I Became the Wife of the Hero Who Killed Me - Chapter 157

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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#Chapter 157
“By the way, where’s Count Baron?”
“Ah, the Baron is conducting a final review of the administrative reports for my lady’s return to duty. He should be back shortly.”
“Count Baron is reviewing the reports himself?”
I must be hearing things—it’s been too long since I’ve handled official duties.
Not someone else, but that Count Baron, whose only abilities were reading the room, flattery, and squeezing his subordinates dry—was I really hearing this correctly?
At that very moment, Count Baron entered carrying a thick document file.
“Your lady’s capable trusted retainer, Count Baron, offers his respects.”
“……?”
He’d even affixed a monocle, of all things.
I’d been about to snort inwardly, but the instant he opened his mouth, I couldn’t help but be taken aback.
“Then I shall report on the major administrative matters during your lady’s absence. Please refer to the report for detailed particulars.”
With that, he began reciting off every outstanding issue scattered across Lombard.
In just one season, the Baron had become an elite bureaucrat second to none in this place.
I glanced around in disbelief.
“Pfft.”
Ramon and the officials, catching my eye, all touched their noses in unison with a sound.
Then I understood: this was the magnificent fruit of their Spartan training.
* * *
Upon my return to official duties, I felt the atmosphere had transformed markedly from before my departure for the Imperial Capital.
Answers came back promptly and readily.
Before, whenever I’d tried to change even one thing, resistance came from all quarters, and if it concerned their interests, they’d throw themselves at it with the fury of insubordination itself.
Every document processed meant a battle of wills and mental sparring as a matter of course.
But now the entire Castle Administration bent obediently like willow branches beneath my will.
Ramon, my aide, spoke as if reading my thoughts.
“Indeed, now that you’re back in your seat, administrative work flows as smoothly as water.”
“It seems you all had a difficult time.”
“Don’t even speak of it. Especially when word came that you’d been imprisoned as a heretic—it was absolute chaos. We thought our necks would be next.”
“Write down the names of those who stirred up trouble while you were managing things.”
“Of course. I’ve already compiled a list.”
I’ll deal with them all in due time.
I began by reviewing the urgent people’s livelihood issues in the homeland proper, and then turned to Bellamare.
Before even looking at the documents, my mind was already troubled.
‘If I can’t find investors like this, I’ll eventually have to develop it alone. I may need to scale back from the original plan.’
As I scanned the document files stacked on one edge of the desk, one caught my eye—unusually thick.
It had swollen far beyond the bounds of an ordinary report, thick enough to serve as an encyclopedia, and my gaze seized upon it without thinking.
“What is this?”
“Investment Interest Letters for Bellamare that have arrived from all across the continent.”
“……?”
For a moment, I doubted my own ears.
Last winter, I’d sent investment proposals to the neighboring territories, but the responses were cold. Except for a few places that nominally committed to small investments, every single one refused.
Yet now, not only the lords of the Northern Region but also nobles from the Central and Southern regions had sent investment interest letters.
Even Orthodox States beyond the seas had done so.
The amounts they were offering surpassed my imagination.
“It’s thanks to your lady’s spectacular activities in the Imperial Capital. In truth, since the North lacks a proper trading port, it’s a business that would lay golden eggs if developed correctly—they were all holding back out of deference to Vittorio IV.”
“Mmm.”
As I worked through the list one by one, my gaze stopped at the name of one noble house.
[Marquis Perang House]
‘Lizzy…….’
The Perang Family had for generations been active in Central Politics, a house of distinguished political renown, and had shown little interest in commercial ventures.
That they had sent an investment interest letter all the way to the distant North must have been out of friendship for me.
Feeling the genuine heart of a friend in the documents, my eyes grew hot.
I’d truly suffered terribly in the Imperial Capital.
Yet through experiencing the diverse spectrum of humanity there, and broadening my political insight in the process, I’d been able to easily identify which allies might be of use to Lombard.
“Have the documents on the right sent up to Edwin. The Bellamare project is too important for me to judge alone.”
“Understood. And these?”
“The middle ones are backup options in case coordination with the right fails, and the left ones are to be discarded.”
