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Chapter : 1
Crunch…!
The horrifying sound of human bones breaking echoed all around.
Agatha, who had been slumped in a pool of blood, flinched and trembled.
It was a night like any other. There had been a large-scale assassination attempt, and her seventh husband—an exceptional knight—had fended them off with practiced ease.
The only difference was that one of the intruders had dared to lay a hand on her.
Dragged off the bed and thrown onto the cold marble floor, she had looked up just as a gleaming blade was raised above her head.
Slash—
Before she knew it, her husband had returned and split the intruder’s body in two. That was the first time she had been drenched in hot, pulsing blood.
From that moment on, her husband, Enoch Aratus, seemed to have become slightly… strange.
His large hand brushed over her blood-soaked face, and then he turned away and butchered the remaining intruders.
When no one was left standing but him,
the man came back and crushed the neck of the assassin who had dragged her out. Agatha could only stare up at Enoch in a daze.
“I told you I’m different from your previous husbands.”
“…!”
A long scar ran conspicuously across his handsome features.
Clear gray eyes stared at her as if to pierce straight through.
“This time, I will deal with your relatives as well. So…”
Clang—he casually tossed his sword aside and held out his hand to Agatha.
“Come here, Agatha.”
Don’t drive me crazy by standing there.
The marriage history of Agatha Nobilis, the heiress to an enormous fortune known throughout the Roxbard Empire and beyond, went like this:
At the age of five, she lost her adoptive parents and her two older brothers. Following the will of the emperor, who became her godfather, she held her first wedding with Duke Gregory Prougus.
Even now, Agatha still remembered the first words he had said to her at the ceremony.
“Five years old?”
“…”
“Wow, it’ll take more than ten years for you to become an adult. Well, you’re a golden bloodline, so I suppose it doesn’t matter. Hahahaha!”
It was a political marriage with a gap of over thirty years.
Through this marriage, the emperor expanded the borders of the empire, and for Agatha, it provided another safeguard: a knightly order to protect her from her relatives who coveted the young heiress.
The marriage seemed to go smoothly until Agatha turned ten.
“Die!”
“Aaagh!”
The duke, who loved gambling, was stabbed in a gambling den and rendered a eunuch, and everything fell apart.
If Agatha could not bear an heir, the succession would pass to relatives in another country, and the emperor could never allow that.
Her second wedding was to the second prince of the neighboring Mynecore Empire, because the emperor coveted that nation’s line of succession.
Prince Fernand Mynconti II was young, handsome, and had no physical problems, but—
“Hide! Tonight I’ll spend the night with the women who haven’t been caught by me yet!”
“…”
“Oh, of course, Agatha, you’re still too young. You can’t. Just sit over there and watch, all right?”
He was far too lustful.
He already had ten concubines when he married Agatha.
When illegitimate children even began to appear, Agatha finally couldn’t stand it anymore and demanded a divorce from the emperor. She was only thirteen at the time.
After that, her third marriage took place because the emperor decided on war in order to seize a new port.
Her third ex-husband, George Fortis, was called the greatest knight in the Roxbard Empire.
But as great as his skills were, his inferiority complex was just as severe, his self-esteem terribly low, and he was so ugly that it was hard to look at him face to face.
He couldn’t stand anyone looking directly at him.
“Don’t look at me! Do you think I don’t know you’re staring because you find me ugly and curious?!”
“…”
Agatha endured it in tears, like swallowing garlic while crying, and went through with the third marriage before reaching adulthood, mediated by the emperor.
And then she divorced him almost immediately. George had gone to the battlefield with ambition and suffered a crushing defeat, and Agatha, having learned that as long as the situation was set up she could always get a divorce, demanded it from the emperor without delay.
“From now on, I’ll find my own husband. Thank you for everything you’ve done, Your Majesty.”
“…”
She was sixteen at the time.
Upon coming of age and fully exercising her rights as the Nobilis family’s heiress, even the emperor could no longer handle Agatha as he pleased.
“…Very well. I will acknowledge your independence regarding marriage. However, I am still your godfather and the ruler of the empire. Given the serious interests tied to the Nobilis family, you must accept that I may intervene if necessary. Do you understand?”
“That’s more than enough. Thank you, Your Majesty.”
And so, after eleven years, Agatha secured her independence in marriage from the emperor.
