“Look at me, Elaina.”

The voice of the man, as beautiful as a sculpture, was practically a plea.

But Elaina only looked down at him quietly with a cold face that felt no emotion at all.

As if she were in a completely different world from him.

“You’re saying you’re going to leave Edenbell, leave my side… Is that really true?”

Sinclair Butler.

The disgrace of the holy empire shining with peace, Edenbell. The uncontrollable profligate prince that no one could ever fathom.

Arrogant beyond compare, he bowed his head to no one, and possessed a cruel temper that would cut down anyone.

As if that weren’t enough, he beat the emperor’s cherished concubine to death in broad daylight, and no matter what battlefield he was driven to, he never died like an evil spirit and always returned alive.

“Hurry up and say it’s not true.”

“……”

“Please, I’m begging you.”

This man who feared nothing was begging Elaina like a dog.

Pleading with her not to abandon him and leave.

He was even kneeling on one knee in front of Elaina, looking up at her like a goddess.

There was a time when she truly dreamed of this cruel man loving her. She wished he would feel even half of the emotions she felt, and wanted to beg him to stay by her side like he was doing now.

Thinking back on it now, how foolish it was.

None of that meant anything anymore.

Because any plea, any desperation that he uttered was worthless to Elaina.

“Our contract is over, Sinclair.”

So Elaina replied in a voice as cold as the frost of midwinter.

“Didn’t you promise first with your own mouth? That you intended to divorce after a year had passed.”

Elaina’s words were not a lie. All this time, Sinclair had consistently said without tiring.

That the term of this marriage, which was only for show, was at most a year. So our relationship had no value whatsoever.

Since it was a relationship formed out of mutual necessity, no matter what happened, he told her not to act out of line or have any expectations.

“You said after that, you wouldn’t care at all where I went?”

Sinclair’s gaze on Elaina was dazed.

His golden eyes looking at her were empty, having lost their light unlike before.

Just like how Elaina’s brightly shining blue eyes, which used to be filled with vivid colors, had lost all their light after her right leg was permanently ruined…

“And if I can’t let you go?”

Sinclair asked in an extremely low voice.

“Are you going to try to run away?”

His large hand with blue veins bulging out suddenly grabbed Elaina’s broken right ankle.

“…With a leg like this?”

Elaina let out a very quiet, hollow laugh.

Yes, that’s right.

…With a leg like this, it won’t be easy to escape from you.

If Sinclair Butler was called the disgrace of Edenbell, the profligate prince, then Elaina Aswald was referred to like this by people.

Elaina Aswald, the crippled parasite of the Aswald family.

Ever since her right leg was permanently ruined around the age of 7, it was a disparaging nickname that always followed her.

Having lost even her dream of escaping the Aswald family that abused her as a bastard child, and living day by day as a parasite, she was a pitiful woman who didn’t know when she would be sold off in place of a dowry.

The person who saved such an Elaina from the Aswald family under the pretext of marrying her was none other than the profligate Sinclair Butler.

“You said this to me then, Elaina. That you no longer needed any more of that kind of contract.”

“……”

“So you said you would stay by my side forever from now on. That you wouldn’t leave no matter what happened.”

Sinclair was right. Elaina had uttered those foolish words to him, who had always been cold, several times.

Unlike now, looking at Sinclair with eyes full of love, calling his name with a voice steeped in affection, and touching his warm embrace with trembling hands filled with excitement.

But it was all in the past.

“Are you thinking of breaking both of my legs completely this time, Sinclair?”

Elaina’s voice, uttered mercilessly, was full of ridicule.

“As if it wasn’t enough to make my fine right leg into this state?”

For a moment, a deep sense of defeat, like the dark night sky, passed over Sinclair’s face. He exhaled a shaky breath like someone whose heart had been torn to shreds.

She loathed how Sinclair was hurt by a single word from her, and yet it was ridiculous how he still couldn’t let go of the hand clutching her ankle in the end.

Elaina silently glared at Sinclair like that for a while. And soon, she continued speaking in a slightly trembling but extremely resolute tone.

“In the end, you always drove my life into the gutter.”

As if reaching out a hand to save me from all despair.

