~Chapter 15~
“Please spare me! I won’t tell anyone about what happened today. If you just let me go…”
“You won’t be able to tell anyone anyway.”
“Please, please spare me…”
As the man turned sideways to plead, Calix suddenly grabbed the sword from his attendant’s waist with alarming speed.
There was no time to stop him.
The blade, shimmering under moonlight, slashed through the air.
A scream of death followed, and blood splattered.
The man collapsed instantly. Everyone present flinched at the sight.
Only Calix, who had killed the man, looked entirely unbothered.
He wiped the blood off the sword and handed it back.
“Thanks. I put it to good use.”
“…Not at all, sir.”
Blood seeped into the grass. Calix gave a cold glance before issuing orders.
“I’ll head back first. Clean that up.”
“Yes, sir. What about his house?”
“Burn it. Along with the body.”
With a calm air, as if he hadn’t just taken a life, Calix began retracing his steps.
“Sigh… I’ll have to wash up again.”
I can’t lie next to Rena after killing someone.
A smile tugged at his lips as he remembered sleeping Regiana.
But recalling the man he had just killed made his expression turn frigid.
He dared to hurt Rena when I wasn’t watching.
Arriving back at the inn, he walked quietly up the dark stairs.
Every creak echoed through the silent building.
As he ascended to the top floor where Rena slept, he considered every possibility—could she have found out about tonight?
Unlikely. He had left the cleanup to his men.
She thought they were just unfamiliar knights.
In truth, they weren’t part of the Hertrio knights. They were Calix’s private men, secretly under his command.
He’d given them knight titles only for convenience—they served him, not the duchy.
Rena didn’t need to know about things like this. Especially not that he had killed someone.
She thought he didn’t notice her sneaking out.
That was laughably naive.
From her trembling body and the open window, Calix had already sensed something had happened.
Otherwise, she wouldn’t have accepted his kiss so passively.
While Rena bathed, Calix had his men investigate what had happened in the alley.
She really thought she was being discreet?
Her hair, slightly faded, was pitch black again right after bathing.
He had expected her to secretly get dye. He allowed it—
—because he wanted her to think she could deceive him.
He reached the room and opened the door slightly.
There she was, asleep on the bed just as before. His expression softened again.
If she thought she could trick him, she’d try it more often. And as her attempts increased, so would her mistakes.
Eventually, no matter what she tried to hide from him, he would know.
He quietly entered the bathroom.
Click.
And so deepened the night of a death no one would know.
The Next Morning
As Rena descended to the inn’s first floor, she noticed something was off.
People were murmuring in concern—something had happened overnight.
“What’s going on?” she muttered.
Calix answered,
“There was a fire last night.”
“A fire? Where?”
“Don’t worry. It’s all out. No one was hurt.”
Rena calmed down, and turned her attention to breakfast.
They were dining in the inn’s first-floor restaurant at her request. Their itinerary had shifted slightly to visit her former village before heading to Troxia. The knights were out buying supplies.
“Are we leaving right after breakfast?”
“That’s the plan. Unless you want to do something else?”
“No, it’s fine.”
I’d succeeded in dyeing my hair without Calix noticing, so I was at ease.
After breakfast, the knights returned and they departed the city.
The Road to the Village
They traveled through endless plains. At one point, the scent of the sea drifted in.
The sea… That meant they were nearing their destination.
But I had no fond memories of the sea since arriving in this world.
She closed the carriage window. But when she turned back inside, she saw Calix’s face pale and ghost-like.
“Are you okay? You look terrible.”
“…I’m fine.”
“Are you carsick? Should we stop?”
He kept saying he was fine, but then reached out and grabbed her sleeve.
“Rena.”
“Yes?”
“Could you come here for a moment?”
She crossed over to sit beside him. Immediately, he embraced her and buried his face in her shoulder.
“Would opening the window help?”
“No. Don’t open it.”
“Should we take a break—”
“…Don’t do anything.”
“Just stay like this. That’s enough.”
So, I had no choice but to stay still in his arms.
As the carriage left the coastal area and moved inland through forest roads, the salty scent faded.
She reopened the window and saw Calix subtly peek outside—then feign ignorance and lower his head again.
“You’re fine now, aren’t you?”
“…You noticed?”
“You looked like you were dying earlier. But now you’re fine.”
He gave a sheepish smile.
“You caught me.”
But she didn’t smile with him. Her face stiffened.
Something had been nagging at me since earlier… Should I say it?
“Calix.”
“Yes?” he looked like he knew what was coming, but she spoke first.
“Were you doing that… because of me?”
“…Why would you think that?”
“Because you seem to get sick around the sea…”
“Who told you that? It’s the first time we’ve traveled by the sea in a carriage.”
“Last time, we took a train instead of a carriage…”
Calix fell silent. His tightly sealed lips looked like he was holding something back.
“If it really is because of me—”
“It’s not.”
“It’s not?”
“Yeah. It’s not.”
He firmly denied it.
But Rena wasn’t convinced. If he said it wasn’t because of her, it probably was.
Still, she couldn’t push him further.
She didn’t feel like she had the right—since she was the one who’d given him painful memories.
