Rewriting the Trash Ending - 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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46.

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The moment Lumiere opened her eyes, what she found was her husband’s face—arms folded, eyes shut as if he’d drifted off.
“…….”
How strange. And here I thought he didn’t believe in such tenderness.
A smile tugged at Lumiere’s lips.
She’d realized he must have been nursing her all day.
He’d insisted on separate rooms, insisted on walls between them—and yet he was this soft-hearted. What was she to do with a man like that?
She gazed quietly at him, lying there with his eyes shut as though dead to the world, then carefully raised herself.
It was then.
“Your Grace?”
His eyes snapped open.
He hadn’t been asleep at all?
“How do you feel?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“How is your condition?”
“Quite well, I think. The fever seems to have broken.”
Before sleep had claimed her, her head had felt heavy as if fog were pressing down, and every muscle ached. But now the worst had passed.
“That’s fortunate.”
He answered curtly and reached his hand toward her forehead, then stopped short.
To check her temperature, perhaps.
Axid awkwardly withdrew the hand he’d extended into empty air and rose from his seat as though nothing had happened.
“Your Grace, surely you haven’t been sitting there all night?”
“…It’s nothing to concern yourself with.”
Yet despite the distance in his tone, the room bore unmistakable signs of an entire night spent in care.
He’d told her not to worry about it—should she pretend not to know he’d nursed her through the darkness?
‘He’d be embarrassed. I’ll let him keep his dignity.’

“I merely wished to establish clear boundaries between us. We are hardly the sort to share a bed and grow close, are we?”

Those were his exact words before he’d left for the Fortress. If she thanked him for the care, it would mortify him.
Watching him flustered might be endearing, but she had no wish to become a cruel wife who tormented him for her own amusement.
Instead, she offered her thanks in silence.
“By the way, what’s become of the Countess of Mobert?”
Axid, who’d been heading for the door, stopped in his tracks.
“She remains in the Underground Dungeon. Since we intend to strip her of rank and property, there will be no further need to deal with her.”
With that, he left the room.
Lumiere exhaled softly and murmured to herself.
“She really should have kept her mouth shut when I told her to.”
Her original plan had been only to confiscate all the wealth the woman had accumulated, then issue a Confinement Order preventing her from ever leaving the Territory.
She’d feared that any harsher punishment might deepen the baseless rumors swirling around the Grand Duke.
Trapped within an empty, hollowed husk of a house, aging miserably in isolation—that alone was mercy.
A mercy she’d offered solely for her husband’s sake, and yet she’d spurned it with her own hands.
“Your Highness, I shall come in.”
Lumiere abandoned her thoughts at the sound of Hanna’s approach and rose to her feet.
If her husband had decided to settle it this way, she would simply follow his choice.
Hanna came close and smoothed the rumpled quilts with a sigh.
“Your Grace and I both—you have no idea how frightened we’ve been for you.”
“I didn’t expect to collapse like that myself.”
Hanna’s eyes reddened as she watched Lumiere laugh at her own misfortune.
To hear such cruel words spoken while exiled to a distant, unfamiliar land—any woman might weep. Yet seeing the Princess smile so composed, Hanna felt her heart ache.
She might claim to be unharmed, but surely it couldn’t be so simple.
“Help me dress, won’t you?”
“Wouldn’t it be better to rest just for today?”
“The city will be in turmoil, no doubt. I can’t lie here idle. Better to attend to things and then rest properly.”
As soldiers searched the residence, twenty servants were dragged away.
With the Countess of Mobert and Britta locked away in the dungeon as well, it was plain that everyone in the fortress was bracing for bloodshed.
‘I’d better move quickly before this unease spreads any further.’
She rose from her seat with a thin smile meant to reassure Hanna.

