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Chapter 48
Corelia tilted her head in confusion. Karon, sitting across from her, was staring intently at her.
“Why is he acting like this today?” Corelia thought. It was an unusually perplexing situation for her.
Earlier, when Karon had met her outside the café, he hadn’t approached her with his usual smile.
‘Why did he come alone without Erinn, who told him to bring her? Such a bother.’
She had planned to train somewhere nice since it had been a while since she last met Erinn, but everything had gone awry.
“Your elder sister said she’s busy today, so she couldn’t come with me.”
Karon’s eyes, as he spoke this while looking at Corelia, seemed more troubled than usual.
‘He broke our plan just from saying that. Did something suddenly change in his heart?’
“Erinn’s busy? Well, I guess there’s no helping it. That girl… she’s always busy whenever I visit. I understand. Maybe she just doesn’t want to meet me.”
Corelia smiled kindly and placed her hand over Karon’s.
But Karon withdrew his hand.
Corelia’s brows slowly furrowed. She opened her eyes wide and stared at him.
“Karon?”
“Ah… I’m sorry.”
How dare… Karon Lissus pull his hand away from hers? Did he eat something wrong? No matter how she looked at him, Karon seemed off.
Normally, he should have been embarrassed or disappointed for not being able to bring Erinn.
“Karon, you seem to be in a bad mood today. You’re not even smiling at me.”
The young heirs of the Lissus marquisate were acting strangely. Corelia’s eyes shimmered oddly as she looked at Karon.
She couldn’t understand why he had changed so suddenly after meeting Erinn. But it was clear that something was happening behind the scenes that she didn’t know.
“You look especially tired today.”
Charlotte approached Corelia, seemingly trying to mediate between her and Karon.
At Corelia’s words, Karon awkwardly lifted one corner of his mouth into a smile.
“Don’t worry, Mother. Nothing happened. I’m sorry for causing concern.”
Even as he spoke, Karon’s hands trembled.
For a while, Karon even struggled to eat. His mind had already concluded what was right.
But the thought of having to sever all ties to the past involving one of the two people he cared about was unbearably painful.
“If the person you call ‘mother’ had thrown me into hell all this time, would you believe it?”
The mother he knew was so delicate she could barely lift a knife. Karon couldn’t imagine her committing cruelty against Erinn.
Yet, at the same time, he couldn’t stop recalling the marks that still lingered on Erinn’s arm.
“Mother, I’m sorry. You must be upset because of my sister.”
“Why does she treat Mother that way?”
“Sister, why are you like this? Why are you so twisted?”
The words he had thoughtlessly spoken to the two of them returned as thorns in his heart.
When he couldn’t bear the self-reproach any longer, Erinn came to him.
Karon’s face turned to shock as he looked at the dress placed in front of Erinn.
“What… what is this?”
“This dress was sent by Corelia. She told me to wear it to the party.”
“So all this time, my sister didn’t choose the dress herself?”
In front of Erinn lay the dress sent by Corelia.
[Erinn, I thought this dress would suit you well.]
The dress was a bright, highly saturated pink, adorned with large, chunky gems.
In short… it was tacky.
Karon recalled the scolding he had often heard whenever Erinn attended a party.
“Miss Erinn doesn’t have good taste.”
“How can she like only flashy, tacky dresses…”
“The Marchioness would choose dresses with refined taste… she must be dressing according to her own preferences.”
All of that was wrong. Every dress Erinn had worn had been personally selected by Corelia.
And Karon had never known this. Even without eating, he felt like he might vomit again.
Erinn quietly watched him, and Karon looked pitiful, like a drenched puppy.
In her first life, she had often resented him.
She couldn’t stand it when he failed to notice her pain and even misunderstood her.
But one day, when she had shown her tears in front of him, she could never forget the expression he had worn.
Eyes that trembled as if the world itself had collapsed.
At that moment, Erinn forgave Karon. For victims to blame each other… wasn’t that too sad?
Even now, with her younger brother unable to fully trust her, Erinn understood Karon.
She pushed the tacky dress sent by Corelia aside and addressed Karon.
“About Dietrion’s knight, Roham.”
A puzzled look spread across his face.
Roham’s disappearance was well-known within Ateness Academy.
Dietrion had scoured the academy like a cat chasing mice because of it.
Rumors had even spread that the Lissus marquisate might have been involved, since it happened after the quarrel with Erinn.
“The night we argued… Sir Roham came to my room late at night.”
“What? What do you mean?”
Karon’s face instantly darkened with rage. Why would a Dietrion knight visit her late at night?
Did he plan to insult his sister?
“So… so what happened?”
Karon grabbed Erinn’s shoulders.
If anything had happened to her, he would find him to the ends of the world and make him pay.
“What… what did he do to you?”
“Nothing. He couldn’t do anything.”
“What?”
“I restrained him myself.”
Karon couldn’t immediately comprehend her words. Erinn had restrained Roham?
“That’s not the point. The important thing is what kind of person Sir Roham was.”
Erinn recalled what Roham had said to her that night, with all his remaining strength.
“The reason I didn’t tell you the truth was because of the people behind Corelia.”
“….”
“Karon, as a knight, you know what knights despise the most.”
“…?”
“Sir Roham was a knight strengthened by dark magic.”
“What?”
The moment Karon heard “dark magic,” his face filled with contempt.
Using dark magic to enhance strength… That was what knights hated most.
Long ago, when monsters were stronger, people had enhanced their abilities with dark magic. It was done to create stronger knights.
But after its deadly side effects were revealed, it was abandoned.
The Holy Order always warned about its dangers, and anyone who used it was purged. It was forbidden throughout the continent, not just in the empire.
Yet Sir Roham, a knight of the First Prince, had used dark magic to become stronger…?
Karon felt the weight of that revelation.
His hands became clammy. And then he realized something strange.
If Roham had been strengthened by dark magic, how did Erinn… restrain him?
“How could my sister…”
As he spoke, he realized something. Since he had begun proper sword training, he had always questioned this.
He loved the sword and knew he had talent, but he had never believed he could become a Sword Master.
He recalled a conversation with his father:
“Those chosen by the sword… they know the moment they wield it that they will become a Sword Master.”
Yet he had never once felt such certainty.
Karon muttered in disbelief,
“The one chosen by the sword… was my sister.”
“Exactly. I didn’t publicize what happened when Sir Roham came to me because I didn’t want people to know. Besides, he left me an interesting message.”
Erinn recalled Roham’s last words before he died.
“The one who drove your life into the gutter… is Sergia Rexia. Behind the Marchioness, that’s who it was.”
“How can I believe that?”
“Look at me. The Emperor used dark magic to train his own knights. He didn’t want more Sword Masters. He thought he could control both monsters and knights like puppets.”
“….”
“So that’s why he did what he did to you. Corelia too… is a knight sent by that Emperor.”
With those words, Roham’s body shattered into pieces.
