ICM Chapter 118

“I said… I didn’t want to.”

 

She was frightened. By the unfamiliar faces and their cold stares. She was even more terrified because she couldn’t even imagine what Marquis Maiheller was thinking or what intentions he had in sending her to this place.

 

“If you’re going to be this stubborn…”

 

The knights stopped walking and looked back the way they had come. The sound of hoofbeats was approaching from the distance.

 

“Who was supposed to come?”

 

It was a question directed at the maid, not Shafri. She became certain that the authority in this situation belonged to that woman, not Shafri. Shafri clutched tightly at the collar of her coat.

 

‘Who could it be? Drushia?’

 

She wished it would be him, and in this moment, she wanted to let go of all her desires and just run away.

 

“There’s no way.”

 

The maid frowned and craned her neck to identify the approaching figure. A black shape suddenly emerged from the darkening forest path. The person riding urgently toward them was someone everyone recognized.

 

“What are you all doing here?”

 

“Oh, brother?”

 

All the strength drained from Shafri’s body. Erwin glanced at her briefly, then shouted at the knights.

 

“The sun is setting, how long do you plan to stay on the road? Where did the porters go? What kind of headcount is this?”

 

“Young lord, what brings you all the way here?”

 

The knights’ faces became openly uncomfortable. It was quite an insolent attitude toward the young marquis. Sensing this, Erwin’s tone became harsher.

 

“Did I come somewhere I shouldn’t? I’m here to see my sister, what reason do I need?”

 

“These were the marquis’s orders. She will be staying with us in a quiet place for the time being.”

 

“I heard wild beasts broke through the fence there recently. If you don’t repair it properly, it’ll be difficult to stay there long. How could you bring Shafri there without checking in advance?”

 

This was news to them. The knights looked at each other with troubled faces.

 

“Since it’s late today, let’s go to the villa first and move to a different location tomorrow when dawn breaks.”

 

“Will you… be coming with us too, brother?”

 

“Of course, the sun is setting.”

 

Riding a horse on a forest path without a single light at night would be dangerous. At his words that he would naturally stay with them, Shafri breathed a sigh of relief.

 

“Shafri, come here. Those knights making a lady walk all this way. Really, they have no sense.”

 

At his fierce rebuke, the knights just stared at each other with hardened faces. Leaving those knights behind, Shafri took Erwin’s outstretched hand. Erwin pulled Shafri up in one swift motion and seated her in front of him.

 

Thump, thump—her heart was beating so hard that no more words would come. Sitting sideways, she quietly rested her face against Erwin’s chest. Erwin glanced at the white hands gripping him and urged his horse forward.

 

“Let’s go.”

 

Another knight took the maid behind him, and the party followed Erwin. The sky that had been showing deep blue light was now completely dark. It was a dark night with no moon.

 

****

 

“There don’t seem to be any other signs of activity.”

 

Talion’s knights who had gone to survey the surroundings returned one by one to report. Eight knights had accompanied Drushia. They wore black clothes instead of uniforms to conceal their identities, just in case.

 

“The personnel here won’t exceed five at most.”

 

“A Marquis’s lady is moving with such a small number?”

 

Drushia gazed at the building constructed on a distant hill, lost in thought.

 

He had passed through this place briefly long ago. He remembered being quite surprised to learn that this place was Maiheller’s villa.

 

Rather than a villa, it felt more like a well-built mountain lodge—a wooden house. It consisted entirely of a single-story main building, separate lodging for servants, and a warehouse.

 

“Wait here for now. If anyone comes out of the lodging, quietly subdue them.”

 

“Understood.”

 

Leaving the knights behind, Drushia approached the building alone. The building shrouded in deep darkness was completely dark throughout. There were surely people there, but they hadn’t even lit a brazier in the vicinity.

 

‘Not a single person guarding the main building.’

 

Seeing that the lights were out, it seemed the servants had already gone to sleep.

 

The wind blew continuously, making the blackened forest sway like waves. Thanks to this, the sound of footsteps on fallen leaves was buried in the forest’s noise.

 

His worry about where Shafri’s room might be was brief—there was only one window emitting light from inside the building. In front of the window from which dim light flowed, he could glimpse the interior through gaps in the curtains drawn inside.

