TSMT 58

Chapter 58.

Farewell

“You’re right, Guiscard.”

“……”

“I’ve always felt uncomfortable around you. As if I was constantly looking at my father’s sins.”

“Uncomfortable, with me?”

Guiscard’s lips twisted into a crooked smile. He let out a sigh, a puff of white breath escaping into the air. His burning gaze fixed on Diana, who was seated before him. Slowly, he closed his eyes, then opened them again.

“In that case, you should never have treated me kindly in the first place.”

“……”

“You shouldn’t have reached out your hand to me from the start. Then why—why are you telling me now that you’ll cast me aside?!”

From the beginning, theirs was a bond that bound them to one another. Inevitably, Diana and Guiscard had to part. That was the unshakable truth Diana carried in her mind.

A relationship built with the thought of eventual separation was fragile and precarious, like a sandcastle. For the one who wished to keep it going, unease was unavoidable. Diana had overlooked that.

She looked at Guiscard. She had never factored in the possibility that her slave might want to remain by her side. She had assumed he’d always want to escape, that he’d never seek to settle down.

“I was too…”

Diana’s voice trembled.

“I was too good to you.”

At those words, Guiscard gave a twisted smile. Everything felt as though it were unraveling. Diana’s head throbbed. Guiscard’s voice came low and heavy.

“Why? Do you think me pathetic?”

“Yes. Truly pathetic.”

Her cold expression made Guiscard’s face crumple in anguish. Something in his eyes cracked, broke, collapsed. But Diana turned away from it.

Guiscard didn’t want to leave his life behind. If he were truly desperate for freedom from slavery, he should have betrayed her and left. To slay a dragon, to become a mercenary, or even a king—he could have chosen his own life.

Wasn’t that, objectively, the “right path”? Yet Diana hadn’t expected him to resist like this. Looking at his bloodshot eyes, she spoke.

“Thank you, for everything, Guiscard.”

“……”

How could she drive him away? How could she make him step back?

“But you have no place in my life anymore.”

Her lips shaped the cruelest words she could find. She had to be merciless. They both needed to be freed from this poisonous bond.

“You said you’d stay by my side even if I married. But you’ve grown too much. You’d only be an obstacle now.”

Diana deliberately made her voice cold, as though she were looking at a nuisance. She fixed her icy gaze on Guiscard, who kept demanding more of her.

“So don’t cling to me.”

At that, Guiscard lowered his head. He let out a laugh—low, unhinged. Then he raised his face again. Only then did Diana realize his expression had shed all traces of emotion.

Yet that calmness felt chilling.

“Do you wish to become queen, my lady?”

“Yes. As you know, that’s not an easy thing to achieve.”

He seemed to ponder something. Then he smiled brilliantly.

“If that is your wish… then you are worthy of it.”

What did he mean by that? Did he also believe she belonged on the throne? She had no real intention of becoming queen, yet somehow he seemed to accept it. After all, to be queen, one’s entire life would be scrutinized. To have a handsome young slave at her side—what sort of scandal would that spark?

Before rumors grew even worse, it was understandable for her to send him away now. Freed slave or not, Diana and Guiscard could not remain together.

“I’ll leave today. Right away.”

At those words, her chest suddenly felt hollow. Forcing down the swell of emotions, she spoke.

“I have one favor to ask.”

“A favor, now? What is it?”

Her lips trembled. Had she once imagined herself pleading with the king for Guiscard’s manumission? Now she imagined only this.

“One day, far in the future… if your blade should ever turn toward this place…”

“……”

“Remember my goodwill. Remember my kindness.”

She couldn’t bring herself to say do not seek revenge.

Yes, she had protected him, but Diana knew. From time to time, bruises appeared on his body. When she asked who had struck him, Guiscard never answered.

He simply entrusted his body quietly to her hands as she healed him.

Whether it was Emil or someone else in the household, he was still being beaten. More than that—his mother, Herya, had been killed, and he himself enslaved—by her father. Manumission was the bare minimum. How could she dare bargain freedom in exchange for a promise not to take revenge?

