The Masquerade of False Miracles
Beneath the dazzling chandeliers of the banquet hall, hundreds of candles flickered and bathed the room in liquid gold. Yet even that brilliant light could not melt the icy fury frozen in Carna’s eyes. She clutched the skirt of her off-the-shoulder blue dress so tightly her knuckles turned white, and whispered in a low voice.
“Mother, what the hell is this? You said it was a blind date. Why are we at that bastard’s recovery celebration party?!”
At her daughter’s righteous anger, Camilla offered an awkward, bitter smile and gently patted Carna’s shoulder.
“Calm down, Carna. You heard it too. There was a terrible terrorist attack on the Blake family recently. This is both a prayer for Count Blake’s recovery from his vegetative state and a celebration of his son’s miraculous healing.”
Until they arrived at the Blake County Estate, Camilla had been soft and languid beside the man she loved—nothing like the strict knight commander she usually appeared to be. But the moment she stepped through the estate’s doors, she had transformed back into the perfect, ice-cold knight. Seeing her mother speak so coldly, hiding all personal feelings and discussing only the official purpose of the party, Carna could hardly believe her ears.
“…Fine, Count Blake’s recovery is worth celebrating. He’s always been known as a devoted husband who cared for Aunt Carna his entire life and performed countless good deeds. But that piece of trash! After getting beaten half to death by you, Mother, he should have been stuck in bed for at least six months!”
“……During the process of Count Blake’s miraculous recovery through the Saintess’s prayers, his son was also said to have received God’s grace and been completely healed.”
“A miracle from God?! Ha!”
Carna let out a hollow laugh of disbelief.
“A miracle is a sacred blessing bestowed only upon those who perform good with a sincere heart! How could a worthless scumbag like him receive one? Unless God himself has gone blind!”
At that moment, the man standing guard beside them—the one Carna knew only as the young flower shop owner—spoke up in a gentle voice from behind his mask.
“Lady Carna, according to the rumors I’ve heard, that young master supposedly dragged his injured body to the scene the instant the terror attack occurred, trying to save his father.”
“What?! That bastard?!”
At Carna’s violent reaction, the President swallowed a small chuckle behind his mask. He, too, knew the infamous reputation of that worthless young master well. When he first heard the news that the boy had leapt from his sickbed out of concern for his parents, he had been genuinely surprised.
“It may be hard to believe, but it’s true. Even afterward, he worried more about his bedridden father than his own body and ran around desperately to uncover the mastermind behind the attack. Moved by such profound filial piety, the Saintess offered her prayers, and the miracle was triggered as a result.”
Carna clicked her tongue, swallowing the sharp retort that had risen to her lips. The fact that he had charged forward without regard for his own severe injuries—unable to move his entire body—purely out of concern for his parents… she had no choice but to inwardly admit that even that piece of garbage still possessed a shred of humanity.
“Well, it must all be thanks to Knight Commander Camilla. They say people change after nearly dying. Perhaps your harsh discipline finally reached him, and God decided to grant him a chance at redemption.”
“As if he could change! He’ll probably act decent for a few days and then go right back to—”
Carna was clicking her tongue in rebuttal when every eye in the banquet hall suddenly turned toward the massive doors. They swung open.
A commanding 184-centimeter frame. The scoundrel who had shed every last bandage that had once wrapped his body now stood in flawless black formal attire befitting the Blake family. Edric pushed his father’s wheelchair as he walked out.
“Ohhh, Knight Commander! You came to celebrate my son becoming a new man. It’s all thanks to the strict punishment you gave him that day. Hahaha, I truly cannot thank you enough!”
Count Blake, still confined to a wheelchair due to the aftereffects of the terror attack, laughed heartily and immediately approached the mother-daughter pair, extending his hand.
At the Count’s greeting, Camilla—the very woman who had beaten his son half to death—could only offer an embarrassed, bitter smile.
Meanwhile, Carna stared in utter shock at Edric as he pushed the wheelchair closer. The sight before her eyes felt like some colossal joke.
Even his gait is completely different.
The scoundrel who used to swagger around with a sloppy, dragging stride now walked with his shoulders squared and his posture proud—the very image of a true knight.
Well… he is technically a knight, I suppose.
Despite being the same age as her, Edric had earned the rank of regular knight far earlier than most. Of course, rumors had spread that his father had simply bribed the order because of his worthless behavior, but in truth his skills were well above that of an average knight. The rumors were nonsense.
Damn bastard. The fact that he actually has talent just makes it even more infuriating.
Having served as his vice-squire during her apprenticeship days, Carna knew his abilities better than anyone. She clicked her tongue as memories resurfaced—how he had caused endless trouble, until the day she caught him sexually harassing a maid who had come to care for his mother. She had visited the mansion to deliver documents and walked in on the scene. The human garbage who had been beaten senseless by her mother Camilla was none other than the Blake family’s infamous scoundrel, Edric.
And now that same trash was appearing before everyone like a changed man, receiving the Saintess’s official endorsement as a “filial son” and basking in the nobles’ praise.
The perfect figure he presented—every inch the worthy heir to the Blake County—sent Carna’s brain into a screaming state of cognitive dissonance.
At that moment, Edric slowly approached and politely took her hand.
“I sent word through an acquaintance, but I never imagined… you would actually come.”
The moment his low, rich voice brushed past her ear, Carna nearly jumped backward in shock. Against her will, deep in her lower abdomen, something throbbed violently. It felt as if her very womb was resonating with his voice, producing a bizarre, pulsating sensation. At the same time, she could feel in real time how the thin fabric of her dress was becoming miserably soaked between her legs.
……No, his voice was always rather nice, but—what the hell is this reaction?!