 

‘Who?’

 

There were not one but two people visible inside the room. One was Shafri, who had brought him to this place, and the other was…

 

‘Could it be…?’

 

Even in the dim light, he could make out golden hair remarkably similar to Shafri’s. A man, no less. As far as he knew, there was only one man with such an appearance near Shafri.

 

Drushia quietly stepped back in bewilderment. So as not to wake the two sleeping people. However, unable to sort out his confused feelings, he looked back.

 

The behavior Shafri had shown at the marquis’s house, Marquis Maiheller’s attitude, her desperate clinging to talk of breaking the engagement, and the marriage decided hastily as if to cast her aside.

 

What had he been missing? As he pondered carefully, a thought suddenly occurred to him.

 

‘Weren’t those two blood siblings?’

 

They resembled each other so closely that he had never doubted it.

 

‘Since when?’

 

Shafri had occasionally had lovers before the engagement, but she had never been involved in any scandals.

 

‘Was that why Shafri desperately didn’t want to marry?’

 

He was confused. Not because Shafri had deceived him, but because he couldn’t understand the relationship between the two. Whether they were blood siblings or not, weren’t they bound together as family?

 

‘I keep getting blindsided.’

 

His heart was indescribably troubled.

 

Shafri had been someone who entered his sanctuary during a difficult time. When he realized that such a person had tried to use him, what Drushia felt was not betrayal but disappointment.

 

Though he hadn’t treated her warmly, the mere fact that she had sought him out during difficult times had been meaningful. At least it had been so for him, which was why he hadn’t been suspicious.

 

However, his reason, which had belatedly awakened, questioned their meeting from the beginning.

 

Igraine and Talion had gathered together near the accident site to hold a memorial service. Then they had to return to their respective territories and hold funeral services once more for those who had disappeared. Some with mangled remains, most burying empty coffins in the ground because even the bodies couldn’t be found.

 

The Maiheller marquis’s siblings had also come to the gathering attended by nobles from nearby territories. Erwin had come in his capacity as young marquis, but Shafri was different. A young girl of only ten had come all the way to Talion’s territory, where she had no usual contact.

 

All of it had been done according to plan. Marquis Maiheller had presented a beautiful young girl like a gift to a boy who couldn’t get his bearings due to his sense of loss.

 

If Drushia hadn’t been so naturally wary, if there hadn’t already been someone else in his heart, the two might have married long ago.

 

‘I didn’t realize it then.’

 

That he had been completely captivated not by Shafri who had approached him at the funeral, but by a young girl he had met at the memorial service. That the girl with deer-like black eyes who had wept so pitifully had already lodged like a thorn in his heart.

 

That was probably the beginning. At least in this life.

 

Drushia crouched behind the bushes and picked up a small pebble rolling on the ground. He couldn’t just return like this. Having come this far, he had to meet Shafri.

 

Tap—the pebble flew toward the window, leaving a small impact sound before falling to the ground.

 

Shortly after, the sound of the main building’s wooden door opening carefully could be heard. Click—the door closed and a slender silhouette looked around in the darkness. It was Shafri.

 

Thud—another pebble flew toward Shafri’s feet as she peered into the darkness.

 

“Dru?”

 

A large figure rose from behind the dark bushes like a beast stretching. Shafri startled and stepped back.

 

“This is something even I didn’t expect.”

 

At the heavy voice, Shafri squeezed her eyes shut and opened them. The thought that he had looked into the room made it impossible for her to deny anything.

 

“From your expression, it doesn’t seem like I misunderstood.”

 

Shafri turned her face away. Even though it was too dark to see expressions clearly, it was difficult to accept Drushia’s sharp gaze.

 

“It’s cold. Let’s go to that warehouse and talk.”

 

“Isn’t there anyone guarding this place?”

 

“No one will wake up tonight.”

 

“That sounds like they won’t be able to wake up.”

 

Shafri didn’t answer. There was no need to explain in detail that she had made arrangements beforehand to meet Drushia. Shafri walked toward the warehouse building first, and Drushia followed.

 

The moment the warehouse door opened, a musty smell rushed out along with the cool chill. Shafri went into a corner and wrapped her arms around her shoulders. Even though she wore a coat, the dawn air was cold enough to make her shiver.

