Chapter 138
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 138
On the day the news of Ernst's death arrived, the perfect life she had envisioned came to an abrupt end.
So she abandoned it without a second thought and never looked back.
Charlotte stared out at the garden where the lilacs had all withered. A wave of nausea washed over her, as if she were choking on the phantom scent of the flowers.
She turned as if to flee, nearly running back to the hall where the others were waiting. Then, she spoke to them.
"Let's call it a day. Abigail, do you wish to look around more?"
"...No, Marchioness."
Charlotte returned directly to Count Jerome's residence.
"Mother, what is it? Are you unwell?"
"No. I wish to be alone, so please leave."
After dismissing even Sabine, Charlotte gasped for breath, dragging her hands down her face.
She took a box from the safe. It was heavy in her hands, a final keepsake she had taken when she left the Reinhardt Marquisate.
With a click, she opened it. Inside lay the Marchioness's seal and insignia, a few pieces of jewelry, and a thick envelope.
The man who had never replied to the hundreds of letters she had sent had given her only this one. The letter, which had arrived near the end of his funeral, was so characteristic of him—right down to the envelope.
On the faded, old military stationery, the words "From Ernst von Reinhardt to Charlotte" were written in an elegant script.
The envelope was incredibly heavy. Charlotte turned it over. The wax seal was perfectly intact, showing no signs of ever having been opened.
Charlotte had kept this letter, unable to open it or throw it away. Her grip on it tightened. If there was anyone in the world she resented most, it was the man who had sent this letter.
"If only you hadn't gone to that war. I could have been a perfect wife, a perfect mother."
Her violet eyes smoldered with resentment.
"What did you gain from that war? You sacrificed not only your family but your very life for it."
That war had been one of pure attrition. Ernst had been a man determined to use his entire being as kindling, as if he couldn't bear to exist unless he was consumed by flames.
In a corner of her mind, a doubt always lingered: Did he know my true identity? But no matter how she thought about it, it was impossible.
"You never knew who I was or why I approached you. If you had, you're not the type of man who would have left me in peace."
He was cold and ruthless to the core. Oscar had inherited his cold-blooded nature from Ernst.
"So, you abandoned me."
Because she had always been a gentle wife. Ernst had cast aside the wife who loved him like a worn-out shoe. He must have gone to the battlefield purely for his own glory.
"I gave you a son. If I hadn't borne you a son, the Reinhardt line would have ended long ago. But what did I get in return?"
Charlotte shoved the letter back into the box.
"What I wanted wasn't a letter like this."
Then, she slammed the lid shut.
Any truth, any sincerity...
...was meaningless if it didn't contribute to her "perfect life."
*
A man entered the morgue on the outskirts of the capital. The morgue keeper saw him and immediately scowled. With a dirty hood pulled low over his face, the man looked like a common vagrant.
"Where do you think you're crawling? Get lost before I burn you to ash."
But the vagrant ignored him, striding inside and flopping into a chair. He then leisurely pulled out a cigarette and placed it between his lips.
"This bastard!"
Furious, the morgue keeper gestured to the incinerator worker who was just walking in.
"Hey, drag this guy out."
The incinerator worker bowed his head and approached the seated man. But as he reached for the vagrant, the vagrant paused, his hand halfway to lighting the cigarette. The incinerator worker’s own hand froze in midair.
The vagrant slowly raised his head.
His eyes, hidden beneath the hood, met the worker's.
"……!"
It all happened in the blink of an eye.
Slash, slash, slash-slash-slash.
The morgue keeper froze, his eyes wide in a waking nightmare.
Crimson blood sprayed from the incinerator worker's neck. Hot blood splattered everywhere. Stabbed before he could even blink, the man collapsed on the spot. A thick pool of blood began to spread out from under him.
"W-what..."
Having killed a grown man in an instant, the vagrant kicked the dead worker's arm aside. The kick knocked the worker's hand from inside his clothes, and a knife clattered to the floor.
"Should have checked before I killed him."
Peter scowled, stomping hard on the dead man's arm.
Only then did the morgue keeper realize who the vagrant was, his eyes widening in shock. At that moment, one of Peter's subordinates entered the morgue. He paused, taking in the splattered blood and the corpse.