At first, she even considered enjoying her freedom and traveling.
But—
“It’s an attack!”
Taking advantage of the reduced protection now that she was an adult, her relatives began sending assassins in earnest, and she gave up on that idea.
For the first time in her life, Agatha chose her own husband.
That man was Henry Insidio, her fourth ex-husband.
“I love you so much I think I might die.”
Before and after the wedding, life with her gentle husband, who seemed like he would even pluck the moon for her, appeared for a while to be truly beautiful.
“Do you really love Agatha Nobilis?”
“What nonsense. Once she has a child, I’ll kill her. I’ll become the proxy head of the Nobilis family and hold the power myself, living in luxury.”
Her fourth marriage ended when Agatha learned his true intentions.
Now more seasoned, she immediately chose a man who would become her sword in her stead and had Henry removed.
That man became her fifth ex-husband, Leonard Singeller.
It was another political marriage made under suitable conditions, but her fifth married life wasn’t bad.
It seemed like they were getting along reasonably well, but—
“He is congenitally impotent.”
“What?!”
Tests taken because they couldn’t conceive revealed that Leonard had a small—no, a major—problem.
When the emperor flew into a rage, shouting about whether he was supposed to let the succession pass to another country, the fifth marriage also fell apart.
Finally, on the eve of her sixth marriage, Agatha pondered.
“If I marry someone from a family that has everything, at least I won’t be killed, right?”
And so she accepted the proposal of the young duke of the Neuta family, Theodore Neuta.
Indeed, her sixth husband did not plot to kill her.
He treated her with gentlemanly care and ensured her safety with a powerful order of knights.
But the problem lay elsewhere.
Seven months before the attack above, at the old yet magnificent Neuta ducal mansion—
Agatha Nobilis strode down the historic corridor, fury blazing within her. Soon, her husband’s office came into view, guarded by knights.
“We greet the Duchess.”
“Open it.”
“Your Grace. The Duchess has arrived.”
“Let her in.”
A deep voice came from inside, and the anger in Agatha’s violet eyes deepened.
Seeing Agatha enter rather roughly, her husband, Theodore Neuta, rose from his seat.
“My lady? What brings you here?”
“I have something to say. Could you spare me a moment?”
Agatha sat down on the sofa first and gestured to the seat across from her. Theodore, after setting aside his glasses, quietly sat down.
“What is—”
“I can’t stand it anymore.”
Agatha stared at her sixth husband.
A handsome face. The lofty status of a duke.
He was capable as Minister of Foreign Affairs, young, and had wealth, power, and honor—everything one could want.
But there was one fatal flaw.
“Send your grandmother, your mother, and your sister out of this mansion immediately, and let’s live on our own.”
“My lady? But—”
“Answer carefully. Depending on your answer, this may be my last request.”
Startled by the sudden demand, Theodore solemnly shook his head. He couldn’t send his grandmother, mother, and sister away.
He mistakenly thought this was just the usual squabble between women.
“What did my grandmother, mother, and sister say this time?”
“Is that your answer?”
“Agatha. Haven’t you handled things well until now? This is so sudden, I’m at a loss—”
Agatha raised her hand to stop him.
“I have handled it well. I deflected them moderately and endured it, because they were your grandmother, your mother, and your sister. But I’ve decided that I can’t do that anymore.”
Had accepting his proposal—perfect in every way—been another mistake?
His family did not welcome a woman who had already divorced five times.
“What a vulgar dress. As expected, a history of five marriages doesn’t go anywhere.”
Her great-grandmother-in-law and mother-in-law looked at her as if she were some disgrace of the Neuta family.
“Is it really so hard to give us a bit of land?”
Her sister-in-law was dissatisfied that someone as wealthy as Agatha didn’t shower her with extravagant gifts.
If they were going to be like that, why hadn’t they opposed the marriage from the start?
Snapping back, enduring, over and over again—she was at the point where it was damaging her sanity.
“But sending my grandmother, mother, and sister elsewhere is—”
“Theodore.”
“Yes?”
If her husband would blindly dismiss everything as mere women’s affairs and stand by doing nothing, then there was no other choice.
“We’re getting a divorce.”
Seeing her smile brightly, Theodore’s face went blank.
Thus ended the sixth divorce of Agatha Nobilis,
the greatest heiress in the Roxbard Empire.
