”

“Hmm.”

The Emperor narrowed his eyes and made a strange expression. It seemed he did not want to open another case, as the Crown Prince’s crimes alone were already giving him a headache.

Reading his father’s hesitant look, Lucas promptly lent his support to Arasila.

“Your Majesty, the Vandermir couple has been of great help in uncovering the crimes of the deposed Crown Prince. As they are the meritorious subjects who captured the traitors, please hear them out.”

“…Very well. Speak.”

Finally, the Emperor changed his mind and nodded magnanimously. Arasila, who had been bowing respectfully with her hands clasped, slowly raised her face and spoke deliberately.

“I accuse Duke and Duchess Vandermir of murder. Please strip them of their titles, bestow them upon Demian Vandermir, and punish them severely.”

“What nonsense are you talking about?!”

Duke Vandermir, who had already been anxiously watching Arasila, shouted angrily. The Duchess’s face turned pale and stiff.

“I apologize, Your Majesty. It seems my son’s wife has gone mad. Demian, you fool! Can’t you control your wife properly?!”

The Duke raised his voice, throwing back the very words he had heard from Frederick earlier. However, the anxiety in his trembling eyes was clearly visible.

A tension and impatience that they would not feel if truly innocent enveloped the couple.

Demian leisurely stood up and took his place beside Arasila, then placed his hand on his chest and bowed gracefully.

“Your Majesty, I formally request that I, Demian Vandermir, succeed to the title of Duke from this moment, and that the former Duke and Duchess be arrested for murder.”

“Who do you think you are to succeed the title of Duke?! Demian, there’s a limit to how lightly you can treat your father. How dare you, in front of His Majesty—!”

“Who did the Duke and Duchess kill?”

The Emperor cut off the excited Duke’s words and asked. Duke Vandermir lowered his eyebrows and turned to face the Emperor.

“Your Imperial Majesty, how can you ask such an absurd question!”

“Duke, close your mouth. You’ve been too noisy since earlier, making it impossible to hear what others are saying properly.”

“…!”

At the Emperor’s cold response, the Duke reluctantly closed his mouth. But he was fidgeting like a dog with its tail on fire. The Duchess tightly gripped her husband’s sleeve.

Demian glanced indifferently at them with their pale complexions, then slowly opened his mouth towards the Emperor.

“They killed my mother, Monica Vandermir, 19 years ago. Of course, there is evidence.”

At Demian’s signal, Arasila returned to her seat and took out Monica’s jewelry box from her bag. Seeing the glass bottle that came out of it, the Duchess staggered.

‘How did they get that…!’

How could the thing they had tried so hard to find after Monica’s death appear there?

It was because they couldn’t recover those tea leaves that they had strictly forbidden entry to Monica’s room. It must have been somewhere in there.

All their desperate efforts to prevent Demian from discovering it while going through her belongings had come to nothing.

“This is the diary and tea leaves that the late Duchess left before she passed away. By the way, these tea leaves were given as a gift by the current Duchess.”

Demian, who had received the glass bottle from Arasila, spoke in a firm voice.

“These are not just ordinary tea leaves. They were grown with black magic and have the effect of making the target ill, brainwashing them, and leading them to death.”

“If you look at the diary Lady Monica left behind, you can see in detail how cunningly the current Duchess killed a person.”

Arasila added, holding out the diary. As the Emperor reached out his hand to receive it, the panicked Duke jumped forward.

He wedged himself between them, blocking the Emperor’s view, and glared at Arasila. The Emperor frowned at this extremely impolite behavior, but the Duke didn’t notice.

“How do you know that’s Monica’s diary? How do you know you didn’t just make it up yourselves?!”

“It’s impossible for us to have made this up, Duke. This is a special magic diary passed down through generations only in the Ronde Count family.”

Arasila smiled sweetly and tapped the small eagle drawing on the cover of the book. The Duke’s face contorted as he recognized the symbol of the Ronde Count family.

This was bad.

Feeling a strong sense of crisis, he racked his brains. He had barely escaped the crisis of treason, and he couldn’t let himself be caught here. Having made up his mind, he turned to the Emperor and said gravely:

“Your Majesty, it seems my second wife made a mistake blinded by jealousy. I will punish her myself.”

“Darling!”

Shocked by her husband’s betrayal, the Duchess grabbed his arm.

