I Will Become the Ex-Wife of the Beast - Chapter 31

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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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The Winter Garden, as I remembered it, was a winter garden in name only, a place crowded with gaunt, bare branches. Unlike the central garden in front of the Main Castle, no one’s hand had touched it, so it was dim and desolate. In truth, it was the perfect match for the Beast’s reputation…
“Ah…”
For a moment, I thought I’d wandered into a hill covered in cherry blossoms. Enormous trees heavy with pale pink Cotton Candy stretched on endlessly before my eyes. I’d never seen a sight so bright in my life, so I found myself stroking my own arm, half-wondering whether it was spring after all.
“Welcome, Lady Eliya.”
“C-Count! What on earth is all this?!”
The Count greeted us from behind the largest Cotton Candy Tree. He surveyed the garden with a smile brighter than I’d ever seen on him, and the sight of his pride was almost too much.
“Do you like it?”
“…This isn’t a matter of whether I like it or not.”
“We mobilized around a hundred dessert craftsmen, you know.”
“…Wait, no, why would you… What happened to all the branches that were here before?”
“Ah, well, about that.”
The Count pushed his glasses up his nose. From my limited experience, whenever this old man started a story like that, I had to be suspicious right away.
Not that I was in any state to take in an explanation.
Dazed as I was, I tried to boil down the Count’s enthusiastic explanation to its essentials. It came to this.
“…So you cut down every single branch during sword practice, and then, feeling that the place looked empty, you decided to hang some Cotton Candy on them. Is that the gist?”
“Precisely.”
“Ah…”
Do they really expect me to believe that?!
I looked around, my mouth opening and closing in a silent scream. Far off, behind a mountain of stripped branches, the knights paused mid-swing and sent up sheepish grins.
“…You’ve all worked very hard, truly.”
“Not at all. We got a proper workout out of it. Lady Eliya, don’t you care for it?”
“Ah, no, it’s not that I don’t like it. It’s just… there’s simply too much of it. Anyone would be thrown by something this size.”
“…It’s, it’s wonderful.”
Rose?
Only then did I hear the voice of the little one in our household, who had let go of my hand the moment we stepped into the garden. Rose had barely managed to gasp in admiration before freezing solid, like a statue.
The Count approached with a knowing smile and rested a hand on Rose’s shoulder.
“Of course. After all, this is Lady Rose’s very first taste of Cotton Candy.”
“…Huh?”
“For the Grand Duke’s Castle’s dignity, this is the bare minimum.”
…What does any of that have to do with dignity, anyway?
But while I buried my face in my hands, Rose was thoroughly overwhelmed. Her expression, far more rapturous than when she’d hurled that hair ribbon pin, trembled with pure ecstasy.
“Th-the Cotton Candy…”
“Yes. Do you like it?”
“Cotton Candy that gets holes when the wind blows. The sweetest Cotton Candy in the world. The big ones are two Gold, the small ones are one Gold. They look like clouds, but they’re not clouds!”
Our Rose has gone into a frenzy.
Overcome with emotion, she poured out everything she knew about Cotton Candy in a chant, her small chest heaving.
Before long, the knights had crowded in close, gazing on with satisfaction, and the Count scooped Rose up into his arms.
“Ah…”
Despite the envious sighs from the knights, Rose’s eyes shone with nothing but pale pink Cotton Candy. Even reaching out for it, she asked the Count’s permission first, then brought the wisp to her small lips. Too timid to take much, she tore off a fingernail-sized piece, and the instant it touched her tongue, tears welled in her eyes.
“Hmm.”
“…My lady, what’s wrong?”
“It’s gone. Waaah!”
As Rose’s shoulders trembled with a flood of grief and joy, the knights swarmed around her in a rush. Flustered, they pressed handful after handful of Cotton Candy into her arms, and before long, our little cat was buried beneath it.
Tsk, tsk. Watching them with a disgusted expression, I turned away at that point.
…Ugh, why am I getting teary-eyed too?
I’d intended to silently mock those childish knights, but I’d already choked up. This was nothing but a sugar bomb of blockbuster proportions, all scale and no restraint.
Maybe it was because my eyes were blurring, but no matter how I looked at it, it seemed like flowers, which was a real problem.
Wandering through the endless Cotton Candy garden, I finally rubbed my eyes and reached out. It really was Cotton Candy, wasn’t it? At the cloud-like texture curling around my fingers, a sigh of wonder escaped me.
“…Aren’t you going to have some?”
“Wh-what, no, Grand Duke!”
