My Contract Husband Demands a Divorce - Chapter 55

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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 front of the fireplace was warm, but her trembling would not stop.
The waiting was pure hell.
She sought out a god she did not even believe in.
Praying and praying to Bartes, she begged that nothing would happen to Sindy.
Scheit offered her water and food, but she simply shook her head.
Just the scent of it made her stomach turn.
Then.
“My Lady, a carriage has arrived from the Palace.”
The Butler’s voice echoed from outside the door.
Reflexively, she bolted upright from her seat.
As she staggered, Scheit gently guided her back down.
“I will go down and check.”
She felt as though she had to see it with her own two eyes.
Or at the very least, she needed to hear it with her own two ears.
Shaking her head, she made her way to the door.
Yet once again, she found herself unable to turn the knob.
Fear gripped her, not knowing what reality she would have to face the moment that door opened.
She felt utterly pathetic and frustrated, driven nearly mad by her own weakness.
As she clutched the handle and wept bitterly, he let out a low sigh and scooped her up into his arms.
Hiding her face against his chest, he strode down the steps and spoke sharply to the Butler.
“Tell everyone not to leave their rooms. Draw the curtains, and do not look outside. You as well, Butler—do not follow us, and wait in your quarters.”
“Yes, Master.”
What happened today might very well reach Kildian’s ears, but right now, she couldn’t care less about any of that.
Amarynthis remained buried in Scheit’s embrace until the moment he set her down before the carriage, whereupon she flung the door wide open.
The first thing to catch her eye was curly hair spilling haphazardly from beneath a cotton cap.
A strange woman was sitting inside the vehicle. Their eyes met, and Amarynthis’s breath hitched.
That single pair of eyes felt as daunting as dozens staring back at her.
However, the moment she spotted Sindy lying on the opposite seat, her mind snapped into sharp focus.
“Sindy!”
Crying out her name like a scream, she rushed inside.
The moment she held the girl’s body close, her tears spilled over.
Sindy patted her back with a weak hand, her voice raspy as she replied.
“My Lady, I am so sorry. You told me to just come back if it seemed dangerous, but I carelessly went inside the building anyway…”
“No. No, Sindy. I am the one who is sorry. I should never have given you such a task…”
For a long while, the two clung to each other and wept.
Only after she had calmed down a bit could she properly examine Sindy’s condition.
Her cheek was swollen, and her left leg was bound in a splint.
They had broken her leg to ensure she could not run away.
The sheer shock left her utterly speechless.
“……”
“I-I am alright, My Lady. You know how resilient I am. It will heal in no time.”
When merely breathing must have brought agony, the girl was trying to comfort her.
That profound kindness struck her dumb.
“I will call for a doctor. I am going to help you with everything for the time being, so you just rest, Sindy.”
“How could I possibly have My Lady nurse me?”
When Amarynthis leveled a firm, unyielding gaze at her, Sindy had no choice but to nod in reluctant acceptance.
As she helped Sindy sit up, her gaze fell once more upon the woman who still sat there, hovering awkwardly.
Instinctively averting her eyes, she questioned Sindy.
“And this person?”
“She is the one who rescued me.”
The woman dipped her head politely as she removed her cotton cap.
“It is an honor to meet you, Baroness. I am, uh, called Nina. I am Princess Lucretia’s ma-maid.”
“……”
In an instant, the air in the carriage turned ice-cold.
Sensing the chilling drop in temperature, Nina hurriedly tacked on an explanation.
“N-Not anymore. Thanks to First Princess Isoldra dismissing me, I was able to leave the Palace.”
Looking closer, Amarynthis realized Nina’s own appearance was a dreadful mess.
Bruises peeked out from beneath her sleeves, a raw wound marred her neck, and her cheek was puffed up. Her hair looked jagged and uneven, as though it had been violently hacked away with scissors.
“Let us head inside first.”
Amarynthis personally supported Sindy to help her climb down from the carriage.
Scheit stepped forward to offer his assistance, but Sindy vehemently declined.
In the end, they formed a bizarre arrangement where Sindy leaned heavily against her, while Scheit placed a hand on Amarynthis’s back to help distribute the weight.
Behind them, the maid named Nina followed in silence.
Once they returned to the room and she laid Sindy down, the strength drained from her legs, causing her to collapse onto the sofa.
Her heart pounded so violently that her ribs actually ached from the impact.
With Sindy settled in bed, Nina stood trembling near the doorway.
Scheit walked back over to stand beside her.
“Are you alright, Baroness?”
Nodding smoothly, she took a deep breath and gestured toward Nina.
“Please, sit comfortably.”
“I, I prefer to stand, Baroness.”
“Do not be like that. I only ask because I wish to hear the details of what occurred.”
