FMV 08

Chapter 8

“What?”

Elize stared blankly at the empty space where Damian had disappeared.

“He just left? Without saying anything……?”

“Hah!”

A hollow laugh kept escaping from between her lips.

She was never the type to initiate physical contact first.

During her relationship with Leonhardt, which had lasted a little less than two years, the most they had ever done was hold hands.

With Damian, she had genuinely mustered all her courage and done it as a gesture of gratitude.

So whether he liked it or disliked it, shouldn’t he have shown some kind of reaction to what she had done?!

“No, wait. Was that his reaction? By not reacting at all?”

Elize muttered sarcastically to herself, desperately suppressing the irritation rising inside her.

“Haaah…….”

Her shoulders drooped helplessly as she sighed.

Elize barely managed to drag her heavy body into the bedroom.

A large, comfortable bed came into view. Yet this temple, which had always been a comfortable and pleasant place for her, no longer felt like a sanctuary.

“I really can’t do anything but sigh.”

The situation she had found herself in couldn’t have been more awful.

Elize simply collapsed onto the bed and pulled the blanket all the way over her head.

She had no intention of leaving the temple just yet anyway. Without a valid reason, Esit would never allow it.

Various thoughts became tangled together in her constantly spinning mind.

The three men who had betrayed her for their own reasons.

And Damian, who had died trying to save her.

Then, suddenly, the moment she had kissed him flashed before her eyes.

Elize let out a silent scream and kicked the blanket off with her feet.

“Lady Saint?”

Just then, Bell returned from the Imperial Palace, opened the door, and approached her.

Elize quietly pulled the blanket down as though nothing had happened.

“Are you still feeling unwell? Here, I brought you some medicine. It took a while because I had to brew it myself using some good medicinal herbs.”

“……Oh, really?”

Her gaze fell upon the glass bottle Bell had brought.

A shimmering golden potion swayed inside the bottle.

“But, Lady Elize.”

Bell held out the bottle and subtly raised her voice at the end of her sentence.

“Did you perhaps go to the Imperial Palace?”

For a moment, Elize almost let out a hollow laugh, but she barely managed to suppress it.

How stupid did Bell think she was?

She had lied about being late because she was brewing medicine, yet she was practically confessing with her own mouth that she had gone to the Imperial Palace.

Elize merely stared at Bell without answering.

Bell then continued confidently, apparently not noticing anything strange about Elize’s reaction.

“No, you see, a cart carrying medicinal herbs arrived at the physician’s office a little while ago. And I heard people gossiping.”

If this had been the old Elize, she would have simply said, Really? and brushed it off without giving the matter much attention.

But now that she knew all of them were accomplices who had betrayed her, there was no way she could simply let it slide.

“What were they gossiping about?”

She asked with a light smile, her eyes narrowing slightly.

Bell once again failed to notice how different Elize’s reaction was and began speaking without thinking.

“They said they saw you with Sir Leonhardt. And apparently……”

She seemed completely unaware that the person she was carelessly chattering to was no longer the Elize she had known until now.

“They said that Damian was with you too…….”

Bell’s voice gradually faded.

At the same time, Elize could sense her watching for her reaction.

Elize slowly raised one eyebrow.

She had spoken with Damian deep inside the garden, and Leonhardt had been there as well.

Someone as proud as Leonhardt would never have gone around telling people that Elize had rejected him.

If that was the case, there was only one answer.

Someone who had eyes and ears throughout the Imperial Palace.

Someone who had given her this temple as a gift and even recruited the servants who worked here.

Bell was Esit’s person.

Elize’s eyes narrowed.

“Was there anything else? Any other interesting rumors?”

“Rumors? Well…… I don’t think there was anything else……”

Bell tilted her head in confusion before shaking it.

Fortunately, it seemed she hadn’t heard that Elize had broken up with Leonhardt or what she and Damian had discussed.

If she had known, they would have already begun spreading malicious rumors to damage both Elize’s and Leonhardt’s reputations.

They saw the three of us together, but they don’t know what we were talking about?

Esit was an intelligent person.

If he spread nothing but outright lies, eventually someone would realize that they were false.

But rumors that cleverly mixed truth with lies were bound to grow like a snowball rolling downhill.

But he might spread some other rumor. For example, that the three of us are involved in a love triangle.

It left a bad taste in her mouth, but if she wanted to avoid Esit’s scrutiny for the time being, she would probably have to take Leonhardt back into her confidence again.

I’ll have to meet Leonhardt again soon.

Suppressing the sigh that was about to escape her lips, Elize slowly raised her head and met Bell’s eyes.

Dealing with Esit and Leonhardt could wait.

Right now, it was time to replace the people who had been treating her like an easy mark.

“But Bell.”

She opened the gold-trimmed clock sitting on the bedside table and checked the time.

“Wasn’t the cart carrying the medicinal herbs supposed to arrive an hour from now?”

“……P-Pardon?”

Bell’s chin trembled.

Apparently, she had assumed that Elize wouldn’t know when the cart was supposed to arrive.

“It’s always the same, isn’t it? The food ingredients arrive at ten, and the medicinal herbs arrive at one in the afternoon.”

Elize precisely pointed out the flaw in Bell’s story by stating the exact arrival times of the supply carts.

“Oh, it came early today.”

“It came early?”

A faint laugh escaped between Elize’s lips.

“If that were true, I would have seen it when I came back from the Imperial Palace. But I didn’t see anything.”

“Perhaps the timing didn’t match……”

Cold sweat began to bead across Bell’s forehead as she stammered.

Bell desperately tried to come up with excuses to cover her tracks, but her words no longer worked on Elize.

“Bell!”

Elize shouted, her eyes turning cold.

“Stop lying. I know you’re an imperial spy.”

“L-Lady Elize…….”

Bell began rapidly inhaling and exhaling before collapsing onto the floor.

“So they told you to sound me out? To find out why I was with Damian and what I talked about with Leonhardt?”

Elize slowly approached Bell.

“Th-That’s…… Actually……”

Ignoring Bell’s panicked words, Elize walked straight past her and quickly made her way out.

Her destination was Bell’s quarters.

“Lady Elize!”

Bell called desperately after her.

But Elize didn’t stop.

At last, Elize entered Bell’s room.

As the Saintess and head of the temple, Elize had no reason whatsoever to visit a maid’s quarters.

Naturally, this was her first time here.

Her narrowed eyes swept over every corner of the room.

The quarters were filled with furniture that looked far too luxurious for an ordinary maid working at the temple.

“It’s a misunderstanding! I’m not His Majesty’s spy……!”

Bell, who had chased after her, eventually blocked Elize’s path.

Then Elize’s gaze fell upon the carpet beneath Bell’s feet.

Clenching her teeth, Elize tapped the back of one hand with her finger several times.

Then she pushed Bell aside and lifted the carpet.

Beneath it was a hidden compartment, perfectly suited for concealing something.

“How careless.”

Although, if they were talking about carelessness, Elize herself was the worst of all.

She had been so naive that she hadn’t suspected anything about this scheme until now.

Blaming herself for her own innocence, Elize began pulling out every document hidden inside the secret compartment.

Then, the moment she picked up one of those documents and looked at it, her pupils began trembling violently, as though an earthquake had struck them.