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Chapter 22
Dielo stared at the spot where Crua had disappeared.
It had been an utterly strange night for him.
He was certainly tired enough to fall asleep, yet a peculiar tension kept him awake.
After thinking about it for quite some time, he finally realized the source of that tension was the bride who was sleeping peacefully right before his eyes.
More than anything else…
Dielo lowered his gaze to his own hand.
“It’s Aloje, though.”
Could Aloje really create this kind of heat?
Not only that, but her breathing and every tiny movement she made created ripples that completely dominated his mind, making it impossible for him to sleep.
‘You promised. We’d only hold hands and sleep.’
Strangely enough, he found himself regretting those words as he spent the entire night holding Crua’s hand.
He absentmindedly clenched and unclenched his hand, narrowed his eyes, and eventually rose from his seat.
Trying to erase that maddening dawn from his mind.
Today, his bride had apparently decided to set up her work in the flower garden simply because the weather was nice.
Her work materials had been placed on a simple outdoor table.
It seemed like a good enough way to get a change of scenery, but Dielo did not bother following Crua outside.
“……”
Instead, he chose to watch her from the terrace above.
Standing behind him was Rick, dressed in black and waiting to deliver his report.
He had returned after finishing up the matter on the previous battlefield and had come bearing new information.
“You’re saying Duke Aloje sent Crua her allowance for maintaining her dignity?”
At his question, Rick answered with a bright expression.
“Yes, about one-tenth of the amount.”
Even that would be a considerable sum for an individual to spend.
Dielo narrowed his eyes.
He could guess what his bride would spend the money on.
She would not use it to buy clothes or participate in high-society activities like other noblewomen.
Instead, she would use it to pursue her plans for the future.
From the terrace, Crua’s face looked incredibly pleased.
“……”
Dielo slightly raised an eyebrow.
—Whooosh…
As he watched her, it almost seemed as though he could hear the sound of waves in his head.
A sea sparkling entirely because of the water.
And among all of it, her figure had been the most dazzling.
“Crua.”
After murmuring her name, Dielo tilted his head slightly.
As far as he knew, the next head of House Aloje had essentially already been decided.
Her older brother, Pentas Aloje.
They said Pentas possessed talents so powerful that Crua could not even compare to him.
Dielo tilted his head a little further.
“Pentas has talents greater than hers?”
If that were true, there would have been no reason for the Duke of Aloje to resort to the dirty trick of sending a fake Pero to Argenta.
Even if a powerful flame could evaporate water, fire and water were fundamentally incompatible.
Besides, Dielo Argenta himself still had no Pero.
“It would have been faster to simply declare war…”
If their goal was to destroy Argenta.
But Aloje had not done that.
Why?
Was Pentas, contrary to the rumors, actually lacking in talent?
If so, it made no sense to discard someone with abilities as great as Crua’s as a sacrificial pawn.
Of course, she must have been hiding her abilities.
“……”
Had she called them accomplices?
Dielo recalled what she had said to him on their wedding day.
A short sigh escaped his lips.
“Even if we’re accomplices, Bride…”
He spoke quietly.
You only told me that you were a card that could make Aloje lower its guard.
You never said you were a card this tempting.
He gave a troubled laugh.
“If you were going to hide your abilities, you should have hidden them from me, too.”
After seeing the powerful ability she had displayed in the sea, how could he not desire it?
Especially here in Argenta, where he had to protect an infinite sea with flames.
Dielo stepped away from the terrace.
Just then, another informant entered his room.
The informant approached hurriedly and bowed silently to him.
“Lord, there is someone who wishes to make secret contact with you.”
“Secretly?”
Dielo raised an eyebrow.
The informant lowered his head.
“Yes. She claims to be the real Pero.”
“Oh…”
Dielo gave a brief exclamation.
If the informant had come to report it personally, then the person claiming to be Pero must already have provided the informants with sufficient proof that she was indeed Pero.
But the informant was not finished.
“However… she is also someone whom you have met before, Lord.”
Someone I have met before?
Dielo frowned.
He had a bad feeling about this.
“…Ha.”
The moment Dielo saw the person claiming to be the real Pero, he let out a short breath.
It was almost a sigh of disbelief.
“It’s been a long time. I never thought I’d be coming here of my own accord.”
The woman calling herself Pero spread out both hands.
An old bracelet dangled from her wrist.
The pure-white pearl attached to it was dull and faded.
She had apparently been stripped of everything except her accessories. Her hands were empty, and she did not even have a weapon at her waist.
“We met when I was little. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”
The woman sitting on the sofa did not even bother to stand when Dielo entered.
She had dark brown hair.
Just as he had been told, Dielo knew her as well.
“……”
Dielo pressed a hand against his forehead and closed his eyes.
The public believed that his parents, the former Duke and Duchess of Argenta, had died in a carriage accident.
But the truth was different.
