Rewriting the Trash Ending - Chapter 45

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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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45.

***

Axid’s dark eyes had grown uncommonly dim today.
His hair clung damply to his skin, slicked with perspiration; his face flushed a deep crimson; his lips parched and colorless.
Rae’s exhausted face, abandoned to sleep, looked fragile enough to scatter like ash.
“…….”
He reached out with a lukewarm cloth and carefully wiped away the perspiration from her face.
“Mm…….”
Perhaps it was the coarse texture of the cloth.
Rae stirred slightly, her eyelids lifting with deliberate slowness.
“Your Grace……?”
“Forgive me for waking you.”
“No, it’s… it’s all right…….”
She smiled drowsily, her eyes unfocused, then spoke in a half-submerged voice.
“I’m sorry….”
“There’s nothing to apologize for.”
“Before you had to hear that… I should have cleaned it up sooner…….”
She pressed her lips together with evident regret, then closed her eyes again, all strength draining from her face.
“…Why?”
He found himself asking the question in a low voice, almost against his will.
Why was she apologizing to him?
She was the one who had been humiliated, and yet here she was, worried for his sake.
He gazed down at her parched lips, which gave no answer.
Something in his chest throbbed with dull pain.
At the fact that the distance he had drawn to protect her had instead become the very instrument of her suffering.
“…….”
He recalled the words that had echoed in his ears from the moment she had draped herself limply in his arms until now.

“Why not have the Princess cease her pretense of being the lady of the house, and instead use her talent for seduction—befitting one of lowborn dancing blood—to please our nephew?”

Axid’s hands clenched into fists.
The bones of his knuckles rose into sharp relief, and the cords of his forearms stood out in brutal relief.
The fault lay in having left Moberr to run unchecked, blind to her own limits.
She was a woman who had sold her own mother for wealth and glory, yet perhaps she believed herself unworthy of punishment because she too had been born at the price of her mother’s life.
And Rae was now paying the cost of that spineless leniency.
He tucked a strand of her disheveled hair back with careful fingers, then rose from the bedside.
“Your name is Hanna, yes?”
“…Yes, Your Grace.”
“Look after Rae for a moment.”
Hanna, who had been standing motionless with bated breath, bowed deeply and gathered up the damp cloth.
Click.
Axid closed the door quietly behind him and headed for his study.
He could not ask the ailing Rae what had happened during his absence, so he meant to hear a full report directly from the head maid.
Tera, who had been waiting at the study entrance, followed him inside.
“I gathered the rough details from her letters, but there seems to be more that she didn’t tell me.”
Rae had conveyed two matters to him.
That Moberr had spent years extracting information through a kitchen maid and destroying the storehouse.
That he had searched the servants’ quarters on account of those crimes.
But even that account contained only bare facts, with no detailed explanation.
Seeing Rae’s condition today, it was clear he would need to hear the full story from beginning to end.
“During the process of transferring domestic authority to the Princess, several incidents occurred.”
Tera felt her skin prickle in the cool air as she continued.
“…A kitchen maid broke into the bedchamber and damaged the Princess’s perfume, and at dawn she stole firewood as well.”
“Is she insane?”
Axid spoke the words roughly, without thinking.
It had been only recently that the previous maid had been dragged away before everyone’s eyes.
No one would have dared commit such an act unless they were willing to die.
“It was at the Countess’s instigation.”
……
Tera paused before continuing.
“Apart from the Countess, we’ve also discovered and imprisoned those who leaked minor information to the outside, though they acted without her direct involvement.”
She had managed all of this alone while I was away from the castle.
Axid’s eyes grew progressively colder.
“And why did she sit still while hearing such things from that woman?”
Tera set the letters she had been holding onto the desk.
“She said Your Highness would confront and punish her directly with this evidence. She originally intended to have her imprisoned before Your Highness returned, but……”
Tera lowered her head, her face shadowed.
“…cutting off her allowance wasn’t enough, it seems.”
She stopped there to keep from frightening me.
But all that restraint had gained her was this.
How should he deal with that woman who had dared spill filth from her mouth to me?
Death alone seemed far too light a price for such a crime.
Axid’s eyes sharpened like a honed blade.
The moment he was about to determine the punishment, Kaiden entered the study.
“Your Highness, the Countess is causing a commotion in the underground prison, demanding an audience with you. What shall we do?”
Axid spoke.
“House of Moberr is to be struck from the Nobility Registry. There seems no need to meet her.”
That woman who had preened like my mother, speaking as though I were her own.
For her, who had spent her entire life taking pride in being the Grand Duke’s aunt, there would be no despair greater than my coldness toward her.
She would inevitably be forced to kneel before the very woman she had so scorned, begging for mercy.
“What of the kitchen servant?”
“Kill her.”
“Understood, Your Highness.”
Kaiden bowed deeply and left the room.

***

Cold, damp, reeking of mold—the underground dungeon.
Magda shivered as the bone-deep chill seeped through her.
“When exactly is the Grand Duke coming? You did deliver my words properly, didn’t you?”
Magda’s voice rose sharp and shrill.
But the guards merely glanced at her once, offering no further attention.
“You wretches—if I get out of here, I won’t let you off so easily!”
She ranted in frustration for some time before finally sinking onto the floor.
She had no idea how many hours she’d been locked away.
‘If I just hold on a little longer, she’ll send someone to fetch me.’
The thought of the cut allowance made her uneasy, but this felt different—not a matter of money.
No matter how angry she might be, there was such a thing as propriety; surely she wouldn’t commit a Violation of Family Duty.
Magda forced herself to nurture some hope, wrapping her arms around herself, but the worry she kept pressing down kept rising to the surface.
‘Surely she’s not going to leave me rotting in this prison forever?’
The memory of the Grand Duke’s murderous gaze flashed before her, but she quickly shook her head.
After all, it wasn’t as though she’d committed some grave sin.
True, she had made use of the kitchen servant as her tool.
Yes, she’d ordered her to do several things.
But wasn’t it done with good reason?
A girl of low birth, born of a common dancer—she’d been worried her presence in His Highness’s favor might bring shame to the House of Moberr, and that’s why she’d acted.
If she could explain to His Highness how that wretch had deceived him with her cunning tongue, he would understand her true heart.
After all, the command to work toward the succession was itself work on behalf of the House of Moberr.
It was impossible that matters would end here.
And yet.
“House of Moberr will be struck from the Nobility Registry.”
Magda stared blankly at Kaiden as he delivered the unexpected news in a cold voice.
“What—what? Struck from the registry? How can that be?”
“Therefore, neither the Countess nor you will have the privilege of meeting the Grand Duke directly.”
Kaiden delivered the pronouncement with contempt, as though regarding an insect, and turned to leave.
“Wait—just wait a moment!”
Magda seized the iron bars desperately, her voice trembling.
“Your Highness, surely you didn’t mean that? This can’t be right. Listen to me—I have something urgent to tell you. Please, bring His Highness back here at once!”
Magda clung to the bars and cried out with all the desperation in her heart, but only empty echoes answered her. The retreating footsteps never returned.
Magda stared ahead with hollow eyes, her lips moving without sound.
“No…… this can’t be happening. Erased from the registry……”
The words struck her with such force that she forgot even the bitter cold seeping into her bones.
It was a terrible sentence—the Nobility Registry would be scrubbed of House of Moberr forever, wiped from the Northern Region as if they had never existed.

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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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