Chapter 20: The Lie to Believe

“Just what do you think you are doing right now?”

Mikeron asked in an icy, frozen voice, stepping between Ran and me.

His large, solid hand, veins bulging, was tightly gripping Ran’s wrist.

“…Duke.”

Ran, who had acted recklessly like a man with nothing to fear, shrank back strangely in front of Mikeron.

As another commotion arose centered around me, gazes began to gather one by one.

I stared blankly at Mikeron’s back, bearing the full brunt of the crowd’s eyes on me.

My stomach churned.

I was merely a person of no consequence to Mikeron.

Thus, I knew that the kindness he bestowed was nothing more than hollow, superficial goodwill.

Even if someone other than me had been placed in this situation, Mikeron would have helped them in the exact same manner.

Despite knowing all of this, finding myself receiving his help once again left my mind feeling foolishly fluttered.

I didn’t know how to manage this emotion that I had to endure all on my own.

I was anxious, and restless.

“Just like earlier, why do you keep interfering with Count Kinesis…”

Ran’s brow furrowed, seemingly displeased that Mikeron kept assisting me.

Though curious about Mikeron’s answer, at the same time, I felt a dual desire of not wanting to know.

‘Why, you ask? Is he not pitiful?’

The Mikeron in my imagination scoffed as he looked at me.

If I were to actually hear such words…

I grit my teeth and spoke.

“Do not pay any mind to me. Do not help me, and do not show any interest in me either.”

After venting my anger at him, who had done nothing wrong, I blindly ran.

While escaping the banquet hall and running down the long corridor, my chest boiled as if it were burning hot.

This was a sign that dark magic had been activated.

A sharp, gloomy hallucination registered through my brain, not my ears.

“If there is something you dislike, just kill it. You wished for everyone to be slaughtered, didn’t you?”

The familiar voice repeatedly pricked my mind.

“Shut up…”

Muttering to myself toward the hallucination, I entered a room prepared as a rest area.

Fortunately, there was no one in the room.

Slumping onto the plush sofa, I slowly gathered my heart and breathed.

As I sorted through my emotions alone, the hallucination echoing in my mind vanished and my burning chest calmed, but my stomach still churned.

While I was merely pressing hard against my chest, someone opened the door and entered.

When I lifted my head, Mikeron’s figure came into view.

I felt as if my breath had caught.

While I stood frozen solid without a word, he closed the distance in an instant, grabbed my arm, and gently lifted it.

Just as I scowled, wondering what on earth he was doing.

He asked in a low voice.

“Are your wrists alright?”

Even though he surely had many things he wished to say, the way he set everything else aside to worry about my condition first was strangely irritating.

When I roughly pulled my arm away, he did not hold onto me any further.

“May we speak for a moment?”

“No. I have nothing to say to you, Duke.”

Rejecting him coldly, I stood up from my seat.

Though I tried to leave quickly, terrified of what words he might utter, the edge of my clothes was grabbed.

My steps were halted, and I felt a weight from behind.

“You do not dislike me.”

At his confident words delivered in a quiet voice, my insides suddenly began to boil.

It was absurd.

He was thoroughly misunderstanding something.

I turned my head to mock him, wanting to ask if his brilliant brain was merely filled with flower gardens.

I intended to snap at him to stop talking nonsense, but once I actually faced Mikeron, my mouth refused to open as if I were under a spell.

In that moment, I realized that the emotion I believed would never change, no matter what, had betrayed me.

My mind went completely blank, and my heart plummeted along with the hatred that was slowly crumbling away.

“And yet, I do not understand why you keep trying to push me away.”

I hated him, and I had to continue doing so in the future.

Otherwise, I felt as if another emotion, one I had never even imagined, would occupy the empty space left by the hatred and torment me.

Not disliking Mikeron.

I didn’t want to admit it.

That was one thing I could never admit, even if I were to die right this second.

“You are deeply mistaken. I have never once not disliked you, Duke.”

Not wanting to reveal my true feelings, I sneered even more viciously than usual.

The lips uttering the lie trembled.

