When Pride Fell At My Toes - Chapter 105



Only Noblemtl

#105. Another Nightmare
2024.04.14.

Enrico jumped up from his seat as if he was not satisfied with just asking. He

seemed like he would never move from his seat, but he reacted violently and approached Vivian.

In an instant, Enrico’s shadow loomed over Vivian’s head.

Of course, she had expected Enrico to react the moment Emilia was mentioned, but Vivian’s shoulders flinched at his reaction, which was more violent than she had expected. His

dull purple eyes regained focus, but now that he was looking down at her, his two eyes were emitting a sinister light, like someone who had been twisted somewhere.

“Tell me! Where is she?”

Strangely, he did not ask Vivian if it was true that Emilia was alive. His haggard complexion was still there, and his eyes were not lively.

But he didn’t show the slightest doubt when someone who died three years ago was alive, and he immediately started nagging her.

Of course, at first, she thought he would say something bad, so she started off by saying the business right away, but it was very unexpected.

“Ah… … . From Bailey.”

She stared blankly at him for a moment, then stuttered as she opened her mouth. During the brief silence, his face hardened terribly, showing signs that his patience was reaching its limit, so she instinctively blurted out the words.

It had only been less than ten seconds, but his mood gradually revealed his murderous intent as if he could not bear even that short moment, making her shiver.

“Bailey?”

“It’s a rural village in Carnt.”

Vivian squinted one eye slightly. She was answering his questions obediently, but her threatening attitude was annoying her.

No matter how influential the duke of Treano was, she was a princess of a kingdom, so she thought this kind of attitude was too much.

He had come to pay off a debt that he might have forgotten about.

She was about to look up at him, wondering if she should properly explain this, but she quickly lost her motivation.

“… … Are you really alive?”

Unlike before, his absent-minded muttering now seemed pitiful.

His face, which had looked as bleak as a dry sea, was now a mixture of emotions. The ominous expression from earlier was nowhere to be found, and his eyes, mixed with fear and hope, were shaking as if they were being swept by waves.

Enrico’s eyes looked like they wanted to run there right away if he knew the destination, but his feet seemed to be stuck to the ground and wouldn’t move.

After Emilia left, all that was left for Enrico was severe insomnia and terrible dreams. Even when his body finally passed out and he fell asleep, his sleep time was not long, and dreams always came.

Each dream was different.

Sometimes Emilia danced beautifully in front of him, and sometimes she smiled happily at him.

And there were also times when he had dreams where Emilia looked at him with disgust, spat out harsh words, or showed him the back of her head as she abandoned him.

That’s how Enrico was helplessly swayed by dreams that gave him both happiness and despair.

On days when his emotions were particularly shaken, he had dreams of the burning cabin where Emilia had left him.

Every time, Enrico jumped toward the cabin without hesitation, but he never found Emilia, and eventually woke up from the dream.

In a way, it was natural for the boundary between dreams and reality to collapse.

In the end, on days when he had happy dreams, he wanted to continue to cherish the afterglow, so he did nothing all day, and on days when he had nightmares, he acted in an extreme way to comply with them.

‘Is this another nightmare?’

That’s why even when Vivian came to visit, he initially thought it was a new dream.

If he could meet Emilia, he wanted to move right away before waking up, but because she didn’t respond right away, he wondered if she was doing this because she wanted to show him that she had given him hope and was trying to destroy it so miserably.

“It’s true. I saw it myself.”

But gradually, the thought that this situation might not be a dream began to cross his mind.

‘Reality?’

Enrico hesitated and took a few steps back. Emilia being alive? It couldn’t be real, but gradually, dreams and reality became indistinguishable.

‘I saw Emilia… … . Is she really alive?’

Finally, as if he didn’t know what to do, Enrico, who had been exhaling heavily and repeatedly closing and opening his eyes, quickly moved toward the door.

Through the door that had opened violently, he saw Fabio, who was startled. Without hesitation, Enrico searched through Fabio’s jacket pocket and pulled out a fountain pen.

“Your Majesty!”

Fabio, who wondered if he was making another extreme choice, ran towards him in terror and immediately grabbed Enrico’s arm that was holding the fountain pen.

But where did the strength come from? Enrico was still holding on and the cap was removed, and he stabbed the exposed nib into his left arm without hesitation.

