RGBR 05

Chapter 5

The Grand Duchess’s words and manner were cold, but that no longer mattered to Elenor.

When she was young, she had thought that because the Grand Duchess always wore such a cold expression and spoke so curtly, she disliked Elenor for being an illegitimate child. So Elenor had avoided her whenever possible.

But now she knew.

She knew that her mother cared about her and cherished her.

She knew that there had been affection hidden within the Grand Duchess’s cold gaze whenever she looked at her.

Now, Elenor could read those feelings plainly in her mother’s eyes.

That was why, at even a single word from the Grand Duchess, a deep warmth filled her heart.

As Elenor was swept away by a wave of emotions and remained silent for too long, the Grand Duchess began to look slightly anxious.

There was no reason for Elenor to hesitate.

She raised the corners of her lips and answered.

“All right, Mother. I’d like to go with you, too.”

She had no idea how she had managed to return to the past, but there was no way she could let this opportunity to set everything right slip away.

I can never marry Joshua.

Their marriage had been the beginning of everything that happened, so Elenor resolved that, no matter what, she would break off her engagement to Joshua.

Then another question came to mind.

Joshua’s words from the moment she had been dying.

He had strangled her neck with both hands and whispered to her.

[……I’m the real one. I am the real one.]

What did he mean by real?

If there was a real one, then that meant there was a fake one, too.

What could that be?

Having thought that far, Elenor shook her head and pushed the thoughts away.

There was still plenty of time to find out.

It’s that dream again.

The moment Charles opened his eyes, he looked around at his surroundings and felt a sense of familiarity.

Then he suddenly realized that this was the scene he had been seeing repeatedly in his dreams lately.

The Imperial Palace.

When Charles was very young, his grandfather had often taken him by the hand to pay his respects to the Emperor, so he immediately recognized the place in his dream.

There was only one difference.

The man standing in the middle of the Imperial Palace now wasn’t the Emperor Charles had met as a child.

Charles narrowed his eyes.

The man wore a golden crown on his head, and his expression looked arrogant.

In this dream, which he had experienced over and over again, the man always appeared exactly the same way.

He was the person Charles hated most.

Joshua Herace.

How had that man come to be wearing a golden crown?

Just as Charles began to wonder, Joshua threw something he was holding.

The object struck the floor with a loud clatter and rolled across it.

It was a dagger.

A woman wearing a worn-out, tattered dress was kneeling on the floor. She lowered her gaze and stared at the dagger.

“……Why aren’t you picking it up? Didn’t you want to die so badly?”

At Joshua’s mocking voice, Charles folded his arms and watched him.

He didn’t know why he kept having this dream, but there was something he had always wondered about.

Why was Joshua able to act as though he were the master of the Imperial Palace?

Perhaps today, he would finally learn the reason.

Charles casually watched as the woman raised her head.

The woman picked up the dagger and immediately drove its sharp blade into her own heart.

At that moment, Charles was able to see the woman’s face clearly for the first time.

It was very different from the face in his memories.

But Charles recognized her at a glance.

The woman was the person he had missed more than anyone.

……El?

It was Elenor.

Elenor’s body began to collapse, but Charles, frozen stiff, couldn’t move even an inch.

Even when the blood flowing from her heart pooled on the floor and formed a crimson puddle, Charles couldn’t move.

Tears welled up in his eyes.

No. This can’t happen…… El!

“El!”

Charles shouted and abruptly sat upright, gasping for breath.

The thin blanket that had barely been covering his naked upper body slipped downward.

His scarred torso was already drenched in sweat, and the sheets and blanket felt damp at even the slightest brush of his fingers.

“Haa…… haa……”

Charles slowly steadied his ragged breathing and turned his head toward the outside.

When he looked through the window, dawn was already beginning to break faintly.

Charles pressed the backs of his hands against his eyes.

His eyes, still burning with heat, were as hot as his chest.

He soon let out a sigh of relief.

“It’s that dream again. But……”

Today was different.

Lately, Charles had repeatedly been dreaming about the same person.

Not just anyone, but his fiancée, Joshua.

At first, he had thought the dreams were meaningless.

But when the same dream and the same situation repeated again and again, even Charles began to find it strange.

And only today did a sense of unease surge through him.

It no longer mattered how Joshua had ended up in the Imperial Palace or why he was acting as though he were its master.

There was only one thing that mattered.

The sight of Elenor dying dominated his thoughts.

Did something happen to El?

Lost in ominous speculation, Charles once again rubbed his feverish forehead.

For the past few days, whenever he had this dream, he had developed a mysterious fever afterward, making things difficult for him.

