The Villainess Has Proposed a Contract Marriage

77 – Karma

“Elpisia Luminel!!!”

Snap!

The servant picked up a fork from the nearby table and menacingly raised it. Then, he charged at Elpisia with a fierce, burning gaze.

“Ahk…!”

“What?!”

The people around them screamed at the servant’s sudden outburst. The evil intent behind his attack on an unarmed, lightly dressed woman was palpable, spreading fear. However, Elpisia Luminel’s heart remained calm.

‘I’ll dodge and counterattack.’

As the master of the martial arts, Elpisia thought the servant’s clumsy ambush was like an ant crawling and a child’s handwriting.

It was just a trivial disturbance.

Just as Elpisia judged it to be so…

A trained assassin, honed through rigorous training and discipline, closed in on the attacker and the attacked like a dark wind.

─Swoosh!

The deadly, piercing sound continued to resonate.

At the same time, the assassin’s body flew into the air, spewing out a warm, sticky blood like a waterfall.

“… What?”

The moment Elpisia let out a cry, the assassin’s body crashed to the ground without a sound. It twitched once and then completely lost all signs of life.

“You, you…?”

Elpisia’s face was filled with a mixture of shock and anger as she glared at the assassin. The black hair and eyes that were not fully obscured by the hood revealed the assassin’s true identity without a doubt.

Glen Baskerville.

The man who admired, pitied, and hated Elpisia was standing there.

“You…! What are you doing?! Why… how can you kill someone so easily! You know this level of ambush is not a threat at all!”

“… Yes?”

On the other hand, Glen’s expression was as if he was facing a difficult math problem.

Next, he opened his mouth, as if asking a rhetorical question.

“I was ordered not to spare the assassin, so I did as I was told. If I made a mistake, I will gladly accept the punishment.”

“I… uh.”

Elpisia was at a loss for words.

Who was it? Who had trained Glen with harsh punishment?

Who was it? Who had forced the gentle child to undergo torture?

… Who was it? Who had treated the boy as a convenient tool?

All the questions pointed to one person.

Elpisia Ruminel was the one who had trampled on the humanity of the innocent child.

“Ah… ah…”

Had she been drunk on the sweet dream of a summer night?

She had forgotten. She had forgotten her own true nature.

She had been led astray by Haruto’s purity and thought she had changed, occasionally doing good deeds to atone for her past sins. She didn’t know that the seeds of evil she had sown in the past would sprout and bloom into a beautiful flower of revenge.

“Ha… ha…”

Elpisia’s breathing was making a faint noise. Glen was at a loss, unable to do anything as he watched his master’s unstable state.

It was then that a woman’s cry brought back Elpisia’s past.

“Ahahahah! Lukren!”

She was a female attendant – Lukren, who had been mobilized for today’s charity event along with the assassin.

When she glared at Elpisia as if she was going to kill her, Elpisia was able to find the name “Lukren” in the deeply buried fragments of her memories.

“Lukren… Lukren Melton?”

“Uh-huh…”

The woman’s tearful, wordless reaction was enough to confirm the answer.

“Why is he…?”

“I really don’t know, so I’m asking…”

Elpisia’s vague question was immediately met with an answer.

The female attendant, who had been desperately trying to revive Lukren’s body, began to cry and curse.

“You… you did this!!!”

In that moment, Elpisia’s lips tightly shut.

Because the woman’s sorrowful cry was a clear truth.

Furthermore, the scattered fragments of memories depicted Luke Ren Melton as a figure right in front of me.

“How… how can a person…? Do you not remember even a single ant you trampled on, no matter how high you soar?”

“…”

From noble mtl dot com

About 7 years ago.

The newly enthroned Emperor Lupehit announced a heinous law.

The name of the law was the “Special Privilege Law for Reporting Nobles’ Misconduct.”

The gist of the law was simple: it would reward those who reported nobles’ misconduct by granting them half of the confiscated property.

From the perspective of promoting nobles’ integrity and filling the national treasury, this law seemed extremely progressive. Moreover, before the law was discussed, the rumor of a lord who had oppressed the people spread, and the capital’s atmosphere was tense, so the people also supported the law.

However, it only took a month.

This was the time needed for the people and nobles to lose their support completely.

At that time, the person who utilized the heinous law most viciously was none other than Elpisia Ruminel.

