Chapter 70
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 70
Startled, she glanced down to see a cloudy fluid trickling down her leg. In a panic, she snatched her crumpled dress from the floor to wipe herself clean, then hastily threw on her coat to cover her body. She was about to rush back to her room when her eyes fell on the disheveled blanket.
“And what am I to do if you soil the very blanket I sleep under?”
The words, which had felt like a dagger to the heart, echoed in her ears. Without a second thought, she tore Oscar’s blanket from the bed. Then, cradling the heavy quilt—so large she could barely wrap her arms around it—she hurried out of his room.
Fortunately, the study was empty, its curtains drawn tight against the day. Her own room, just past the study, was the same. Seo-ah dropped Oscar’s blanket to one side and quickly stripped the one from her own bed.
She didn’t know why she thought to swap them. It was a frantic, desperate impulse she couldn’t explain. Hurriedly gathering her own blanket, she returned to Oscar’s room. Relieved to see he hadn’t yet emerged from the bathroom, she practically ran to the bed. She did her best to smooth out the rumpled sheets and placed the pillow that had fallen to the floor back in its place.
Her hands were shaking so badly she could barely function. In fact, her entire body trembled.
Back home, she would have simply folded the blanket and set it aside, but things were different here. Seo-ah spread her blanket over the bed, meticulously smoothing it out until not a single crease remained.
Done.
Like a fugitive, Seo-ah fled Oscar’s room. But as she passed through the empty, heavily curtained study and opened the door to her own room—
“...”
“Ah… Lady Barbara…”
She ran straight into Lady Barbara, who was standing in the middle of the room she had assumed would be empty.
*
It was a time when obituaries arrived daily. It wasn't just the junior agents; even seniors who had once seemed like invincible, absolute figures were reported dead. There were no grand funerals. There was simply no time for such things.
Barbara immersed herself in the war, losing all track of day and night.
To live, she had to kill, and she possessed a natural talent for it. In the heat of battle, she was never pushed back, not even when surrounded by men twice her size.
When the war first broke out, Barbara Wald had been a low-ranking agent in the Backup Team of the Combat Team. But as the conflict raged on, she climbed the ranks faster than anyone. Her rapid promotions were owed as much to her own capabilities as to the constant stream of vacancies left by the dead. Someone had to fill the gaps.
Having started as a low-ranking agent on the Backup Team, within a year, Barbara had become a core agent of Combat Team 1. By the second year, she was its team leader, commanding the very unit she had once served.
Her reassignment came on an otherwise ordinary day.
“Barbara Wald, His Excellency is calling for you.”
When Barbara went to the barracks to see the Marquis, she found another person had been summoned alongside her.
Distinctive red hair.
Even among the people of the Norfolk Continent, with their wide variety of hair colors, red was rare. The moment Barbara saw it, she knew exactly who it was.
An agent from the Intelligence Unit, codename Tessy.
A woman known for her disguises—black hair, gold, silver, even a shaved head—making her true hair color a mystery to most. It was only after she lost her only son that people learned her hair was naturally red.
But Barbara had known her original hair color—and her real name—for a long time.
Her name was Theresia.
They were not sisters by blood. They were simply two girls who had clung to each other to survive before being rescued by the Wolves on the very same day.
Calling them family felt foreign, as neither truly understood what the word meant. Calling them friends felt almost laughable. And yet, they were more alike than not.
The Marquis seemed to be receiving a report from her.
“I understand. You may leave.”
“Yes, Your Excellency.”
Theresia, who had been standing as still as a statue, turned to go.
Aside from her undyed hair, she looked no different than usual. With a brief, final glance from her green eyes, she brushed past Barbara.
In that moment, Barbara had only one, simple thought.
I hope she doesn’t die.
But even that thought was fleeting.
Barbara took a step closer to the Marquis, who kept his back to her as he fed something into a small fire.
“You summoned me, Your Excellency?”
The Marquis didn’t answer. Even after tossing the last of whatever was in his hands into the fire, he simply stared into the flames, his hands shoved in his pockets.
Standing at attention, her eyes fixed on the floor, Barbara subtly raised her gaze. Her eyes narrowed as she watched the fire flicker beyond his silhouette. She had assumed he was burning Theresia’s report, but the object melting in the crimson heat was no crude piece of parchment.
It was a luxurious card, adorned with glittering decorations.
