Ulsro Kingdom - Their Collapse (28)
"Serenia? Is that you?"
"Y-yes... It's me."
"......"
The viscount was left speechless for a moment.
A storm of thoughts crashed through his head.
After fleeing the dining hall and retreating to his room as if he were running for his life, he had slumped into a chair and brutally uncorked a bottle of wine. He felt ashamed—ashamed that he had misunderstood his wife, ashamed that he had made such a stupid slip of the tongue. Maybe it was the drink. Or maybe he simply wasn’t feeling well.
And yet he had jumped to that conclusion so quickly. Since he had strayed, he assumed she must have strayed too. That rash judgment had only invited her anger, and under Serenia’s icy glare he had been forced to beat a hasty retreat.
He let the wine dull his nerves and tried to steady his mind.
I’m the mad one.
Self-reproach kept spilling up from his gut.
What was he supposed to do now?
He kept asking himself that question, but nothing came to mind. He had already earned her disfavor, and then he had gone and provoked her again. If he were in her place, he would have truly had an affair this time and thrown the other party out of the manor on the spot.
But Serenia was not like that.
"There’s still time. ...There’s still a chance."
She was far too good a woman for a foolish man like him.
And so, embarrassed though he was, he decided to give himself one more chance. This time, he wanted to beg for forgiveness for real.
Having made up his mind, he hauled himself up from the chair and searched the manor for his wife.
It seemed the meal had already ended, because the dining hall was empty except for the servants cleaning up afterward. He asked them where their mistress had gone, but every one of them merely shook their heads and claimed they didn’t know. There was no way they all truly didn’t know. They were clearly hiding her from him.
Damned bastards.
Cursing inwardly, he moved on to another part of the manor.
He even knocked on the bedroom door, just in case, but fortunately she wasn’t there.
No matter how large the manor was, the number of places she could have gone was limited. He searched every location that came to mind, but she was nowhere to be seen. And Valdes was nowhere to be seen either.
Did they go out, maybe...?
It was certainly possible.
With a hollow feeling in his chest, he checked a few places he hadn’t searched yet.
That was when he found her in the bathhouse. Or rather, “found” was not quite the right word. He only confirmed her voice from outside the door.
Why she was in the bathhouse, where Valdes had gone, and what that sound had just been—all of it was puzzling. But of all those things, the most shocking was her manner of speech.
Serenia... used casual speech?
Since ancient times, in most nations, women had stood a little below men in status. That had remained true even after mana was discovered. For that reason, Ulsro had a system in which, if a woman became the heir, her husband was elevated to co-ruler.
Many laws had since been changed by the current queen, but the kingdom still retained many male-first customs overall.
Serenia had always used honorifics with him since their marriage, partly because of the social order and partly to preserve her husband’s dignity. Count to viscount. It hadn’t made much practical difference, but because of it he had at least been able to carry himself with some pride wherever he went.
And now Serenia had abandoned those honorifics.
As a result, he could no longer think about anything else.
Dammit. She really is furious... What do I do?
"...Mm... haa... ♥"
"...?"
His thoughts stopped dead.
Hn...?
It wasn’t clear, but what drifted through the door was unmistakably a moan. He shook his head. The same thing had already happened in the dining hall. He couldn’t make the same mistake twice.
But he wanted to confirm it.
"I have something to say. Would you open the door for me?"
"...Open the door?"
"......"
He swallowed the saliva pooling in his mouth, his throat dry with tension.
Her slow reply, followed by the brief silence, made time feel unbearably long.
Unlike what he imagined, Serenia was not hesitating. She was biting her lip and enduring the pleasure Valdes was giving her from behind as he rocked his hips against her body. The reason she had slipped into casual speech instead of honorifics had simply been an accident.
"Hah...! Hngh, haa...!"
"What should I do?"
"I-I don't know...! Ngh, mm♥ Do whatever you want...!"
That was what she said, but her heart was another matter entirely.
She wanted revenge.
The feelings she had once held toward him had nearly gone cold, but she could still feel that a sliver of them remained. And because of that, she wanted revenge. She wanted to scrape away even that last remnant, until she could belong wholly and completely to Valdes.
"Whatever I want. Serenia, you’re very good at lying."
"...! Ngh, y-yes, I am..."
Valdes whispered the words she should say, and Serenia repeated them exactly.