 

“You’re not of Maiheller blood?”

 

Drushia asked as he closed and barred the door. His blue eyes were so cold they were difficult to meet, so Shafri averted her gaze.

 

“I met the marquis when I was seven.”

 

The reason she had been chosen from an orphanage in a rural territory was one thing: she was a beautiful child who resembled the Maiheller bloodline.

 

“Back then, I thought he was my life’s savior.”

 

Little did she know it would be stepping into an inescapable gutter.

 

“Since when?”

 

It was a question without context, but she knew what he was asking.

 

“You don’t need to know.”

 

“Perhaps…”

 

Had she been receiving unfair treatment? But Drushia swallowed his question.

 

Even though she had clearly said no one would wake up, her gaze kept glancing aside, and he saw not fear but another emotion in those glances. An anxious, worried expression. While she herself was the one in urgency, who was she worrying about?

 

“I know you… won’t understand. I don’t expect you to.”

 

It was a relationship no one could understand. The immoral relationship between a child of unknown origin brought from an orphanage and the sole heir of a marquis house.

 

Marquis Maiheller, whom she had thought was her savior, was a monster, and his son was excessively ordinary. Shafri had inserted herself into the gap created by the father-son conflict.

 

The naive young lord of the marquis house had fallen for the cunning girl’s manipulation and had been an excellent ally all this time. But now that relationship had become Shafri’s shackle.

 

Drushia sighed, expressing his complex feelings. This wasn’t a problem he could do anything about.

 

“You knew, didn’t you? That Marquis Maiheller was targeting me. Not just me, but Igraine too.”

 

Last time he had been too urgent about saving Iben to ask. But he had wanted to ask at least once.

 

“Poisoning me, and using that to take my seal and forge official documents—that was you and the marquis’s doing, wasn’t it?”

 

“I… didn’t know. I just did as I was told.”

 

“You didn’t not know—you anticipated it but didn’t care, didn’t you?”

 

“You can say that because you don’t know anything. You don’t know what my situation is like, how I’ve lived!”

 

Shafri, who had been anxiously avoiding his gaze, suddenly shouted. The faint guilt that had been visible instantly disappeared.

 

Shafri had no choice. That had simply been her way of surviving. Her guilty feelings didn’t take priority over her survival.

 

Watching Shafri shout boldly, Drushia let out a hollow laugh.

 

“Your misfortune can’t be a legitimate reason for harming others. If you had really wanted to, you could have avoided this situation and run away anytime. The fact that you didn’t means you also want something.”

 

Shafri raised her eyebrows and closed her mouth. She had believed she was hiding her true intentions, but Drushia knew much more about her than she thought.

 

How cold, selfish, and capricious Shafri’s personality was. At the same time, how cleverly she could act.

 

“Yes. You’re right. There’s a reason I can’t just run away. But you don’t need to know what that is, do you?”

 

Drushia quietly looked down at Shafri.

 

‘Why is she so desperate?’

 

He had helped her escape from the worst possible marriage. And when he offered to find her a better match, Shafri had refused flatly.

 

If Shafri had wanted to escape from Marquis Maiheller’s grasp, Ashika would have found some other way to help her. Yet Shafri had chosen to remain with the Maiheller marquis house.

 

‘Is it because of young lord Maiheller?’

 

Love and hate? A desire for revenge?

 

No. Being unable to pull away despite knowing the danger might actually be love.

 

Someone she could never have. Reality bound them as siblings, and behind that stood a monster-like marquis. Yet such foolish inability to give up.

 

It felt like cold water being poured on his anger. Probably Shafri, knowing her situation, had needed help.

 

“You said you know who killed Lord Oclein? Who is it? Is that also Marquis Maiheller’s doing?”

 

“That’s not it. It was probably an accident.”

 

“An accident? A murder at an imperial palace banquet was an accident?”

 

Shafri took a deep breath and faced Drushia. This was the important part. She had to somehow gain Drushia’s cooperation with the information she possessed.

 

“Lady Schwern is currently imprisoned at the marquis’s residence.”

 

“What?”

 

Drushia was momentarily speechless. It was a completely unexpected person.