Carna’s pupils trembled violently with extreme embarrassment. Just moments ago she had burned with murderous contempt, calling him a worthless human being—yet a single whisper from him had turned the body of a knight who had guarded her chastity her entire life into something that responded like a whore.
Her face flushed crimson with shame. She whipped her head up and glared at Edric.
And once again, she found herself swallowing hard.
The man standing before her was most certainly not the pathetic, vile scoundrel she remembered. The shoulders that had always been hunched and somehow servile were now broad and proud, supporting his 184-centimeter frame with dignity. The eyes that had once gleamed only with vulgar lust now radiated a cool, profound intellect. The golden-blond hair inherited from his mother Carna and the golden eyes from his father the Count had always looked arrogant, but now they shone with the refined elegance of a true nobleman.
Most of all, the overwhelming masculine scent radiating from his solid body beneath the black uniform was something she had never sensed from him before.
“……”
Carna was completely at a loss for words. The miserable throbbing and wetness in her lower abdomen that surged against her will, combined with her wildly pounding heart, left her utterly speechless.
It was then that an elegant yet chilling voice came from behind them.
“My, my. It seems my son has quite the heated reaction from Camilla’s daughter.”
Once again, every gaze in the hall turned toward the doorway.
There stood the lady of the Blake house—Carna. The woman who had supposedly lost her mind in a certain incident long ago and become a “simpleton” now appeared in a breathtaking dress.
The moment Camilla saw her, her eyes filled with shock.
“C-Carna, sister?! Your consciousness… you’ve recovered?!”
The woman who had always responded like a mechanical doll only to her husband’s words was now moving and speaking with perfect grace. Camilla, who had looked after her for many long years, could only stammer in overwhelming emotion.
Meanwhile, Carna approached her husband in the wheelchair, gently placed a hand on his shoulder, and smiled.
“Hehe, did I surprise you…? Camilla, it really has been a long time. You haven’t changed at all from your maiden days. In my memory, you were still a reckless teenager… yet more than twenty years have already passed.”
At the words of the Countess who had given birth to a son and then lived as a simpleton for twenty years, Camilla felt tears welling up.
Watching her, Carna curved her doll-like eyes—eyes that hid an empty abyss—in a gentle smile.
“Sister, when did you regain your consciousness?”
“…Actually, when my husband fell into a vegetative state after the terror attack and hovered between life and death… that inexplicable sorrow and desperation must have moved God’s heart, for my own consciousness returned completely.”
Carna looked down at her husband with tender eyes and hugged him tightly from behind.
“While he was fighting for his life, all I could do was pray. But as you can see, our ‘Edric’s’ profound filial devotion moved the Saintess’s heart. With God’s miracle added on top, we husband and wife have been able to face each other once again like this.”
Gasps of admiration and praise erupted among the nobles gathered in the hall. The passionate love between the Count and Countess, and the redemption of their prodigal son who had brought about this miracle.
Carna fell into extreme confusion.
According to public rumors, this terror attack had been a grudge play because the Count had touched the terrorist’s fiancée. Yet the tender sight of the couple before her, clearly cherishing each other deeply, instantly turned those rumors into nothing but vulgar nonsense.
Of course. The shameless acts of groping maids had always been that scoundrel son’s doing. The Count was always the one cleaning up the mess and paying compensation. There’s no way he would have done such a thing.
Above all, the loving look in the Count’s eyes as he gazed at his wife made it clear that in his world, there was only one person.
……I’m jealous.
Seeing Carna receive such blind love from a man who looked at only one woman, Carna’s mind overlapped the image with her own mother, who had recently begun a new love. A fierce envy bloomed in a corner of her heart—she who had never yet experienced true love.
But at the same time, the memory of her own filthy body reacting like a bitch in heat to the completely transformed Edric’s appearance and voice made her brow furrow deeply.
“…Crazy. Damn it.”
Don’t tell me I’ve actually fallen for that scoundrel just because his shell looks a little better?!
A self-mocking curse slipped from between Carna’s lips.
…By the way, where did that man go?
Even amid the confusion, Carna looked around. The young “flower shop owner” who had stayed sweetly by her mother’s side until they arrived at the Blake estate—the man she believed to be her mother’s new lover—had vanished from sight without a trace.
Now that I think about it… I don’t even know his name.
As she narrowed her eyes at this belated realization, her gaze suddenly caught a man in the corner of the banquet hall, engaged in friendly conversation with Edric.
His plain attire felt strangely out of place amid the hall’s usual splendor. Yet because it was a masquerade, the “mask” covering his face looked perfectly natural.
In that instant, a chilling sense of unease crawled up Carna’s spine like a snake.
……No way.
Her heart sank with a heavy, ominous thud.
Come to think of it, this entire event was the place her mother’s boyfriend had forcibly dressed her up and dragged her to, claiming it was a “blind date”!
Please, please don’t let it be…!
Carna screamed internally as she stared at the two men. The scoundrel Edric and the unidentified masked man appeared to have no connection whatsoever, yet they were engaged in what looked like a rather serious and intimate conversation.
As if they had finished some secret plot, both men turned their heads at the same time to look in her direction.
Then they began walking toward her side by side.
“……Crazy. God damn it.”
Another harsh curse burst from Carna’s mouth.
Finally, the masked man—the President—stopped in front of her and spoke in his characteristic soft, kind voice.
“Miss Carna. I’m late with the introduction. This gentleman is someone I can now call my ‘regular customer’—”
“CHANGE!!!”
Carna’s face turned deathly pale as she screamed desperately. Her anguished cry tore through the elegant atmosphere of the banquet hall and echoed throughout the party.