ERTHMB Chapter 160

The Beginning of Downfall

A bitter taste lingered in her mouth. Helena turned her head toward the window, trying to dispel her emotions.

Ian was standing across the street—she didn’t know how long he’d been watching. When their eyes met, he raised his hand high and waved. Helena waved back, a small gesture.

“You… will only smile when you’re beside him.”

Drawn by Eugene’s voice, Helena looked straight ahead. She realized she had been smiling from the gradually relaxing muscles in her face.

When her smile had faded to just a faint curve at the corners of her lips, Helena lowered her eyes and spoke.

“You know, Eugene. I don’t expect you to understand now, but… I just wanted to live. I wanted to live properly, to breathe for myself.”

“…….”

Helena’s gaze briefly shifted to Ian, who was striding across the street toward them. Sunlight that had pierced through the complex buildings illuminated him.

He was dazzlingly radiant, like a hero from a fairy tale coming to rescue a princess held captive by a dragon. A light that was salvation by its mere existence.

“But that man gives me that. What I couldn’t achieve even after clinging to it my whole life, that man gives me so simply.”

Helena looked at Eugene again. The Eugene before her eyes seemed strangely dark all over. His expression was distorted, as if laughing yet crying.

But Helena smiled clearly. Eugene’s stains could no longer color her.

She smiled as brightly as she could, as if this were the last moment she would ever smile while looking at him.

“So how could he not be precious to me?”

****

On a pitch-black night when even the moon had been swallowed by darkness, two shadows swiftly made their way through the dark forest.

The man leading by a hair’s breadth was considerably exhausted, flailing greatly and gasping for rough breaths.

“Huff, huk, huff…!”

Tears blurred his vision as he wondered how he, who had merely offered what was desired in exchange for money, had fallen to the state of being chased by an assassin.

‘Damn old hag. You used me well whenever you needed me, but now that you might get caught, you’re abandoning me right away?’

The apothecary parted the undergrowth in a fluster, inwardly pouring out curses toward Christine.

Above his head, he occasionally heard the sharp sound of wind brushing past leaves and the sound of feet landing. It was the presence of an assassin leaping long distances between trees.

Crack!

“Eek!”

The apothecary, who had been running frantically, abruptly slammed on his brakes. It wasn’t of his own will. A dagger that had grazed his cheek had pierced through his foot and stuck into the ground.

“Ahhh, aaah…!”

The apothecary pulled out the blade with difficulty while groaning. But in this condition, it was impossible to run any further.

In front of him as he trembled, the assassin jumped down from a tree and landed.

“P-please spare me, if you just spare me I’ll do anything…!”

Though he begged until his hands wore out, the assassin drew another sword. Even in the surroundings without a speck of light, the blade aimed at his neck gleamed.

Finally sensing death, the apothecary squeezed his eyes shut.

Thunk.

The sound of something being pierced was vivid. But incredibly, his body was unharmed. The apothecary slowly opened his eyes again.

The tip of a blade thrust through protruded from between the chest of the assassin who had been about to kill him. Someone had attacked him from behind.

Was there a faction that needed to save him? Yes, perhaps it was reinforcements sent from Helena Evergale’s side to stop Christine.

The frozen apothecary’s brain turned desperately.

Swoosh!

At the same time, the sword was pulled out and the assassin’s body tilted and collapsed to the side. The apothecary could finally see the identity of his savior.

But betraying all expectations, it was another masked assassin.

“Please spare me, please…!”

To think someone had been this close without him sensing even their presence. The apothecary turned even paler and crawled backward desperately.

The assassin approached step by step, still gripping the sword dripping with fresh blood.

Eventually, when the apothecary’s body stiffened completely from fear,

The assassin suddenly lifted and removed their mask.

And what was revealed were brilliant golden locks that didn’t match the savage slaughter.

The apothecary stared blankly at them fluttering in the night breeze.

Natasha smiled, stretching her lips as if responding to his surprised gaze.

“The game of hide-and-seek is over now, sir.”

*

***

Time flew by like an arrow until the next trial.

At least, that’s how it was for Christine.

As Christine entered the courtroom, she asked the soldier following her one last time.

“That bastard.”

“I apologize. Not yet…”

“Not yet, not yet! The trial is about to start and you’re still saying ‘not yet’? You should have at least brought back a few strands of his hair!”

The apothecary, whose head she had expected to receive easily, had ultimately escaped the encirclement and disappeared. The soldier whispered quietly to her as she erupted in frustration.

“However, the assassin we sent is dead. It seems the other side made their move as well.”

Christine turned her head toward “the other side.” The silver-haired man, Helena, and Eugene were sitting in the gallery.

One day, Eugene had drastically reduced the number of attorneys he had assigned to her. Not stopping there, he gave Helena manpower equal to what he had taken away and made them cooperate. He also stopped fabricating and passing over evidence.

Christine couldn’t understand Eugene, who had now become part of their side.

‘For what reason did he change his mind so suddenly? Why on earth?’