“Unfailingly, every time.”

13 years ago, and even now.

“And despite that, not only did you shamelessly come to me again when I couldn’t recognize you and deceived me, but now you’re trying to stop me from leaving?”

Sinclair no longer had the right to do that. No, to be precise, he never had it from the beginning.

You have to let me go.

If you don’t want to break me even more here.

Elaina’s lips trembled.

Yet Sinclair’s gaze was still fixed on Elaina.

“…Yeah.”

Sinclair spoke as if spitting out the words.

“I drove you into the gutter. Into an even worse hell.”

He ruined Elaina’s leg, and with that, shattered her long-held dream of one day escaping the Aswald family. And he disappeared, abandoning her.

He shamelessly appeared before Elaina again, just like the words he had just heard, and shook up her life once more as he pleased. As if handling a cheap toy.

But there was never a moment when it wasn’t sincere.

Even if there were countless days when he himself couldn’t even recognize his own feelings.

“Should I cut off my leg?”

At Sinclair’s plain words, Elaina glared at him.

“Should I get ruined the same way as you, Elaina?”

She knew that if she answered yes, that she wouldn’t leave if he did that, he would immediately draw his sword. And he would cut off his own leg without hesitation. Without a moment of wavering.

And he would strangle Elaina’s life, emotions, and body again like a rope. Uttering hellish words that now he was also ruined like her, that things had turned out the way she wanted, so she could never leave him again.

So Elaina did not give the answer he wanted.

“What meaning would that have for me?”

“……”

“Even if you do that, does it change the fact that I’m in hell right now?”

At the cruel answer, Sinclair bit his lip with all his might. Glancing at him, she saw his face, which was subtly nauseated, turning pale and stiffening.

She wanted the arrogant man in front of her eyes to be hurt beyond repair, to be in pain, to suffer. Because that was what Elaina had been subjected to by him for 13 years.

But his words that returned like a sharp arrow were enough to distort her face.

“Then do it like now.”

“…What did you say?”

“Say that you’ve come to hate me, that you can never forgive me again. Every day when you open your eyes. As naturally as breathing. You drive me into hell too like that.”

Sinclair’s golden eyes, still filled with Elaina, glowed as if he couldn’t give up on anything.

“Just, by my side. Until you die, for a lifetime.”

If he had driven Elaina to hell, he was confident that he too would be driven to hell by Elaina’s hand.

Even if the scorching guilt burned through his body like the fires of hell, and eventually burned away his heart without leaving a trace.

Even if they became each other’s shackles and mindlessly choked each other’s breath…

Sinclair needed Elaina.

“I love you, Elaina.”

Unlike how she had been so far, she flinched slightly.

“Please don’t leave me.”

…Lies.

Even though she knew very well that Sinclair’s words should not be believed, she hated herself for wavering even for a moment.

Perhaps the most ridiculous thing was not Sinclair, who was now speaking sincerely, but actually Elaina herself, who still couldn’t completely drive him out of her heart.

Foolishly, even after going through so many things.

But that would be the last time today too. Elaina tightly clenched her small, white hand under her trailing sleeve. As if strongly steeling her own heart.

“I have never loved you even once.”

In that moment, ridiculously, she felt Sinclair’s hand gripping her ankle tremble faintly.

“I was only trying to use you. That was all it ever was.”

So Elaina spoke with even more force.

“And of course, even now, I don’t love you.”

She would never again fall for Sinclair’s deceit and foolishly flail in the swamp of despair.

Nor would she foolishly and pitifully choke her own breath in the end because she couldn’t completely erase him, who remained as a dark stain in every part of her life…

“And forever in the future too.”

She saw a darkness as deep as the black night engulf Sinclair’s golden eyes. It seemed as if she could hear the sound of his heart shattering and falling to the dirty ground like hers had in the past.

Looking straight at Sinclair’s face, which had become as still as death, Elaina firmly resolved once more.

Always, without fail, coming to find her wearing the mask of salvation…

Unfailingly squeezing her neck.

The one who was once her only friend, her savior, and the man she loved.

And now, she would abandon in the most miserable way the you she wanted to kill.

…Just as you had always done to me.