OYVT 06

Chapter 06

“Consider this our wedding.”

“I curse you, Zachary! I swear I’ll curse you!”

The day after the wedding.

Even after the shocking incident where the groom never showed up, life went on.

Yurita’s eyes snapped open as she lay on an unfamiliar bed.

Her dazed mind gradually regained clarity.

Instead of the usual worn cotton blanket, her fingers felt the smooth texture of silk bedding.

…So I woke up in the Killaster ducal estate.

A bed supported by four black pillars. Dark wallpaper and antique carpets.

Luxury far beyond the scale of the mansion Yurita used to live in filled every corner.

Because I went through with this marriage, I no longer have to repay Zachary’s debt.

The imperial family had provided one thousand gold coins as marriage support. That was enough to settle the debt completely.

In exchange, she had gained a good-for-nothing husband. At least on paper.

My head hurts.

Maybe because her hair had been pulled painfully tight for the bridal styling yesterday, she had a headache. Everything had been so chaotic that she hadn’t even washed properly.

I should take a bath.

Since this was a wealthy household, there should at least be hot water. That alone was comforting.

Without even glancing at the wedding ring placed on the vanity, Yurita headed for the bathroom.

***

Drip. Drip.

The sound of water droplets falling from the bathtub echoed softly.

Soaking in the warm water, Yurita finally felt at peace for the first time in a long while.

“Haah… How long has it been since I had a proper bath?”

The maids of the Killaster estate had prepared the bathwater. Marie, the maid who used to serve her, had seemed terrified of staying at the estate, so Yurita simply sent her back to Viscount Cynette’s residence.

Along with her younger brother Theo.

“Noona, I don’t want to go! I want to stay with you!”

The image of her little brother crying his eyes out last night vividly resurfaced.

Still, it’s better than staying here, little brother.

There was no way Zachary liked children. In a situation where she had no idea how that villain would treat her, she couldn’t leave Theo in danger too.

I don’t know if Viscount Cynette is a decent person either, but for now I’ll watch the situation.

Yurita sank deeper into the bath. Water rose over her ears, muffling all sound.

Peaceful.

Then, through the dull haze of her hearing, faint noises reached her.

Crash… bang…

BANG!

Startled by the violent sound of a door being thrown open, Yurita shot up out of the water and turned around.

Standing at the doorway was Zachary, dressed in outdoor clothes.

His eyes widened dramatically.

“Uh…?”

Unable to finish his sentence, Zachary could only point at her. Yurita, covering herself with her hair, instantly turned ice cold.

“You… what are you doing?”

“Get out.”

“Hey, this is my bathroom—”

“GET OUT!”

As Yurita shouted sharply, Zachary fumbled in panic, slammed the door shut, and hurried outside.

Trying to calm her fury, Yurita buried her face in her hands and took deep breaths.

Her cheeks burned with embarrassment.

Because we’re technically married, the maid guided me to the bathroom Zachary uses.

Honestly, it was a reasonable assumption—but only for couples who had actually held a proper wedding ceremony.

I’d rather die.

As if making up her mind about something, Yurita climbed out of the tub, dried herself, and wrapped a bathrobe around her body.

BANG!

Opening the bathroom door, she strode into the hallway and ran into Zachary downstairs. He stood awkwardly with his arms crossed, leaning against the window.

Seeing Yurita in her bathrobe, Zachary visibly flinched. Yurita marched straight toward him.

Clearing his throat awkwardly, Zachary spoke.

“Hey, I didn’t see anything.”

“Didn’t see what?”

Yurita spoke casually without honorifics. Duke or not, they were married now, so she had no reason to hold back.

“You know… when you were bathing…”

“You barged in while a lady was bathing. You’re seriously the worst.”

“What? The worst?”

“Why? Isn’t that true? You stood up your bride by not even showing up to the wedding. What kind of groom in the world does that?”

“……”

Zachary looked displeased, but he seemed to know he was in the wrong, because he didn’t argue back.

More than anything, he seemed slightly overwhelmed by Yurita’s anger.

Yurita looked up at him coldly.

“We’re using everything separately.”

“What?”

“Separate bedrooms. Separate beds. Separate bathrooms. I don’t want to share a single thing with you.”

