Chapter 56: Repaying a Debt (1)

 Edmund was at a loss for words at Aria’s statement.

 It was utterly unbelievable.

 He deliberately cooled the anger rising inside him.

 If he lost his composure here, it felt like he would end up in an irreparable relationship with the Hersher family.

 But restraint aside, there were points that needed to be addressed.

 “Aria Hersher, say it with your own mouth.”

 Aria, with a terrified expression, couldn’t utter a word.

 If it had been someone else, they might have felt sorry for Aria’s appearance and let it go, but the person facing her was Edmund.

 He watched her silently until she spoke.

 In the end, Aria was the first to open her mouth.

 “You and I will marry……”

 “I’ll say this one last time, Lady Hersher.”

 Lady Hersher, not Aria. It had been bothering her, but she had deliberately ignored the form of address.

 Edmund had been emphasizing from the beginning that their relationship was only that much.

 Aria wore a shocked expression.

 But in reality, the person who received the biggest shock was Edmund.

 He never thought such words would come directly from Aria’s mouth.

 He regretted not having corrected their relationship sooner, which he should have done long ago.

 He felt very sorry that Clea had been harmed because of him.

 In the end, rather than hating Aria, he was angry at his own foolishness.

 Suppressing his emotions as much as possible, he looked at where Aria was.

 But no words came from her side.

 So Edmund opened his mouth.

 “You and I are nothing to each other.”

 “Edmund.”

 “If you had said we were friends, I would have been willing to forgive, but now we can’t even be friends. Lady Hersher, I would appreciate if you would use formal speech with me from now on.”

 “Don’t do this.”

“You don’t need to greet me anymore, so please live peacefully.”

 “Edmund!”

 Thinking his business was finished, Edmund tried to rise from his seat.

 However, Aria, who had been sitting beside him, grabbed his arm as he was about to stand and looked up at him.

 Edmund looked down at her with an expressionless face.

 Her face was already filled with tears.

“Is it because of her?”

 “……”

 “I said, is it because of her!”

 Everyone knew that the person Aria was referring to was Clea.

 That’s why Oberon, who was watching from the side, cautioned her.

 “Mind your words, Lady. The person you’re referring to is going to be the Crown Prince’s consort.”

 “Why are you doing this too, Oberon!”

 Oberon’s top priority was Edmund.

 As long as he served him as his lord, Edmund’s wishes came first.

 And Oberon also didn’t want Aria to refer to Clea that way.

 Edmund shook off Aria’s arm that was holding him.

 Aria was still looking at him with tears streaming down her face.

 “Lady, this is the last time I’ll be lenient.”

 “E-Edmund.”

 “Don’t speak to me ever again.”

 Having nothing more to say to her, Edmund rose from his seat.

 He drew a clear line, determined not to be dragged along by her anymore.

 Aria still couldn’t accept the current situation and approached Edmund.

 “Stop, stop it. Why are you doing this to me?”

 Aria muttered through her tears, asking how he could do this to her.

 Looking at her, Edmund was reminded of Clea instead.

 The words she had said while coughing up blood and meeting Lloyd, whom Aria had sent.

 Disgusted by her behavior, Edmund deliberately gave her a smile.

 Seeing that, Aria’s expression brightened momentarily.

 She thought that perhaps he would dismiss everything as a joke because she looked too upset.

 But what followed was completely different from what she expected.

 “Tell me about the curse placed on Clea. Then I’ll give you a chance.”

 For a moment, Aria doubted her own ears.

 How did Edmund know about the curse?

 Not remembering that she herself had mentioned the curse to disrupt their date before, she couldn’t say anything.

 In the end, even Edmund’s bright smile, which was meant to give her one last chance, disappeared.

 “You’ve lost your last chance too, Lady. So I’ll be on my way now.”

 She couldn’t say anything until Edmund left.

 She just reached out her hand as she watched him leave.

 Aria bit her lip at the emptiness of not being able to reach him.

 “L-Lady.”

 With Edmund and Oberon completely gone, only the maids remained.

 Among them, Aria spotted the maid who had encouraged her to go meet Edmund quickly, and immediately slapped her across the face.

 The slapped maid collapsed to the floor.

 Since maids were also nobles, they had never been hit like this by anyone and were in shock.

 “It’s your fault.”

 Aria said to the maid.

 “It’s all your fault!”

