“There’s no way that’s true, but I just had to ask. Could it be that we’re mistaken?”
Dietrian only looked at Yulken in silence. As the silence persisted, the smile disappeared from Yulken’s face.
“S-Surely, we didn’t make such a mistake? That person wasn’t the one who saved Enoch, right? She’s not the daughter of the Saintess, is she?”
Dietrian neither affirmed nor denied. Yulken’s face turned ashen, and he let out a horrified scream.
“How could this be! It can’t be true. Your Highness treated the Saintess’ daughter with such respect!”
In truth, until this morning, Yulken hadn’t fully believed Enoch’s words. He was the head of the diplomatic delegation, so he had to be cautious. There was still a possibility that Enoch had made a mistake.
It wasn’t until he saw the two of them together with his own eyes that he finally let go of his doubts.
In that brief moment, he could see just how much Dietrian cherished her.
Dietrian was doing it out of genuine affection, not out of obligation.
Only then did Yulken relax and join his colleagues in celebrating the birth of the new queen.
With a trembling voice, Yulken said, “This is unbelievable. How could this happen? We were all mistaken. Enoch mistook a person…”
“Enough, it’s not a mistake. Enoch’s words were true. She saved Enoch.”
“Oh, I see! So Your Highness married her instead of the Saintess’s daughter to help Your Highness…”
“And she is indeed the Saintess’s daughter.”
“What? What do you mean?”
Yulken looked at Dietrian in shock.
“What? How, is that possible? So, does that mean Enoch, or that woman just now, was that terrible witch?”
“A witch.”
Dietrian chuckled bitterly.
“We didn’t know that, and we waited for that witch all night! Why did she save Enoch in the first place? They didn’t give us any medicine or treatment! Did the Saintess command this? Did she do this to lower our guard on the Saintess’s orders? Don’t be ridiculous! Do they think we would be fooled by that? She’s cunning! She’s killed so many people!”
“It’s all untrue.”
“What?”
“It’s a rumor about her.”
Yulken blinked in astonishment.
“What are you talking about?”
Dietrian declared firmly, “She hasn’t killed anyone. She’s not a murderer. She merely took over her birth mother’s crimes.”
“What are you saying now?”
Dietrian spoke decisively, “She’s not the beloved daughter of the Saintess. She’s never received a mother’s love, not even once.”
“Your Highness, wait a moment.”
“Far from love, she’s lived her whole life being hated. In cruel abuse.”
“Abuse?”
“Let alone love, she’s probably never received anything but hatred in her life. She suffered terrible abuse.”
“Hah, abuse, you say?”
“She was abused by her birth mother, even to the point of shedding blood. I couldn’t do anything while witnessing that.”
Now, Yulken couldn’t interrupt. Dietrian continued to speak quickly.
“Everyone in the royal palace treated her with disrespect. Even the knights who guided us here did the same. They treated her as if she were a criminal. But she endured it as if she were used to it…”
Dietrian paused for a moment to calm his rising anger.
“Haah.”
Yulken looked at his lord with a gaping mouth, unable to say anything.
It was truly a series of shocks. Yulken was shocked to learn that the truth he had known all along was a lie, and he was shocked once again by Dietrian’s expression as he spoke.
‘Your Highness is showing such raw emotions.’
Since becoming king, Dietrian had lived by suppressing his emotions to the extreme.
He seemed to believe that if he wavered, the entire kingdom would waver as well.
Yulken found Dietrian’s obsession with this idea deeply regrettable.
“Your Highness is also human. Please, act as your heart desires. When you’re angry, be angry, and when you’re greedy, you can desire.”
Dietrian simply laughed off those words.
Dietrian, who had always been like that, was now angry. In this moment, he looked like a young man of twenty-three, not the ruler of a nation.
A king living as a human being.
It was the sight that Yulken had so desperately wished for, but he couldn’t fully rejoice.
‘Because it was the daughter of the Saintess herself who changed Your Highness.’
What if she had deceived him? Dietrian, who was looking at Yulken with suspicion, chuckled.
“I suppose you’re worried that I’ve been deceived.”
“That’s right, Your Highness.”
“Well, it’s hard to believe.”
Dietrian closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he said quietly, “Leticia took away my brother’s remains when the Saintess was not looking.”
