The Price is Everything of Yours (76 Chapters Left to Complete) - Chapter 142

Crash.

Shards of the shattered porcelain teacup rolled across the floor.

The old man’s hand trembled. His emaciated finger, adorned with a large emerald ring, looked so frail the ring seemed ready to slip off on its own.

The maid, who should have rushed over immediately to check if her master was hurt and to clean up the mess, stood staring blankly. It wasn’t because she was lazy.

She had simply learned from repeated experience—every time such an incident occurred, the old man, Marquis Tipian, would panic and shove her away.

It wasn’t just the maid. Ever since escaping—barely—from captivity by the monsters of Maindlant, the Marquis allowed no one near him. He avoided any food that might have been touched by another’s hand.

He ate only the simplest things: whole fruits still in their skins, water drawn fresh before his eyes, and pork roasted and carved from a live animal right in front of him. Yet even then, he always eyed his meals with suspicion. Reacting so neurotically to everything, his already winter-thinned body from Maindlant continued to weaken.

In earlier days, people might have pitied him. After all, he had long ruled these lands, and many held high offices thanks to his trust. Naturally, those vassals who had benefited from his grace would have wished for Marquis Tipian to live longer and stay healthier.

But that never happened.

The cause lay squarely with the Marquis himself. Perpetually steeped in suspicion, he frequently banished, executed, or imprisoned those he had once trusted—as if convinced beyond doubt that someone would betray him and unable to escape that thought.

And, indeed, his suspicion was well-founded.

“Sadly, you will be betrayed by everyone you ever trusted, gain nothing despite your efforts, and receive no comfort even if you weep.”

Those words echoed ceaselessly inside the Marquis’s mind, unseen by anyone else. Just as surely as the sun rose each day, he would awaken each morning to the image of Neris Trude’s violet eyes, and her calm voice would haunt him as he fell asleep at night.

And with every repetition of those words in his mind, the Marquis descended further into madness.

Knock knock. Someone tapped on the door of the room where the Marquis sat. Startled, he snatched the dagger he always kept on his table and snapped irritably,

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