He stared at me with a confused expression.

It was as if he already knew about the divine sealing restraints. A fleeting look of betrayal flashed across his face. Momentarily flustered, I stammered.

“N-No, it’s not like that. I’ll explain everything.”

How ungrateful am I? Just facing Zachary, who looked at me with a slightly resentful face, made my heart sink. I wanted to make any excuse I could.

“Zachary, let’s remove that first.”

The noise from earlier sounded like the restraints being activated. Why did they suddenly activate? I’m sure I put them properly in the box.

Moreover, the form of the restraints was strange.

The four restraints I had seen were in the form of small bracelets. But now chains had appeared and were moving as if alive. With a heavy clinking sound, the spread-out chains kept trying to wrap around Zachary. They looked like giant snakes, threatening just to look at.

“I’ll remove them for you. And then we’ll talk…”

“Stay back.”

However, Zachary didn’t allow me to come close. As I tried to approach again, disregarding his warning, Zachary let out a low groan. Then, a shocking event unfolded.

The chains suddenly transformed into sharp spears and dug into Zachary’s wrists and ankles. In an instant, the restraints were locked onto his limbs, and a circular ring appeared around Zachary’s neck. The ring immediately began to choke him.

“Huk, heok.”

Zachary tried to break free, but the restraints tightened around him even more strongly. The more he resisted, the stronger the restraints’ suppressive power seemed to become.

Bright blue flames kept sparking. Every time he resisted, the ring choked his neck violently, and the number of chains increased, rendering him completely immobile.

“Why is it going this far…”

I had been told he might lose consciousness, but I wasn’t informed it would be such a cruel method.

“Zachary, Zachary…”

I hurriedly tried to remove the restraints clinging to him, but it was useless. The chains were digging in with enough force to shatter his bones and tear his muscles. The more I touched them, the more pain Zachary seemed to be in.

Worse still, as blood began to seep out, the spell marks on the bandages wrapped around his wrists awakened and opened their mouths wide. The awakened spell marks greedily lapped up his blood. Zachary, who had collapsed while spilling blood, looked as if he was being devoured by both the spell marks and the restraints.

‘I have to release him.’

It was a sufficiently terrifying sight, but I wasn’t scared. I was filled only with the thought that I needed to free Zachary from his pain immediately. I reached out and grabbed the restraints. The spear-shaped restraints tore at my hands too. I felt a sharp pain, but I gritted my teeth and grabbed the restraints.

‘It hurts.’

If just having my hands scratched by the restraints brought such terrible pain, how much worse must it be for Zachary?

Zachary looked to be in extreme agony. He kept groaning and sweating blood. His eyes rolled back as if he might lose consciousness at any moment, then returned to normal, only to repeat the process. Yet, he tried his best to keep looking at me until the end.

“Young Master.”

Zachary staggered towards me, half-leaning, and grasped my mangled hands.

I was powerlessly unable to do anything. Because I was the one who had caused all of this. I could only cry while looking at Zachary.

The fact that the item I had brought was so horrific. The resolve to secretly put it on Zachary after lulling him into a false sense of security. And now, regretting it when the situation had actually unfolded.

Every single thing felt hypocritical and terrible.

Zachary would think I had betrayed him. His obsession was due to being consumed by the spell. But even if it was because of the spell, I had still betrayed him after he had begged me not to abandon him. Moreover, was it because the spell had been imperfectly broken? He was different from the other servants. He expressed his own emotions, shivered from the cold, and felt pain.

So, just the fact that I had kept that terrible object under the bed was enough for me to deserve Zachary’s resentment.

“Don’t cry.”

His hand, bound by the restraints, moved towards my cheek. Blood flowed continuously from where the chains had dug into his skin, but he didn’t seem to care. The last words he spoke as he wiped away the tears trickling down my cheek were:

“It seems I won’t be able to take you there myself, so make sure to see a physician first…”

He was worried about me to the very end.

But that was it. He couldn’t even finish what he was trying to say before losing consciousness.

“Za-kari?”

He was unconscious. It was just as Genevieve and the Princess had said. The restraints had completely drained his divine power.

I hugged him in a panic, crying messily. I felt the faint breath coming from him, but even that made me anxious, so I put my ear to his chest.

The sound of his heartbeat, and his breathing. Both were telling me that Zachary was still alive. Only then did I roughly wipe my thoroughly wet face with my hands.

‘I’m too ugly…’

Surely my outward appearance, soaked in blood and tears, was terrible too. But more than that, my heart was even uglier.

While I kept saying with my mouth that I had to send Zachary back, why did I spend ten days with such a lukewarm attitude? And even now, faced with the opportunity to send Zachary back, why did I only want to release him?

‘I was trying to hold onto him.’

In the end, what I had worried about had happened. Because I liked him too much, because Zachary was too precious to me, to the point where my desire not to send him away was unconsciously revealed.

So even until the day I had to send him away, I was careless, and I had to be careless. Under the excuse that I had done my best but there was no opportunity, trying not to send him away…

The dark intentions of trying to keep him naturally by my side, pretending it couldn’t be helped, were now revealed.

‘Someone like me… is it okay for me to be by your side?’

