I’m Going to Change My Husband With a Predatory Marriage - Chapter 27

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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 27

I smiled gently and soothed the Countess of Fileren.
“Her Majesty the Empress will soon soften her heart and receive you again.”
“I can only hope that’s true. *sob*”
The Countess of Fileren wept even more sorrowfully.
Perhaps because I had already experienced this before, I could read her behavioral patterns as clearly as lines on my palm.
I offered her the words she most desired to hear.
“It may not be a substitute, but if you don’t mind, I would like to become your friend.”
Just as when we first met in the previous cycle.

“Would you not consider becoming my friend, if I am acceptable to you?”
“Oh my, I would be so grateful. Your Highness the Grand Duchess.”

Edith Filerne’s eyes glistened with tears of emotion once more.
It was the exact same expression I had seen before.
But I had not forgotten. How that same face later fabricated false crimes against me and reported them, and how she changed.

“Did you really believe a fool like you would have a friend who approached you with genuine sincerity? Just as Lady Evangeline said, you are truly foolish and greedy.”

The Countess of Fileren was a spy placed beside me from the beginning at Evangeline’s behest.
‘It will be the same this time.’
It was highly probable that this woman’s expulsion from the Empress Palace itself was a staged scenario.
She had been driven out so conspicuously, yet the expelled party lingered around the Prince’s Palace as if pleading to be seen.
It was impossible not to suspect this.
I laughed innocently, concealing my true thoughts as I spoke.
“I didn’t have any friends since I haven’t been engaging in social activities, so I’m truly delighted!”
Keep friends close. And keep enemies closer.
Especially when this enemy could be the bait to catch a far greater one.

* * *

After sending off the Countess of Fileren.
I returned to Ivory’s Bedroom feeling somewhat deflated.
There, sitting and waiting, was someone I could have predicted would be there—though their appearance was unexpected.
After all, there was only one person besides me who could freely enter Ivory’s Bedroom.
Arpard.
And the reason I called his appearance unexpected was simple.
Because it genuinely was.
I stood there for a moment, dumbfounded, admiring Arpard’s arrogant and irritating posture before asking.
“Did you hear somewhere that my taste runs toward scholars?”
At that, Arpard lifted his bespectacled eyes and looked at me with a frown.
“What kind of strange thing are you saying now?”
That’s right. Arpard was currently sitting there wearing glasses and reading a thick hardcover book.
If someone had a taste for scholars or intellectual men in spectacles, they would absolutely fall for him in this moment.
Of course, I didn’t have such tastes.
But… I had to admit that this side of him was quite refreshing.
I approached with quick steps and answered.
“There’s no way you’d need glasses to read books just because your eyesight is poor.”
The dragon bloodline was so remarkable that even Ludwig, whose blood was diluted, had never contracted minor illnesses.
Wounds healed incredibly quickly, and unless something catastrophic happened, there was no reason for eyesight to deteriorate.
Arpard, who possessed the purest bloodline, needed no explanation.
“Ah, so you were being sarcastic, saying I wore glasses to match your tastes?”
“Well, I know you’re the type to try extracting secrets through your handsome face.”
Arpard didn’t seem particularly upset.
He simply chuckled, removed the glasses, and set them aside.
“Rather, I was simply trying to understand what normal human vision is like. I’m unfamiliar with such ordinary senses.”
A genuine exclamation burst from me.
“How infuriating!”
“Why am I being criticized again this time?”
“Your eyesight is so good that you want to experience normal human vision, so you wear glasses with the wrong prescription? It’s like a rich person being curious about how poor people live, so they spend a day in a poor person’s home!”
And I added one more observation.
“I’m jealous!”
“Of what? Your eyesight is fine too, isn’t it?”
Well, it was fine now.
My entire body felt vivid and my vision was perfect. This was before I suffered at the hands of Ludwig and Evangeline.
‘But before regression, I went through hell in the Temple and prison, and when my eyesight got worse, how inconvenient it was!’
So much so that the clearer vision was one of the reasons I immediately realized I had regressed.
I made a fresh vow.
‘This time, I’ll eat plenty of things good for my eyes, use my body carefully, and live healthily until I’m one hundred!’
Having experienced dying young three times, this was my top priority.
Because I knew what it felt like to have poor eyesight, Arpard’s behavior was all the more infuriating.
Sensing my genuine indignation, Arpard spoke as if making an excuse.
“Exceptional eyesight can be a burden if taken to extremes.”
I cried out with absolute sincerity.
“The taller a man is, the better! The sharper a person’s vision, the better!”
Then he, blessed with such advantages, uttered a deceptive claim.
“That’s simply not true.”
“How could it not be!”
“When you’re too tall, your head constantly bumps against doorframes. It’s inconvenient.”
“But all the doors in the Imperial Palace are incredibly high and wide, aren’t they?”
Arpard shrugged his shoulders.
“The facilities commoners use aren’t nearly as tall or spacious.”
Due to nutritional disparities, the average commoner would naturally be shorter in stature, and constructing higher ceilings and wider doorways required considerable expense.
As Prince Arpard, he likely hadn’t visited such places often, but as the Mercenary King Gerald, it wouldn’t be unusual for him to have frequented them extensively.
“Still, there’s no way poor eyesight could have any genuine advantages!”
Do you understand how miserable it is when you squint because you can’t see well, only to be scolded for always looking angry?
Arpard stroked his smooth jawline and replied with considerable seriousness.
“Because you end up seeing sights you’d rather not witness.”
“Sights you’d rather not see?”
“Yes. For instance… the dark, clogged pores of men covered in acne scars.”
“…!”
“Or the sight of men and women in the garden corners engaged in rather productive activities.”
“That… I’ll concede that point.”
If I saw such things, I’d probably want to gouge my own eyes out.
It was a trivial and absurd conclusion to our exchange, yet surprisingly, Arpard seemed to be in better spirits.
A smile free of distortion or sharpness graced his lips.
“Why are you smiling like that?”
“It seems this is the first time I’ve won an argument with you so easily.”
“Anyone listening would think I’m always being stubborn and trying to win by force.”
“….”
I ignored Arpard’s silence and glanced at the book he’d been reading.
“What were you looking at… Oh, the Founding History of the Istrid Empire? You were reading this?”
Being a finely bound volume, a crimson silk ribbon marked the page he’d been reading.
It was a story known to every citizen of the Istrid Empire.

