Chapter 27

Divorce costs a lot of money. Especially for nobles.

While divorce was quite rare, there were lawyers who specialized in it. The most famous was Jeronis Abein’s office.

That’s why Briseyes thought she needed to make the Mays Grand Duke’s house run out of money.

Otherwise, she thought she should increase their assets but eliminate their cash. Attorney fees usually had to be paid in cash.

If she drained all the cash from the Mays Grand Duke’s house and then filed for divorce, it would obviously be much more advantageous for her.

“Please keep the ruby deposit amount in Endar strictly confidential.”

“Yes, Your Grace. Of course.”

Briseyes looked at Aide Memphis, who would give his life for her and was originally a commoner before working with her, and smiled as if amused.

⁕⁕⁕

“Do you still avoid food like that?”

Matriarch Abenr suddenly became irritated during a meal where the four of them were dining together.

The dining room, which had seemed harmonious again as Briseyes was being nice to Demian, suddenly fell silent as if cold water had been poured over it.

Matriarch Abenr was extremely annoyed that Briseyes sat on Demian’s left side. It seemed as if Delilah wasn’t fulfilling her role properly, and Demian was already tired of her.

That shouldn’t happen.

How arrogant and proud a woman was Briseyes?

Matriarch Abenr remembered how her son always cowered before her and couldn’t even speak his mind, and that’s why she spoke that way.

“Are you speaking to me?”

When Briseyes asked this, Matriarch Abenr sighed and said:

“Yes, I’m talking to you. How can you have so many foods you can’t eat and so many foods you avoid?”

“I don’t understand what you mean. I have an allergy to shellfish, how could I eat it?”

“Again, again! Don’t talk back when an elder is speaking!”

When Matriarch Abenr shouted, Demian unconsciously frowned. Yet he remained silent, thinking his mother must have a reason for being angry.

“Is that allergy thing even a real illness? In my day, I never saw anyone with such symptoms! Who in the world dies from eating shrimp?”

Briseyes almost sighed at her ignorance but held back.

“Mother, allergies are symptoms with a medical diagnosis. And I’m not avoiding it on purpose; I don’t eat it because it’s dangerous for me.”

“Again! You’re talking back again, again!”

Matriarch Abenr shouted loudly like a lion’s roar and slammed down the tableware she was holding. The table made a loud noise, and silence enveloped the surroundings again.

“When an elder says something, you should accept it! Acting like you’re the only smart one until the end! Why don’t you just say you’re the only one who’s right and everyone else is wrong in this world!”

“I never said that.”

“Then why won’t you eat the shrimp? Do you think I poisoned it because I personally received it from Countess Valien?”

Briseyes found the matriarch’s brazen tone both familiar yet impossible to get used to. It felt like contempt was rising and weighing heavily on her chest.

“Demian! Look at this! Your wife is disrespecting me again!”

“I’ve never disrespected you, Mother. And it’s your fault for forcing me while being ignorant of medical common sense.”

“What?”

“Bri, stop. Why are you speaking to my mother like that?”

Demian warned Briseyes with his words.

Briseyes pressed her lips together as if she understood.

“Look at that wicked girl! Just because I didn’t know some medical common sense, she’s treating me like an old woman relegated to the back room!”

“Mother, please stop too.”

“How can I stop! How much will you regret when I die! It seems you only listen to your wife and don’t even see your mother as a person anymore!”

“You know that’s not true.”

Demian spoke as if trying to placate his mother, while Delilah quietly continued eating, observing the situation.

“Huh! That wicked thing! She won’t even apologize until the end!”

Since Briseyes didn’t want to apologize, she gestured to call a maid.

“Could you pour some wine for me?”

While she was looking at the wine handed by the maid, Matriarch Abenr, who had been fuming, moved the cabbage and some vegetables cooked with shrimp from her plate to Briseyes’s plate.

Delilah smiled seeing this action.

“I really like the matriarch’s wisdom. I believe lies will always be exposed eventually.”

Hearing this, Matriarch Abenr turned her head and sneered at Briseyes.

“Let’s just eat.”

Demian saw this too, but since he also thought Briseyes was just being fussy, he let it be.

Soon, as dinner was about to end.

Briseyes realized something was wrong.

“Ugh, keh…!”

She suddenly found it difficult to breathe due to her swollen airway.

“Bri?”

“Huh, ack…!”

Then she lost consciousness.

“Bri!”

Demian rushed toward Briseyes, his face turning pale.

