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Chapter 07
He hadn’t asked out of suspicion, but to test her reaction.
Whether it was true memory loss or not.
But why check again?
For now, he pretended ignorance.
It was because of a very slim possibility—that the person standing in front of him might not be Shait.
If that were true, the moment he realized she had noticed, he might eliminate her to erase the evidence.
“So you’re suspicious? I was just joking. You seem different today.”
Shait silently stared at him for a while.
Just as the silence and his persistent gaze began to feel uncomfortable, he spoke again.
“In what way am I different?”
Why is he asking that too?
Is he probing how much I know about him?
If I know too much, will I be eliminated?
Keeping his guard up, he answered as superficially as possible.
“Hmm. You used to trail off your sentences and stutter a bit. Your posture too—you were always hunched over, shoulders curled in.”
“Like this?”
Shait tucked his chin in and rounded his shoulders, hunching forward.
“Yes. A bit more inward with the shoulders, hands together in front… yes, like that. Lower your head a bit more, and let your bangs cover half your face.”
He reached out and swept Shait’s hair forward.
With a slouched posture and unevenly covered face, he now resembled the Shait she remembered—except for the unnervingly normal gaze.
Satisfied, she nodded, and he glanced into the mirror.
Shait studied his reflection for a long moment, then straightened up and brushed his hair back.
His face returned to something unfamiliar as he smiled at her.
“Anything else you know about me?”
So he really was trying to probe her.
She narrowed her eyes slightly and put on a regretful expression.
“Unfortunately, you’d be better off checking your diary or documents. You and I are only bound by contract—we weren’t particularly close.”
“……”
“Ah! Or should I call the butler? Please wait a moment.”
Good. This is my chance to escape…
Just as she reached for the door, Shait approached and turned her around.
He bent down to meet her eyes and lowered his voice.
“Madam, I would prefer it if you did not tell anyone else that I have memory loss.”
“Not even the butler?”
“Not even the butler.”
“Why? He’s the one you brought with you when you married.”
“I would like this to remain just between us.”
What is this now?
She narrowed her eyes at Shait.
A shared secret? Was he trying to build trust? What exactly was he after?
All she had was money.
Was he planning to build intimacy and extract even more from her?
Or use her somehow?
She forced her narrowing eyes back open.
For now, she decided to play along.
“Alright.”
She nodded seriously, and Shait placed his hands lightly on both her shoulders.
Is he about to show his true colors now?
But instead—
“You may go now.”
He turned her around again.
“Huh?”
Wasn’t he trying to build some kind of bond?
Before she could even voice her confusion, he opened the door himself and gently pushed her out.
His voice came from behind her.
“Then, have a good night, Madam.”
“Good ‘night’?”
She turned back in disbelief.
Through his shoulder, bright sunlight poured in through the large window.
The rain had stopped, and dawn had come without her noticing.
Staring at the closing door, a new hypothesis formed belatedly in her mind.
“Is he just crazy?”
Inside the room after Amaryntis left.
Yulician sat alone at the desk, legs crossed, his thoughts deepening as his foot tapped slowly.
Amaryntis’s intelligence network was disappointingly shallow. Still, he had obtained enough clues to imitate Shait.
‘The rest… I’ll have to search the desk, as she said.’
Yulician opened the drawer.
Most of the documents inside were written in an ancient language.
‘Problematic.’
Very few people could fluently decipher it.
Unfortunately, Yulician was not one of them.
In other words, he couldn’t read them.
‘They look like research logs.’
He set the papers down and scanned the desk, eventually noticing a decorative object with heavy scratch marks.
‘People with secrets always have hidden compartments.’
He turned the ornament.
With a creaking sound, both sides of the desk opened.
One side contained letters and documents; the other was packed with a notebook filled with records.
The letters and documents were entirely encrypted, and the notebook was a mix of code, ancient language, and Melvernian.
Occasionally there were drawings, but they were also difficult to decipher.
He skimmed through it, then began reading the Melvernian sections.
December 30, 1804, 14:40.
Lord Welot called me a hunched, gloomy man. Count Treas agreed, saying at least I hide my face with my hair.
January 1, 1805, 06:01.
A petite maid with brown hair and green eyes told another maid, “Doesn’t the master seem gloomy? I want to save up quickly and leave.”
The contents were simple.
It recorded, minute by minute, who said what kind of insults about Shait.
‘Why would someone record this?’
He couldn’t understand it, but it was useful for gauging Shait’s reputation.
‘There’s almost nothing about the wife.’
There were records of when she left the house and who she met, but those were mostly observations made in secret.
There were no signs of genuine conversation between them.
‘So it’s true—they weren’t close.’
He returned the notebook and moved toward the bookshelf.
On top of neatly arranged books lay a single rolled parchment.
‘If it’s stored like this, it must be important.’
He unrolled it.
A prenuptial agreement.
Leaving such a document carelessly like this said a lot about how Shait Honeywald viewed the marriage.
As he was about to roll it back up, one name caught his eye.
Amaryntis Rootshield.
‘That woman is more important than I thought.’
As he read further, he realized where Amaryntis’s massive dowry and monthly allowance were going.
Kildian’s mercenary forces had rapidly expanded over the past year.
Yulician had been tracking Kildian’s military funding.
No matter how deeply he investigated, he could not trace the source of the massive influx of funds.
‘It was coming from here.’
The timing matched—the moment Kildian began acting in earnest coincided with Amaryntis’s marriage to Shait.
The unexplained military funding aligned almost perfectly with her dowry and living expenses.
‘Is the wife an accomplice? Or is she being used?’
Just as the thought ended—
Thud.
A heavy sound came from behind the bookshelf.
Footsteps followed.
He quickly rolled up the parchment and hid it between the shelves, then moved toward the wall where a decorative sword hung, ready to respond if it was an intruder.
‘If someone can enter a private space through a hidden passage, they must be closely connected to Shait Honeywald.’
If he wasn’t careful, they might discover he wasn’t Shait.
Tense, he recalled what Amaryntis had told him.
Head lowered, body hunched—
The bookshelf fully opened, revealing a pitch-black passage.
A figure stood motionless in the darkness.
As the bookshelf stopped moving, the suspiciously dressed man slowly walked in and removed his hood.
Yulician recognized him immediately.
‘My brother.’
The man approached and casually took the seat of honor on the sofa.
Leaning back, Kildian slowly looked Yulician up and down.
“I came because there was no report even after the appointed time… and you look like a mess. What happened to Yulician?”
