Let the Whales Fight, This Shrimp is Leaving! - Chapter 46

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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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A neat voice fell coldly down the corridor.
“Ah, a warning?”
“……”
“Haha! Ahahaha! A mere maid dares to warn me?”
At Giselle’s warning, Joaquin clutched his stomach and burst into laughter as if he had just heard an incredibly funny joke.
The sound of his laughter made the atmosphere freeze even more intensely.
The servants of the Grand Ducal Castle, who were secretly watching the situation unfold, could only stamp their feet in anxiety over Giselle’s absence.
‘Dame Giselle…!’
A maid who often chatted with her squeezed her apron tightly in sheer nervousness.
“What is all this commotion about?”
Miraculously, a man’s voice echoed from the far end of the corridor.
Everyone’s gaze turned toward a single point.
Joaquin also turned toward the owner of the voice.
At the end of the corridor, a firmly closed room door was wide open—a door that rarely opened unless it was a very special occasion.
And the master of that room, Hubert, was watching the scene.
Joaquin was taken aback.
He had not seen Hubert show himself at all over the past few years.
Of course, he had appeared briefly on Plene Grand Duchy’s Independence Day, but even then, it was limited to showing his face for a fleeting moment on the castle’s balcony.
True to the rumors of his poor health, Hubert looked somewhat emaciated.
However, he was standing perfectly fine on his own two feet, and though his voice was slightly raspy, it was clear.
He still possessed the exact same dignity as the grand duke of old.
It felt like a splash of cold water to the face, jolting Joaquin awake.
No matter how out of his mind Joaquin was, he had no choice but to tuck his tail.
Even if Plene Grand Duchy was a weak nation, his own power could not surpass the authority of a country’s ruler.
“It has been a long time, Your Highness.”
Joaquin barely managed to cling to his remaining shred of reason.
In a situation like this, it was far cheaper to just offer a compliant apology.
“Since I was terribly disappointed by the Lady’s absence, I thought I would at least pay my respects to the young master. However, this person blocked my path, and not knowing why, it seems our voices were raised.”
“What is all this commotion about.”
“……?”
Joaquin felt a strange sense of dissonance when the exact same line was repeated.
However, assuming it was merely a reprimand for his arrogance, he swallowed his pride once more.
“If you felt that I caused a disturbance, I apologize.”
“What is all this commotion about.”
Ultimately, Joaquin’s mouth shut tight.
The dissonance he felt was magnifying.
‘What is this?’
His confused eyes flashed as he re-examined Hubert’s appearance.
Rather, he tried to examine it.
If the butler had not discarded his decorum, rushed up the stairs in a single breath, and tried to usher the grand duke back into his room, Joaquin might have questioned the true nature of this strange dissonance a little longer.
“Your Highness. Please, step inside.”
“Hubert?”
“What is all this commotion……”
“Your Highness!”
Voices laced with despair and embarrassment blanketed the corridor.
‘A mere butler dares to shout at the grand duke?’
This was hardly the behavior of someone who usually revered the Grand Ducal House as if they were gods.
Joaquin unconsciously twisted the corner of his mouth upward.
“Pfft.”
He even covered his mouth with his hand, but the laughter he could not contain leaked out anyway.
At that small sound, the female knight’s expression, which hadn’t shown a single crack until now, twitched for the first time.
‘Ah, you poor woman.’
Idir Hubert, so this was what you were trying so desperately to hide.
He still remembered how Idir had begun to stand out as the successor at the exact same time Hubert’s external activities gradually dwindled.
Annoyed by how a young woman strutted around as if she were someone important just because she secured the position of heir, he had even manipulated public opinion.
Simply because he wanted to see that pretty, small face twist in despair.
He had intended to gouge open the crumbling cracks and forcefully wedge himself inside.
He thought that if he degraded her value, turned her smiles into tears, and finally snapped that rigid core of hers, she would easily drop right into his palm.
‘This was her desperate reason!’
To think that almost every reason for Idir Hubert’s existence lay here, crumbled and pitifully scattered.
