“But...”
It seems I was wrong.
Why is that guy still crying so bitterly right in front of me?
Even though there’s every reason to be angry.
“I— I’m proud of you, Master. I respect you. And also—”
He says that much,
“…I want to be like you.”
A person’s crying, and yet I’m smiling happily—
Maybe my nature really is bad after all.
Thinking that, Cedric asked once more the question he had once been ignored on.
“Am I still your friend?”
Cedric, who hated hurting others, reached out his hand.
Yurian, who couldn’t accept the wound before, looked at the hand—and then firmly grasped it.
“Will you accept me as a friend?”
Yurian finally embraced his wound.
He used to fear it, thinking it would break him if touched.
“It’s just… warm.”
With tearful eyes, Yurian whispered.
“Good. Then now—”
“Pardon?”
“Now that we’re friends, I have something to say.”
“Yes, please tell me anything.”
Cedric smiled, watching Yurian’s blue eyes shining with admiration and respect.
“When you’re guarding my wife—”
“Yes.”
“Do not approach within 300 Naat.”
Cedric nearly doubted his ears.
Three hundred Naat was roughly the distance of an average house.
To guard from that far away, that wasn’t guarding at all.
“You’re just watching her, aren’t you?”
“That’s right. You know me well.”
Seeing Yurian’s clueless expression, Cedric chuckled and patted his shoulder.
And then, slowly and clearly, he said,
“I’m just watching.”
“...”
“I believe you. As a friend.”
The reputation of the Valentine family sank deeper each day.
But there was nothing the Valentine Count could do—
The entire family had been placed under house arrest by the Emperor.
Kaidirich clutched his throbbing head as he handled the official documents.
“I raised Lily far too spoiled.”
Liliana had committed great disrespect against His Majesty the Emperor and still had not come to her senses.
“Compared to that, Iris…”
Since that day, Iris kept coming to Kaidirich’s mind relentlessly.
Unable to stop thinking about Iris’s back as she never looked back, he finally sought her room.
The young Iris’s room was far more worn and secluded than expected.
Even pulling the bell rope wouldn’t easily summon the servants.
“Come to think of it… even then…”
He recalled the luggage Iris had taken when she left for the North on her wedding day.
At the time, he was furious she was taking anything from Valentine, but now he realized she had taken nothing.
“I raised her strictly, that’s true.”
But because of that, unlike Liliana, she had grown well and had a proper marriage.
Kaidirich could guess the extent of Iris’s anger, but still couldn’t understand why there should be family quarrels.
“A girl who can’t understand the heart of a parent.”
Among the many family portraits of Liliana and Orchid, the only one left was Iris’s.
Kaidirich found the discarded painting and glared at young Iris with displeasure.
“Father! Something terrible has happened!”
“Orchid?”
Orchid still had bandages on her not-fully healed arms and legs.
“What made you so bold as to come into my study yelling?”
“Father, this is no time for anger.”
Kaidirich raised his eyebrow in displeasure.
“An official document just arrived from the Imperial Court. A formal protest filed by Iris has been accepted.”
“What?”
“And His Majesty has agreed to the protest...”
That she had been denied a coming-of-age ceremony despite being nobility,
and had her rightful dowry withheld—
these claims were officially recognized.
“I thought it was trivial.”
Orchid swallowed nervously and glanced at Kaidirich.
It was customary for families without honor to be removed from the Imperial Knight Order and the position of Knight Commander.
Hesitating, Orchid spoke.
“This year, she’s ordered to remain under house arrest and not to return to her position as Knight Commander.”
Kaidirich clenched his fists tightly.
“Instead, the Second Imperial Knight Order is to be promoted to the First.”
Iris, whom they thought could never fight back,
had taken her due share from the Valentine house—and had claimed victory.
Orchid’s incompetence starkly contrasted Iris’s competence.
Kaidrich clenched his teeth tightly.
A sharp, simmering anger leaked through his clenched jaw, directed straight at Orchid.
“...You call that honesty?”
