RAMHM Chapter 68

There Are No Rebels

Novian's study was surprisingly similar to Count Acacia's study. Desolate and barren atmosphere. The differences were that it was slightly larger, and at least a few gloomy paintings hung as decoration.

Though I'd lived in this mansion for two years, I'd never entered this study since he first showed me around the mansion. The mansion was very large, and with my stamina in the early marriage, I was busy going between my own study and bedroom, learning the Grand Duchess's duties. In the first place, he wasn't at the mansion many days, so there was no need to come to this study.

After briefly tracing old memories, I locked the study door and approached the desk piled with all kinds of documents. Given his usually fastidious personality, it was completely incongruous messiness. Worried that if I touched something wrong, traces of my visit might show, I only surveyed with my eyes. If they were important documents, I didn't think he would have left them lying around carelessly in this space the butler personally entered to clean every morning.

Most desk drawers were locked. I properly lowered my posture and searched for keys that fit the drawers, opening them one by one. There were only documents written in all kinds of foreign languages, as well as documents related to the minor titles and territories he'd acquired while building his achievements. It took quite a while to take out the documents, organize them, put them back, and relock the drawers.

I stood up intermittently to check outside. Rhodness's knights were still guarding the main gate. With that many personnel holding out in front of the mansion, even if Novian tried to enter through the back gate, he couldn't help but check that direction.

Struggling to calm my pounding heart, I opened the safe under the desk. Where I'd thought gold bars might be kept like at Count Acacia's, only document envelopes were packed tightly. Among the envelopes of all the same shape, material, and color, when I pulled out the one placed on top, it read 'West.' The next one too. The one after that too. And the one after that too—all marked only 'West,' looking extremely suspicious.

Duke Castagna's domain.

The battlefield where Rhodness had rolled for years. Those were the only images of the west I knew, so having document envelopes filling an entire small safe seemed exceedingly strange. All the envelopes were sealed with wax, but the one that seemed most recently placed had no wax seal. I quickly opened the envelope and pulled out the document.

"……!"

Despite the thickness, concise sentences filled both my eyes. The content was roughly as follows:

『Send rebels back to the West.』

My hands, soaked with tension, almost dropped the document. I concentrated all my mind on not crumpling it. A document with content about moving troops from some region to the west—anyone could only see it as the document's author 'deliberately' sending rebels. Not my hands but my body trembled. Simultaneously, my mind went white as if someone had stolen all my thoughts.

"What…… what does this even mean?"

I registered the content, but I couldn't understand at all why he would do such a thing. I stared at the wax-sealed envelopes in the safe with a wretched heart, then pulled out the envelope from the very back. The envelope that must surely be the oldest document was wax-sealed, but I couldn't not open it. I couldn't guarantee when such perfect timing as today would come again.

The moment I read through the contents inside, I had to feel a sensation like someone grabbing and kneading my brain. What on earth…

"What on earth are you thinking?"

Completely incomprehensible words were written.

『Plant mana stones in the west to summon monsters.』

『Concentrate rebels in the west.』

The neat letters typed with an official typewriter mercilessly scrambled my mind. Monsters. Rebels. Content about sending things to the west whose names alone were chilling. And the most incomprehensible part was the content written at the very end.

『……Bind the feet of Second Prince Rhodness so he can't even set foot in the capital.』

Though I'd been barely holding back, I ended up crumpling that old document once. As if reading my mind—those monsters and rebels that had made the barely-adult Rhodness unable to set foot in the capital, that had made him a battlefield demon—Ronteaux's dangerous things weren't unavoidable somethings but deliberately sent by someone, no, by Novian.

His study, his safe—of course it must be his, hidden truth.

"Why, why go this far?"

In the study without even the common portrait hanging, I ground out the words as if Novian were before me.

"If you wanted me, you should have just been satisfied with me alone."

Not a single patriotic thought occurred about consuming national power through such wasteful methods. Rather, my face crumpled at how pitiful Rhodness's past time was.

"What on earth did Rhodness do wrong for you to go this far? Did you hate it that much? Rhodness approaching me?"

Novian's voice crying out that nothing was his—apart from my cooling heart, that voice I'd felt was truly pitiable—turned my insides upside down. My stomach churned and nausea rose.

"If you have nothing, does that mean you can steal others' things?"

In this way. While you held the wedding ceremony with me, while I foolishly gave my heart to you—who will compensate for Rhodness's time, deceived by you, having to wander battlefields?

As I put strength back into the document in my hand, something suddenly touched on the back page. A note someone had added. A questioning note:

『Where are the rebels?』

Below that note, another hastily scrawled note was attached like an answer.

『There are no rebels.』

『Only creating and sending them.』

I laughed for a long while. I had no more tears left to shed. Instead of a heart-bursting wail, hollow laughter settled low across the wide study floor.

So the 'western rebels' that had been the justification for sending Rhodness to battle all this time were Novian's scheme. I remembered the newspaper articles reporting the always-tumultuous western news due to rebels.

