My Husband Lives in a Painting - Chapter 70

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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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My Husband Lives in a Painting 070
“Take that back. She’s not someone who deserves to hear such things.”
Camille’s expression hardened, her voice turning glacial.
“You’re telling me to—right now—to take back what I just said?”
“Yes.”
The answer was clipped and uncompromising.
Densem let out a short, bitter laugh, as though bewildered.
Beneath the cold moon at her back, Camille’s blue eyes glinted with a cutting light.
Densem’s smile twisted—forced, disbelieving.
“Camille. You’re joking, aren’t you? Taking that woman’s side over mine?”
The eldest son of Ortega would never defend some common woman.
He’d been certain of it, yet Camille remained silent, her lips sealed.
“No… surely you don’t mean it?”
He worked his jaw, worrying at his lip, and finally released the words he’d been holding back.
“Look, why did you take her as a wife in the first place? Did you honestly think she was your equal?”
“Densem.”
Camille spoke his name as a warning, but he pressed on.
“No matter how much Belladonna approved of her, you should have refused. If you truly cared about the family’s honor.”
From Densem’s perspective, this was simple common sense.
Which made it easier to speak without restraint.
“Or is it genuine love? For a woman like that?”
“…….”
Camille’s eyes flickered, subtle but unmistakable.
Densem interpreted the shift as he pleased.
He thought he’d struck a nerve.
“Listen. I never knew you were so naive. Shall I be honest? That woman is clearly just latching onto Ortega’s wealth.”
A thin, cutting laugh spilled from him.
“Playing innocent, reeling someone like you in. It’s almost clever.”
“……What?”
“Give it time. Once she bears a child, she’ll think her fortune’s made, and she’ll throw herself at you like some—”
In that moment, Camille’s fist flew toward him.
Crack—!
“Ugh!!”
Densem’s head snapped sideways.
Frozen, his hand pressed to his cheek, he turned back slowly, as though his mind couldn’t yet catch up to what had happened.
“You—what the hell are you—!”
“Don’t you dare insult her. She doesn’t deserve to hear such filth.”
“……!”
Camille’s blue eyes had gone cold as winter frost.
This wasn’t the face of Camille that Densem knew.
Rattled, Densem staggered to his feet.
He raised his hand to wipe his mouth and went rigid when he saw blood smeared across the back of his knuckles.
On the edge of snapping, reason hanging by a thread, Densem’s ears caught a voice, sharp and measured.
“You live for the family’s sake, perhaps. I don’t.”
“……What?”
“What good is some paltry Noble Title if I can’t even protect the person I love?”
Paltry Noble Title.
At those words, something inside him snapped—he heard it break.
“How dare you speak of things you know nothing about!”
Crack—!!
This time it was Camille’s head that jerked to the side.
“What’s wrong with calling a cheap woman cheap?”
“What did you say?”
Crack—!!!
“Argh! Again—did you hit me again, you bastard—!”
The two of them traded blows with the fury of the unthinking.
Grappling at each other’s clothes, slamming bodies against the railing, pushing until breath came ragged.
As though each were trying to deny the other’s very existence.
And moments later, a victor finally emerged.
“Haah…….”
Camille wiped the blood from her lips with a rough gesture, then looked down coldly at Densem pinned beneath her.
“This is what happens when you don’t keep up with your physical training.”
“Ugh…… L-let go of me!”
While Densem was drenched in blood, Camille’s face remained relatively unmarked.
With him trapped beneath her, she pressed down hard on his shoulders—keeping him from rising.
“Now apologize. For insulting my wife.”
“Ugh…….”
“Otherwise, I’ll make sure you never use this shoulder again.”
“W-wait, wait! Just a moment!”
Though he cried out in alarm at the crushing weight of her hand, Densem found he couldn’t accept it.
‘Why should I apologize? I only spoke the truth!’
That was when he noticed a maid in the distance, heading toward the trash bins.
Pale blonde hair that caught the moonlight, rippling softly.
The exact shade as Ob Ortega’s.
“…….”
A sudden stratagem flashed through Densem’s mind, and he drew in a sharp breath before shouting at the top of his lungs.
“My lady! My lady, please save me!”
Camille’s body tensed in surprise.
“What are you—”
“Look here! Your husband is trying to murder an innocent person!”
“……Ob?”
In that single instant of hesitation, their fates reversed.
Ob’s strike, delivered with lethal intent, sent Camille’s upper body reeling backward, and she lost her footing, stumbling toward the Terrace railing.
Crack—
In that unlucky moment, the ancient railing of the Terrace happened to give way, and…….
Crash—
She struck her head against a jagged stone that protruded from below.
“Gasp…… h-hah…….”
The moment Densem raised his head, his breath ragged with the taste of blood, and peered over the railing.
“Aahhh……!”
His face drained of all color, turning pale as parchment.
Rose-tinted blood was streaming from Camille’s head, staining the ground below.
* * *
Why had I always believed that every death must have a reason?
There are deaths that come regardless of such things. Deaths so absurdly meaningless they defy comprehension.
“……Ahhhhh!”
And such a death could befall my husband too.
“Camille……!”
I simply collapsed where I stood, pressing my hands over my ears.
If it had been a quarrel over family honor—his own or mine—perhaps I could have understood it.
But he died while defending some petty sense of honor that I myself barely possessed.
“Why…… why did it come to this?”
How could I possibly accept such a thing with a sound mind?
“Camille. I’m sorry, but I’d prefer it if you didn’t come near me anymore.”
“Am I…… a burden to you?”
“I hate saying this, but yes. You are.”
I had deliberately kept my distance, afraid to open my heart—so what was there about me that could possibly be loved?
“If I cannot protect the person I love, what meaning does some meager Noble Title hold?”
“Ah, ah…….”
His words, left like a final testament, kept echoing in my ears.
Before I knew it, something hot was streaming down my face.
‘If I had never married him, none of this would have happened.’
If I had been born into a greater house than Claude’s.
No. If I had simply refused when father brought the marriage proposal.
‘He would never have been insulted, never have died, all because of his worthless wife.’
Then it was.
“M-my lady.”
“…….”
“I’m sorry to bother you while you’re crying…… but what should we do now?”
I lifted my head at the unexpected voice.
When Ob saw the tears spreading silently across Densem’s vacant gaze, his adam’s apple bobbed sharply.
Yet his cowardly voice did not stop.
“S-so, th-that is…… I haven’t confessed everything now! Then you must compensate me—”
“Compensate?”
The blood in her veins ran cold.
“You just said… compensation……?”
Sordid expectation bloomed across that repugnant face.
Someone whispered from within her.
Look at him. Isn’t it pathetic?
I listened to that voice.
Kill him. He murdered your husband.
‘No! If I hadn’t become entangled with Camille…….’
Don’t drown in self-recrimination. What are you thinking with your enemy standing before you?
……Perhaps.
I wiped my tears away roughly with my sleeve and slipped my hand to my waist.
“M-madam?”
Cold, unyielding metal met her fingertips.
“……Do you miss Meden so much?”
I stepped toward him one pace at a time.
He trembled with instinctive dread, but Densem remained frozen in place as if his body had been paralyzed.
“Then I’ll arrange for you to meet him directly.”
“……What?”
“Right now.”
Without warning, I drove the blade into his unguarded shoulder.
Thunk—
Crimson blood sprayed across her cheek.
A scream erupted after, but it stirred nothing in her.
“Why, why are you doing this! Ahhhhh!!”
She swung the blade with mechanical precision.
Densem collapsed with bestial cries.
“Why indeed. I’m sending you to Meden’s side.”

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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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