For a moment, the moonlight made his eyes gleam brighter. He smiled at her. His violet eyes fixed on the girl standing bathed in moonlight. He gazed, and gazed again.

“Of course. I could never forget.”

His face, claiming he would remember her grace, glimmered strangely. Staring into those violet eyes, Diana prayed with all her heart.

“Diana Brienne.”

Startled at hearing her name called so suddenly, she lifted her head. Was he calling her that because now there was no bond left between them? She was still a noble, and he was still a commoner—had he no sense of etiquette? Did he not yet understand the divide between noble and peasant in this harsh world?

“Ann.”

He spoke again, softly—her nickname. Her brows knit. Ann? Why? She had never given him leave to use it. They had never been close enough for him to call her so.

“Your wish will come true.”

“……”

“So until then, please stay well.”

He extended a hand toward her, then pulled it back with a faint laugh. Then he turned his back and vanished. Guiscard’s final farewell was oddly refreshing. For Diana, that was a relief.

On a day when winter turned to spring, the slave Guiscard and the noble Diana Brienne parted ways.

***

Guiscard was gone. No longer in the mansion.

The absence of someone once present left an enormous void. The emptiness felt suffocating.

More than that, her lifelong goal had disappeared before her eyes. To keep from feeling that emptiness, Diana Brienne threw herself into busyness.

Balls she had once avoided, carefree days spent with new friends, long hours with Alexa… No word ever came of Guiscard, and time sped on.

But truthfully, she still wondered.

Would it have been better to kill him when they met again? Should she never have freed him, and instead kept him forever at her side? Should she have let him remain in the mansion, a servant for life, even as a freedman? Which choice had been right?

But the flower rain fell.

Whenever such doubts came, Diana remembered that moment as proof that God had blessed her choice as the “right path.”

No matter what, Guiscard would have left her side eventually. Now it depended on him, how he would respond to the kindness she had shown.

And so Diana began preparing, step by step, to leave the mansion herself. She deposited money into the account her grandfather had opened for her and considered where to go.

At last, she decided to go to the land of Shasha—Cagliari—to live as a spiritist. Preparing for a new life elsewhere filled her days with joy. To leave behind Philip, Guiscard, all of it—and begin anew.

Once she overcame the shock of farewell, she could hardly wait.

To build her own happiness without entrusting it to anyone else—was that not a truly wonderful life? And so the day of Diana’s departure drew near.

It was dawn. Diana packed the bare minimum—items she could easily convert to cash. Though her grandfather’s support would have helped, she hadn’t told him where she was going.

She was grateful to him, but she still carried a bitterness she could not resolve.

In her past life, her grandfather had not come to rescue her. That lingering resentment remained, despite his warmth. She knew she shouldn’t hold it against him, but she couldn’t help it.

Before leaving, she bid farewell to everything that made her Diana Brienne. From now on, she would live simply as Diana.

Goodbye, Mother. And Father, I wish you only health.

She greeted her mother’s portrait. Even though she despised him, she whispered a farewell before Emil’s door, where he slept inside. She gave Alexa a long, heartfelt goodbye. Then she slipped quietly out of the mansion. Just beyond the alley, the mercenaries she had hired would be waiting. They had promised to escort her all the way to Cagliari.

“My lady.”

The mercenaries gestured. Diana felt relieved at the sight of them. They scanned the surroundings.

“You brought a change of clothes, yes?”

She nodded. They offered her garments. She reached to take them—but the mercenary did not let go. What?

Puzzled, she looked up—just as someone kicked her hard in the back. She stumbled forward, collapsing. She looked up at the mercenary holding the clothes.

Why?

She had hired them from the very company Barrett had assured her was trustworthy. She had checked their background thoroughly. Could they already be betraying her, coveting her money?

Just then, someone’s boot pressed down hard on her back.

“Ugh!”

“So this is what you meant to do. Run away like a rat.”

At the man’s voice, Diana turned her head.

Her eyes widened. Her lips trembled.

And thus, Diana Brienne’s world collapsed in a most terrible way.