Translator: Nox

Chapter 29

29

*

After spending a long time doing something the noble young masters wouldn't even comprehend, Scarlett Dampfelt put down her tools. Then, without a second thought, she pulled the lever that could potentially cost her her life.

Instantly, a loud, rumbling noise filled the warehouse.

"It works."

Scarlett said, lifting her head. But even amidst the deafening sound that filled the warehouse, she could feel the tension between the navy and the army.

Scarlett gave an involuntary, bright smile.

"It's fixed?"

At her words, Evan was the first to remove his hands from his pockets and applaud.

"Amazing, Miss Scarlett. You actually fixed it!"

The others still looked dazed.

Blight said honestly, "The Crimson Family is truly something. I really didn't think you'd fix it..."

Scarlett laughed at that.

"You didn't believe in me?"

"No, not at all, actually. So I was seriously and gravely considering what to do after you failed."

"What were you going to do?"

Then Waldo, as if scolding him, said to Viktor, "You weren't thinking of killing us, were you?"

At that, Viktor chuckled and took off his coat, offering it to him. He searched his pockets, but there was no gun.

Evan chided, "How can we get anything done if we have so little trust in each other?"

"You have to be trustworthy to be trusted."

Even as they argued, the engine continued to run. Perhaps because of that, those who seemed like they would fight for a long time soon stopped and smiled.

Then, someone shouted, "A technician from the Crimson Family is here!"

Scarlett flinched at the shout, and others around her also shouted.

"A technician!"

"We're saved!"

Because of the shouts coming from everywhere, Scarlett was startled and hid behind the engine, which was the only thing she could rely on. Viktor, looking dumbfounded, grabbed her arm and pulled her behind him.

*

To celebrate fixing the engine, the soldiers drank.

Scarlett wasn't sure if she felt relieved or not, but she was so exhausted she was on the verge of collapsing. She had climbed a mountain the day before and hadn't slept a wink while fixing the engine. She felt like she had used up all the energy at the bottom of her body because of the momentary concentration.

First, she borrowed Viktor's bedroom, which had a private bathroom. She was about to soak in the warm water, but she thought she would fall asleep, so she took a cold shower.

"This week is too tiring..."

Scarlett said to herself as she finished her shower and changed into the clothes she had brought.

Come to think of it, she didn't know she would be meeting Viktor, so she had only brought things she was going to wear and throw away. If she showed Viktor the pajamas she was wearing now, who was already complaining about how she lived, she would definitely hear an earful. Still, there was no other way, so Scarlett came out of the bathroom. And as expected, Viktor's gaze swept over her.

"Are you protesting because I didn't give you alimony?"

It was as expected. She tried to think rationally that it wasn't something to be ashamed of, but it didn't work. Heat spread across her cheeks.

"I just brought it to wear and throw away. Because of the luggage weight."

"Anyway, that means you wore it until it became like that."

"...I hope you think I'm frugal."

At her words, Viktor chuckled as if he was dumbfounded.

Feeling unnecessarily embarrassed, Scarlett said, tightening her collar, "Do you happen to have a spare room?"

"No."

"Then I'll camp out. The weather seems warm."

"Hmm."

Viktor didn't stop her and walked over to open the closed door himself. Like the day he accepted the divorce papers, he wouldn't hold her back twice.

Scarlett came out with the sleeping bag she had brought. Then, she saw a bug in the lobby and stepped back in fear.

"Ah, I'm sorry."

One of the young men standing guard stepped on the bug and threw it away.

Scarlett said with a disgusted expression, "Why, why is it so big?"

"Ah, because it's the south!"

The young man said brightly.

Scarlett was trembling, unable to leave the lobby, so another young man came and said, "Bugs you can't even imagine in the capital appear here."

"W-what kind?"

Scarlett had decided to camp out because she thought that fierce beasts would never appear in the garrison of these elite soldiers. But a fierce beast would be better than that bug.

As if they had been waiting for it, they told their heroic tales.

"I saw a centipede as big as my forearm."

"N-no way, there's no such thing!"

"Uh, it's true? If you don't believe me, I'll risk my life to find it and prove it..."

"That's enough!"

Scarlett didn't want to hear it and covered her ears with her hands. Meanwhile, Viktor, who had come down, put his arm around Scarlett's shoulder and teased, "Wouldn't it be better to sleep with your ex-husband than that?"

Scarlett rubbed her arm, which had goosebumps, and asked, "Is that a lie?"

"Come find out if you're curious."

At those words, Scarlett shook her head.

In the end, she returned to Viktor's room. Scarlett looked around the bedroom and pointed to a door.

"What's that?"

"A closet."

"...What about that door?"

"The study. You're not enough of an insider yet to be allowed in there."

She wondered how she could sleep as far away from her divorced husband as possible, but there was no answer other than the sofa.

As Scarlett headed for the sofa, Viktor grabbed her arm.