How Second Prince Rhodness went to subjugate rebels but was always blocked by mysterious monsters and hunted monsters more than rebels. How those monsters would appear whenever you'd forgotten them, trampling western villages, and the soldiers deployed to cut down all kinds of monsters had their arms in tatters from beheading so many.

I remembered Rhodness's scarred body. Through the briefly opened shirt, faint scars had been everywhere. Traces the young prince had acquired rolling through battlefields barely into adulthood.

My mind that had gone white with shock grew hot. It was clearly felt anger. As if someone had grabbed and led me, I sat forcefully at Novian's study desk.

The sound of my pounding heartbeat rang loudly in my ears. Having torn open the wax-sealed document, if Novian opened and searched through this safe, even though it had been inside, if unlucky he might notice.

From the moment I reached for the greater truth, it was already irreversible. Unlike my ready-to-burst heart and heated mind, I kept laughing hollowly enough that anyone watching would think me mad.

Was this the truth Bliea had spoken of? Had that woman already known? If so, she should have told me what to do now as well.

I pulled out Doris's letter I'd tucked in my dress with cold-cooled hands and looked down at it. After reading it repeatedly, I soon picked up one of the letter papers stacked on Novian's desk. Fine stationery with the Trovika family crest clearly stamped.

The letter paper itself was no different from symbolizing Novian Trovika. My eyes felt the vivid sensation of capillaries bursting. With eyes probably bloodshot red, I picked up Novian's quill pen without hesitation and wrote a reply to Doris.

「If Your Highness doubts my loyalty to you, I'm hurt. No matter how much I love His Grace the Grand Duke, as long as Your Highness who recognized my abilities trusts only me, I'm prepared to leave him behind at any time.」

Though I wrote quickly, the handwriting was very neat. After repeatedly reading what I'd written as if engraving it on my heart, I soon picked up a second letter paper and continued writing.

「His Grace Novian Trovika bothers you, doesn't he?」

Though just one sentence written by hand, my breathing roughened as if I'd been running. Barely steadying my breath, I stared at the damned document before me and gripped the quill pen tightly again.

「I've found something quite interesting—I wonder if it might help you.」

Wouldn't this be sufficient justification for the Crown Prince to abandon Novian Trovika, no, to have to abandon him? The document envelope that could no longer remain in his safe was before me. The decisive evidence that Novian Trovika, the Emperor's strategist and head of the Crown Prince faction, had been continuously sending rebels and monsters to the west.

I embraced it preciously like treasure. Then. Suddenly the commotion outside the window grew louder.

I walked slowly to look outside at the now-darkened exterior. Light blazed at the main gate, and sounds of another altercation could be heard. A massive carriage with the Trovika flag planted came into view, and Novian descended from it, walking toward Rhodness.

It was time to leave this study for now. After lifting the layers of my dress skirt and firmly tucking the document envelope to hide it, I approached the letter paper on the desk and added a few words.

「Lest you not understand why I'm suddenly doing this when I claimed to love him, let me add—I didn't intend this from the start either.」

Yes, because my mind grew this hot. Because my heart felt ready to burst. Because without even talking to myself I'd feel like going mad—it was all Novian Trovika. Because he made me this way.

「Until I learned the fact that he betrayed my love and was having an affair.」

That face—even when Adrienne's ghost demanded truth, he only wailed, and at the words to live happily with Bliea, he felt relieved as if all sins were forgiven.

After returning everything except the document envelope to its place, I went down to the first floor and greeted Novian nonchalantly. Novian, who'd been entering with a contorted expression, put on a solemn face when he saw me.

"Second Prince Rhodness is at the main gate."

"Yes, does it matter?"

I greeted him with the most beautiful smile I could make and embraced him tightly. Servants covered their mouths at the unrestrained display of affection. The stiffly frozen Novian embraced me back.

"When I love you, what does it matter what anyone does at the main gate?"

Novian, as if receiving the most satisfactory answer he could hear from me, relaxed his expression and ordered Gaspar to prepare bath water as if he'd never frowned.

Ignoring Gaspar who looked at me with displeasure, I glared at Novian's back as he patted my shoulder encouragingly and went up to the bedroom. Over his disappearing back, the sentences I'd added to the reply to Doris rose like phantoms.

「I want revenge on him, Your Highness. I don't care at all about the Grand Duchess position.」

「As long as I can bring down the man who trampled my love.」

Bliea Acacia, who'd been blinded by love and dared dream of the Grand Duchess position. Bliea Acacia, betrayed by love and seeing nothing before her eyes. Whatever Doris thought of me and used me for, the result would be the same. The result of you, Novian Trovika, crumbling most shabbily and miserably.

"Yona, deliver this letter directly to Lady Irene at the Siscommetin Count's Estate, and ask her to pass it to Her Highness the Crown Princess."

Of course, the one creating that result isn't Bliea Acacia but me—Adrienne Pirreta. And I have no need to repay Doris's help. Because I'm using her too.