§ Past §
“What…?”
Annecy Bethelgius repeated. With a somber, sunken face, he repeated what Exer had said.
“Lady Goyo Rubiette has passed away.”
“Wait a minute, passed away…?”
Annecy’s face twisted. A castle that would have been completed soon crumbled meaninglessly. Gritting his teeth and controlling his emotions, he asked.
“Did Terio Alte finally make a move?”
“No. I heard it was an accident.”
“An accident, coincidentally the same words used for what happened in Bethelgius.”
As if aiming for it. Annecy twisted his lips.
“What was the cause of death?”
“It was said she took Silver Bell, a blood pressure-lowering drug. She died from a heart attack caused by side effects, without time to take any action.”
“Why was she looking for a blood pressure-lowering drug?”
“It is said she usually took oral contraceptives for birth control. That is… Snowdrop.”
Annecy’s fingertips, which were tapping the desk, stopped.
It wasn’t uncommon for blood pressure to rise as a side effect of contraceptives, and it wasn’t unreasonable to take a blood pressure-lowering drug because of that.
But if that contraceptive was Snowdrop and the drug taken to lower blood pressure was Silver Bell…
A certain name flashed through Annecy’s mind.
“Snowdrop and Silver Bell, a heart attack due to side effects. Can I believe this is just a coincidence?”
“No one in Solaris knows, do they? Dopeche and Solaris are distant countries, and even in Dopeche, few know him. Is it not something we have hidden?”
“I knew you weren’t smart, but it seems you’ve become a stone.”
Though it might be concern on his part, from Annecy’s perspective, Exer’s meddlesome remarks were annoying.
If only he did his job well. Annecy clicked his tongue inwardly.
“Do you know who Goyo Rubiette’s mother is?”
“Azla Rubiette… do you mean?”
“Yes, her maiden name was Azla Valverdi. Valverdi from Dopeche. And I heard Azla’s cause of death was also an accidental overdose of Silver Bell.”
Valverdi!? Exer’s mouth opened wide.
As if driving a nail, Annecy spoke in a strong tone.
“It is not a coincidence. It is not an accident either.”
Goyo Rubiette probably chose to die. The truth known externally as Azla Rubiette’s accidental death, was it something only Azla’s young daughter knew?
Telling a thirteen-year-old child that she would commit suicide, wasn’t that excessively cruel? Annecy swallowed a small bit of sympathy.
“In any case, things have gotten terribly tangled. It was something that would have been resolved soon, but why she came all the way here to commit suicide, I don’t understand.”
Annecy narrowed his eyes.
He couldn’t be sure how much Goyo Rubiette knew, but it was likely up to the point that combining the two drugs would cause a heart attack.
Beyond that, even Azla herself didn’t know the details.
Goyo Rubiette’s death was unfortunate, but the fact that it was through Silver Bell was a small boon. Annecy stood up and put on his coat.
“We need to receive the body from Alte.”
“The body?”
“Exer, you talk too much. Do I have to report every little thing I do to my subordinates? Perhaps you should become the head of Valverdi instead.”
Faced with his master’s sarcastic words, Exer could only keep silent. Apologizing would be worse than saying nothing.
Leaving the silenced Exer, Annecy finished preparing.
Things had gone awry, but he couldn’t just abandon it. Perhaps it could be handled in another way.
The eyes of the Grand Duke of Bethelgius darkened. No matter what, he had to keep his promise. Even if it meant throwing away everything he had gained.
* * *
At the Alte house, after the funeral, Terio stood looking down at the coffin where the deceased lay.
The day to bury Goyo Alte in the family grave approached, but Terio couldn’t bear to send the coffin away.
He looked at the corpse, preserved by anti-decomposition magic, several times a day. The thought of sending Goyo to a place where he could never see her again was heart-wrenching.
Even though it was already certain that Goyo would never return, the lingering attachment stubbornly clung to the resting one.
As Terio’s eyes welled up again, a commotion arose outside.
“You cannot go in!”
“Get reinforcement, immediately!”
What was this disturbance in the place where Goyo rested? Frowning, Terio moved to check the situation, but the door to the hall opened.
The person who entered was someone who should not be there, a red-haired Grand Duke. The sorrow in Terio’s chest turned into a blazing flame.
“What is this rudeness, Grand Duke?”
“I came to pay my respects to the deceased. And also to ask the Duke something.”
“I did not permit you to enter here. Leave at once.”
“I don’t think I need the Duke’s permission.”
The deceased is not the Duke, after all. Unable to tolerate the blatant mockery, Terio drew his sword. The blade shone blue.
At that moment, the knights who had failed to stop the Grand Duke gathered at the funeral hall.
“This is your last warning. Leave.”
“I can’t understand it. In life, you treated her so harshly and coldly, but now you cling to her coffin and shed tears.”
“Do not insult Goyo, Grand Duke!”
“It is not I who is insulting her, but you.”
Annecy Bethelgius walked forward, ignoring the blade pointed at him.
The knights, unable to intervene, watched with burning eyes. Unable to hold back any longer, Terio Alte swung his sword. The only hint of restraint was that he didn’t aim for the neck.
But the sword didn’t even touch the Grand Duke and broke at the hilt.
Terio’s eyes widened. Although rumors were rampant about Annecy Bethelgius’s superhuman strength, he had never witnessed it firsthand and thought the rumors were exaggerated.
He had vaguely assumed that Annecy’s actual strength would be similar to his own or just slightly superior. However, Terio couldn’t even see the moment his blade was broken, revealing a significant gap between them.
