Contract Marriage Interrupted - Chapter 71



Only Noblemtl

Episode 71. Truth (1)
2023.10.05.

In a room where the night had thickened,

Walter sat on the edge of the bed and stared at his wife’s face, who was lying face down and sleeping.

Even with her eyes closed, her swollen eyes that couldn’t be hidden showed that Odette had sniffled before falling asleep.

– You, you, ugh, really, are a bad person… … .

What was the reason? Did she cry after I teased her? No, I think she blushed and cried, asking how she could say such a thing after teasing her a little.

She looked so cute and adorable that he almost forgot to comfort her and did it again.

Walter had never been more proud of his strong reason than he was today.

The first night with Odette—not that night, but anyway—had made him much more impulsive and instinctive than he had imagined.

If he hadn’t been such a strong reason, wouldn’t he have fallen out long ago?

And instead of Odette simply criticizing him as a ‘bad person’, he might have received the divorce papers in front of him on the first day of their marriage.

‘Even so, I don’t intend to divorce you.’

In any case, there’s no need to assume something that hasn’t happened.

Thanks to Walter’s strong reason, instead of preparing the divorce papers, Odette glared at Walter and turned her back to him before falling asleep.

It was her own protest.

Even so, it was funny that she ended up turning over, since she would have been in bed anyway.

Thinking back to last night, she seemed to have tried to act as if she wasn’t naive in her own way, but how could it not be funny that she was acting naive in everything she did?

‘But she wasn’t completely naive.’

If Odette had just been naive, wouldn’t she have been in so much pain?

Walter’s gaze sank deeply as he looked down at Odette, who was sleeping.

It was because he remembered the conversation in the carriage on the way to Duke Ertmann’s residence.

-Don’t fool me, Walter. –

Odette’s gaze as she looked straight at him.

She was always ready to see Walter.

He was not lying, had no feelings, and had no reason to be shameless.

However, Walter needed some determination to meet Odette’s gaze.

He was lying to Odette, had countless feelings that could not be expressed in a single word, and could not be shameless.

The differences that had not been apparent at first glance became clear the moment Odette said those words.

Walter felt as if he had witnessed an invisible line being drawn in front of him.

He had an intuition that he would never be able to tell the truth with his own mouth, no matter what happened.

‘I wish you had hated me.’

Or maybe Odette had been a little less kind.

Then he would not have to feel such pangs of conscience about telling the truth without hesitation or deceiving Odette.

So Walter thought that if Odette had hated him all along, he might be able to reveal the truth someday.

At least until Odette brought up her childhood and her goals.

‘It was the first time I’d heard that story in two times.’

Odette was not one to talk about herself.

The fact that she was the first to talk meant that she trusted Walter that much.

It could also be seen as meaning that she had opened her heart to him that much.

Walter couldn’t bring up any truth in front of that gentle line of trust.

‘… … I guess I won’t have anything to say in the future.’

Walter didn’t have much to hide in the first place.

He had told everything he could, such as the superficial purpose of going to the masquerade ball and what he did there.

Walter had only lied about one thing.

Why couldn’t he tell Odette about the masquerade ball?

The reason was simple.

‘I couldn’t say that I went there to prepare for death.’

Because he was preparing for his own death.

* * *

An artifact that only three exist on the entire continent, commonly known as a holy relic.

There wasn’t much literature on it, and the records were also mixed and lacking in cases, so their reliability was very low.

However, all the records had one thing in common.

[A holy object is an object that grants the wishes of its target, and after about 1 to 2 years, the person who used the holy object goes missing.]

Although the method of use, the principle, and even the minimum qualifications and operating principles were unclear, there was only one reason why it could be treated as a holy object.

In reality, there were consistently people who had their wishes granted through the holy object.

And the fact that they all disappeared around the same time.

It was treated as a holy relic because it was an artifact with the great ability to turn back time.

Some people were desperate to use it even once, but Walter didn’t even know about the existence of this holy relic.

Until he got his hands on it at the place he went to die.

* * *

There is a story like this.

An illegitimate princess who had been living as a weed in the palace, when she was in danger of an unwanted marriage, she chose a suitable partner and proposed a contract marriage.

Most people think that this kind of obvious story will have a happy ending.

After all, the princess had her own thoughts, so she must have chosen a ‘suitable partner’ and proposed a contract marriage.

Until the beginning of her marriage, the princess believed that her marriage would be successful.

