Thought It Was ‘The End’, Only to Return to a Changed Genre - Chapter 95

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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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Chapter 17. There Was No Happy Ending (3)

The prison door opened.

Mia didn’t even lift her head.

The guard threw a person next to Mia as if discarding trash. Since they rolled and fell without any attempt at defense, the person seemed to be unconscious.

“Princess, please come out.”

“…What?”

“Though late, the order is to escort you with proper courtesy now. If it’s difficult for you to stand alone, I’ll call for a maid.”

“…”

“Shall I call for a maid?”

“No, no…”

She forced her weakened legs to move and stood up. Her vision went dark and she felt dizzy, nearly collapsing, but Mia managed to stand.

She couldn’t miss the opportunity to leave this terrible underground prison.

The underground prison was too horrible.

It was damp, dark, and reeked of foul odors. She didn’t know what was happening, but as long as she could get out, nothing else mattered.

As she hurried to leave, the collapsed figure suddenly grabbed Mia’s ankle.

“Ah!”

“…Mia…”

“Who are you…?”

“Take, take me with you…”

She thought her heart would burst. Mia looked down at the fallen person with wide eyes. The flickering eyes between the black hair were definitely Kaitlyn’s.

“You were alive…? I clearly saw your head being cut off…”

She had seen it clearly with her own two eyes.

Instead of answering, Kaitlyn tightened her grip on Mia’s ankle. Mia realized.

“…You used another one of my maids as a ‘substitute’ again.”

She had left someone else to die in her place and fled.

Mia checked the face of the knight waiting for her, then bent down and approached Kaitlyn who was gripping her ankle. She covered Kaitlyn’s face with her hand as Kaitlyn tried desperately to make eye contact with her wide eyes, and said.

“Why, are you trying to switch places with me and escape?”

“Mia…”

“I won’t make such a foolish mistake ever again.”

Clinging to past love was enough.

Mia had loved Keith.

Though Keith didn’t love Mia back, if he had just held her hand, she would have been ready to abandon her country at any time.

Keith loved Bruvein more than Mia, and loved his twin more than Bruvein.

Mia was always inferior to Kaitlyn. She was always last.

She knew that Kaitlyn sometimes looked at her with eyes filled with inferiority complex.

Kaitlyn envied Mia for growing up beautifully while receiving abundant love from the royal family, but what Mia wanted most was everything Kaitlyn possessed.

Foolish Kaitlyn.

Keith only loved the Kingdom of Bruvein because it was the country where you could receive the best treatment.

The reason you liked Bruvein was simply because you received better treatment than Keith.

You were happy because my parents ignored Keith.

Even knowing all that, Keith said it was best if you were happy.

You have no idea how much devoted love you received.

Keith tried to give you only shining and good things.

He tried to take on all the dirty work so that only you could live prettily and beautifully.

You don’t know what my parents made him do.

Why he had to wander the continent committing all sorts of evil acts, why he had to.

How he protected you.

He hoped I wouldn’t know about it either.

So I pretended not to know anything…

I’m glad you didn’t know.

‘Because that way I could be a little less miserable.’

Kaitlyn and Mia envied each other, and without acknowledging it, they called each other friends.

‘I should have run away too when Keith died.’

It was a mistake to try to use her birth until the very end.

The Kingdom of Bruvein, which had grown fat by exploiting Kaitlyn and Keith, had been doomed for a long time.

The royal family alone no longer had the power to sustain the kingdom.

If Mia could survive, she wouldn’t return to the Kingdom of Bruvein. Even if she went back, at best an arranged marriage would be waiting for her.

If she could make a marriage that would save the kingdom as a princess, she would fulfill her duty, but there was no way a fool willing to pay for a fallen kingdom’s princess would have such ability.

Money for the kingdom to barely eat for a few months, a few days. Money for the royal family’s face-saving.

Rather than become someone who would earn such compensation and nothing more, it was better to run away.

‘You can’t be happy by depending on others.’

Instead of asking Keith to take her and run away, she should have walked out of the palace on her own feet if she hated the kingdom.

The thought that no one would marry her without the background of being a princess was also wrong.

Instead of waiting to be chosen, she had to move directly to finally grasp happiness in her hands.

Mia shook her foot and brushed off Kaitlyn’s hand.

As she passed through the iron bars, she finally felt like she could breathe.

After walking down the corridor a bit, the knight stopped. Mia discovered someone waiting at the end of the exit.

It was Patrick Bertrand.

*

Kaitlyn was imprisoned on charges of attempting to poison the duchess and the prince, and the Bruvein royal family was identified as the mastermind behind it.