No wonder she never yielded, no matter how sweetly Joaquin acted toward her.
Terrified that this precious thing might scatter in the wind, she had been holding onto what was already broken with all her might, leaving her with no hand to extend to him.
If that was the case, what else could he do?
Since she claimed she couldn’t let go on her own, he had no choice but to force her to drop it.
“The fragile Lady must have suffered a tremendous amount of heartbreak all this time, hm?”
The air in the corridor completely shifted.
The female knight, whose face was usually so expressionless that one might mistake her for a doll, now reacted sensitively to every single word Joaquin uttered.
“Her mother is dead, and her father is mad.”
Joaquin looked with amusement at the thick murderous intent swirling in the female knight’s eyes.
“And her only remaining brother is said to be ill.”
Heh. At his raspy chuckle, the female knight’s hand trembled slightly.
How entertaining.
It was filled with despair.
Joaquin ignored the cheerful voice inside his head and continued his speech.
“In truth, is the young master really suffering from a chronic illness, or has he gone mad too? Or perhaps, he is already a corpse.”
It seemed the female knight’s patience had finally snapped.
The edge of her blade pierced Joaquin’s chin.
He felt the smoothly polished piece of iron cut through his skin, and the blood flowing through his veins slowly leaked out.
The scent of blood.
“Any further reckless assumptions regarding the Grand Ducal House will be deemed an insult.”
The female knight’s sword drove a little deeper into the underside of his chin.
It was an exquisite display of skill—not enough to immediately endanger his life, but enough to make him feel threatened.
It seemed like a warning that she could take his life at any moment, but to Joaquin, it was an injury that didn’t even tickle.
Hee-hee-hee.
How fun.
The blood looks delicious.
Give it to me. Give it to me. Give me your heart, too.
Smelling Joaquin’s blood, the Demon inside his head went wild.
They distracted Joaquin’s mind by chattering, shouting, and laughing in highly excited voices.
‘Shut up.’
Joaquin snapped at the voices in his head and focused on the female knight in front of him.
“Why are you acting so sensitive? Hmm?”
Joaquin’s face distorted with amusement.
Since things had already turned out this way, he wanted to completely demolish the sturdy wall Idir Hubert had built and use it as a stepping stone to claim what he craved.
“You won’t have to back down. I think the Lady will want to have a very long conversation with me now.”
Joaquin’s glistening gaze directed down the stairs.
Standing there was Idir, her appearance uncharacteristically disheveled.
“……My Lady.”
The female knight let out a pained groan.
Drenched entirely from the rain, her face painted with deep fatigue, Idir slowly assessed the situation.
Ah, that was an expression he was seeing for the very first time.
The exact one he had been dying to see.
It was the moment Idir crumbled for the first time.
“Am I right, Lady?”
At his question, Idir only bowed her head deeply.
A low sigh escaped her lips.
* * *
The downpour intensified again on the way back to the mansion.
The clothes soaked by the falling rain were sapping the heat from my skin.
‘I should tell them to prepare hot water immediately.’
By the time we almost reached the Main Building, my hands were stiff and frozen.
If left like this, it was obvious I would burn with a fever and be bedridden by tomorrow morning.
Getting sick would be troublesome, so I needed to take extra care to raise my body temperature tonight and go to sleep earlier than usual.
With those thoughts in mind, I dismounted from my horse.
‘What is this?’
The atmosphere was strange.
Even though I had dismounted, no one came out to greet me.
An unaccountable tension vibrated through the oddly submerged silence.
I tried to dismiss it as mere imagination, but Deyan lowered his voice as he dismounted.
“My Lady.”
“…….”
“There is… the scent of blood coming from the Main Building.”
Twitch. My brow furrowed outside of my control.
What on earth had happened while I was away for a moment?
The reason for the scent of blood was obvious.
‘Joaquin Perez. You finally went and did it.’
And he chose the exact moment I was out.
I assumed he had killed another one of his servants, just like last time.
However, the sight that unfolded before my eyes as I entered the Main Building was completely different.

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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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