TRSTD 04

Chapter 04

A brief silence flowed around them for a moment. The Duke of Acklin tilted his head slightly to the side and stared intently at her.

That gaze was precisely like a beast with its prey right in front of it, so Arina lowered her gaze discreetly.

Since it’s early winter now, it must be around this time.

Without certainty, but recalling that the timing was about now, Arina boldly stated the crisis that would befall Acklin.

“In the future I saw, around this time, the Duke of Chevalier requested the abandoned mine owned by Acklin.”

The Duke’s murderous gaze wavered for a moment. Unaware of this, Ron, standing rigidly behind the lord he served, shook his head frantically toward her, signaling that it wasn’t so.

“Ron.”

“Y-Yes, yes!”

“Bring the map.”

As if receiving a death sentence, Ron’s complexion turned pale blue. He opened his mouth to say something, then obediently unfolded the map on the table.

“Point to the mine requested by the Duke of Chevalier.”

Before he could even finish speaking, Arina poked her index finger at a small village called ‘Aspa.’

“Amazing.”

A light exclamation slipped from the Duke of Acklin’s lips. Buoyed by that, Arina explained the reason she had mentioned the mine.

“Recently, the number of missing persons in this vicinity must have increased sharply. The cause is precisely that spiders have nested inside this abandoned mine.”

The spider was the name of a giant spider-type magical beast with a staggering 30 eyes. It mainly inhabited deep pits like caves or mines.

The thread it spun was tough and hard enough to repel both high heat and water, and was mainly used to make magical beast subjugation gear.

Because the population was so small and the thread they produced was limited, it commanded a sky-high price, and the Duke of Chevalier had deliberately asked for the abandoned mine knowing this.

“Later on, spiders would emerge from this place and attack neighboring villages, and to avoid punishment, the Duke of Chevalier would frame Acklin, leading to a noble trial and utter chaos.”

The reason Arina knew this in detail was because, while gathering data to oust the current Saintess and second daughter of the Chevalier family, Vivian Chevalier, she had accidentally discovered these circumstances and secretly passed the information to Acklin.

Before long, completely drawn into Arina’s story, the Duke of Acklin stroked his chin and nodded his head.

“When you suddenly invited yourself to luncheon out of nowhere today, I thought you’d finally gone senile, but you had this kind of scheme.”

“By any chance, did you hand over the ownership?”

“Not yet.”

“You did well. There was plenty of unmined gold in there, so if you had given up, the losses would have been immeasurable.”

Ron, who hadn’t been able to join the conversation between the two, alternated his gaze between Arina and the map with a thoroughly fascinated expression.

It was quite shocking that she knew in detail things that even he, who received the family’s confidential information first, didn’t know, and at the same time, he seemed relieved that his trust hadn’t been betrayed.

“Ah, and there’s one more thing I need to tell you.”

Arina folded her fingers one by one and counted the numbers. 8, 7, 6… Murmuring thus, she abruptly closed her mouth at 4.

“It’s probably about this much.”

Showing her palm with only one thumb folded, the two of them narrowed their brows simultaneously.

“Your wife’s physical condition has grown noticeably worse since four weeks ago, hasn’t it? She’s also been craving sour foods she usually doesn’t eat.”

At words that made no sense at all, the Duke felt a sense of frustration. He wondered if it might be a serious illness, but Arina only wore an unfathomable smile.

“Four weeks…”

The Duke’s eyes, repeating only those words like someone spellbound, snapped wide open as if a realization had struck him.

“Call a doctor immediately to examine Brielle.”

“A-Understood!”

Suddenly, the doctor called in by Ron examined the Duchess’s condition and announced the unexpected fact that a new life was growing in her belly.

Having heard directly from the doctor that it had been four weeks, the Duke had no choice but to believe Arina’s wild story.

“If you truly saw the future, then Lucius is…”

Returning to his office, far from rejoicing over a child born two years into his marriage, he cringed at the horrific future he had conjured in his imagination.

“So what is the cause of death?”

The memories she had barely squeezed out to persuade the Duke with that single phrase vanished, and her mind went completely blank.

To that extent, her fiancé’s death still remained a large scar for Arina.

“…It was death by illness. Unfortunately, I don’t know the details beyond this either. At the time, Acklin kept it strictly under wraps even from me.”

“They hid it even from you? Why on earth…”

“My guess is that they didn’t want to reveal his birth.”

Birth. The moment she heard that word, the eyes filled with sorrow flashed sharply.

The instant their gazes met in mid-air, Arina knew instinctively.

That human is trying to cast me aside.

As she expected, the Duke looked at Ron with a meaningful gaze.

The body that had been standing like a statue behind the sofa began to move, and Arina instinctively thrust the divine statue forward.

If worst came to worst, she could just drive this into the face of one of them and escape in that opening.

However, if she did that, the chance to save Lucius would shatter into pieces. Therefore, she had to create a decisive reason why they couldn’t cast her aside.

The prerequisite for her to become their savior. That was none other than divine power.