Mikeron’s hand gripping my clothes slowly slid down.

The weight was no longer felt.

“…Is that so.”

He smiled faintly, wearing a face that looked strangely hurt.

I shouldn’t have been able to exert any influence over Mikeron.

After all, someone like me carried no meaning or value in his life.

Thus, there was no way he could be hurt by my words.

The man who had seemed infinitely strong looked strangely weak.

At the sight, my heart pounded furiously as if broken, but dismissing it as an illusion, I took advantage of him standing there dazed and hurriedly left the room.

My mood kept sinking.

It felt as suffocating as being submerged in the deep ocean, and it was as if the entirety of gravity was pressing down on my shoulders.

Unable to comprehend what on earth I was doing, I grew irritated with myself as well.

With no outlet to express it, the irritation merely accumulated inside, making me hate everything.

Even exhaling a sigh failed to ease my heart.

The only thing that could relieve this tight emotion was pain.

While walking and pressing my fingernails hard against my skin, my shoulder was grabbed in an instant.

‘Is it Mikeron again?’

My head felt like it would explode, so I wished he would please stop grabbing me.

I turned my head, scowling, but unlike Mikeron, whom I had to look up to see, the person before me stood at a lower eye level.

A stature more than a span shorter than me, a delicate, boyish frame, chestnut hair, and green eyes.

Though I wondered if I had seen wrong, no matter how I looked at it, it was indeed Mariel.

Mariel was looking up at me with a face that seemed highly displeased.

I slowly smoothed my scowl.

‘Why did he stop me?’

‘Is he not uncomfortable around me?’

Before my regression, Mariel had merely avoided me, never stopping me first in this manner.

Though we had exchanged a few words last time because we bumped into each other by chance, this time was a confrontation brought about solely of Mariel’s own will.

I was flustered, unable to understand why he had stopped me.

“What is it…”

“Count, you are surprisingly capable, aren’t you?”

“What do you mean by that?”

When I asked, having absolutely no inkling of what he meant, Mariel smirked crookedly.

“You were just standing between Young Lord Ilay and Duke Mikeron.”

“Why does that…”

“I thought you were the protagonist of some love triangle. Like a scene straight out of a novel.”

Beyond bewilderment, his sarcastic words left me in a state of sheer disbelief.

If the person before me hadn’t been Mariel, I would have snapped in anger, asking what kind of nonsense he was talking.

“You must know best that such a thing is impossible, Baron.”

“Why do you think it is impossible?”

Mariel asked significantly.

Though I couldn’t comprehend why he was asking, perhaps due to the guilt I harbored toward him, the words flowed easily from my mouth.

“Because it makes no sense. Both of them dislike me, if anything; they would never like…”

“Who dislikes whom? Surely not Mikeron? Pfft.”

Mariel burst into laughter.

I merely watched him laugh in silence.

Wiping away his tears after laughing for a long while, Mariel brought his face close to mine.

When I flinched and took a step back, he closed the distance again and smiled insolently.

“Count, I have something I’m curious about.”

“Pardon?”

“Do you actually like me?”

Until now, Mariel had detested and feared me terribly.

The image of him before my regression, blinking his watery eyes and subtly grabbing the edge of Mikeron’s clothes, was still vivid.

But what on earth was the change of heart he experienced in this life?

This did not seem like the attitude of someone dealing with a person they feared.

Rather, he was far too bold.

“You, Count, who used to do anything just to catch my eye, suddenly went quiet. No, it feels as if you’ve become an entirely different person. Until just a few months ago, you were a lunatic whose eyes had rolled back.”

“I believe I told you this last time as well, but I have come to my senses. In the future, I will absolutely never cause trouble for you, Baron…”

“No, I mean. Count, do you like me?”

Mariel snapped in irritation out of nowhere.

Startled by his tone, I quickly denied it.

“No, I no longer…”

“Do not lie and speak to me honestly. I will accept whatever answer you give, Count.”

Even if he told me to speak honestly, I didn’t like Mariel as much as before.

Seeing as I felt no particular emotion despite talking this closely with him made it clear.