It was a close call. Vivian, who had followed behind, screamed and grabbed Enrico, and Fabio also put all his strength into the hand he was holding, and fortunately the nib just grazed his left arm.

Crack, crack. Blood was flowing from the short cut, but it wasn’t a serious wound.

“Are you okay? First, the pen.”

“I’ll hold on. Take it out quickly!”

Unlike the two who were trying to snatch the fountain pen with serious faces, Enrico was just staring down at the wound on his arm.

“It hurts… … .”

“Your Majesty, first, stop the bleeding-.”

“… … Is this not a dream?”

“Yes?”

He obediently handed over the fountain pen, but since he had already acted impulsively, Fabio carefully tried to grab his wrist but stopped at the unexpected words. Vivian and Vapio’s gazes were fixed on Enrico’s blank face.

“Is this real?”

Enrico slowly raised his gaze, and Vivian was at the end of his gaze.

“Yes, it is real. It is not a dream, so look into my eyes and breathe slowly.”

Fabio answered a beat later. Since he had not been able to distinguish between reality and dreams several times before, he tried to calm Enrico down without panicking.

“… … So what you said is real?”

Enrico’s gaze became sharper. He glared at Vivian with an intense gaze, as if he wanted to get a definitive answer from her, as if he was going to make her pay if what she said earlier was a lie.

“Yes, it is real. I even confirmed that it is the same person!”

Vivian quickly nodded at his even more ominous aura than before. Fabio looked at Vivian and Enrico one after another as if he was wondering what she meant.

But there was no one to answer him, and Enrico pushed Fabio aside, who was blocking his way.

“Duke! Where are you going?”

Fabio chased after him in shock. Enrico shook off the hand that was trying to grab his bleeding arm, showing his impatience.

“To Bailey.”

He barely managed to answer in an urgent voice.

***

“One, two, three-points!”

The sound of clapping echoed in the small classroom. The small feet wearing pink toe shoes, centered around the bard in the middle, moved along the wooden floor to the beat, drawing lines with their fingertips.

“Stop. Shall we take a break?”

“Yes!”

The corners of the woman’s lips softened at the loud answer that sounded as if she had been waiting for it.

A faint vitality came to her slightly smiling face, and the platinum hair that swayed above her shoulders sparkled in the sunlight streaming in through the small window.

“Okay, let’s take a ten-minute break.”

“Ugh… …”

“Ten minutes? That’s too short!”

“Teacher, please let us rest for 30 minutes. It’s too cold today.”

“It’s cold, so we can’t rest for any longer. The sweat will cool down and my body will stiffen.”

“Eww, that’s too much.”

A gentle hand landed on the whining children’s heads.

“Instead, I’ll finish early today.”

“Huh, really?”

“Yes. Really.”

Waaaaah- Emilia’s calm eyes suddenly collapsed and opened softly at the children’s cheerful cheers.

The old creaking wooden floor, the small window shaking in the outside wind, the cool air seeping in little by little despite the fireplace being kept on. Everything was below standard, but her heart was still at ease.

Emilia watched the backs of the children chattering away in front of the fireplace, then slowly walked to the window. Traces of the snow that had fallen all night remained here and there.

The snow that had barely remained on the bare tree branches fell in the cold wind that continued to blow, and sunlight reflected on the frozen ground here and there.

‘Will it snow a lot tonight too… … .’

When I first came here, the sun was so hot that I thought it wouldn’t snow in the winter, but that wasn’t the case at all.

Coming to this village in the first place was an impulsive choice. Leaving Alessandro behind and leaving the cabin was easy, but after that I hesitated a bit.

Just in case, I had prepared a fake identity and some money while sorting out my parents’ assets, but when I was actually about to leave, I was worried about where to go.

The first priority was to leave the Kingdom of Treano as soon as possible. I crossed the border, following the names of the foreign countries that the person ahead of me had mentioned, but I realized belatedly that this was Princess Vivian’s kingdom.

Of course, I thought about going to another kingdom for a moment. However, Vivian wouldn’t have found me anyway, and Enrico might have been surprised and not expected that I would be so close.

So instead, Emilia decided to go to a village that was as far away from the capital of the Kingdom of Carent as possible.

‘… …I wonder if he’s okay.’

Her eyes, which had been quietly looking out the window, had deepened at some point.