[Infiltrate all the noble families listed and create a trap for them.]

If they had placed spies to discover and report misconduct, they could have claimed to be upholding justice. But Elpisia’s malice went one step further.

[And create misconduct. Even manipulating the account books to induce minor tax evasion would be fine.]

As long as a single drop of ink stained the pure white paper, they were prepared to burn the entire document.

[It wouldn’t be bad to reduce the number of nobles, either.]

… Thus, Elpisia tarnished the reputation of numerous families and accumulated immense wealth. Since the law was initiated by the imperial family, even the empress couldn’t stop it. If it were a small noble family, they might have been able to resist, but the opponent was Elpisia Ruminel.

The nobles’ council went through a slow process, and the imperial family’s face was disfigured, before the heinous law was finally abolished.

Meanwhile, the Ruminel ducal family grew into an unparalleled power, and if they wanted, they could have even declared independence from the kingdom.

In other words, Luke Ren Melton, who was murdered by Glen, was an innocent victim caught in Elpisia’s scheme.

He was a minor noble family, but his entire life was confiscated under the pretext of reporting misconduct. Moreover, he was accused of tax evasion, which he had never committed.

After that, Luke Ren became a commoner, struggling to make a living on the streets.

This was the story of how a former noble ended up doing menial jobs.

“Ah… ugh… Luke Ren…”

Even in the midst of struggling to survive, spring arrived. He even met a beautiful young woman and promised her a future. Especially since this charity event had a high reward, it would greatly help his livelihood.

So, he received the money and returned to his small, humble home, planning to share his petty complaints with his wife.

If Elpisia hadn’t attended or had recognized him at a glance…

There would have been chaos, but at least his life would have been spared.

“… Hey.”

Tap, tap.

Elpisia approached the woman who was embracing Luke Ren’s corpse, wailing. The commoner, who wasn’t even a noble, shrank back. Only then did the woman come to her senses, and her fear turned to anger.

Elpisia, who didn’t understand the victim’s perspective at all, reached out to grab the woman’s skirt, almost touching it.

And asked.

“… How much would it take?”

“Yes…?”

“How much would it take to compensate for that person’s life?”

“…”

The woman remained silent.

The outrage took away her reason and instinct.

The noble in front of her was committing the atrocity of weighing a human life against wealth, without a care in the world.

It’s impossible.

It’s impossible to put a price on human life.

The future they drew together was more precious than a pink diamond and gold filling a bathtub. Anyone who could weigh that future against money had never truly met a precious person.

But the woman with eyes like Hong-ok, who sparkled like she had the world in her hands, was… what could be said about her?

She was truly merciless.

A self-centered, ruthless, and lawless child.

The woman who had realized Elpisia Lumine’s true nature was left stunned, holding onto the stiff corpse of her lover, her eyes frozen in shock.

◇

Elpisia hastily returned to the mansion from the charity event.

In reality, she was fleeing. Her unusual, panicked appearance stirred anxiety among the servants.

“Bring me a car, I’ll leave.”

Glen calmly followed Elpisia. But Elpisia hastily waved her hand.

“No, don’t do that. It’s not possible.”

“My Lady?”

“Don’t worry about me… anymore, you, you… don’t do this to me…”

“You need to calm down, My Lady.”

“How much will it take?”

“What?”

Glen asked, seemingly taken aback.

“How much will it take?”

Elpisia, instead, grabbed Glen’s shoulder and repeated her question obsessively.

“How much do I need to compensate for your life? Tell me. I’ll give you everything. Okay?”

“My Lady, you’re losing your senses.”

“I’m asking… okay?”

Elpisia soon let out a loud cry.

“What do I need to do to compensate you?”

Aside from Elpisia losing her senses, Glen was also bewildered.

He couldn’t find the answer to her question himself.

Glen didn’t know the world.

He had been enslaved since childhood and was later taken in by Elpisia’s family, living his entire life according to her will. Now, being told to change his life’s direction was like being pushed into an unknown darkness.

So, Glen steeled himself to be honest, even if it meant going against his master’s wishes.

“… I don’t know.”

“…”

The person who had forgotten how to chase happiness was none other than herself.

The fruit of her labor was the most intuitive observation of her karma.

“What have I done?”

Elpisia murmured in despair.

The clock was ticking, approaching the time Hart would arrive.