In fact, the Duke had not been involved in killing Monica. However, he had allowed it knowing that Sophie would kill Monica, and had willingly contributed the money that was lacking when obtaining those tea leaves.

This meant he was not entirely without guilt.

“Be quiet! If I survive, I can save you too…!”

The Duke gritted his teeth and scolded her quietly. It was certainly better than both of them being arrested for murder together.

The Duchess, who had been sobbing, seemed to calm down for a moment. Taking advantage of this, the Duke appealed more actively to the Emperor.

“But it’s nonsense for me to lose my title of Duke for a crime my wife committed! That’s unfair!”

“No, Father.”

The Duke turned his head at the low voice from behind and froze in shock. Demian, who had approached closely without notice, was looking down at him with eyes as cold as frost.

Ever since he had grown taller than his father, he hadn’t seemed entirely dismissible, but now there was an indescribable sense of pressure.

“I will rightfully succeed to the title of Duke.”

Demian put his hand inside his jacket. The corners of his mouth rose slightly.

“Through Grandfather’s will.”

The will of the previous Duke, whose whereabouts had been unknown for the past dozen years, emerged from Demian’s breast. The Duke’s eyes widened.

“You, you! How did you…?!”

Seeing his astonishment, Demian and Arasila smiled leisurely.

After Demian had finished reading Monica’s diary, the two of them focused on the part where the previous Duke had left his property to Cyan Mondor.

‘If he really left property, it wouldn’t be bad to use it now. After all, various background investigations cost a lot of money.’

With this thought, Demian searched for the inheritance and soon discovered an surprising fact.

What the previous Duke had entrusted to the temple under the name of Cyan Mondor was not gold and silver treasures. It was his will, which the entire Vandermir family had been searching for so desperately.

‘…So this was Grandfather’s atonement.’

As compensation for raising his son wrongly and ruining the lives of his daughter-in-law and grandson, he had secretly bequeathed the future of the family to Demian.

Having obtained this unexpected harvest, Demian had been preparing since then to succeed the title of Duke from his father. Even if the Duke’s family was implicated in treason, he planned to escape by ascending as the new Duke and expelling his father and stepmother.

Demian proudly showed the will to the Emperor, passing by his father.

“I believe Your Majesty is well aware of what this is. My grandfather left his last words to pass on the title of Duke to his grandson who married the granddaughter of Duke Hugo’s family.”

“Yes, that’s right. I know it well since I verified that will.”

The Emperor nodded, looking surprised. Feeling his heart constrict, the Duke desperately cried out.

“Getting married gives you the qualification to succeed, it doesn’t mean immediate succession!”

“You didn’t know, Father.”

Demian half-turned and looked at his father askance, twisting his lips.

“Grandfather wrote in his will that if Duke Alex Vandermir is involved in a serious crime, he should be immediately stripped of his title and it should be passed to the next generation.”

“Wh-what…”

“It says here in detail that Alex Vandermir agreed to these conditions when he received the title of Duke.”

Demian even kindly pointed out the relevant part with his hand. The Duke could only open and close his mouth without saying anything. There was a memory that had just come to mind.

When passing on the title prematurely to his son, who was far from adequate, due to the pressure from his wife, the Grand Duchess, the previous Duke had attached a condition. That he would give up the title whenever he committed an act against the law.

The Duke had agreed without much thought. At that time, he was excited about the idea of quickly taking over the title of Duke from his father and living a lavish life.

As the Duke stood still as if paralyzed by magic, Arasila, who had been quietly watching him, asked in a suspicious voice.

“Were you really not involved in the murder of the Duchess from the beginning? You’re not an accomplice who didn’t directly participate but condoned it, are you?”

“…O-Of course not! I didn’t know! It was all that woman’s doing to take the position of Duchess!”

The Duke, having come to his senses, hurriedly made excuses. However, he couldn’t answer Arasila’s next words.

“Then, drink this truth serum.”

“…”

“If your claim remains the same after drinking the truth serum, we’ll believe you.”

Arasila kindly opened the lid and held out the truth serum. The Duke just stood there, frozen and dazed.

While everyone, including the Emperor and Lucas, was focused on the Duke, a sharp voice rang out with a faint tremor.

“Yes, I killed her!”

It was the Duchess.

She raised her bloodshot eyes, looked around at the people, and laughed sharply. Silence fell among the surprised people.

She pushed past her husband, drawing everyone’s attention, and turned her head abruptly towards Demian.