"I’ll... open the door. But I haven’t, haa... finished cleaning my body yet. I don’t want you seeing me naked, so... hngh... I’m going to get into the bath. Leave the door open... and then, after three minutes... come in."
"...Understood."
The two of them did not separate. Like a four-legged beast with its sex still buried inside, they shuffled slowly toward the door and released the lock.
If Viscount Hermeng had broken his promise and opened the door in this state, he would have been exposed on the spot. But he did not. He couldn’t. What happened in the dining hall, together with Serenia’s sudden casual speech, had thoroughly rattled him.
"You move well."
"Hngh, it’s... really hard, ...haa♥"
Three minutes was a short time, but even with their clumsy steps it was enough to move through the changing room and deeper inside. Naturally, there was a wall between the bathing area and the changing room. It was a partition made of translucent glass, and the warm steam from the bath only made that glass even blurrier.
Click.
"Mm..."
Because of that, all the viscount could see once he entered the changing room was a vague patch of flesh-colored shapes through the glass wall.
I can barely see anything.
Still, that was better than nothing. If luck had turned against him, he might have been driven away right in front of the bathhouse. Serenia’s long hesitation was proof of that.
"Haa... hngh! Th-then...? What did you want to, haa, say?"
"W-well..."
Just as he opened his mouth, his eyes locked onto the glass wall. Blurred though it was, the flesh-colored blur was more vivid than he expected. The partition didn’t have soundproof magic, but he could hear her clearly enough that it seemed Serenia was pressed right up against the glass.
Perhaps that was why the beautiful naked body he had seen in the past came to mind, along with the prostitute he had lain with just yesterday.
Haa, fuck...
The tension below his waist made it hard to focus. He silently told himself to calm down again and again, then dropped to his knees on the floor with a thud loud enough to echo. It hurt more than he intended, but at least it seemed to steady him below the belt a little.
"I’m sorry! Please forgive me!"
"......"
Viscount Hermeng slowly raised his bowed head just enough to glance forward from the corner of his eye. Since he himself could barely be seen, she probably couldn’t make out his expression clearly either.
Why isn’t she answering...?
"Haa, hngh! Mm...♥ O-okay... what, haa, are you sorry for?"
"For too many things. There’s just too much I should apologize for. For distancing myself from you just because of the heir issue, and for living in comfort in your manor after that, I’m sorry. It was truly shameless of me.... And then I went and cheated on you too... in the end, the one with the reproductive problem was me... khh. I have nothing to say. It’s too late to repent now, but... I, uhh... sob... still love you... Please, please forgive me...."
Overcome with emotion, he shed tears.
The apology had been prepared in advance. Not written out on paper and memorized, but rehearsed in his head while he was alone. That made it easier to pour his feelings into it.
His words—that he still loved her, that he had been wrong—were all sincere.
That desperate emotion rode on his voice and reached Serenia.
Hearing her husband’s confession, she felt something strange.
"......"
She felt nothing at all. His words and his feelings didn’t reach her heart in the slightest. All she thought was, Oh, I see. She didn’t even feel vindicated. She just wanted to send him away quickly and spend time with Valdes.
She was a little deflated, but at the same time, some part of her felt relieved.
I should have done this long ago.
She gave a wry smile at the thought.
Without Valdes, I wouldn’t have been able to do it.
She glanced back over her shoulder. Valdes was pressed close behind her, kneading her body with his hands. Every so often he moved his hips and stimulated the inside of her cunt, but for the most part he was being considerate of her.
Feeling her gaze, Valdes shaped the words silently with his lips.
Going to answer him?
"Hehehe."
"...?"
At that meaningless laugh, both Valdes and Viscount Hermeng, kneeling outside, found question marks floating over their heads. The two men tried to interpret the meaning behind the laugh and racked their brains, but nothing quite clicked.
"Life really is amusing, isn’t it?"
"...Serenia? What do you mean by that...?"
He couldn’t understand her words.
Viscount Hermeng felt a surge of anxiety. And almost at the same moment, a moan spilled through the glass wall.
"Hngh... mm, haaah, haa, aah... ahn♥"
"Ah, wha...?"
Valdes was just as startled.
Creak─
"H-hey?"
"Hehe, what is it?"