* * *
Dietrian had not yet brought up the topic of his brother’s remains with Leticia. He had no time to do so.
In their first and second meetings, Leticia was unconscious, and in the third meeting, they had agreed to divorce immediately after their wedding vows.
In the fourth meeting, they couldn’t have a conversation due to the stares of the guests, and in the fifth meeting, she was drunk.
So, there was no opportunity to talk about the remains.
No, even if there were an opportunity, Dietrian had made up his mind to wait until Leticia brought up the topic first.
After all, if it wasn’t for her, there was no chance of recovering the item. He felt it was right to respect her decision regarding the remains.
‘I may not be able to wait for long.’
After realizing his own feelings, he wanted to do everything, no matter how small, to make her happy.
But today, seeing her watching him closely to an excessive degree, his thoughts changed.
If he couldn’t wait for a few days, he planned to be the one to tell her everything first.
‘To do that, I need to confess my actions one by one.’
There was a significant reason why he was hesitant to reveal the connection between him and her.
To talk about the remains, he had to confess his wrongdoings step by step. From embracing her without permission, entering her room, to guarding her room all night.
Even though those actions were meant for her well-being, he still didn’t have the courage to confess. He wanted to confess after their relationship had solidified.
‘So, just a few more days.’
He wanted to postpone it for a few more days.
“Re… remains?”
Only now did Yulken regain his composure and ask in astonishment.
“You mean the remains of Lord Julios that the Saintess placed in the Central Temple?”
“That’s right.”
Dietrian nodded.
“I saw it with my own eyes. She took away the remains.”
Yulken was completely flabbergasted. Dietrian continued.
“She intended to whip her. If I had arrived a little later, it would have happened. Actually, it was already too late. When I arrived, she was severely injured and unconscious. Covered in blood.”
His whisper was incredibly quiet, but it didn’t lack anger.
“She must have lived like that her whole life.”
Yulken shuddered with a creepy feeling. He realized how deep Dietrian’s emotions ran, and he knew that he couldn’t do anything about it. In the end, Yulken shouted out with a feeling of ‘whatever.’
“I believe Your Majesty’s words. I am Your Majesty’s servant. I will do whatever Your Majesty desires, no matter which path you choose to take.”
He said this, even though he was afraid. But Dietrian had chosen Leticia. Therefore, he had to follow. That was Yulken’s way of serving his lord.
“Your Majesty has never been wrong for the past seven years. The nation has endured this far thanks to Your Majesty’s wisdom.”
Yulken said with strength.
“So, we must believe.”
He believed and followed his master’s choice without question. Loyalty was the path Yulken had followed throughout his life.
“Of course, not being worried at all would be a lie.”
Yulken cautiously spoke while watching Dietrian’s reactions.
“Whether the rumors about the Saintess’s daughter… I mean, Her Highness, were so wildly exaggerated.”
Leticia’s wrongdoing had spread far beyond the empire. If all those rumors turned out to be false, it meant that Leticia had lived her whole life with false accusations.
“A life spent under false accusations, enduring everyone’s hatred.”
Yulken couldn’t even imagine how much suffering that must have been.
“Verify for yourself whether the rumors are true or not. A day should be enough. It won’t be out of loyalty towards me, but because you’ll have to protect her as a person.”
“I appreciate you saying that, and it puts my mind at ease. I hope she turns out to be a truly good person.”
Yulken sighed in relief and nodded. At this point, he was more curious about what kind of person Leticia really was.
His naive lord had fallen for her so quickly.
‘If she turns out to be a truly good person, that would be great.’
As he thought this, Yulken furrowed his brow.
‘Josephina is truly the devil among devils.’
He couldn’t comprehend how a mother could do such things. Yulken simply couldn’t understand it.
“Children are a pain even when they’re not your own.”
When blood flows from a child’s body, tears of blood flow from a parent’s heart.
When his six-year-old daughter came home crying after being beaten by a friend, Yulken wanted to challenge that friend to a duel.
“Worse than a demon. Even demons would find my child beautiful.”
He shook his head and began to pray silently.
“Goddess, please. During my lifetime, allow me to witness that witch receive divine punishment.”
He was a citizen of the kingdom, but he prayed to the Goddess. Normally, a prayer was more effective when done close to the deity’s domain.
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