 Seeing Aria, as a lady, lose her temper for the first time, the onlookers didn’t know what to do.

 Even though they should have intervened, they were afraid of incurring her wrath if they did.

 The maid being kicked and hit by Aria curled up her body as much as possible.

 Aria couldn’t understand any of this.

 Everyone in the world had liked her.

 Her parents, the people at the academy, even Lloyd—she knew they all liked her.

 Clea was the villainess who tormented her.

 The villainess who openly showed her dislike for her, whom everyone liked.

 Finding it difficult even to be angry, she spoke in a hushed voice.

 “It’s because of you, all of it.”

 She was referring to someone other than the maid.

 ‘Because of you, everything has gone wrong.’

 * * *

 “It’s been a long time, Viscount Lockin.”

 “Please just call me Bawin comfortably.”

 “Normally, I wouldn’t even be able to address you informally as ‘Viscount’.”

 Clea neither liked nor felt uncomfortable with the guest before her.

 She was merely intrigued by the fact that he had come to see her.

 “If you hadn’t helped me that day, I wouldn’t have been able to maintain my position as viscount.”

 At Bawin’s words, Clea laughed inwardly.

 It was Clea who had helped Bawin when they met at a ball.

 But in Clea’s opinion, ‘helped’ wasn’t the right expression.

 “I just said one thing to you.”

 “The weight of that one statement was extraordinary. You told me who the decisive traitor was within the Lockin viscounty. And then there’s the cost of the dress.”

 “In the end, you were the one who took care of it after hearing what I said. And I don’t need payment for the dress. It wasn’t that expensive anyway.”

 In the original story, Bawin was a character whose family had been temporarily devastated by someone he trusted the most.

 However, he eventually rebuilt his family through his own abilities and even elevated it from a viscounty to a county.

 Despite having such abilities, he faced many difficulties when his family was struggling.

 It was during that time that he met Clea at a ball.

 The two accidentally bumped into each other there, causing the teacup in his hand to fall.

 While her dress was being stained by the tea, she whispered in Bawin’s ear.

 About who the traitor within was.

 And after a considerable amount of time, the Lockin viscounty had completely swallowed up a competing family and emerged as an even stronger family.

 “It’s a poor excuse, but I’ve been too busy to help you until now. Now that my family has finally stabilized, I hope to help you from now on.”

 “There’s nothing to gain by trying to impress me.”

 “I’ve received so much that I want to repay the favor.”

 Clea smiled at his words about having received a lot.

 She hadn’t thought at all that just saying one thing would come back to her like this.

 At the time, it was just something she said without thinking.

 Clea responded to his statement about coming to repay the favor without any emotion.

 “Could you bring down the Hersher family if I wanted?”

 Others might have thought it was a test.

 But Bawin’s eyes shone sharply.

 “Would that be enough for you? I can destroy everyone from the Odoi family who mistreated you to the Persi grand ducal family.”

 It wasn’t something a mere viscount’s family should say, but Clea valued his abilities highly.

 He was also a character who appeared in the novel as one of Aria Hersher’s biggest supporters.

 He was the one who contributed the most to making Aria the Crown Prince’s consort.

 Clea looked at Bawin and smiled.

 “I’ll be satisfied with just the Odoi family. The grand ducal family treated me well.”

 Thinking of the kindness shown by the Grand Duke and his wife, Clea didn’t want to harm the Persi family.

 Upon reflection, the problem was their immature son, not those two.

 “Besides, if the grand ducal family falls, wouldn’t it be a big blow to Edmund as well?”

 In any case, both the Persi family and the Hersher family were factions supporting the imperial family, so if they were to fall, it would cause significant repercussions.

 “New wine should be put in new wineskins, shouldn’t it?”

 Bawin tried to persuade her once more, but Clea shook her head.

 Clea thought quietly.

 ‘Our relationship has now been completely stained with catastrophe.’

 In fact, since possessing Clea’s body, she had been enduring all along.

 She didn’t want to fight, and she thought that if she stopped causing trouble, Aria would lose interest as well.

 But now the situation had changed.

 “How would you like to be paid?”

 At Clea’s words, Bawin waved his hands and said,

 “This is purely repaying a favor. So no money is needed. Besides, I also had some business with the Hersher family.”

 He smiled bitterly as he recalled what had happened in the past.

 The incidents that had occurred with the Hersher family.