“Hey, I feel the same way!”

“I’m using that bathroom from now on. You go somewhere else.”

“Why should I? I’ve always used it.”

“You can be the one to compromise. Considering you didn’t even show up at the wedding.”

“Hah, what’s the big deal about some wedding ceremony? I married you, didn’t I? Thanks to me, you don’t have to repay your debt anymore. Shouldn’t you be grateful?”

At that moment, Yurita suddenly grabbed Zachary by the collar.

Caught completely off guard, Zachary’s eyes widened again. A droplet from Yurita’s wet hair landed on the back of his hand.

“You know something? That wedding was the most humiliating experience of my life.”

Disgust filled Yurita’s eyes as she stared at him.

“And I always repay people who humiliate me. I’ll get my revenge two, three times over, Zachary.”

Yurita released his collar roughly. Then, without waiting for a response, she turned and walked back to her room.

Zachary stood there stunned for a while.

As he straightened his wrinkled collar, a grin slowly spread across his lips.

“Puhaha!”

Soon, Zachary burst into loud laughter.

***

For several days after the bathroom incident, Yurita rarely crossed paths with Zachary.

Their bedrooms were on the same floor, but he always returned to the estate around dawn and went straight into his room without seeing her.

Yurita liked staying awake late into the night, so around two in the morning she could hear him entering his room.

And then there was the bathroom.

Strange. That guy actually obediently switched to another bathroom.

Now Zachary used the downstairs bathroom instead. Yurita had no idea why he listened to her.

Does even a villain feel a little guilty?

The fact that the groom never appeared at the wedding would surely spread through high society like wildfire. There had been no guests, but the servants who prepared the ceremony still had mouths to talk.

I’m definitely going to get revenge.

Yurita intended to find Zachary’s weakness no matter what.

But the reason Yurita had spent the past few days thoroughly investigating the Killaster estate wasn’t only for revenge.

I have to survive here somehow.

The home of the infamous villain from the original story.

The Killaster family was shrouded in all kinds of suspicious rumors.

However, the original novel had never described the Killaster estate in detail, so uncovering the truth behind those rumors fell entirely to Yurita.

There are two major rumors surrounding the Killaster family.

First: they ran a massive moneylending business, and anyone who failed to repay their debts was killed and buried in the backyard of the estate.

The rumor claimed they did this to flaunt the fact that their family remained untouchable despite such atrocities.

As Yurita wandered the mansion, she looked out the window over the vast backyard.

There really are gravestones.

Cross-shaped ones, stone-marker-shaped ones, even sculptures of various forms.

With barren trees planted here and there, it looked exactly like a cemetery.

Leaning against the window, Yurita stared quietly at the graveyard.

It actually looks pretty beautiful.

Just as she was about to get lost in admiration again, she shook her head.

Stop it. That’s not the important part.

Not because she was some occult fanatic, but because she wanted to verify the rumor, Yurita had gone to inspect the cemetery on her second day at the estate.

All of them were graves of the Killaster family members. There’s no way they’d make such elaborate gravestones for debtors.

The Killaster family owned an enormous amount of land in the capital, so using the spacious backyard as a family cemetery made perfect sense.

While it was true the Killasters operated a moneylending business, it didn’t seem like they committed the barbaric act of murdering debtors and burying them in the backyard.

“You know what happened to all the bastards who ran off without paying me back? They’re all buried in our backyard.”

Yurita remembered what Zachary had once said.

So it was just bluffing?

It was certainly the perfect thing to say to scare people into paying their debts.

The rumor had probably grown more and more exaggerated over time because of threats like that.

The original novel never explained any of this in detail.

It seemed the author of that novel had wanted to portray Zachary as absolute evil.

Then what about the second rumor surrounding the Killaster family?

The second rumor: Zachary Killaster drinks human blood.

What is he, Dracula?

From what Yurita had observed over the past few days, Zachary wasn’t some Dracula-like creature.

They didn’t eat together, but the servants still brought him meals, and Yurita had seen empty dishes left on his table afterward.

Though I have seen him drinking red wine.

Could that actually be blood?

There was no way to know.

But there was one place Yurita suspected might reveal the truth behind the rumor.

The basement.