⁕⁕⁕

When Briseyes opened her eyes, she wasn’t in her room. Her condition was so serious that she had to be taken to the Imperial Central Hospital.

This was a medical facility that also functioned as an academy for training doctors, with many professors gathered there. It was built with imperial sponsorship, and many of the doctors working there had extensive experience on battlefields.

In other words, Briseyes’s condition was serious enough to require such a hospital.

“Ugh….”

“Bri! Are you conscious?”

Briseyes still felt her entire body burning hot and painful. With each breath, it felt like she was breathing underwater, unable to secure oxygen.

Her throat felt stuffy and full as if blocked by hot cotton, making it difficult to breathe no matter how hard she tried to inhale. Oxygen seemed to enter only through a tiny hole pierced by a small needle, making her dizzy and suffocating.

“Everyone, please leave.”

“I am Bri’s husband! I need to stay by her side!”

“Please leave for the patient’s stability, Your Highness!”

Briseyes blankly watched as Demian was practically dragged away. He appeared blurry, perhaps due to the moisture in her eyes.

She wondered if she might die like this.

But breathing was so difficult that even thinking was hard.

⁕⁕⁕

It took two days before Briseyes finally stabilized and opened her eyes.

Once she stabilized, Demian and his family were allowed to visit.

Briseyes felt her blood run cold with anger when she saw how swollen her hands were. Even looking in the mirror, she could feel how swollen she was.

“Bri, are you alright?”

Briseyes didn’t answer because she wasn’t alright.

“Why did I collapse?”

“It was an allergic reaction. It seems you ate shellfish.”

“I didn’t eat any shellfish.”

“You might have eaten food cooked with shellfish.”

At those words, Briseyes looked at Delilah and Matriarch Abenr, who had made meaningful comments.

“I-I didn’t know it was that serious!”

Since Demian was also glaring at the matriarch.

“Well! Mistakes can happen!”

“Mother. Bri was in danger because of your prank.”

“I said it was a mistake! I didn’t know that allergy thing was such a big deal to make a fuss about.”

Then the Viscount Melvia, who was Briseyes’s attending physician, spoke in a cold voice:

“Do you know how dangerous allergies are? When the airway is blocked and you can’t breathe, you die. You fed poison to an allergy patient.”

“N-no, I…!”

“She would have died if it had been any later.”

Demian’s eyes widened at Viscount Melvia’s assertion.

“Mother.”

“Yes, I’m sorry. There, happy?”

Matriarch Abenr immediately apologized when she saw Demian’s angry expression.

“Is this supposed to be an apology? I almost died.”

“Bri. Let’s stop. Mother probably didn’t do it on purpose. If it was such a dangerous matter, you should have told us beforehand.”

“I did tell you. Yet you still take your mother’s side? And you knew your mother was tampering with my food?”

“…It was just a prank. Mother probably didn’t know things would escalate like this.”

At Demian’s words, Briseyes glared at him as if she didn’t need to hear any more.

Demian looked at her and then shifted his gaze.

“When will the swelling go down?”

“It should subside within a week.”

“Why? Do I look like a monster because I’m so swollen?”

Demian couldn’t answer. The slender and beautiful Briseyes he knew now looked different due to the allergy-induced swelling.

“Let’s talk once the swelling goes down.”

“Will the guardian not stay any longer?”

“I need to go to school.”

Demian spoke as if avoiding Briseyes, and she just sighed and turned her head in another direction.

“That’s fine, everyone leave.”

Taking Briseyes’s sigh-filled words as permission, Demian and his group left the hospital room.

Briseyes wanted to escape from these tiresome people of the Mays Grand Duke’s house as soon as possible.

She spent time resting and stabilizing.

In the afternoon, visitors came.

“Bri!”

“Bri, are you okay?”

“Bri. We were worried.”

Callisten, Casius, Saturn, and Evusi came to visit out of concern for her.

Viscount Melvia, who was making rounds at that time, widened his eyes upon seeing Callisten.

“I am honored to meet the Small Sun of the Empire.”

“Skip the greetings and show me the medical records.”

Callisten gestured naturally and checked Viscount Melvia’s chart.

Then he widened his eyes when he saw the small text written by Viscount Melvia.

The viscount had written:

「 Fever due to allergy, airway blockage, respiratory distress, swelling.

• Cause: Abenr Di Mays. 」

“Ha.”

Callisten opened his eyes like a madman and forced a laugh, and Viscount Melvia, seeing his eyes, shuddered as if he had returned to the battlefield.