TTMLPTWW ~ Chapter 128

The doctor’s arrival was delayed due to the blizzard.

The Count poured a strong painkiller into the mouth of Princess Margarita, who was in agony.

‘That damn bastard, deliberately causing her to die slowly.’

The Count muttered curses under his breath as he examined the princess’s gunshot wound.

It was clearly the work of an imperial informant.

“Princess, I’ll bandage you up. The blood has dried and I’ll need to cut away the clothing. Is that alright?”

She nodded weakly, moving her parched lips.

“It’s fine.”

“If you can bear with it a little longer, I’ll give you your favorite cookies.”

“You still speak so prettily. Not like a military officer at all.”

“It’s just my usual habit.”

At her compliment, the Count, who had just been cursing internally, put on an affected smile.

As he applied disinfectant for first aid, she winced in pain and asked an unexpected question.

“Are you married?”

“No, I’m not.”

“Do you have a lover?”

“As you know, I’m not interested in women. Are you worried about my heir?”

“…I’m just chattering because it hurts so much. It hurts less this way.”

After tightly wrapping the bandage, he looked at her suffering with concern.

“I don’t want to marry a man I don’t love. Even if that’s the fate of a princess…”

In the past, it felt like just yesterday that he had looked at the princess’s clear face as she spoke bitterly.

“Why don’t you propose to me instead? I can see your face. You’re the most handsome man in the kingdom.”

At her words that sounded like she were joking, he had reclaimed his title as Count, staining himself with countless people’s blood, just to gain the qualifications to marry the princess.

But the royal family set conditions for going to war, and while he was away, they broke their promise and tried to proceed with her marriage.

By the time he returned, she had already disappeared.

Rumors circulated that she had eloped to avoid marriage, or that she had been driven out of the palace due to becoming pregnant.

‘Why wasn’t it me?’

I was the one who had been by her side all her life.

The self-questioning that he pondered dozens of times a day turned into resentment, and twisted into hatred.

Enough to destroy the royal family and kill them all.

The Count looked down at the little girl sleeping like the dead next to the princess on the bed.

‘I wonder if the bastard that fathered her is already dead.’

If not, he intended to find and kill him himself.

How dare he ruin my princess, whom I cherished too much to even express my feelings.

‘But it’s fine now that she’s back.’

It didn’t matter if she came back broken.

He could raise the unwanted child that came with her as his own and make her his heir. After all, he would never have children with anyone but her, and it didn’t matter if the heir wasn’t his own child.

If she wanted, he could even make that brat child a king.

He would do anything to make her happy.

“Cough, cough.”

The princess’s cough, which had seemed to improve briefly after taking the painkiller, began to worsen.

When the coughing finally subsided, she reached out her hand.

“The necklace, the royal heirloom… I left it with the woman who hid us.”

He carefully took her hand.

“Shall I find it for you?”

“It’s with Madam Guise in the village where war refugees stay. I promised that my daughter would find her someday to repay her, so you…”

She suddenly coughed up blood.

The Count hurriedly pulled out a handkerchief to wipe away the blood.

“The doctor will be here soon if you wait a little longer.”

He spoke urgently, feeling her hand grow cold in his grasp.

“I’m so sleepy. I think I’ll sleep for quite a while. Do you remember the night before you left for war? You said you’d build a train station named after me.”

“I remember. It’s still my life’s goal.”

“Why didn’t you propose to me? I was waiting.”

There was a hint of weak resentment in her petulant tone.

The Count’s lips pressed into a straight line.

Princess Margarita struggled to raise her other hand to caress his cheek.

“Still, I’m glad I could see you one last time. My knight. Now protect another First Lady.”

He felt her hand slipping away from his cheek and quickly grabbed it to hold it back in place.

“Princess, there’s something I haven’t been able to tell you all this time.”

But the princess didn’t wait for him this time either, falling into an eternal sleep.

He slowly rubbed his cheek against her cold hand, as if trying to infuse it with warmth.

“…Are you breaking me apart again?”

The knight’s true feelings never reached the princess, ending unspoken.

The Count held her hand for a long time, not raising his head.

The fierce blizzard beat against the window, making a sorrowful crying sound.

How much time had passed?