“Had I known you wouldn’t eat it, I should have made only half.”
“How can you say that? Even half of this would take decades to…”
Anyway, when did he even arrive?
The moment he stepped out from behind the Cotton Candy Tree, I nearly stopped breathing. Kiers stood there with his hands clasped behind his back, listening intently to Rose’s giggles as they rang out.
“…It seems at least one person is pleased, then.”
Her profile, half-hidden behind the mask, was utterly enigmatic. Pink and black, a combination that should have clashed terribly, yet Kiers looked perfectly at home here.
Perhaps it was that smile curling at the edge of his red lips.
“Your Highness.”
“You’re not planning to be a sister who’s less than her younger sibling, are you? I’m disappointed.”
“…Excuse me?”
When he gestured toward Rose, who was devouring her cotton candy, I bristled.
Then again, this was the man who had made that ridiculous wish yesterday. He really does love watching people eat. I shoved up the sleeves of my dress as if to prove a point.
“That’s a hurtful thing to say.”
“Do you think I’d refuse to eat what’s right in front of me?”
Determined to demolish an entire tree just to show him, I reached out with gusto. But his hand moved from across the way a fraction faster than mine.
“Hand.”
“….”
“Give me your hand.”
His voice, laced with amusement, melted into the pink cotton candy. But Kiers’s large hand had already parted it and lifted my left hand.
“W-Your Highness!”
Is he going to eat me alive!
Yet every one of his movements was deliberate, hardly the way a predator would move. I saw him draw something from inside his coat, and before I knew it, cool metal was sliding up my finger.
I had shut my eyes without thinking, and now I slowly opened them.
“Oh… this is…”
“The formal betrothal gifts will be sent separately, but this is the only thing I have left that’s truly mine.”
“….”
As his hand slowly withdrew, the ring on my finger finally came into view. A plain platinum band without any grand ornamentation, it sat slightly loose and wobbled about.
The only thing he had left? Why would he give something so precious to me?
A garden of cotton candy and now a ring on top of it, it’s becoming more burdensome by the minute. Still, I had even less courage to take it off and give it back. Not because I feared he’d get angry, but because, somehow, I was afraid he’d be disappointed.
“Th-thank you.”
I steadied my trembling voice.
There, I did the right thing, Bella. He’s a man with money to burn anyway, so what’s the harm in accepting one more thing? A terrifying beast is bad enough, but a disappointed beast is even worse.
Convincing myself like that, I clenched my fist tightly so the ring wouldn’t slip off.
“What’s the matter? You were acting as though you’d show me something proper.”
“….”
“As I mentioned, I do hope you eat enough for this ring to fit you properly.”
Kiers stepped back with an indifferent air and looked over my fingers once more. The ring, spinning loosely around my finger, had somehow lost its chill. I didn’t know what to do, so I pressed my lips together, and the cotton candy swayed like clouds in the breeze.
“….”
Just as when Rose tasted the cotton candy, my chest surged again. No, what had been a mere swell a moment ago now stung the tip of my nose.
This man must have laced the sugar with something. I bit into the cotton candy that scattered in a mouthful, but instead of sweetness, only a burn spread across my tongue. Now I could almost understand why our Rose had burst into tears the moment she tasted her first cotton candy.
“Ah, and Philip has arrived. Since I asked him to come here, let’s finish writing out your requests.”
“…My requests?”
“I promised I’d grant whatever you wish.”
Kiers fixed his gaze on me, his voice trustworthy and grave. Who was it that had clutched the map for days, eyes shining? And now the very word “requests” sounded foreign to me.
No, hold on a moment.
Isn’t it cheating to ask me about this the moment you’ve handed me something?
“Here he comes.”
“….”
Philip appeared with the crunch of footsteps, but I couldn’t even manage to turn my head. Ah, what should I say? My mouth felt hot and sweet at once, and total chaos had broken out inside me.
“Lady Eliya, so you’re here.”
“…You’ve come, Philip.”
“Yes. The ceremony is tomorrow, so we must finalize the contract today.”
“….”
You could have come a little sooner.
Just until I stepped into the Winter Garden. No, just until I received this.
I vented my resentment at Philip for no reason and fidgeted with my finger.
“…Lady Eliya?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Speak freely. His Highness has instructed me to grant whatever you ask.”
“….”
I raised my head and looked up, not at Philip, but at Kiers’s black mask. He nodded as if to make a promise, but in truth, it wasn’t that I wanted to see. Having gazed at so much pink cotton candy, even the black mask had grown blurry in my sight.

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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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