Just as I was about to deny it once more, Mikeron’s face suddenly flashed before my eyes.

The image of him from earlier, looking strangely hurt, hovered before me.

I bit my lip.

I had to like Mariel.

Therefore, there was no room for anyone else to enter.

To deny my true feelings, I replied.

“I do.”

“Really? That’s great.”

Mariel smiled brightly and tightly grabbed both of my hands.

In the past, even a slight brush of our fingertips would have made my heart thump wildly, but this sudden contact only flustered me; no further emotion arose.

“Count, then please help me.”

The corners of Mariel’s eyes curved narrowly.

“Help you? What exactly do you want me to help you with?”

It would be far more reassuring and comfortable to ask Mikeron for help instead of me.

No, in the first place, the fact that he was asking me for help was bizarre.

Mariel had more than enough people around him to help, even if it wasn’t Mikeron.

So why was he going out of his way to request help from me?

And from me, who had been his stalker until just a few months ago.

“You see, I truly wish to be with either Duke Mikeron or Young Lord Ilay.”

“Pardon?”

For a moment, I thought I had misheard.

If only Mikeron’s name had come out of Mariel’s mouth, I wouldn’t have been this shocked, but hearing Ran Ilay’s name brought up out of the blue left me bewildered.

“But since I share no connection with Young Lord Ilay, I suppose that will be difficult, so I want to be with Mikeron!”

Each of Mariel’s words pierced my ears.

It felt as if he was not the Mariel I used to know, making me feel uncomfortable having my hands held by him, but I kept my composure and listened to the end.

“Because I feel like if you return to how you used to be, Count, I’ll be able to be with Mikeron.”

‘Even if someone like me does nothing, the two of them will connect eventually.’

The image of Mariel and Mikeron kissing was drawn vividly before my eyes.

While staring blankly as I recalled that scene, a question I had never once harbored came to mind.

‘Come to think of it, since when were the two of them lovers?’

‘Had there even been any signs?’

Thinking about it, only the image of them kissing came to mind; I didn’t recall hearing any rumors that they had begun dating.

“Wishing for the happiness of the person you love is true love, isn’t it? If it’s you right now, Count, you’ll understand what I mean, right?”

Amidst all this, Mariel smiled brightly like a child.

Lowering my gaze, I quietly bit my lower lip.

“Just as you say, I wish for your happiness, Baron.”

“Then—”

“But I cannot do that.”

Though I didn’t care what happened to my reputation or safety, both of which were already rock bottom, I didn’t want accepting Mariel’s request to cause a hitch in my relationship with Raihar.

I had to gain his trust to save him, and I didn’t want to get rejected by steering off course.

“I am sorry. I wish to grant most of your favors, but…”

“You just said you liked me. So why do you say you cannot? Was your feeling for me merely to that extent, Count? Why on earth did you stalk me with a feeling that was barely to that extent? This is truly ridiculous.”

Harsh words of condemnation poured from Mariel’s mouth.

Struggling to deal with him as he pushed me without pause, cold sweat broke out.

“I am sorry. But still, this is.”

“Do not you even feel sorry toward me? You said you were sorry with your own mouth. Then shouldn’t you show it through actions? Ah, was it perhaps just empty words? Repaying the favor of saving your life with hostility, and now you claim you cannot even grant a favor of this extent. I think this is a bit too much to do to your savior.”

His accusatory remarks pricked my chest.

Having only a record of stalking was actually mild compared to what would come.

Before my regression, I had committed crimes like kidnapping and imprisonment.

Guilt crushed my heart.

To him, I was a sinner who had committed an unforgivable offense that could never be washed away in a lifetime.

“If you are truly sorry, you must atone to me. Is that not so?”

Mariel’s words felt like my sole absolution.

Feeling as though there was no other way to atone to him besides this, I grew endlessly anxious.

Quietly parting my lips, I resigned myself with a heavy sigh.

“What is it that I should do?”

Whether pleased with my reply, he curled the corners of his mouth and smiled.

“Well, you see.”

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