Ria cleaned Eliya’s bedroom all alone.
She had no idea where Eliya was or what she was doing.
Lately, she had been sticking close to Judas.
Eliya meticulously managed any outside approach to carve out time for just the two of them.
They could only be separated in situations that required it publicly.
Thanks to that, there was no room for Ria to intrude.
It was quite a relief.
Because now she had a man who would accept Eliya’s heart and respond to her.
Originally, she had thought she would die and disappear during the war.
But she ended up surviving unintentionally, and they won the war.
Eliya’s power overwhelmed everyone’s expectations.
Now that all the obstacles had disappeared,
Should she reveal her truth or not?
Every day, Ria agonized over it without rest.
But how could she take responsibility for the wounds Eliya would suffer if she spoke that truth?
Days when she pretended not to see her suffering.
Eliya must have been suffering far more than her.
But now, if she were to reveal the truth, how shocked would Eliya be?
She wasn’t afraid of Eliya blaming or hating her.
If that hatred brought Eliya peace of mind, she could easily accept it.
And she felt she deserved that.
Because she hadn’t fulfilled her role properly.
The excuse of “I couldn’t help it” was pathetic and immature.
Still, the only option Ria had been given in the past was just that.
A commoner with neither power, money, nor connections.
A dancer from a shabby troupe on the outskirts, earning just enough for a day’s meal by dancing.
It was sheer chance or whim that caught the eye of Balak.
She couldn’t tell if that was good luck or bad luck.
In the neglect of Balak and the oversight of Narcissi, the best way for Ria to protect Eliya was this meager relationship.
Sorry to Eliya.
It was a relationship that began with lies from the very start.
On top of that, she continued to pile on more lies, stacking them up.
If she revealed the truth here, the tower of lies she built would collapse.
It would come crashing down, brutally wounding the very foundation that was Eliya’s heart.
She had to keep it to herself. Until the day she died.
Her identity must remain forever a nonexistent presence to Eliya.
For the remaining years,
She just wanted to live quietly.
To assist Eliya occasionally and watch her happily love Judas.
That was her final desire.
A small potted plant on the windowsill of the bedroom.
Looking at the fully bloomed anemone, Ria smiled, feeling both bittersweet and happy.
She was grateful for the man named Judas, who could take her place and more.
*
Maria.
The only color and world she had.
Someone akin to the past Judas for her.
Her everything.
The one who killed that person was currently her everything.
Judas.
‘……’
The person who commissioned the hit was Narcissi.
Judas might just be the one who executed it.
But thinking about it simply, there were far too many tangled matters.
Judas.
Judas killed her mother.
Judas was also the one designated to kill her.
Judas said he liked her.
In front of her mother’s grave.
What kind of thought.
What purpose.
What intention.
Why did he commit such heinous acts?
Judas claimed he had no memories of the past.
So, could he prove that?
She thought she knew everything about Judas.
Her arrogant judgment lifted, though.
She realized she knew nothing about him.
Perhaps the version of him she knew was all a lie.
His reactions when he lied. The habits.
No matter how skilled, it was difficult to fabricate, and yet Eliya found it impossible to trust him any longer.
There were more suspicious points.
The Angra she confirmed had many aspects of her memory erased.
It was a somewhat unnatural erasure.
Of course, somewhere among them, there had to be Judas.
The documents before her.
The various clues she confirmed with her eyes clicked perfectly together.
So meticulously that her cold reason couldn’t raise any objections.
An assassin raised to kill her.
An assassin who killed her mother.
The same person.
Judas Defecit.
The Royal Palace. Molsin Church.
A joint operation by the two.
Then what about Balak?
If the three hadn’t been aiming to control her from the start, then what kind of person was Balak?
Eliya didn’t think her slaughter had been meaningless.
Leaving the Empire and Molsin Church behind, given time, the brothers would undoubtedly have attempted to kill her someday.
Balak was the person responsible for failing to keep her in check.
So, he deserved to die.
Was that so? She wasn’t sure.
Amidst this chaos, the most difficult to understand was Balak.
If the Empire and Molsin Church hadn’t intended to kill her, why had he treated her so harshly?
Did he truly think that maintaining his family’s peace was worth the sacrifice of just one person?
She thought there were some ideals involved.
The ludicrous idea that it was simply about conquering the Empire.
But could it be that he had really just been hiding her and her mother for the sake of family peace?
No. This issue wasn’t important right now.
These were matters that strayed from her world.
Judas.
He had said he had no memories.
It was a lie.
Or perhaps, he truly might not remember.
There was a possibility he removed unnecessary memories to become a perfect blade.
But one thing was certain.
An assassin must never forget their target.
The memory that he must kill Maria and herself wouldn’t be forgotten.
One question arose.
If so, then why?
Why hadn’t Judas killed her yet?
He had countless opportunities.
‘Ah….’
She suddenly realized.
‘This moment, for this….’
If Balak wasn’t an enemy of the Empire, this situation made sense.
The Empire incited the Bevel family’s civil war.
Eliya eliminates Balak and all direct heirs.
And then, Judas would kill the remaining Eliya.
Thus, the Empire could eliminate the Bevel family completely without any losses and monopolize the continent.
When he said he liked her,
A trained assassin would leave no means untried.
The method of getting close to a well-guarded target and killing them after years of building a rapport is well-known.