As Nina took a few hesitant steps closer, Sindy spoke up from the bed.
“I was being held captive inside Princess Lucretia’s private chambers, but Nina smuggled me out by hiding me inside the laundry.”
Amarynthis observed Nina as the girl gingerly took a seat.
She kept her head bowed low, looking very much like a criminal awaiting sentence.
“Had you been caught, you would not have escaped unscathed either.”
Nina flinched, her interlocked hands shaking uncontrollably.
“To tell the truth, I helped because I knew she was the Baroness’s maid. I believed that if it were the Baroness, you could make Princess Lucretia pay for her crimes.”
Tears streamed down Nina’s face as her body continued to shudder.
From Nina’s lips, the sheer brutality of the violence Princess Lucretia had inflicted until now came pouring out in graphic detail.
* * *
In the deep hours of the night, Yulisian sat facing Papilion with no one else around.
“So, the Baroness is nursing her maid? Personably?”
Yulisian nodded calmly as he continued deciphering the Directives.
The Directives they had recovered in the past mostly consisted of orders to assassinate certain individuals or to retrieve Forbidden Books.
Staring intently at the Ancient Language, Papilion knitted his brows in frustration.
“Well, this has turned into quite a troublesome matter.”
“Is there a particular section blocking you?”
Papilion gave a tight nod.
He tapped a finger against a section he had already transcribed into the Melbern Language.
“Right here. It seems like they performed some sort of experiment using an Armored Lizard, but I cannot quite grasp the specifics.”
Yulisian leaned forward to inspect the text closely.
There was simply no way to tell.
“Can we not figure it out if we cross-reference the vocabulary with the segments Amarynthis already decoded?”
“Do you mean to say I should rifle through all ten notebooks just to figure out a single word?”
“It cannot be helped.”
“Haa…”
Though he let out a heavy sigh, Papilion began comparing the Notebook with the Translation that Amarynthis had painstakingly constructed.
Yulisian did precisely the same.
After several hours of tedious flipping through pages, the two men finally managed to uncover what Scheit had been creating using a Wolf.
“A Demonic Beast.”
Anyone familiar with ancient mythology would know exactly what a Demonic Beast was.
When a malevolent aura possessed an ordinary animal, it was branded as such.
Operating exclusively during the darkest hours, it was a monster possessed of a nature so inherently cruel that it would invariably tear apart or bite to death any living thing it laid eyes upon.
Rumors of sightings occasionally drifted about like ghost stories, but very few people genuinely believed they existed in reality.
“He went out of his way to choose deeds that would cost him his head if handed over to the Vatican.”
“Seeing how the records break off before the research could even be finalized, it appears he abandoned the project.”
“This should be more than enough to drag Kildian before the Inquisition.”
“There is a catch.”
“What is it?”
“There is no mention within the Notebook indicating that Prince Kildian ordered this.”
“……”
“Furthermore, because the Directives are written in a Cipher, a handwriting analysis is entirely out of the question.”
“If Kildian simply digs his heels in and claims he never commanded such things, asserting that the evidence itself was fabricated…”
“Only the tail will be severed. And eventually, Prince Kildian will simply grow a new one.”
There was no need to state aloud exactly whose head would serve as that severed tail.
“We require a powerful, undeniable link.”
Yulisian flipped through the stack of documents they had managed to decode thus far.
Then, he cast a glance over his shoulder.
Lined up neatly on the bookshelves deeper within the study were the remaining notebooks belonging to Scheit Huniswald.
Numbered from one to three hundred and twenty, arranged in chronological order from oldest to newest.
They had initiated their decoding process starting from the three hundred and twentieth notebook.
After all, checking the most recent records was the fastest way to grasp Kildian’s current movements.
What remained now were the records from the period preceding his marriage to Amarynthis.
“I wonder if there is any real merit in deciphering that massive pile. Have we not already established a rough outline of Prince Kildian’s maneuvers by this point?”
One could easily glean the truth by reviewing the records and Directives.
Kildian had been systematically winning over the lords whose territories bordered other nations, deliberately instigating small-scale skirmishes.
When it came to coaxing a lord to his side, he deployed Saidel Nishurban; if a lord proved unreceptive to persuasion, he utilized Scheit to have them assassinated.
Since Scheit was a man who supposedly never stepped foot outside his room under the pretext of his research, and because the Butler actively concealed his absences, absolutely no one had managed to notice.
“The issue lies in the fact that his ultimate objective remains completely obscured.”
“That is true. It does not seem as though he is merely attempting to achieve military merit in war. The scope of his actions is far too vast.”
“Moreover, he has taken great care not to expose his own identity.”
Yulisian’s face darkened as a deep frown settled between his brows.

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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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