"You've had your stubbornness, now. Just sleep quietly."

"On the sofa..."

"How can I make a lady sleep on the sofa? Haven't we lived together long enough for you to know that?"

Viktor said and led Scarlett to the bed, sitting her down. It was fortunate that the bedroom was ridiculously large. Since Viktor was far away, it didn't feel like they were in the same room.

Scarlett finally took off her slippers and sat on the bed. From there, she could see the stars that seemed to pour down from beyond the huge window.

"Beautiful..."

The stars that had become difficult to see in the capital seemed to have moved to this canyon. The stars were so densely packed that she wondered if it was even possible.

She wondered how she could sleep in the same room as her ex-husband, but she was getting sleepy. She closed her eyes for a moment under the blanket, and fell asleep.

A while later, Viktor, who had been reading a book on the sofa, got up and walked towards her. Then, he took her left hand out of the blanket and checked it with his eyes. There was still a scar.

"...Self-harm."

He was recalling Scarlett's words.

It was absurd that she claimed not to remember, and the scar on her wrist was even more ridiculous. The lie that she didn't remember and the scar on her wrist didn't connect. But he couldn't take his eyes off Scarlett's wrist for a while.

His Mother was royalty, but his father was not, so when he visited his Mother and the royal family, he was treated like a half-breed.

His Mother allowed the tutors to punish him so that the royal family wouldn't find fault with him, and when he returned from the royal palace, his father would hug Viktor and brainwash him, telling him that one day he would have to put the royal family who ignored him under his feet.

As a child, his body always had welts from the cane. To him, family was something sticky and persistent like a spider web.

Scarlett Crimson had been deeply in love with him from the moment she first saw him. Even though all she had was a beautiful face with a somewhat seductive side, she was desperate to give Viktor anything more.

She would ask him in detail what he had done all day, hug him and say she would go to bed first, and even though their lovemaking wasn't very affectionate, she would always look at him while she slept and whisper in a shy voice the next morning with flushed cheeks.

"I love you."

She said.

"I'm so happy to wake up and find you next to me."

And one day, she sat next to him while he was drinking and said she would drink with him because he looked lonely, and she sipped her alcohol.

Eventually, she got so drunk that she couldn't even walk properly and was carried to the bedroom in Viktor's arms.

She complained in his arms.

"I heard that drinking a lot makes you better at it, so I practiced all week, but I didn't get any better. It's unfair..."

"Why would you do that?"

Then, she tried to make her drunken eyes clear and said, "Because you looked lonely..."

That was probably the first time he had smiled a little after the marriage. It was absurd that she had practiced drinking to drink with him. He thought, 'Love isn't about wanting, it's about wanting to give,' as he looked at her.

She didn't bother Viktor either. She was happy even if he didn't do anything. So, a few months after the marriage, he thought that it would be okay to live like this. Because she was always happy. Because he didn't have to do anything.

As he thought that, he gradually began to fear that she would get tired of him. And that fear gradually became a reality.

For a while, Scarlett was the same as usual. She attended gatherings here and there, and when she came home, she laughed happily.

However, from one day on, she stopped saying she was happy, and one day she said she was unhappy, and eventually, one day she handed him the divorce papers.

Scarlett thinks that Viktor just signed the divorce papers without thinking deeply, but he had his own reasons.

His wife at that time was unhappy, and Viktor didn't know how to make Scarlett Dumpelt, who had grown tired of him, love him again, or how to make her happy again.

She was happy even if he didn't do anything.

If he was the same but her love had faded, was there any other way?

In the end, in his opinion, the only solution was divorce.

As he had initially expected, he was not suited for married life. If there was a variable, it was that Scarlett Dumpelt was someone who said "I love you" too often, and that his thought that there were many pretty women in the world and that Scarlett Dumpelt being particularly pretty in his eyes was only temporary was wrong.

She was breathtakingly beautiful even when she handed him the divorce papers, and she was truly, maddeningly beautiful even on the day she didn't touch any of the wealth Viktor had accumulated, as written in the prenuptial agreement, and left with only her own belongings in a single suitcase.

Until the moment she left and the door closed, Viktor thought that divorce was nothing.

He really didn't know what it meant to become strangers with Scarlett Dumpelt.

The house that Scarlett Dumpelt had left became desolate like a desert in an instant, and so did his life.

She must have betrayed him. Otherwise, she would not have any guilt towards him, and then she would never return to him. He desperately needed her guilt.

He looked at her wrist for a while, then brought medicine and applied it to the wound. Scarlett flinched as if it stung, but she was so exhausted that she didn't wake up.

Viktor applied the medicine and wrapped the bandage, then frowned in disbelief at the sight.

"...You're terrible at this."

He had never done anything like this before, so the bandage was a mess. He wondered if he should undo it, but he thought she would wake up, so he just left it and brought a book to read, leaning against the headboard.