The kind of stationery only a noble lady would use was turning to ash in the flames.
Just then, the Marquis turned around. Barbara instantly lowered her gaze as his command fell upon her.
“Go to the manor in Vies.”
“...”
“Put the manor in order before I arrive.”
Barbara’s eyes slowly drifted upward.
Beneath his black military cap, his gaze was chillingly cold.
“Theresia Wittgenstein and James Wittgenstein will assist you in secret. Clean up the inside of the manor, and…”
He trailed off, a rare hesitation in his voice, before speaking again.
“Protect Oscar.”
“…Do you mean I am to protect the Young Marquis?”
“Trust no one in that manor.”
“...”
“The Marchioness is no exception.”
That was the last time she ever saw him face-to-face.
Barbara packed her bags immediately and headed for the capital. And there, in the grand manor at the end of her long journey, she met him.
Oscar.
Her young master, and the sole heir of Reinhardt.
He did not resemble the Marchioness in the slightest. From his black hair to his glacier-blue eyes, he was a terrifying mirror of his father.
Furthermore, he was a child with absolutely nothing childlike about him. He never whined, never showed any curiosity, and rarely smiled.
He was a miniature version of the Marquis.
The Marchioness seemed to shudder with disgust at these traits in her son, but Barbara liked them. They made him seem like a true master.
At the time, she never imagined the sudden reassignment would last so long. She had assumed she would return to the front once the Marquis returned. But one year turned into two, and the Marquis, who was supposed to come home, returned as a cold corpse.
Reinhardt lay in ruins.
The master of Reinhardt, who had once seemed an absolute being, was immortalized as a powerless bronze statue in front of the royal palace.
On the day she watched her young master stand alone amidst the ashes, Barbara discarded the combat uniform she had kept for her eventual return to the field. From that day on, her uniform became a dress.
Thus, Barbara Wald’s battle had never truly ended. She was simply navigating a new battlefield in a new uniform.
Over twenty years passed like that.
Reinhardt, once reduced to ashes, flourished as grandly as it had in its golden age, and the young master grew into a man. Yet, Barbara was still following that same final command.
“Protect Oscar.”
She was not family to him. Setting aside the fact that she didn't even know what family meant, he was not someone she could dare to bind within such a boundary.
She was merely a servant who had raised and served her master from up close—nothing more, nothing less.
Therefore, she could not interfere with her master’s decisions. Even when she wished he would cut back on the chain-smoking he’d picked up at some point, the most she could do was offer a piece of advice: "Smoking like that will ruin your health."
And yet, while she could not interfere, she was more sensitive to his moods than anyone. Oscar, who had once been devoid of smiles, had become adept at masking his true self with hollow ones as he navigated high society. But having watched him grow up, Barbara could discern a real smile from a false one, sometimes reading his true feelings more accurately than he did himself.
But now, she was confused.
Watching the rain fall all day, Barbara’s thoughts drifted to her master and the Outsider.
Oscar always acted in the most rational and efficient manner.
Yet, such a man had forced himself upon the woman who had become the Living Key?
Why? Out of lust?
Barbara shook her head.
The idea that the Outsider had seduced the Marquis was so absurd that the assumption he had forced himself on her seemed more plausible—but that didn't make it logical.
If it were the Oscar she knew, wouldn't he have just called for a prostitute? Prostitution wasn’t illegal here, unlike in some countries of West Norfolk. Even if it were, that would still be a better option than forcing a woman who could cause trouble later.
Besides, wasn't it Oscar himself who had ordered Abel to seduce her?
After Oscar left, the Outsider had been unable to get out of bed, and Abel had come to the main building to find her.
“She's still sleeping?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, then can I go in and wake her up?”
When Abel asked with a bright smile, Barbara stopped him.
“Why? His Excellency told me to head to Traun as soon as it was light.”
“He put it on hold.”
“Pardon?”
“I said he put it on hold. Until further notice, we are to proceed as planned here.”
Abel furrowed his brow in confusion but soon made a move to climb the stairs.
“Alright, for now.”
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“To proceed.”
“Let her sleep a bit longer.”
“Why? Ah, is she sick?”
Barbara was dumbfounded by how delighted he sounded. But the Gold Digger simply looked at her as if she were naive and insisted, "If she's sick, now is the perfect time to seduce her."