“W-well, what’s been decided is that this will continue until Iris’s issue is resolved. So, it won’t take long—”
“Do you even realize how grave this problem is right now?!”
Orchid flinched, shoulders hunched under the weight of Kaidrich’s fury.
Though he had sparred with his father before, he’d never been on the receiving end of such an outburst.
‘Iris has really been pushing herself all this time.’
He hadn’t understood just how exhausting it was to stand against his father.
‘Iris was the only one on my side.’
The only person who understood Orchid’s struggles and stood by him. Only now did he truly feel it.
There was no one left who truly recognized him.
“Father, at least try to—”
“Silence!”
Kaidrich snatched a nearby glass and hurled it across the room.
Crash!
The sound of shattering glass echoed sharply.
“You said this could be handled quickly, and look at the mess you made! You’re unworthy of being my successor!”
“But without Iris—”
“Always Iris! Even after succeeding Valentin, you still make excuses for her!”
Orchid turned pale and frantically shook his head.
Kaidrich sighed heavily, his anger simmering but his breath faltering.
“Fine. For now, you’ll live among Valentin’s trainees and start from the bottom.”
“F-father, I still have pride. I cannot accept that.”
To live as a trainee meant taking on all the menial tasks of the Valentin Knights, nothing more than a servant.
For Orchid, who had long been hailed as Valentin’s proud prodigy heir, it was a humiliating fate.
“Pride?”
Kaidrich’s voice grew colder.
“The moment you made me kneel, my pride was shattered. And yet you dare speak of pride before me?”
Kaidrich gripped his sword tightly with the arm that had just recovered from a shoulder injury.
“No, I will comply.”
Orchid flinched, and Kaidrich frowned in displeasure.
‘I thought he was better trained as the heir.’
He was less capable than even Iris.
As Kaidrich’s thoughts turned to Iris, he suddenly realized just how much she had been doing.
“There’s no one like Iris.”
He justified it by being busy with outside affairs.
All the countless opportunities given to him, as if they had never been granted to Orchid.
“Fine. And tell Lili as well.”
Recalling Iris’s protest letter, Kaidrich felt a wave of sorrow.
Despite all the hardships she caused him, Iris reminded him more and more of Setina as time passed.
‘Iris doesn’t even resemble Setina.’
Perhaps it was because Iris had left Valentin’s protection that he felt that way.
‘No.’
Just as the world could not separate Setina and his love, Iris would not be cruel to her family either.
‘Then why does this feeling weigh so heavily on me?’
Kaidrich swallowed his foreboding and said,
“This year’s Lily’s coming-of-age ceremony will be scaled down because of the gift Iris must send her.”
“But then Lily—”
“If it causes problems, I’ll even use my personal funds to cover it, so don’t worry—”
“No, Father!”
Lilliana, who had been eavesdropping on her father and Orchid behind the door, suddenly burst it open.
“How can you even think of giving my gift to Iris? That’s a betrayal!”
“It’s not yours to give; it was originally Iris’s share. Don’t think of it otherwise.”
“Lies! Father, you’re just being deceived by Iris too!”
Lilliana lifted her chin defiantly, her gentle eyes brimming with tears.
“Don’t you realize? All of this happened because Iris is jealous of me.”
But her words only deepened Kaidrich’s doubts.
“Why?”
“Why else would Iris protest? It’s to ruin my coming-of-age ceremony on my birthday!”
Kaidrich muttered as if deeply shocked.
“...Coming-of-age ceremony...”
He had seen the protest letter and thought the ceremony was just a minor oversight.
But even excluding the coming-of-age ceremony, nothing else was arranged.
He recalled lavish celebrations for Lilliana’s birthday but nothing for Iris’s.
‘Did I really do that?’
Kaidrich’s gaze traced the calendar, scanning the dates.
The anniversaries for Lilliana and others were marked, but Iris’s birthday was absent.
‘When is Iris’s birthday?’
Every time he saw Iris’s face, he was reminded of his past neglect toward Setina and turned away.
He remembered leaving Setina, who had yet to recover, behind and not returning to the mansion for a long time.