“I hated Monica from the beginning. She was hypocritical and deceitful!”

“…”

“Having grown up as the precious daughter of a count’s family, she always looked down on me and pitied me. Do you know how much I suffered trying to tolerate that sense of superiority?”

So she took Monica’s man, took her family, took everything.

Of course, Monica’s actual attitude was completely different, and it was likely that she felt that way because of her own inferiority complex. But that wasn’t particularly important to the Duchess.

Thanks to that, her seemingly empty heart became abundant, and she finally felt satiated.

The life she had obtained by betraying her friend was sweet until her son died, so the Duchess shouted hysterically, without any sign of remorse.

“I killed your mother, Demian Vandermir!”

“…”

“If you resent it, then kill me too. I won’t resist. Come on, stab me with a knife!”

The Duchess spread her arms wide. Although it was a childish and blatant provocation, Arasila tensed at the behavior that was as effective as it was clear.

It wouldn’t be good for Demian to directly harm her. She looked at her husband, ready to stop him if necessary…

Surprisingly, Demian’s face was calm. He stared at the Duchess without any particular agitation. Perhaps feeling his gaze, the Duchess raised the level of her provocation sharply.

“What, can’t you do it? You didn’t really want to avenge your mother that much anyway, did you? You’re just using Monica’s death to fulfill your desire to become a Duke!”

“…”

“Then what’s the difference between you and me?!”

Of course they’re different, what nonsense. Just as Arasila was frowning and about to say something.

Demian, who had instantly approached the Duchess with his long legs, asked in a low voice.

“Do you want to die by my hand?”

“…!”

“Don’t worry, I won’t kill you.”

Golden eyes cast a mocking gaze at the Duchess, who flinched in fear now that Demian had come close.

There was a time when he wanted to kill them. Miserably and painfully. Terribly. It was because he had never properly thought about his life after the revenge was over.

Until he met Arasila, Demian had only wished for self-destructive revenge. One that would destroy both himself and the other party completely. He had vowed not to leave a single trace of his bloodline on this earth.

But now it was different. No matter how the revenge ended, Demian wanted to live like a human being afterwards. He didn’t want to become a monster like them.

Because Arasila would be sad.

Because he wouldn’t be able to be proud in front of her.

There was also something he realized through his mother’s diary. The best revenge is not to give them the peace of death.

“Because you must live to the end and honestly pay for your crimes.”

“…”

“So your family, which you greedily built, has been shattered, while on the contrary, I have triumphed and achieved what I wanted. You’ll have to witness every moment, confirming your miserable situation of having lost everything.”

The true revenge was to make them watch with their own eyes as he lived well, flaunting his success. Demian smiled and retreated from her.

The Duchess’s life would now become hell, as she would inevitably be reminded of Oscar, who died in vain, every time she saw him.

“Surviving by my mother’s mercy.”

At these brief additional words, the Duchess’s face gradually flushed. When she saw Monica in those brilliant eyes looking down at her, she couldn’t bear it anymore.

She had thought she had won, but now she felt to her bones that she had ultimately lost.

“Y-You…! Kill me! Just kill me instead! I said kill me!”

She went berserk, pounding her chest in anger. Arasila stopped her as she tried to rush at Demian with her nails raised.

While the Duchess Vandermir was tightly bound with binding magic, Demian knelt on one knee before the Emperor and requested.

“Your Majesty, please allow my succession to the title and their arrest.”

At those words, the Duke gave the Emperor a desperate look. The Emperor, who had been observing the situation with a cold face, slowly opened his mouth.

“Strip Alex Vandermir of his title and pass it to his son, Demian Vandermir, and imprison the former Duke and Duchess for murder.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

The imperial knights firmly grasped the arms of the two. The couple screamed loud enough to shake the meeting hall as they struggled.

“No… No, this can’t be happening! No!”

“Let go! Kill me, Demian Vandermir! Don’t let me live, kill me!”

Demian stood silently, staring at the two being dragged away. The downfall of those who once seemed like an impenetrable wall he could never overcome as a child was this empty and trivial.

As he couldn’t take his eyes off the scene, feeling both triumphant and conflicted, he felt a warmth quietly taking his hand.

Demian glanced down. A round crown of hair dyed like lavender. Arasila tightly grasped his hand.

He chuckled and adjusted his grip, turning his body along with his wife. It was the moment that put an end to his long-standing revenge and hatred.