“The Young Lord is shut up in his room like a recluse because of the demonic magic that suddenly started running wild, right?”

“……”

“And Acklin can do nothing and is merely watching.”

The Duke’s lips tightly shut. Accepting the silence as affirmation, Arina lowered the statue in front of the table and clasped both hands together.

“It is certain that God knew this and, through a dream, showed the disaster that will befall us in the future to me, who can suppress that power, so that I might save the Young Lord.”

“God, you say…”

The Duke of Acklin stared intently at her chattering lips with a somewhat cynical expression, then whispered lowly.

“It’s not something to say in front of you, a cleric, but we don’t trust God more than anyone else. Therefore, you, a servant of God, are also a target of vigilance.”

“I am merely one of the countless believers conveying the will of God. How on earth does such an insignificant existence pose any threat to Acklin for you to say such things?”

At her utterly aggrieved appeal, the corners of the Duke’s mouth rose slightly.

“You underestimate yourself too much.”

When he snapped his fingers, unfamiliar hands were placed upon both of Arina’s shoulders.

Frightened and turning back, she saw a man whose face was tightly wrapped in black cloths looking down at her silently.

“…It seems you have a misunderstanding about me, how about we have a frank conversation regarding that?”

“Yes. But since it’s a sensitive topic, let’s change locations so it doesn’t leak out.”

At the Duke’s gesture, his shadow nodded and then gagged Arina’s mouth.

“Nngh!”

“Drag her down to the basement.”

“Yes.”

As a result, Arina failed to gain the trust of the Duke of Acklin.

Even with her masterful lie, she was only able to be released after forcibly writing a non-disclosure agreement in the torture chamber stating that she would not disclose Lucius Acklin’s birth.

Thus, the morning arrived after a day filled only with scars.

Shall I just chuck everything and leave by myself?

However, quickly regaining her senses, she headed to the prayer room to banish the thoughts that kept dragging her into endless pessimism.

There, she prayed for forgiveness for falling into the devil’s temptation and for Lucius throwing the statue yesterday, then went to her personal office and jotted down the events she experienced in her previous life on paper.

Writing them down as they came to mind, ranging from trivial matters to things concerning the nation’s survival, she inscribed roughly remembered dates and times in front of them.

Her eyes, looking over the simple chronology thus made, scanned the event that would happen most recently over and over again.

An unidentified magical beast attacks the Duke of Acklin’s estate. Duke Claude Acklin in critical condition, numerous casualties.

In her memory, the identity of the magical beast that appeared at this time was ultimately never uncovered, and the matter fizzled out by paying massive compensation to the bereaved families.

At the time, she thought this resolution was irresponsible, but knowing the circumstances now, she could somewhat understand their actions.

They must have smoothed over the incident to cover up Lucius’s rampage rather than a magical beast.

If this guess was correct, what methods could there be to stop the rampage?

Indeed, the only thing that came to mind was sending the life tainted by evil to the side of the Lord.

However, her fiancé still possessed enough intellect to communicate. She couldn’t simply condemn such a person as pure evil.

Thinking back on the magical beasts she had hunted down until now, Arina found a clever trick.

“If I pour holy water over him…”

Just then, the sound of a knock came from beyond the door.

Hurriedly putting the bundle of papers with the chronology into the bottom drawer equipped with a lock, she replied in a calm voice.

“Come in.”

At her permission, the assistant cleric opened the door and appeared.

Looking at Arina, who was sitting at her desk from early in the morning, with a worried expression, he moved his lips softly.

“Young Master Bellins is waiting for you in the parlor.”

At those words, her delicate face distorted instantly.

“I didn’t receive any notice that he was coming today. Especially not this early.”

“He said he’d stop by on his way for morning prayers…”

“A human who doesn’t wake up until lunchtime, what morning prayers.”

The assistant cleric observed Arina’s extremely displeased mood, then suddenly opened his mouth.

“…I’ll go!”

“It’s fine. Father, please take care of sorting the documents over there.”

“Yes…”

She had heard that he had suffered quite a bit cleaning up the aftermath after she escaped through the window yesterday. Since she couldn’t make him suffer twice, she obediently made her way to the parlor.

All the way there, Arina smiled brightly at the clerics greeting her while sentencing Noel in her imagination.

Just as he had done to her.

The moment she harbored hope, he had driven poisoned arrows into her heart over and over again.

When she had killed him about ten times in her mind, she encountered him in reality.

Seeing the neatly combed wheat-colored hair and greenish-tinted eyes, just like when she last saw him in her past life, boiling rage surged up.

Unaware of Arina’s feelings, he, who had been sitting quietly on the parlor sofa, stood up with a start upon seeing her enter.

“How is your body? Are you alright?”

Pouring out affectionate worries and stepping closer to his sister, his eyes quickly scanned the corridor.

Confirming that no one was there, the moment the door closed, Noel spoke in a voice entirely at odds with his affectionate expression.

“What was that crazy stunt yesterday?”