“The important thing isn’t childhood.”
Kaidirich spared no expense to properly cultivate Iris.
He personally taught her swordsmanship and trained her so she could be recognized as a true scion of the Valentine clan.
He believed that, as the head of the Valentine family, he had done everything he could for his daughter without discrimination.
Of course, the abuses he inflicted as part of that ‘discipline’ naturally slipped his mind.
“Orchid, send the lilies’ jewels I ordered for Iris this time, along with her dowry.”
“Father, those jewels were ordered for my coming-of-age ceremony...”
Bang!
Kaidirich slammed his desk hard.
“How dare you talk back to your father?”
“That’s right, Lily. Father has his reasons.”
Orchid quietly sided with Kaidirich.
“If Iris softens her heart and spends less money, then you can get more for your ceremony.”
“Really?”
Liliana’s tear-streaked face brightened once more.
“So, I can get a new dress, right? I’m the one making the concessions here.”
“That’s right. If Iris sends gifts, things will change…”
Previously, she had only sent letters, which didn’t soothe the anger. This time, gifts instead of letters might do the trick.
But Orchid muttered with uncertainty,
‘Will that really work?’
‘She looked very angry.’
Orchid recalled Iris’s face when they last met on the Day of the Sacred Beast and fell into thought.
If the gifts don’t calm her—
‘Then what do we do?’
Shaking her head with a trembling voice, Orchid said,
“You don’t have to give her all the money she demands. We just need to hire the best cultivator-lawyer.”
Orchid had already researched specialists who handled such matters.
Shrugging her shoulders proudly, she added,
“The reply must have already arrived for Father.”
“Could it be this letter?”
Kaidirich held up a letter with disbelief, opening it to show Orchid.
[Unfortunately, we have already been hired by the Leonthaim Archduchess from Tranga…]
Orchid could only gape dumbly.
‘Why from Tranga?’
No matter how powerful the Valentine clan was, their resources couldn’t match Tranga.
‘If we have to pay all that money...’
Adding the funds already spent to suppress the Liliana incident would severely damage the Valentine Count’s finances.
Orchid swallowed nervously.
‘We can’t recover financially.’
“Get out at once!”
Blinded by rage and unaware of the situation, Kaidirich threw an object at Orchid’s face.
Fearing what was coming, Orchid fled from her father’s study.
The luxurious rose garden of the Tran estate.
Sylvia sat at the tea table, pruning roses.
“Did you handle all those lawyers they knew properly?”
“Yes, we were able to bribe the family’s internal lawyers, so things went smoothly.”
“Tsk. Our girl had to suffer being caught up with those fools.”
Sylvia’s violet eyes gazed calmly ahead.
“Now only these pests remain.”
In front of her, the troublesome collateral branches they had captured were all tied with ropes, kneeling on the ground.
At the very front was Alex Hurtdem, looking utterly miserable.
Sylvia fixed a chilling glare on Alex.
“You dared call me old.”
Snip—
The garden shears trimmed a rose stem.
“Time is cruel. Back then, someone like you wouldn’t even dare to climb up.”
Art itself is beautiful, but when used as a tool for people’s schemes, even art loses its beauty.
The Tran Art Pavilion Sylvia managed wasn’t just for art trade—it was also a front for laundering money from noble families.
Of course, protecting the family through money laundering and such was no easy task.
The wealthiest Eastern region was rife with factional struggles.
“This is all my fault for being inexperienced. I gave you too many chances.”
Yet the reason a twenty-year-old woman could inherit the Tran family headship and rule the vast Tran clan was clear—
Things couldn’t be kept purely clean.
Snip—
The shears lightly trimmed leaves.
“After all, rotten sprouts must be removed early as a duty to the land.”
Viscount Hurtdem wept, begging,
“I’m sorry, Lady Head. I was wrong.”
Starting from that, the branches cried out desperately.
“Lady Head, we were merely passed over to Viscount Hurtdem.”
“That’s right. Just one more chance, please.”
Sylvia’s violet eyes blazed as she stared them down.
Chapter 94