***

About twenty servants had been herded into the Underground Dungeon.
Unlike Britta, no letters had been found in their quarters.
These were people who had shown suspicious behavior during the search, or in whose possession had been found valuables that no servant’s wages could account for.
For days now, Lumiere had spoken not a word.
No interviews, no interrogations, not even an explanation for why they were confined.
In the endless silence and darkness, the mind had no choice but to conjure horrors.
How many days had passed thus?
When all of them sat hollow-eyed and silent, a steady footfall echoed from a distance.
As the sound drew nearer, some who had merely trembled began to weep.
A moment later.
Creak—
The heavy door swung open, and Lumiere and Kaiden stepped inside.
“Show proper respect to the Grand Duchess.”
At his quiet command, the servants scrambled to their feet and dropped to their knees.
“Your Highness, we greet you.”
Pallid skin. Lips pressed thin.
Standing motionless, Lumiere carried the innate arrogance and aloofness of one born to nobility.
Her gaze swept slowly across them all.
Sometimes a quiet look was far more terrifying than any shout or threat.
Each time her violet eyes fell upon someone, they held their breath as though a blade were at their throat.
At length, her voice, low and measured, filled the dungeon.
“You all know why you’ve been brought here, I presume?”
No answer came.
They only gripped their clothes tighter, faces ashen.
“One of you spoke of my severing ties with merchants before the State Marriage Ceremony. Another let slip that a maid had been dismissed.”
No direct evidence had been gathered.
But she knew, from the memory of her past life, what sort of information such people trafficked in.
Nothing classified, nothing beyond the idle gossip of servants with easy access.
A few faces drained to ashen gray—she had struck a nerve.
These were doubtless the ones who had actually sold such information.
She spoke in a grave tone, pretending to know everything.
“I have no interest in extracting confessions. I’ve already heard elsewhere who said what.”
Offered not even a chance to defend themselves, they began begging for mercy from every corner.
“Your Highness, we—we’ve made a terrible mistake. We thought it was trivial gossip, that n-nothing serious could come of it!”
“We have families depending on us. Please, I beg your mercy. We’ll accept any punishment.”
In ordinary circumstances, they would simply be dismissed without a letter of recommendation.
But after days of imagining the worst, these people feared their fate could not be so mild.
When the dungeon had grown sufficiently full of stifled sobs and pleading.
Lumiere finally spoke.
“This matter will be forgotten.”
“…Your pardon?”
“Outside, word will be given that we’ve tightened internal security following the kitchen maid’s misconduct, and that nothing untoward was found.”
She was releasing them not as criminals, but as servants who had merely undergone an interview.
“Don’t mistake this for mercy born of pity toward you.
The information you leaked was trivial, yes—but a crime is a crime.
It is only that the Grand Duke wishes no burden of such trifles. Do you understand?”
“Yes, yes. Thank you, Your Highness.”
“Remember—you are forgiven this once, and this once alone.”
She turned and left, her warning cold and final.
Behind her, the tension collapsed, and the servants crumpled to the ground, weeping with relief.
“…Your Highness, do you truly mean to forgive them without any punishment?”
Kaiden followed close at her heels as they emerged from the dungeon, his voice uncertain.
He had expected them to be cast out of the fortress at least, so he was astonished they had escaped entirely unscathed.
“There’s no guarantee the servants we hire next will behave differently. Better to keep them under control than risk the same thing again.”
It was not mere mercy she had granted.
If the same incident occurred again, they would be the first suspects—they knew this, and would take care not to step out of line.
Besides, dismissing them outright would create gaps in the household that couldn’t be filled, so it was wiser to keep them on and mend what was broken.
Just as she was about to slip out of the Underground Dungeon, someone called her from behind.
“Your Highness.”
“What is it?”
She turned to find the guard hesitating, his face drawn with discomfort.
“Well…”
The guard struggled to find his words.
She waited in silence, and at last he forced himself to speak.
“The Countess of Mobert… she wishes to see you, Your Highness.”
“Tell her there is nothing to discuss.”
No doubt the Countess had already been informed of her husband’s sentence.
She would only call to spout some nonsense or other.
Lumiere turned to leave.
But then—
“She says if you don’t come at once, she will bite off her own tongue.”
Lumiere’s footsteps halted.
……
She turned, her expression unreadable, and gazed quietly into the darkness that stretched beyond the guard’s shoulder down the long corridor.

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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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