Chapter 47
"Well, what should I say about this."
She slowly raised her head and looked at Ludville.
"...Isn't this a toxic clause?"
At those words, Ludville only slightly raised his eyebrows and asked back with a blank expression.
"Are you dissatisfied?"
His tone was calm and unreadable, but she couldn't shake the impression that he was somehow persistent.
Odelia pondered for a moment, then shook her head.
"No, I'm not."
This wasn't a clause that was only disadvantageous to Odelia.
Ludville also had a habit of disappearing without a word.
If she thought of it as a clause to monitor him, it wasn't bad.
'At least I can prevent him from running off to the Monsters' forest on his own.'
Odelia silently accepted the contract.
"I'd like to add an additional clause as well. Could you lend me a fountain pen?"
And Odelia also wrote a new clause on the spot.
[Article 9. All personal feelings are to be completely excluded when dealing with each other.]
Odelia pushed the contract back towards Ludville before the ink could even dry.
"Since it's a political marriage, there will be no emotional involvement."
"......"
"To put it bluntly, it means that I will never fall in love with Your Grand Duke."
"Never fall in love?"
"I thought it would be good to specify even the smallest things accurately."
The smallest things.
Ludville didn't answer.
His eyes remained on the contract, but his thoughts were already flowing beyond that sentence.
After a long while, he replied in an unusually low and dry voice.
"......Is that so."
"I believe Your Highness will also agree with my opinion on that point. If emotions get mixed in, the contract is likely to fall apart."
Although emotions can't be controlled by a contract in the first place.
Nevertheless, Odelia had to draw a line like this.
A minimal safety device to prevent Ludville from having more feelings for her than necessary.
'No, even if he does develop feelings... just enough so that he'll grieve my death for a while, and then eventually shake it off and live on.'
That would be enough.
Everyone lives like that.
Even if you lose a loved one, time flows on, and eventually everyone lives their own life.
She wanted him to be normal like everyone else.
That way, she could leave with peace of mind.
Ludville silently looked down at the contract, then slowly raised his gaze.
"Princess, it seems you have the ability to control your emotions. To be able to decide such things in advance."
He said in a flat voice without any inflection.
Yet it somehow sounded strangely sarcastic.
"Of course, I can't control my emotions as I please, but I can definitely hide them so they don't show. This is that kind of contract, after all."
Hide them so they don't show?
This is that kind of contract?
Does that mean you've desperately tried to hide your love because of a contract before?
Ludville's purple eyes slowly began to burn gently, filled with intense emotion.
"......You seem to know more than I thought."
His tone was polite, but it was filled with cold cynicism.
"Have you ever had a similar contract before?"
Odelia was inwardly taken aback by his sharp question.
...Did I sound too much like someone experienced in contractual marriages?
Perhaps he took her brief hesitation and silence as a confirmation.
Somehow, Ludville's demeanor became noticeably fierce.
"......!"
He suddenly reached out.
And hooked his finger on Odelia's necklace, suddenly pulling it.
The old ring hanging on the necklace string was pulled into view, dangling.
A daring contact that could be considered rude.
As Odelia gasped in surprise, Ludville was looking at the ring.
It was a worn and scratched ring, as if it had been worn for quite a long time.
"It's for an adult male. And a size that would only fit the finger of someone who is large or has wielded a sword for a long time..."
His indifferent gaze swept over the inside of the ring.
[ODELIA.]
The hand holding the ring tightened even more.
"Are you involved with the owner of this ring?"
His voice was sharp.
As if he were a husband who had discovered that Odelia was wearing a token of love shared with another man around her neck.
As if he were asking, 'Are you offering me a contractual marriage while cherishing something like this?'
"I'm asking if you added the clause to exclude personal feelings because of this."
"......"
"The man who resembles me, is this his ring?"
"......"
"I see that's the case."
'No, it's just yours...'
It was once a ring embedded with the Gem of Regression.
The third regression. The ring that Ludville bought with all the wealth he had gathered when he was a knight of the Cardel family.
The token of the first time Odelia and Ludville confirmed their feelings for each other.
The ring that he had combined with the Gem of Regression and carried with him for life, but now exists nowhere in his memory.
'So... am I being misunderstood as having a separate lover right now?'
From Ludville's perspective, she would have looked like someone who came to propose a contractual marriage despite having a separate lover.
'Come to think of it, I had the same misunderstanding when I saw Ludville's ring in the past life.'
To think that we're having the same misunderstanding because of the same ring...
'What should I say about this?'
She first gave a concise explanation.
"He's not my lover."
"I didn't ask if he was your 'lover'."
"......"
"If he's not your lover now, then he must have been your lover in the past. Can't you still forget him?"
No, that's not it.
Odelia didn't know how to clear up this misunderstanding.
It seemed that he had become convinced because of Odelia's name engraved on the inside of the ring.
'Even if I say he's not my lover, he won't believe me.'
Then there was only one way.
"That person... is no longer here."
"......"
"He's dead."
Inevitably, she made Ludville out to be a dead person.
It wasn't a lie, in fact.
This ring was indeed Ludville's keepsake.
"Even if it's a contractual marriage, you'd be displeased if I had someone I was seeing separately. But he's already dead and we've held a funeral... so there's nothing to worry about."
A perfectly refined explanation.
Odelia spoke calmly, as if to prove that she wouldn't be the subject of gossip.
But strangely, Ludville was silent.
"......"
His face was still expressionless, but his jaw muscles were tightly clenched.
'It seems like saying he's dead only scratched his insides even more...'
But since there didn't seem to be a more convincing excuse than that, Odelia remained silent.
He was silent for a long time, then slowly picked up the fountain pen and added a line below the contract.
[Article 10. During the contract period, any emotional or physical intimacy with others is prohibited.]
"......?"
"Please sign."
Odelia looked down at the line added to the contract.
"Isn't that obvious?"
Isn't that just common courtesy to the other person?
And it would be troublesome if rumors spread that the Grand Duchess was having an affair, or if she was caught up in a scandal.
"I thought it would be good to specify even the smallest things accurately."
"......"
He was looking at her with eyes that wouldn't allow even a single gap.
Without saying anything, Odelia picked up the pen and reached for the signature line.