Christine carefully reviewed her memories from the beginning to see if she had missed something. Then a scene suddenly came to mind.

The day Eugene had visited her family home with the investigator.

Originally, there had been two infertility drugs in her room. But that day, Eugene had only burned one.

She had no memory of moving or disposing of the remaining one elsewhere. Yet if its whereabouts were unknown…

‘Could it be Eugene?’

Christine examined Eugene as he sat at the defendant’s table. As always, he sat with his arms crossed, observing with an inscrutable, expressionless face.

Though his appearance of sticking close to Helena as if acting as her shield was unpleasant, Christine shook her head vigorously, trying to deny the suspicion that had arisen.

‘No, it can’t be. That everything up until now was a trap he set, that’s impossible. No matter how disagreeable you find me, you’re my son, Eugene. You’re a child with his blood, Aslan’s blood flowing through you.’

As soon as she forcibly suppressed her anxiety, the trial began.

The attending physician who had attended the previous trial appeared again as the first witness. This time as a witness for the prosecution.

The prosecutor presented as evidence the physician’s testimony that he had only prescribed the proper dosage and periodically examined her body to confirm there were no abnormalities, along with medical records to support this.

The midnight seizures shifted to being intermittent shocks due to extreme stress.

Up to this point, Christine still scoffed. From the moment Eugene had let go of her hand, this much had been predictable.

Even when the prosecutor called the next witness, Christine could feel reassured.

“Witness, please come forward.”

Because Natasha, who had been scheduled to attend as a witness, did not appear.

Though the prosecutor repeated the call, the area in front of the waiting room remained quiet. Only then did Eugene straighten his back, which had been leaning, and furrow his brow. It was Natasha, who until just a few hours ago had promised she would definitely appear as a witness.

Then a guide rushed over, whispered in the prosecutor’s ear, and withdrew. The prosecutor cleared his throat and spoke to the murmuring space.

“Witness Natasha will be absent due to health reasons. We ask for your understanding as her physical condition is not good, having miscarried not long ago.”

Eugene’s furrowed brow deepened.

Instead, the prosecutor picked up a teacup from the tray the guide had brought and moved in front of Christine.

“Do you know what this is?”

At the sudden question, Christine maintained her silence. A strangely familiar scent pricked at her nerves.

The prosecutor turned toward the audience and held the teacup high.

“This is tea laced with lucose poison, with which the defendant has created numerous victims without a shred of guilt.”

“Objection!”

Christine’s attorney stood up and immediately pressed about the existence of evidence. The prosecutor returned to his seat, set down the teacup, and brought a seemingly ordinary tea leaf container to the judge.

“Witness Natasha submits as evidence tea leaves she received from the defendant, just as Helena Evergale did in the past.”

Christine secretly smiled with satisfaction. Those tea leaves were indeed what she had given to Natasha. However, they weren’t what had disappeared from her family home.

A foolish woman whose body was heated with desire to secure the position of mistress to the Grand Duke—it would be enough to claim she had colluded with Helena to fabricate this. Even if adopted as evidence, if it lacked validity, it would be worth less than a tissue used to blow one’s nose.

As Christine quietly raised the corners of her mouth, Eugene leaned toward Helena and asked quietly.

“The apothecary.”

“Ah, that…”

Just as Helena cautiously opened her mouth, the prosecutor called out.

“Next witness, please come forward.”

A shadow moved slowly from the entrance to the waiting room.

Christine’s complexion turned deathly pale in an instant as she watched the situation leisurely.

Helena followed the slowly moving man with her eyes as she answered Eugene.

“He came to us first, begging to confess.”

The apothecary sat in the witness stand with the guide’s help, limping on one leg. A bandage was wrapped around his neck. From the red stains spreading here and there, it seemed he had suffered quite a deep wound.

Eugene nodded slightly at Helena and withdrew his leaning body. When Helena looked forward again, Eugene’s gaze moved past Helena toward Ian.

Perhaps sensing the murderous stare, or having heard the conversation, Ian shook his head to indicate it wasn’t him who had threatened the apothecary.

Meanwhile, Christine tried to process the prosecutor’s examination of the witness with her eyes bulging as if about to pop out.

As soon as the prosecutor finished his simple leading questions, he immediately dug into the main point. He picked up the tea leaf container again and thrust it before the apothecary’s eyes.

“This is the tea leaves that both the victim and witness Natasha identically received from the defendant. Lucose juice is applied to the surface, and with continuous consumption, it has effects no different from poison. Have you ever prepared this?”

“…Yes. I’ve made it whenever I received requests since five years ago.”

“For what purpose did you prepare it?”

“While lucose juice can cause many problems with physical abilities, I primarily intended it for infertility purposes.”

The audience became noisy.

The prosecutor raised his voice regardless and asked.

“On whose orders did you act?”

The apothecary didn’t look toward Christine even once throughout his testimony.

He trembled as he clenched his hands together, then finally squeezed his eyes shut and spoke.

“It was under the orders of Madam Christine Evergale.”