Serenia straightened her back and reached one arm behind her to stroke the face of the man she loved. Her alluring eyes glimmered as they raked over Valdes.
"I love you...♥"
"Yeah. I love you too."
The two of them kissed deeply.
Having already grasped what was in her heart, Valdes moved his tongue in a deliberately sloppier, more lingering way, savoring her lips so that wet, sticky sounds rang out on purpose.
"Mm, slurp...♥ Chuuup, huff, puh... haa, mm... smooch, slurp...♥"
"......"
The blatant sounds of a man and a woman kissing stabbed straight into Viscount Hermeng’s eardrums.
He had spent the last while carousing with women to his heart’s content. He had bought prostitutes with money, and he had also played with young ladies from minor noble families who were aiming for a title. Naturally, he had tangled tongues countless times and pressed bodies together and done all sorts of things.
There was no way he could fail to recognize what he was hearing now.
"Ah... ah... Se, Serenia...? W-wife? A-are you kidding me? I-I’m sorry, I really am sorry... Please... please...."
At his near-agonized cry, Serenia broke off the kiss and sneered at him.
"Do you think I’m an idiot?"
"Huh...?"
"I knew you were cheating. Did you really think I wouldn’t investigate it?"
"W-what...?"
When Viscount Hermeng lifted his head, his face had gone white.
Come to think of it, it was only natural. If she had thought through everything else, why hadn’t she thought of that? Bringing up a background investigation now meant she knew about what had happened yesterday.
"Haha, you were abandoned by your affair partners, weren’t you?"
"Ahh..."
"...!!"
Valdes was the one who looked startled at Serenia’s words. Viscount Hermeng trembled in the face of the worst possible situation.
"None of the nobles you fooled around with actually liked you. Most of them were probably after your money, your title, or just the self-satisfaction of sleeping with my husband and humiliating me."
"Serenia... p-please, stop..."
"But your private fortune is running dry, and that damned lower half of yours is broken, so you can’t even produce an heir. The women who only self-soothed through an affair probably ran once rumors started spreading and they thought I’d find out, didn’t they?"
"Please, pleasee..."
"And once they all left, what was left was just a bunch of whores, wasn’t it? And then... you remembered I was the only one who hadn’t left yet."
"Aaaah..."
"With no one else around, you finally realize my worth? Ha! Ridiculous. I’m starting to feel sorry for myself, having waited this long for a bastard like you as my husband."
"No, nooo..."
Serenia lashed him with a cold, savage gaze and a face full of contempt. The unexpected sight even made Valdes stop caressing her for a moment in surprise. Her true anger, seen for the first time, was less like fire and more like ice, more like a noblewoman than a knight.
"I was scared until just now, but I don’t care anymore."
With a creak, the glass wall opened.
"Let me introduce him again. His name is Valdes. He’s my disciple, and..."
Creak─
"Haa♥ my... ne-new husband♥"
"...Huh? W-what? Wha... what is this...?"
At the sight revealed by her words, the viscount rubbed at his eyes. Because of the tears he had been shedding a moment ago, weird things kept appearing in front of him.
Serenia and her disciple, naked and pressed body to body. But no matter how many times he rubbed his eyes, the scene before him didn’t change, and her words kept echoing in his head.
New husband.
"Y-you, you, you—!!"
He realized then that when rage surged all the way to the top of one’s head, not even words would come out. Fury pressed suffocatingly against his chest. His trembling legs had gone weak from the excess of excitement.
Looking at the pathetic middle-aged man, Valdes offered no greeting and no words, only a mocking snort. That sneer, driven straight into the man’s eyes by the boy’s gaze, drew a shout from somewhere deep in his body.
"You, you damn bastard—!!"
"A damn bastard, huh... haha. Then let me show you how a damn bastard fucks."
"W-what, wha—?!’
Ignoring his flustered protest, Valdes tightened his embrace around Serenia and began to move his hips in earnest.
He thrust his cock roughly into her cunt, where it had been languishing in stillness for a moment and had grown a little sulky. After only a few movements, however, it quickly regained its vigor and began to flaunt its monstrous prowess.
Since he was kneeling on the floor, the viscount could clearly see the enormous thing stirring his wife’s pussy from beneath her belly. The cock was so large and hard that it felt less like a man’s and more like a beast’s, plunging in and out of her cunt again and again.
"Ah, ah, ah, khh..."