And contrary to what many people mistakenly believed, Dielo knew the truth.
“You must be so happy to see me, right?”
The shameless woman speaking before him was someone who had abandoned Argenta when it had been thrown into chaos by Aloje’s schemes, shortly before Dielo’s parents died.
More precisely, she was the person who had provided the Duke of Aloje with information about the Duke and Duchess of Argenta before fleeing.
A traitor to Argenta.
And this woman was Pero?
“…Confirmation?”
Dielo turned toward the informant.
The informant bowed respectfully.
“It has already been completed. She is definitely the real Pero.”
The woman who had arrived as Pero, Venia, looked up at Dielo confidently.
Even if she had sold not only Dielo’s parents but something else in the past, Argenta would not be able to harm her as long as she was the real Pero.
Rather than harming her, they would have to treat her as a guest of honor.
Venia’s smile deepened.
“I think this is the first time we’ve met since the former Duke and Duchess of Argenta died. Am I right?”
She certainly had some nerve, speaking so shamelessly.
Dielo narrowed his eyes.
His luck was truly terrible.
Of all people, Pero—the person he was supposed to try to fall in love with—had turned out to be the very person who had sold his parents to the enemy.
“Don’t look at me like that. You must be surprised that I walked in here perfectly fine on my own two feet?”
Venia shrugged.
Dielo replied in a subdued voice.
“A little.”
At the same time, he turned a cold gaze toward the informant.
What had they been doing while a traitor to Argenta simply walked in here?
Of course, she was Pero, but did that mean they had just stood by until she revealed her identity?
They should have subdued her the moment they saw her.
“Don’t blame them too much. It’s simply because they didn’t dare touch me.”
“…Dare?”
Dielo narrowed his eyes.
Instead of answering, Venia lightly tapped the teacup.
Then—
—Splash!
The tea shot upward as she infused it with her ‘water power.’
“!”
Dielo paused for a moment.
Control over water?
How could someone who had once belonged to Argenta possess it?
But Dielo’s keen senses immediately detected something strange in the water power she was using.
It felt different from the pure water power used by Crua and the people of Aloje.
It felt somewhat murkier.
Just as he was frowning—
“The Duke of Aloje is behind me, so they told them not to touch me.”
“Oh…”
Dielo gave a hollow exclamation.
It was an obvious lie.
The Duke of Aloje had already sent Crua, claiming that she was Pero.
‘If the Duke of Aloje knew that this woman was the real Pero, he would have either bought her off or killed her.’
Rather, the Duke of Aloje probably did not even know that this woman was the real Pero, much less that she had come here.
This murky power also did not seem to have been obtained through a normal means.
If the head of a family had personally bestowed the power upon her, it could not possibly feel like this.
So, what secret was this traitor hiding?
“……”
Dielo smiled deeply and sat down on the sofa opposite Venia.
“By the way, I was surprised.”
Venia spoke to him.
After all, she was Dielo Argenta’s Pero.
There was no way he could harm her no matter what she did, so she casually draped one arm over the sofa and crossed her legs.
“I never thought that ‘that’ Dielo Argenta would be incapable of burning even a single flower, let alone a person…”
She uncrossed her legs and moved closer to Dielo.
“And yet you killed your own parents.”
At those words, Dielo raised an eyebrow.
“The Duke of Aloje probably thinks his plan succeeded, but I know what happened because I was going back and forth between Aloje and Argenta at the time.”
Venia smiled.
“I know that Duke Dielo Argenta stood by and watched the former Duke and Duchess die.”
Dielo’s expression turned cold.
Venia whispered,
“You could have saved them, but you chose not to. Right?”
Confidence and arrogance were clearly visible on her face.
After all, I’m Pero. No matter what I do, he can’t hurt me.
It was as though he could read the thought written across her face, and Dielo gave her a chilling smile.
It was a smile completely different from the one he had shown Crua.
“—Why does it have to be you who is Pero?”
Why does the person I have to love have to be someone like you?
At Dielo’s lament-like words, Venia burst out laughing.
“I know, right? Why me?”
She deliberately rolled up her sleeve and showed him her arm.
The words ‘Dielo Argenta’ were clearly engraved on her skin.
He wondered if she had deliberately carved them there like Crua had, but it seemed she had already applied some kind of wound medicine, as the area was still wet.
Yet the name remained perfectly clear.
Meaning it was real.
Venia shook her arm.
“I’m not so bad, am I? I even kept your secret after learning about it.”
Of course, that was probably because if she spread the rumor, Argenta’s intelligence network would have caught her.
Dielo stared at her without saying a word.
Unaware of what he was thinking, Venia became even more arrogant and continued speaking.
“But then, what is that fake one?”
Venia pointed outside.
She must have been referring to Crua.
At the word ‘fake,’ Dielo inexplicably felt irritated again.
Even though the word was technically true.