Harrison wasn’t even imprisoned in the underground dungeon, and the kidnapping he committed was buried without even being announced.

The fact that the prince’s royal guard and the saint’s husband was a spy for the Kingdom of Bruvein would damage the reputation of both the imperial court and the church.

Since the Bruvein royal family was also unaware of Harrison’s existence, hiding the kidnapping incident itself wasn’t too difficult.

Harrison was confined in the Imperial Palace dwelling where he had lived with Genevieve.

The wound that Genevieve had inflicted was already gone.

The only thing proving that last night’s events were real were the bloodstains remaining on his clothes.

Why had Genevieve kept him alive?

He had done too much to harbor foolish hope. Harrison kept mulling over the boy’s words. Genevieve had said she would take his life directly, but wouldn’t entrusting his end to her be selfish?

All the time he had spent with Genevieve as husband and wife had been in this place.

It was a dream, an illusion, a fake.

Nevertheless, Harrison had been happy in the dream where he lived as her husband.

Yes, Keith must have known from the beginning.

That Harrison had been humanly drawn to Edwin, whom he met after entering as an imperial guard.

Though selfish and a womanizer, Edwin was a charismatic figure as a ruler. It would be a lie to say he wasn’t attracted to him.

He would have known from the start that as the emperor’s knight and the empire’s guard, he dreamed of something else.

Because originally Harrison was a boy who dreamed of being a knight.

And even the fact that he had presumptuously fallen in love at first sight upon seeing the saint.

He couldn’t hide anything from Keith.

Then Genevieve quietly entered.

Discovering Harrison sitting silently, Genevieve made a bitterly sad expression.

“Harrison.”

“…Saint. If you permit it, I will take my own life.”

“…”

“I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for.”

“…”

“In the end, you couldn’t protect anything.”

Genevieve’s voice was calm and cold.

The more she thought about it, the more she couldn’t understand what Harrison had wanted to accomplish.

If he had wanted to protect Kaitlyn, he shouldn’t have cooperated with her. He should have given her honest advice to flee instead of doing something half-hearted. He should have made her stop before things got worse, rather than helping with the poisoning and then running away.

Harrison couldn’t protect Kaitlyn until the end.

‘Did he really want to protect her?’

If he truly wanted to protect her alone until the very end, shouldn’t he have shown the courage to jump into the sea together and escape?

But he didn’t even do that.

In Genevieve’s view, Harrison had simply given up on everything.

He might have been anxious about when Kaitlyn would expose his true identity.

Perhaps he wanted to die.

The fact that he had been abandoned by his original master was painful, but he didn’t want to give up everything, yet he wasn’t shameless enough to live a new life pretending not to know them.

He tried to save at least Kaitlyn, but he knew he would ultimately fail.

To Kaitlyn, and to Genevieve.

And to his real master, and to Edwin too, he had become a traitor.

“The reason I kept you alive and brought you here was because I had something I wanted to say one last time.”

“Please tell me.”

“I married you because it was an order from the Blancarde Viscount.”

“….”

“He said that the ‘Saint’ must marry someone, anyone, and bear a knight.”

Genevieve recalled that day.

Shane Blancarde had been filled with madness. She couldn’t say she didn’t want to marry. Even now, but back then Genevieve never even thought of rebelling against Shane. Because she was scared.

“He said if I really couldn’t find anyone, he would choose for me, and if I wanted, he would even push for a marriage with the Prince.”

“….”

“I really hated that idea, even if it meant death. Just then you confessed to me, so I thought it worked out perfectly. That’s how it was. You probably already knew that.”

“I knew.”

Still, it was good.

Just having the qualification to hold someone I could never dare touch, even for a moment, made me happy.

“I used you too. I apologize.”

“That’s not—”

“I certainly wasn’t a good spouse… but as a husband, you were a good person.”

Genevieve looked straight at Harrison.

“Thank you for living as my husband.”

“…Jeni.”

“The moments when you called me Jeni were truly happy.”

Genevieve handed him the dagger she had brought with her.

“It won’t be a pleasant sight. Please leave, Jeni.”

“I’ve lived seeing more ugly things than beautiful ones.”

That’s why she couldn’t help but be captivated by beautiful things.

For example, the hand that held hers tenderly, the brief kisses on her cheek with gentle caresses, and a single word of blessing filled with trust.

“I swore to God that I would be with you until the end, so I’ll watch over you.”

Genevieve whispered tenderly in Harrison’s ear.

“Farewell, Harrison.”

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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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