「The Dragon spoke thus: “My one and only flower, my bride. The moment I beheld you, I knew that you alone could make me whole. Therefore, I could not deny the instinct that compelled me to claim you.”」

“….”
I casually closed the book and handed it back to Arpard.
And when our eyes met, I noticed something.
‘He’s observing me?’
He was clearly scrutinizing my reaction with meticulous attention.
His gaze had become sharp—nothing like the man who’d been exchanging playful banter moments before.
The tension grew taut.
Then Arpard reached out and grasped my wrist.
He took the book and opened it again.
“I’ve loved this passage since childhood. When I heard you speak of Artanus and Istrid before the Emperor, it came to mind, so I was reading it.”
“I see. …Why do you like that part?”
Arpard chuckled softly, his expression turning distant.
“I wished I had something like this. Such an existence.”
His fingertip touched the words inscribed in the book with a soft tap.
“A fated counterpart, that is.”
It was a romantic statement.
Yet the eyes of the man reciting those poetic words were saying something entirely different.
“An existence that could make me whole…I wished I had such a thing.”
Arpard elaborated further, his words more explicit.
So I couldn’t pretend not to understand.
“If there were an existence that could save me from this madness, I wished for it so desperately.”
His blood-red eyes, so alien to humanity, gleamed dangerously.
“And I’ve always wondered. If such an existence truly existed, would I recognize it at a glance, as Artanus did?”
His elongated pupils narrowed to slits.
Like needles. As if ready to pierce me at any moment.
“How endearing would that existence be? Or perhaps, given that it appeared far too late, would it be nothing but abhorrent?”
So which was he?
Arpard asked like a serpent placing cheese before a mouse.
“What do you think? Should I love such an existence, or hate it?”
Every hair on my body stood on end.
I couldn’t help but entertain one terrifying possibility.
‘Could Arpard have already figured it out?’
Figured out what?
‘That I’m the “bride” with the power to stabilize the madness that flows through dragon bloodline.’

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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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