The Peaceful Life Of A Maid Who Hides Her Power And Enjoys It - Chapter 320
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Part 2, Chapter 118
“You can’t escape.”
Leaving behind Spolia’s fading nonsense, I slowly moved forward.
I see light.
I don’t know where this light originates from. However, my intuition, my instinct was telling me.
I must move toward that light.
When I finally escaped the darkness again, I was standing in front of the banquet hall corridor, and I suddenly realized I had returned to reality.
I turned my head again to look at the darkness I had just traversed, but beyond it was only an ordinary empty corridor, and Spolia had disappeared.
‘…Where’s Lu?’
I searched the corridor area thoroughly, but I couldn’t sense any trace of Lu.
My endless steps had somehow reached inside the banquet hall. As if what I had seen was a daydream, people were still immersed in joyful pleasure.
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
Occasionally, those staggering drunk would bump into me, but I had no time to care.
I wandered around looking for Lu.
‘I need to lure Spolia out of Ragal.’
I had already made a plan, but I needed to move faster. No matter how I thought about it, I felt I needed to get that madman out of this city as soon as possible.
But why couldn’t I see Lu anywhere?
Every time I stopped with each step and asked about his whereabouts, no one gave me the answer I wanted. Then at some moment.
“…Daisy?”
When I happened to encounter Natasha a few steps away.
When a welcoming smile bloomed as she discovered me, looking incredibly happy.
“Daisy!”
I… had to experience a feeling as if I had swallowed a handful of sand, my throat completely blocked.
“Where did you go and only come back now? I’ve been waiting for you! I heard that today you plan to continue… acting as a baroness? That’s a wise decision.”
A red laurel crown.
On Natasha’s beautiful forehead, a red laurel crown that wasn’t there before had appeared.
Whether she knew this fact or not, Natasha, who had been chattering endlessly like a baby bird, grabbed my hand and burst into hearty laughter.
“Ahaha! Even if you appeared in that form, it doesn’t change that I’m second! …But did you have your first dance? Who’s your partner?”
I reached out as if enchanted and stroked Natasha’s forehead. How strange. I couldn’t feel anything but smooth skin.
Moreover, even when I pressed with force from my fingertips, the red laurel crown would never be erased.
“Natasha, on your forehead…”
“Hm? Forehead?”
She tilted her head with puzzled eyes and asked the people around if there was something on her forehead, but no one nodded.
No one could see the red laurel crown that was so clearly embedded.
That laurel crown, identical to the oath marking left on my wrist.
‘…Spolia.’
For a moment, my mind went blank as if struck by a hammer.
“Daisy? Wait, where are you going, Daisy!”
I turned my back on Natasha and pushed through the people who had gathered around us.
While everyone naturally stepped aside, only one knight stopped as if he had been waiting. It was Liwein.
“It’s a beautiful night, Baroness Weatherwax…”
He bowed his head with a tired face, seeming to be persistently troubled by something. Liwein glanced at the Weatherwax Baroness standing in the distance a few times, then cleared his throat softly and began.
“If you have time, would you briefly dance one song for unfortunate me…”
However, my senses were focused not on his words but on his forehead.
“Laurel crown.”
“…Pardon?”
I pointed at Liwein’s forehead as he asked back in confusion, and asked in a tired voice.
“Can’t you see the laurel crown on your forehead, Knight?”
Standing with a bewildered face, he opened the pendant necklace he was wearing and examined his face with the mirror decorated inside.
“On my forehead, you say? I don’t see anything at all. Surely you’re not joking… Baroness?”
That moment was the turning point.
I quickly, perhaps like a madwoman, roamed the banquet hall.
Someone grabbed my shoulder with a worried expression and asked about my well-being, but I had no time to answer.
Red laurel crowns.
Every familiar face… without exception, bore red laurel crowns on their foreheads.
“My goodness, Baroness! I heard you returned. How have you been? Have you been healthy? Haven’t any interesting incidents occurred?”
“Tara! I told you not to run around!”
Even on the Kalpenwieber Sisters.
“Baroness Weatherwax? You look strangely busy today. Are you looking for someone? Don’t you need my help?”
Even on Inastasia.
“…Strange. Are you alright, Baroness? You don’t look well. Has something happened?”