Ramon didn’t even glance at the left-side documents before tossing them into the waste bin.
The middle documents were put aside for safekeeping after calling in my aide, and I personally took charge of the ones to be sent upward.
On my first day back to official duties, I had mountains of matters to review.
Word came that Caterina had safely departed Bellamare aboard a ship disguised as a mineral vessel, and there were also reports that Count Alnor had fallen into a fever of greed when vast quantities of gold were extracted from the gold mine now in my name.
I genuinely celebrated the former and merely dismissed the latter.
Before I knew it, the day had grown dark with work.
“My lady, perhaps you should retire for the evening.”
“Just a bit more. You all may leave for the day.”
Edwin departed to inspect the Northern Wall, leading the Elite Forces with him.
He said the journey would take about a month, so there was no real reason for me to leave early.
Yet the bureaucrats all waved their hands in protest.
“How could we possibly leave when you are still here, my lady? Since there is no particular deadline today, would it not be wiser to approach this with a bit more leisure?”
……
I paused, my hand still hovering over the documents.
The compulsion not to leave work unfinished had hardened into habit, and the conviction that only I could do it had long since become a chronic condition—burning myself up in endless labor.
Those around me understood this nature of mine well enough.
Yet when I obediently set the documents down, Ramon looked at me with surprise in his eyes.
“My lady, it seems you have changed greatly since your time in the Imperial Capital.”
“Have I?”
“It is difficult to put into words exactly, but the feeling is—in many ways—”
I fell into a brief reverie.
Once, I had tried to solve everything alone, through sheer stubbornness and determination. I believed that was the only way.
But I had come to understand that there are things in this world no single person can resolve, and that there are moments when working together makes us all far more complete.
The harsh trials I endured in the Imperial Capital had, paradoxically, transformed me.
Perhaps reading my thoughts, another bureaucrat standing behind me spoke.
“For us, it is an honor to serve the guardian of the Orthodox Church, my lady.”
“You jest—”
I could only laugh softly.
* * *
The sound of Mother’s footsteps echoes.
Nero, exhausted from an entire day of Berry’s enthusiastic fishing rod maneuvers and collapsed in a heap, perked up his ears and rose to his feet.
[Oh my, every bone aches……]
“Meow~”
Pretending it was nothing, he began to amble casually about, but it was not long before the door flew open in urgency.
“Mom’s home!”
“Meow♡”
Nero, as if he had been waiting for precisely this moment, flopped onto his back and exposed his belly—an utterly shameless invitation.
Just as expected, Mother came rushing in with ragged breath—something of a pervert about her—hastily shedding her outdoor dress and letting down her hair before diving headlong into Nero’s soft belly.
“Ahh, this is it. All the day’s fatigue just melts away.”
“Meow.”
Nero wanted to continue lying there, luxuriating in Mother’s loving hands, yet his heart was impatient.
He wanted to absorb more and more Demonic Energy from Mother, keeping her safe and protected.
In his previous life, Nero had been nothing but a powerless, small cat—forced to watch helplessly as Mother was dragged away by wicked men.
But this time it was different.
The memories of Morcatus, now merged into a single body with him, flowed naturally into his consciousness.
‘Damn it, curse it…… how could any human be monstrously strong like that? Ugh, how is this even possible?!’
‘I cannot die like this. I, the Great Demon Morcatus, cannot perish so pathetically at human hands. I need a host. Anything will do, just something, right now……!’
At that moment, Morcatus had been struggling to flee beyond the Northern Wall, reduced to rubble by Edwin’s power.
But in the mountains swept clean by the Great Earthquake, there remained not a single human—nor even a beast.
What few things he did find were already lifeless.
Even a Great Demon cannot use a dead body as a host; there would be no soul to bind a contract with.
With nearly all the Demonic Energy that composed his flesh evaporated and gone, leaving only a core reduced to rags, Morcatus crawled aimlessly across the dirt.
It was then that he found her—a small cat lying crumpled in the corner of a yard, brutally kicked by military boots.
She stared only in the direction Mother had been taken, gasping out “Mother, Mother……” in pain, coughing blood weakly.
She was dying.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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