"Is it... a Wolf?"
"I don't know. I was so pissed I killed him before I could check."
Still seething, Peter kicked the dead Wolf's body again. Nothing was going his way.
"This bastard, how long has he been here?"
"W-well..."
The morgue keeper stammered out an explanation. Peter cut him off, demanding all the morgue's documents for inspection. Nothing was missing from the records. They were organized perfectly by date, and among them was a paper bearing Sabine's handwriting. Still, an uneasy feeling lingered.
"Maybe he wasn't a Wolf?"
Peter squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them and gestured toward the corpse, which was beginning to stiffen.
"Burn it. And from now on, let no one else inside."
"Understood."
As the morgue keeper dragged the body away, Peter washed himself in the small bathroom provided at the morgue.
The cold water washed away the caked-on dust and blood, revealing scars carved into his skin over many years—marks of survival earned through countless crises. Some were from the Wolves, others from his time in the distant Danguk.
Yet he had survived, and everyone who had left a scar on him was now dead.
Peter calmed his mind, suppressing the lingering thrill of the slaughter.
"The one who laughs last will be me. I will be the one who triumphs in the end."
Once he was composed, Peter slowly circulated his mana. It flowed through his blood and seeped into his muscles, subtly altering his physical form.
A moment later, Peter pulled on a black dress, the sight of which made him sick. He donned a wig, and his Adam's apple, which couldn't be completely hidden even with mana, was concealed behind a stiff, high collar. After applying a touch of makeup, he was the spitting image of the Chief Lady-in-Waiting.
Not just his appearance, but his gait and even his slightest gestures were completely different. It was as if he had become another person entirely.
Now disguised as the Chief Lady-in-Waiting, Peter covered himself with a clean hood and boarded a carriage bound for the Royal Palace.
There was one other person riding with him.
"These are the documents you ordered to be prepared through the Sparrowhawk."
Peter took the papers. It was the report from the men who had raided Han Hong-heon's house. He had received it before, but at the time, he had been so enraged that the key was missing that he'd only skimmed it.
But now, as he reviewed the report again, details he had previously overlooked jumped out at him.
"A foreign woman with red hair? Foreign... where from?"
"She spoke the Norfolk Common Tongue. Her appearance matched as well."
"...So many of our men were killed by this one woman?"
"We raided the place when their main forces were away. We never imagined she'd be such a wild card. During our initial investigation, we thought she was just a governess for the family's youngest daughter."
"Youngest daughter?"
Peter thought of Han Hong-heon's only daughter and tilted his head.
"She shouldn't be at an age that requires a governess, should she?"
The subordinate looked up, searching his memory before speaking.
"The youngest daughter... seemed to live alone with just the governess. She was kept hidden away, so it was hard to get a good look at her, but her appearance was... strange, to say the least. She looked to be around twenty. She didn't look like a native of that country, nor did she look like a Norfolkian. I recall wondering if she was of mixed race."
"Mixed race? Around twenty?"
"Yes."
"What about the red ribbon in her hair?"
"Well, most young girls wear red ribbons."
At that, a report he had received during the festival flashed through Peter's mind.
"Her appearance made it difficult to pinpoint exactly which country she was from. She was a woman of exotic features, likely around twenty years of age. And she wore a ribbon of an unfamiliar style at the end of her hair—it looked like multiple layers of pointed red silk overlapping each other."
It was as if he'd been struck on the back of the head with a hammer.
"That red-haired woman... what was her eye color?"
"I apologize. It was the middle of the night, so I couldn't make out her eye color..."
But Peter wasn't listening.
"Theresia Wittgenstein."
He knew, with gut certainty, that it was her.
How many women with such distinctive red hair could possibly have the skill to slaughter his men?
Besides...
"Who are you, and where are you from?"
"...James Wittgenstein. I am from the Kingdom of Luxen."
He had reflexively given that woman's husband's name in response to Han Hong-heon's question.
"It's definitely her..."
Peter murmured, covering his mouth with a hand. A strange gleam flickered in his wide, shocked eyes. He slapped his knee.
"She went all the way there to find her husband."
His heart began to race. He felt as if he had just found the loose thread that would unravel the entire tangled mess.
"Theresia Wittgenstein was there. Right there..."