Even on Count Rosebel.
Everyone.
Everyone.
Everyone, everyone, everyone.
This is like…
“It’s useless, Baroness Weatherwax.”
“…”
I close my eyes briefly.
Whooo.
After steadying my breathing, I turned my head toward the direction of the voice. Duke Brugbansel slightly raised his champagne glass and showed a faint smile.
He looked into my eyes with a peaceful face, then after a short while, turned his gaze to the banquet hall full of people.
“You looked quite busy. But as I said before… it’s a useless effort. Only you and I can see this death mark left by Spolia.”
Death mark. Even hearing it in passing, it was an ominous name.
“Did I win the bet?”
Does he know even that?
Whether Duke Brugbansel had joined hands or feet with Spolia was no longer important. What I needed to know now was something else.
I looked at his forehead, which unlike others was fine, and asked.
“What exactly is that mark?”
Sipping his champagne, Duke Brugbansel answered casually.
“What else could it be? It’s exactly as the name suggests. Do you need more explanation? It’s too horrible for me to speak directly.”
All those with the mark engraved on their foreheads will die.
Probably… because of me.
In this situation, I couldn’t think of any other reason. It must be an intention to force me to participate in the bet. Definitely.
“…Are you and I the only ones who know this fact, Duke?”
Duke Brugbansel slowly raised his arm and showed the inside of his wrist. Then, an oath mark in the form of a long straight line, slightly different from mine, appeared.
“That’s right. I also made an oath. The condition was that I must keep silent about this mark. Except for those like you who know of its existence…”
An oath of silence.
‘So that’s what it was.’
Until I confirmed Duke Brugbansel’s wrist, I thought he and Spolia were cooperating on equal terms.
Cooperation where they take the benefits they need from each other and step back at an appropriate line. But when I actually faced Duke Brugbansel, I came to the conclusion that my thinking was ridiculously short-sighted.
“What did you give to Spolia in exchange for survival?”
Cooperation?
Isn’t that a move that crazy Spolia would never choose?
Staring into space and silently drinking the remaining champagne for dozens of seconds, Duke Brugbansel looked back at me with a coldly hardened face.
“The future of Pen Rota.”
“…”
“If you lose the bet… His Imperial Highness the Crown Prince, Berkleygraytown, Jenail, Brugbansel… Let me see, who else was there? Ah… Perhaps because of the alcohol, I can’t remember a few names.”
He let out a meaningless laugh for a long while, then shook his empty champagne glass and left his seat.
His departing steps were particularly slow, and the index finger holding the glass was pointing toward the ceiling in a somewhat unnatural form.
The ceiling.
It meant Spolia was still watching.
How persistent. I couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity.
Fine, if you’re truly that sincere with me… Spolia.
“What’s the real reason you’re going this far?”
The noisy banquet hall. My voice, unable to blend into it, scattered quietly into the air.
“My heart? Is it because of that after all? Just like you did to those foolish demigod sprouts… you want to steal my heart too?”
Somewhere in the banquet hall, small sobs could be heard. The crying merged with the noise of the banquet, hiding its sorrow from the people.
“My heart. You covet it so much that you even summoned the Divine Knight Order within the Wall of Fire to corner me.”
Someone screamed with joy. As a man and woman embraced each other, their happiness became one with the banquet hall’s atmosphere, drawing praise from the people.
“And now you’re even willing to ruin an entire nation?”
“No.”
But this voice was different.
That voice alone, like mine, couldn’t blend into the banquet.
Through my twisted vision, I saw a gentleman standing alone among the crowd. That trash Spolia, dressed in refined banquet attire like any other man.
He made excuses to me.
“That’s not it, Daisy. Don’t you understand yet? What I truly want is…”
“Shut up.”
His eyes, quietly sunken as if hurt, looked at me with longing.
“I.”
And then, with a shy smile, he confessed…
“I love you.”
“Crazy bastard.”
I swallowed a bitter laugh and slowly stroked the silver ring with my thumb.
‘If you truly intend to turn Ragal into hell.’
“Remember this, Lu.”
I won’t try to find any other way either.
“No matter what dangerous situation I fall into at tonight’s banquet… you must never try to save me.”
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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