When he finally raised his head, brushing back his disheveled bangs, the area under his eyes had darkened.

“…”

His pale eyes, devoid of light, turned towards the sleeping child.

As he pulled back the blanket covering her, the face of the child, as white as the Snow Queen from myth, was revealed.

Click.

The Count took out his gun and loaded it with an expressionless face.

‘This brat has nothing to do with me.’

Just as he was about to aim the gun, a faint moonlight illuminated Princess Margarita’s peaceful face.

At that sight, his hand slowly lowered.

He raised the gun again, determined, but uncharacteristically couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger.

“…Daddy?”

At that moment, a tiny hand, searching for something in the air, grasped his hand.

As if finding what she wanted in her dream, the child smiled brightly in her sleep.

With the exact same smile as Princess Margarita.

“Count, what will you name your child when you have one?”

“I’m not sure about a son, but if I have a daughter, I’ll name her Cynthia.”

“The nickname of the moon goddess? I think you’ll be a doting father to your daughter.”

He had said that because a painting of the moon goddess he had seen by chance closely resembled Princess Margarita.

He wanted a daughter who looked like her.

But the future he had dreamed of and yearned for all his life ultimately appeared in the form of a terrible nightmare.

The Count, who had been staring at the child’s hand gripping his finger, finally put away his gun.

With eyes mixed with anger and affection, he gently stroked the child’s soft, warm cheek.

“If only you didn’t look like her.”

He said, as if spitting out a thorn stuck in his throat, then abruptly stood up.

As he opened the door and came out, a blonde woman approached him.

“Count, the person in the room… is it her?”

It was Riena Carlz, who bore a striking resemblance to Princess Margarita.

She looked as if she was about to burst into tears at any moment.

“There’s nothing left now.”

The Count answered in a dry voice.

She made a subtle expression and grabbed his arm.

“I don’t mind being her substitute. You saved me and my children, after all.”

The Count tilted his head with an expressionless face.

Feeling his cold gaze on her arm, she hastily removed her hand.

She remembered that he pathologically disliked being touched by other women.

“You say you don’t mind being a substitute? I didn’t take you in after you fell to commoner status because I thought of you as her substitute. I don’t need anything like that.”

The corners of his tightly pressed lips twisted crookedly.

“You’re the one who tried to find a substitute.”

Because she had married his brother instead of Grant Queensguard, whom she had been in love with.

Riena, who had wanted to be by the Count’s side even in that way, silently bowed her head.

In the silence, he added.

“I only returned what I received. Helping me kill my brother, that is. Honestly, it’s uncanny how you married my brother and used your resemblance to the princess as a weapon to approach me.”

“That was…”

“It was useful, though.”

Seeing a faint hope light up in her eyes, the Count frowned in disgust.

“My dead brother’s children, I mean.”

“Does that mean I’m completely useless?”

“You know that well yourself, so why ask?”

At his cutting words, Riena burst into bitter tears, but the Count just stared at the ceiling with unfeeling eyes.

‘I should get rid of her now.’

* * *

The Count walked as if nothing had happened and took out his pocket watch to open it.

Under the lid with the princess’s portrait, the second hand had completely stopped.

“Time has stopped.”

He instructed his subordinates cleaning up the scene to find the princess’s necklace.

But Madam Guise had already been killed by the revolutionaries, and the necklace had fallen into the hands of the organization’s leader.

It was also the leader, Blake, who had shot and killed Princess Margarita.

Count Queensguard’s eyes gleamed coldly as he found the target of his revenge.

He spent a massive amount of money to make the organization betray and kill Blake, and retrieved the necklace.

Upon learning that Blake had a young son, the Count muttered with a hint of amusement in his voice.

“Coincidentally, his child will bear that karma.”

When it was revealed that Cynthia was the last princess, she would become the target of all sorts of factions.

He thoroughly hid Cynthia’s existence for now.

Calculating that it might be useful someday.

The children who looked exactly like his dead – no, murdered – brother grew up seeing him as their father, and as Cynthia grew, she came to resemble his first love more and more.

He would occasionally talk to himself, reminiscing about the princess.

“…Should I kill her?”

Sometimes, he wanted to kill his beloved’s daughter.

This was the beginning of the tragedy.