I hugged Zachary’s body, which had gone limp after having all his divine power and energy drained by the restraints. This strong body that I thought would never crumble was now leaning on me. After Zachary lost consciousness, the restraints also quieted down. Fortunately, the bleeding had stopped, but Zachary’s body was soaked in blood.

I despaired quietly, afraid that his warmth against me might dissipate. The content of the original work and my initial goals, which I had been trying hard to ignore and forget, came back vividly. As if reproaching me.

‘Who was it that made Zachary like this in the first place?’

Zachary was brought to Serpentine and had spells engraved on him after enduring severe torture and abuse. After that, he had to suffer through even more solid and numerous spells to become my servant. Because of all these accumulated spells, he ended up like this now. It was all because of me.

Even knowing all of this, I still wanted to suppress his freedom out of my selfish desires.

How am I any different from the king who made Zachary like this? I was perhaps no different from, or even worse than, the king. I had sex with him, sincerely accepting Zachary’s words of liking me. Even knowing that he was blindly following me because of the spell, I ended up liking him.

I was arrogant and stupid. I should have never forgotten that I had no right to save him from the beginning, but I ended up deluding myself. I slowly wiped Zachary’s face and body, stained with blood, with a wet cloth. I was now doing what he had always done for me. Only at the very end…

“I’m sorry.”

As his handsome face, once soaked in blood, was revealed, I lost the courage to touch Zachary anymore. After moving away from him, I kept apologizing. Saying I was sorry.

But my apologies didn’t reach Zachary, who had lost consciousness.

“Young Master. I’ve brought the chest you mentioned.”

And they never would again.

‘Why isn’t he coming?’

Genevieve paced back and forth with an anxious look. She had made preparations to buy some time at the least guarded area of the border zone.

She had received a report earlier that someone was approaching from across the border, which must have been the Princess’s side. However, now that the promised time was almost here, Oscar still hadn’t appeared.

‘There’s no way he wouldn’t come.’

She had thought he would arrive even earlier, but something felt off.

‘There’s so much to talk about.’

Why Prince Zachary, who was reported missing, was here, and why they were sending him back to the Princess of all people. She had tried hard to dig up information until today, but this time it wasn’t easy even for Genevieve. She had contacted informants active in various regions, but couldn’t find out anything.

She had a feeling that she might have to risk her life since it was related to the Imperial family, but she didn’t mind. They were already in the same boat. The more detailed the inside story she knew, the less likely she was to mess things up.

‘He’s here.’

Just then, Genevieve narrowed her eyes as she heard the sound of hoofbeats. Not long after, an ornate carriage appeared at the edge of her vision.

The carriage had the Serpentine family crest clearly emblazoned on it, but the coachman and the knights guarding the carriage were all from House Raven. Genevieve’s expression finally softened after confirming their identities.

Creeeeak. As soon as the carriage stopped, the door opened hurriedly. The person getting out was…

“Looks like you’re off to some party.”

Of course, it was Oscar. He was dressed even more elaborately than usual.

“It’s because I’m here to pay my respects, having received permission to marry.”

Genevieve chuckled at his glib tone.

Just as Genevieve had visited Serpentine with many gifts, Oscar was pretending to visit for the same reason. Would the Duchess of Serpentine send Oscar to such an occasion without dressing him up? Genevieve, who had thought it natural for him to be dressed up to show off his beautiful looks, flinched.

‘Why does his face look like that?’

It’s not that Oscar’s beautiful face had become ugly. He was still beautiful and had a captivating aura, but he looked very different from when she had seen him before. His cheeks, which were already slender, had become even more gaunt, and there were heavy shadows under his eyes, giving him a gloomy and sorrowful impression.

Moreover, it seemed like his health had deteriorated since she last saw him, giving him an even more sickly appearance.

‘Something… seems erotic.’

For some reason she couldn’t pinpoint, he looked quite sensual. It was hard to express exactly what it was, but strangely, he seemed to have a sort of ripeness about him.

As Genevieve was thinking about this truly peculiar feeling, Oscar handed her a rolled-up paper. It was the certificate containing the handwritten signatures of the Duke and Duchess approving the marriage. Oscar’s bandaged hand was curious, but Genevieve soon thought only of fulfilling their contract.

“Please dismiss the people, except for the chest.”

“You all leave that there and wait at the entrance of the mansion.”

Oscar asked to send everything back to the mansion except for one chest. Genevieve, immediately understanding his intention, also urged those who had unloaded the chest to leave quickly. Then they left as well.

As the carriage pulled away, taking most of the people with it, now only a few people remained in the border area. They were Genevieve’s closest confidants, people who would keep their mouths tightly shut even after witnessing what was about to unfold.

“Right here…”

Genevieve couldn’t finish her sentence and swallowed hard, as if tense. Then she looked at the solitary chest. The lid of the chest was slightly open if you looked closely.

The long shape of the chest was similar to a coffin. However, its lavishly decorated appearance was unlike a coffin.

“It’s a chest for storing treasures. Each family has its own style, and our family makes them large for storage, so they can look like coffins.”

Genevieve thought that even that chest was somehow very Serpentine-like. The chests of House Raven didn’t look so much like coffins. Of course, maybe she felt that way because she knew what was inside it.

‘Originally, they would have brought treasures in there. But now…’

Zachary Thaddeus.

The prince of the Holy Empire was inside there.