Charles threw aside the blanket covering his lower body and picked up the clothes scattered across the floor.

As he brushed his wet hair back from his forehead, he listened carefully to the presence outside his room.

Footsteps could be heard running down the corridor.

Not long afterward, there was a faint knock on the door.

“Young Master. Are you awake? It’s urgent!”

The familiar presence and voice belonged to Daniel, Charles’s aide.

Daniel spent far more time at the Marquis Berichmen’s estate than he did at his own home, but he would never normally wake his superior so early in the morning.

Charles wiped the sweat running down his chin with the back of his hand and glanced at the clock on the table.

It was just past six.

If Daniel was making this much of a commotion at such an early hour, then it had to be something urgent.

“Come in.”

Daniel hurriedly opened the door and entered.

His hair was completely disheveled.

He wasn’t even properly dressed, and Charles immediately frowned when he saw him.

Looking at Daniel’s disheveled appearance somehow made Charles feel as though his fever were rising even further.

Charles pressed the back of his cold hand against his burning forehead to cool it and spoke.

“Daniel. What on earth is going on so early in the—”

“He’s disappeared!”

Charles froze.

Although Daniel’s words were completely lacking in context, Charles suddenly felt an anxiety unlike anything he had ever experienced before.

“……What did you just say?”

“The Marquis…… H-he has disappeared!”

The moment Elenor arrived at the Grand Duke of Raiwens’s estate, she separated from the Grand Duchess without even having time to exchange greetings and entered another hall.

Magnificent chandeliers brightly illuminated the hall, beneath which dozens of round tables had been arranged throughout the room.

Various desserts and beverages had been placed on the tables. It was immediately obvious that they had been prepared with great care over a long period of time.

Listening to the beautiful melody played by the musicians seated to one side, Elenor walked toward a secluded corner.

She felt that she could only relax if she stayed somewhere no one would be able to see her.

After settling into a corner, Elenor discreetly observed the people inside the hall.

It looks like all the influential families are here.

People around her age were gathered in small groups, laughing and chatting merrily.

Among them, the most conspicuous person was Sebastian Raiwens, the son of the Grand Duchess of Raiwens and the host of today’s social gathering.

The Grand Duke of Raiwens was offering kind smiles to the people gathered around him in a circle, wearing an incredibly gentle expression.

Watching his hypocritical appearance, Elenor couldn’t help but scoff inwardly.

In her previous life, just like everyone else here, Elenor had thought the Grand Duke of Raiwens was nothing more than an elegant and dignified gentleman.

But once she learned the truth, she discovered that he was a filthy and despicable man who was every bit as bad as Joshua.

No. In some ways, he’s even worse than Joshua.

One of his despicable acts had been giving his own wife to one of his retainers.

Joshua had once told Elenor why Sebastian had done something so vile.

The reason was simple.

He had grown tired of her.

Even knowing such an ugly truth, Joshua had kept Sebastian by his side.

The reason was that Sebastian’s connections were useful to him.

On the other hand, after learning the truth about Sebastian, Elenor had once found it so difficult to bear seeing him at various parties and banquets that she would feel sick to her stomach.

Everyone should know what he’s really like.

After glaring at Sebastian with contempt, Elenor soon turned away with an indifferent expression and waved toward a servant walking around the hall.

As she drank the non-alcoholic fruit wine the servant handed her, Elenor fell into thought.

While riding in the carriage to the Grand Duke of Raiwens’s estate, she had realized that today was the first time she had ever attended a social gathering together with the Grand Duchess of Frihosen.

The Grand Duchess of Frihosen wasn’t particularly fond of showing herself in public, so she only attended events that were absolutely necessary.

Elenor had attended more gatherings than her, but she had deliberately avoided going to the ones the Grand Duchess attended.

At the time, she had thought that was the wisest thing to do.

She hadn’t known that the more she tried to show her so-called consideration, the farther apart the two of them would become.

Fortunately, she had been given the chance to live her life once again.

She would not do anything she would regret.

Elenor was sitting alone in a comfortable armchair in the corner of the hall when she sensed people occasionally glancing in her direction.

The looks, filled with various emotions such as curiosity and contempt, were familiar to her.

But unlike in the past, she straightened her shoulders and met their gazes without flinching.

She sat there leisurely, paying no attention to their stares.

Then, suddenly, she sensed another gaze directed at her.

The emotion behind it felt somewhat different from the gazes of the others.

The intensity of that stare was so piercing that Elenor couldn’t help but wonder what the emotion behind it meant.

“……”

Elenor turned her head toward the source of the gaze.

And then she suddenly found herself unable to breathe.

……This is impossible.