She didn’t think she would be the one to become a victim of that.
‘To make me… let down my guard….’
All the clues pieced together into a coherent conclusion.
‘Judas was out to get me from the beginning….’
Yurideke shouted in desperation.
She couldn’t let herself be buried in a single truth while losing her reason.
“Eliya! First, calm down…!”
At that moment,
The outside became chaotic.
“No way…. of all times now!”
The door burst open.
A knight clad in platinum armor led several knights clad in golden armor charging in.
The leading knight in platinum armor was a royal guard.
Yurideke clenched her teeth.
They were the very forces tracking her.
The golems she had set for security outside were useless.
They were insufficient to stop them.
The attackers were taken aback by seeing Eliya, but they didn’t delay their mission.
“Capture those two.”
Yurideke hurriedly said.
“Eliya. I’m so sorry. I know it’s hard to believe, but please trust Judas.”
Leaving those words behind, Yurideke vanished.
“She has vanished!”
“What the hell…! How did you come here!”
They had used the teleport artifact.
Eliya found herself smiling unconsciously.
That artifact was one of the items she commercialized in collaboration with the tower master.
While making a necklace for Judas, she had incidentally created it.
She couldn’t remember what Yurideke had said before leaving.
But at that moment, the scenery before her seemed utterly perfect.
As she stormed into the information guild, she was thrown into shock by the royal guard and knights attacking.
Didn’t it feel as if they had come just to capture her?
The guards shook their heads as they looked at the wildly laughing Eliya.
“I don’t know why, but she’s not normal. It’d be better to kill this enemy here…”
Thud.
A head that had been speaking fell and rolled on the ground.
The remaining knights didn’t have the opportunity to be surprised or draw their swords in response.
By the time they recognized that the golden flames had killed the guard, their heads were rolling on the ground as well.
“Ha, ha ha, ha ha ha….”
Tears streamed endlessly from her eyes as her gaze burned with insane flames.
Eliya laughed as if she had gone mad.
This situation was so ridiculous that it was hard to bear without laughing.
*
The cage crumbles.
The iron frame of the bars twists in grotesque ways, warping, twisting, and breaking.
The only source of light floating in the void, the moon shatters like glass and rains down.
Sharp shards pour down.
As the iron frame and glass were about to strike the anemone,
Eliya reflexively threw herself to protect the flower.
Pain poured down her back.
Yet Eliya endured.
That flower.
Even if Judas had deceived her.
Even if everything about him was a lie.
The emotions and heart she felt through him weren’t lies.
They were genuine.
In every moment.
New feelings sprouted in her heart.
The emotions she thought she had settled.
The feeling of betrayal carved the name of that emotion into her heart like a rusty blade.
Hatred.
But memories shared since childhood.
The time and feelings shared with him.
Those moments, clear enough to grasp, couldn’t be hated.
The fresh affection and meeting with hatred tangled together and mixed, eventually becoming a different emotion.
Love-hate.
A contradiction in itself, that word, pierced deep into her heart.
*
Hermis drove the horse breathlessly.
She had to relay the story that Judas couldn’t tell Eliya before she learned about it.
Judas killed Eliya’s biological mother, Maria.
And there were many questions surrounding Maria’s death as well.
Judas executed the assassination of Maria, but at the time, he belonged to Ramek.
Anyone familiar with Ramek would have to conclude that Maria’s death was suspicious.
Their assassinations didn’t operate that way.
In her hurry, she had already set off without knowing that Eliya had burst into the information guild and encountered the royal guards tracking the guild.
“…Huh?”
A sense of unease washed over Hermis.
She cautiously slowed her horse’s pace.
Many shadows rose around the terrain heading toward Eliya’s mansion.
‘That’s….’
Knights clad in golden armor.
Along with numerous troops.
And mixed in among them, a knight in platinum armor.
‘The royal guards…. the rest are Empire troops and the royal knights.’
The Empire’s forces surrounded Eliya’s mansion.
They didn’t seem poised to attack actively.
From the atmosphere, it looked like they were waiting for the right moment to strike.
‘I heard the negotiations had broken down. So, the Empire decided to act before Eliya could make her move.’
Hermis turned her horse’s head.
She had to find any gap to squeeze through.
Before being attacked, she needed to convey this information.
*
Judas was summoned by Eliya.
As he arrived via teleport, he saw the familiar scenery of her office.
But Eliya’s atmosphere was not familiar.
It was completely different from usual.
Judas instinctively felt something was off.
“…Miss?”
Eliya was half-sitting on her work desk.
Her eyes, stained with mad flames, stared vacantly out the window.
Shiny yet hollow gaze.
He had never seen Eliya look like this before.
“What’s going on….”
As Judas approached, he stopped in his tracks.
He recognized the assorted papers scattered on the desk where Eliya was sitting.
They were the documents Yurideke had shown him, and those she intended to show him.
Information stating that he was the assassin.
He didn’t know about the others.
‘Why is that here….’
Eliya’s dry voice called out to him.
“Judas.”
“…Yes, Miss.”
She spoke without looking at Judas.
“Why did you do it?”
It was a question loaded with many meanings.
The moment he heard it, Judas realized.
Eliya had figured it all out.
Though he had been honest every moment, he hesitated just once.
And that result was before him.
He intuitively sensed that an ending had come.
This place resembled the venue that had shown the second tragedy.
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