Her relationship with her husband was not bad, and her husband’s grandmother, her only in-laws, also liked the princess.

At least until the beginning of her marriage.

“I guess I made a mistake. I thought you would take good care of Louis and make him useful, but you always defend my husband… … .”

“Madam, that’s not it. I… … .”

“Shut up! If you can’t have children and can’t even take care of your husband, what use are you to this household!”

Her husband’s grandmother was displeased with her grandson’s unbridled lifestyle even after marriage, and all her anger was directed at the princess.

She began to be criticized for not being able to properly manage her husband and not being able to contribute to the family by producing a successor, so she was just a breadwinner.

The princess loved her new family quite a bit, so at first she made constant efforts to please her grandmother-in-law.

“Louis, will you come to the family dinner tomorrow? I told the grandma that you’re coming. You have to come.”

“When are you going to have children? I think the grandma is worried about the successor… … .”

But neither the husband nor the stepmother changed.

The stepmother was displeased with the princess and her grandson, and continued to harass them, and the more this happened, the more the husband went out.

He only got angry at the princess who kept calling him home, saying, “You’re trying to restrain me.”

“I don’t even want to see you, so go inside! I can’t eat food when I look at your face. I don’t need you anymore, so don’t show your face.”

One day, when she heard her stepmother’s complaint at a meal as usual and ended up throwing up all the food she had been shoving into her mouth,

the princess realized something was wrong.

This wasn’t the life she had wanted, living outside the palace.

But what was wrong with her?

Her husband wasn’t a bad person. He was busy with business, but he would always buy the princess a gift as an apology for leaving her empty seat.

The stepmother wasn’t a bad person either. She just disliked the useless princess.

‘Then, am I wrong after all?’

The princess was curious, but no one answered her.

In that way, she withered away day by day in the emptiness where the echoes of her questions could be heard.

The thought of living a long and thin life like the wild grass on the roadside had long since disappeared.

The princess gradually lost her place to lean on.

The half-brother who had been her only help was found dead one day, and the friend she had been close to had also gone far away due to an unavoidable marriage.

However, that did not mean that there were no hands that reached out.

“If you need help, you can ask me. … … Your brother asked me to ask you.”

There was a man who acted a little awkwardly, saying, “ If you need help, you can ask me. … … Your brother asked me to ask you.”

The man who always looked at her with eyes that said he couldn’t stand it.

He said he would help the princess, that he would make her happy.

However, the princess was already tired of holding his hand.

She was also tired of falling in love with someone new, and of the fact that her misfortune might hold someone else back.

This was the result of trying to escape reality with the help of others.

‘Will the next time be any different?’

If she had been able to make a little more normal judgment, the princess would have come up with a decent answer.

She was quite intelligent and possessed some remarkable abilities.

However, no one can save a person who has fallen into pessimism.

The princess’s mind was already broken due to the situation of being driven to the edge of a cliff and the death of her relatives.

Misfortune was eating away at her endlessly.

Sometimes, she felt like abandoning everything and running away, but there was no way the royal family would accept the divorce of the princess who had no support.

It was a contract marriage that was a complete failure.

The princess slowly and surely deteriorated, and eventually one day she jumped from the balcony.

It was a death that was neither impressive nor memorable.

Just one person.

Except for the person who had been secretly in love with the princess for a long time.

* * *

“Your Majesty, are you here again?”

Instead of looking back, Walter stabbed the thing he had stepped on.

Crush.

The blood-stained puddle splashed red water, and the sound of flesh being cut faintly rang in his ears.

　
It was already nothing more surprising to Walter.

And to Russell, the one who had called him.

Russell clicked his tongue as he looked around Walter.

This place, which seemed to be a small garrison originally set up for raids, was already scorched earth, with no living beings.

The only indication that people had lived here were the corpses strewn around.

In other words, all of them were already dead, but Walter stabbed each corpse in the heart as if to confirm that they were all dead.

Thanks to that, the forest that was covered in snow had long since turned red.

If it was cruel, it was cruel, and it was a persistent hand.

Russell sighed and took out a handkerchief from his bosom and handed it to Walter.

“Didn’t you say there wouldn’t be any fighting for a while? They are also people, and it wouldn’t be good to suppress them so cruelly.”

“Enough nagging.”

“You’re doing this because your body is hurting, Your Majesty.”

Russell sighed as if his heart was burning.

His master, Walter, had completely changed since the death of the 4th princess.