“How…”
“The maids failed to address the master properly, and the butler from Dopeche knowingly provided poison to his master.”
Unperturbed by Terio’s agitation, the Grand Duke took another step forward. Terio Alte, trying to block him again, was frozen by his words.
“Is that all? You manipulated Goyo Rubiette into marriage, only to change your heart later, becoming infatuated with her younger sister, Melissy Rubiette, and blaming Goyo for her death, throwing tantrums.”
In front of me, you couldn’t even say such grand words.
Finally reaching Goyo Rubiette’s coffin, Annecy bowed and placed a lily on top. The name Goyo Alte was written there, almost laughably. Annecy openly ridiculed Terio Alte.
“It’s amazing that you can even say the word ‘insult,’ Duke Alte.”
“Don’t touch her! Are you planning to dishonor the deceased Goyo because she’s a Rubiette!?”
“That is what you are doing.”
Annecy swiped his finger over the part of the name that said ‘Alte.’ As if by magic, the ‘Alte’ part disappeared, leaving only ‘Goyo.’
“By the way, Duke, you’ve been sticking around here, but isn’t it time for you to leave?”
“What nonsense…”
“I’m talking about Ellie. She must be waiting for you anxiously.”
Terio’s eyes shook violently.
…How does the Grand Duke know about that? Unable to hide his agitation, he asked.
“What are you talking about?”
“The things that happened to Goyo, and about Elli, how do you know about them?”
Although rumors about his household and Elli circulated, they weren’t so detailed. Since a while ago, his heart, pierced by the truth, was pounding anxiously.
The Grand Duke, looking down at the coffin, turned to Terio and smiled nonchalantly.
“It’s because I have a good memory. At first, I thought she had a common appearance, but Melissy Rubiette’s features are quite rare, so it took some effort to find her.”
That means…
“We eventually found it, but even then, the eye color was different. I was a bit worried, but fortunately, it didn’t seem to be a big issue for you.”
“You, you dare!”
“Do not shout. I am not someone so insignificant as to hear ‘dare’ from someone like you.”
Terio, having lost his reason, rushed forward with a broken sword, but was effortlessly repelled and crashed into the door.
Breathing became difficult as if his ribs were fractured, and Terio panted heavily. The knights, who had been observing the situation as they had not been granted permission to intervene, were horrified and rushed to Terio.
“Your Grace, the Duke!”
Some of the fiercely loyal knights tried to charge at the Grand Duke in anger, but an invisible wall prevented them from even entering the room. The sound of teeth grinding echoed ominously from all around.
Unperturbed by the menacing stares aimed at him, Annecy tapped the coffin with his fingertip.
“Falling in love simply because she resembled Melissy Rubiette was honestly so easy that it was boring. Was it really love, or was it an obsession with something you couldn’t have?”
“Why, why did you do it, why…”
“To separate you from Goyo Rubiette.”
Terio’s face twisted. Did he attach someone resembling Melissy to him for such a trivial reason? Did Goyo Alte have to commit suicide for such a petty reason?
Though it was Terio Alte himself who was deceived by the futile plot, if there had been no initial cause, none of this would have happened.
If the Grand Duke had not done such a thing, if Ellie had not approached him, Goyo would not be lying in that coffin now. She would be smiling faintly beside him, as always…
His rage, now with someone to blame, burned fiercely. It flared up shamelessly, as if even physical pain had vanished.
“I thought it would be easy to get you divorced if you found a new lover. Isn’t that your specialty? Changing your mind and discarding without mercy when you do. Even if Goyo Rubiette resisted, she had nowhere to go, so it would have been easy to kick her out of Alte.”
Though even he did not expect it to turn out this way. Annecy shrugged, swallowing the latter part of his sentence.
He had rambled on long enough. Knowing it would be troublesome if he dragged it out any longer, Annecy Bethelgius decided to wrap things up.
“Anyway, what’s done is done, so I’ll take the body.”
What…?
Before Terio could comprehend Annecy’s words, the coffin in which Goyo lay disappeared from Annecy’s fingertip. Terio blankly stared at the funeral hall, having lost the one he was to mourn.
Terio Alte then urgently tried to rush into the hall, but after hitting the wall, he could not enter it either.
Terio’s hand furiously pounded the intangible wall. But he could not get any closer to where Goyo had been.
With trembling hands, Terio drew a knight’s sword from beside him, enveloped it with energy, and swung it. But even that was blocked meaninglessly.
He could do nothing. Terio Alte screamed in helplessness.
“Give Goyo back, give her back, please, please!”
“Weren’t you the one who abandoned her?”
With a face that could not imagine witnessing someone screaming in agony, the Grand Duke answered dispassionately.
“Instead of decaying in the arms of someone unworthy, it’s a thousand times better for her to be in my hands, where I can do something.”
“Do you intend to turn Alte into an enemy? Do you think you can survive long after destroying Rubiette and turning Alte into an enemy as well?”
“I do not worry about such useless things. Since the game is already broken, I plan to overturn everything. Whatever I do now, it will all become nonexistent. It’s bittersweet to think that all my efforts will disappear.”
Become nonexistent, what does that mean…? Terio’s eyes trembled with confusion, but the Grand Duke had no intention of answering his question.
“Unlike you, I hold promises in high regard. That’s all I have to say.”
With a final low farewell, Annecy Bethelgius disappeared as well.
Only then could Terio and the Alte knights step into the funeral hall, but it was already a meaningless act.