Episode 17

"Ines, please come to your senses."

"I've already come to my senses."

"You are not normal right now. You are not in a state where you can think normally."

Ines suffered four miscarriages of Oscar's children and was tormented by the imperial family, who reprimanded her for each loss, and by the empress, who openly expressed her jealousy in front of the people.

So, it was 11 years of marriage.

Oscar never stood by her side in the palace, consistently ignored her pleas for comfort, and ultimately concluded that she must have been cursed for not being able to bear a living child.

She was as splendid on the outside as she was on the inside. You're saying she's not normal now? She's never been normal since she got married. She couldn't live normally.

Then, when she found out that all the venereal diseases that were crawling in her handsome and clean body had killed all her children, and when she remembered all the horrible nights when she had filled her pregnant wife's desires with that filthy thing, ignoring her rejection... ... .

Her body, which had known only one man her entire life, was already engraved with evidence of all the dirty things he had done. She had never done anything shameful in her life, but she was being punished. For the sole sin of marrying this filthy human being.

But what is dirtier than disease is desire.

Even though he knew that he had a terrible disease, he always held his wife without hesitation, even though she was unaware of it. He made his wife, who was pregnant with his heir, lie down like a dog. Even though he begged her to endure it just today, he wrapped his body around her like an animal.

She must have been very cute in his eyes, fearing that she would have another miscarriage simply because of their relationship. To a human who had no qualms about spreading a dirty disease, would such an answer have been enough?

He did not care about her safety or the safety of his successor, if only to satisfy his fleeting desires. They had no value to him in the first place. He did not even have the malice of wanting to ruin her. He did it without any thought at all. He did not even hate her for a moment. He did not hate her at all. And yet he could do it.

And then for three years, he kept saying that he couldn't let her go because he loved her.

The four miscarriages were a blessing in retrospect. It would have been better for this kind of seed to die. He should never have been born into the world. This kind of person should not have left any descendants. He should have died as if he had never existed in the world. Without any trace of his life.

If she had given birth to even one child safely, it would have been an irreversible sin. She shook off the hurt and the deep sense of loss in one breath. If that child had been born then… She immediately said goodbye to the countless nights of tears.

She was quicker to change her mind than anyone else. Yes, not having children was the only consolation in this unfortunate life.

From the moment Ines married Oscar, her life was in a rut from which there was no return. A child would have been very precious to her, but it would never have saved her. She had hoped that her life would change, that she had wanted a child. She had believed that if she had a child, she would be happy… .

She killed the longing that remained like residue and the many disappointed expectations with the feeling of breaking Oscar's neck. And before the Crown Princess was branded with the stigma of dying from syphilis, she decided to die a little earlier but more effectively.

"I am more normal than ever."

I never intended to kill him and bring down the Ballestena family from the beginning. He wasn't even worth it.

"You said there were no divorced couples in the Ortega family, right? You can't be the first failure in the family."

She called the muzzle, even if she called it, and she was still suspicious of her.

"I will make you a true failure."

I'm just a person who was so scared of divorce that I kept whining.

"You will be the first crown prince to make his wife commit suicide."

"… … ."

"The reason is, I hate and find the world I live in with you disgusting."

"Ines. No way, no way. No way…."

"I can't stand being around people like you for even a single second."

On the morning of her death, at dawn, all the daily newspapers in Mendoza would publish the Crown Princess' will on the front page. "If you won't give me a divorce, I have no choice but to die." He even personally decided on the title of the article.

He will expose all the ugliness that he had to avoid even at the cost of death, and he will let all the people he will rule know that the crown prince who will rule the empire in the future is nothing more than a dirty, perverted sexual being who enjoys fucking and being fucked by both men and women.

She turned the gun into her mouth and bit it. Oscar seemed to rise very slowly. She was satisfied.

Oscar Fernandez de Ortega, the most perfect husband in the empire, will today be nothing more than a pile of filth.

And so she died, in a fit of anger.

***

Her first death was a very rational choice, but at the same time, a very irrational choice.

Ines was a naturally sanguine person. To put it more mildly, it is a characteristic trait of the Ortega people, who are often described as 'passionate' in warm countries.

There were no exceptions, not even for the noble daughter of a duke who had been granted the rank of Grandes de Ortega.

There is probably no other country in the world where so many deaths occur due to private revenge and duels, regardless of gender, age, or social status. Considering the national character that is prone to accidental accidents, the Ortega emperors had already perfected a strict criminal code over several generations.

However, the choleric nature of Ortega's people was not the kind that was rational enough to fear the aftermath or think about the aftermath. If they thought, "I want revenge," most of them got revenge, and if they thought, "I want to kill," most of them ended up killing.

What happened after that didn't really mean much to them. If you don't kill the person you need to kill, you're not alive. If you don't get revenge, you're dead even if you're still breathing.

However, Ines was a highly educated noblewoman, and she was a woman who had to learn how to endure and not show her feelings throughout her life. It would not be an exaggeration to say that she was busy living an elegant life and that all the things she had suppressed suddenly came out, but didn't she think about the aftermath even as she gave up her life?

It was not she who had to disappear from this world, but her husband who was like a maggot, but she couldn't send her entire family to the guillotine just to get rid of that maggot. She was always an ordinary, beloved daughter and sister.

They were not guilty. So, they wanted to bury the Crown Prince alive—socially—so that no one would be hurt. Ines thought there was nothing wrong with that judgment. It was a conclusion that was not morally wrong at all. Of course, it seemed that he died a little angry. Maybe he died in a fit of anger… But who could have come to a more peaceful conclusion at such a precipice?

Her death did not hurt anyone. Not even the Crown Prince, who was like a rat in a brothel. Even though she had been beaten to death while alive, she ended up not breaking a single finger.

Except that all of his strange tendencies were exposed to the world one by one… .

Thinking back on it, it was such a good decision. I didn't expect any great reward. I just closed my eyes, hoping that if there was a god, he would take me to a better place, or even if he didn't, I didn't mind.

That was all. My head would have been shattered at the same time as the gunshot, so I felt a small sense of satisfaction, remembering the Crown Prince's weak temperament.

"… … ."

So there was no way to know. Ines, who had just closed her eyes and opened them again in the middle of the hunting grounds, was holding a hunting rifle in both hands.

The weight was so similar to before she died that for a moment she thought she was still in the process of dying. In other words, she was still in the terrible process of not being able to die, but just waiting for her head to explode.

However, quite different from the feeling of having shot and killed someone in a fit of anger by shoving the gun down their throat, Ines was holding the rifle in the correct posture as if she were hunting any other time. She was ready to catch any prey that might appear in the sky at any time.

Ines looked around unfamiliarly. It was a familiar place, although not a very close memory. The Duchy of Perez, a closed hunting ground where she often went hunting with her brother Luciano.

"… This is ridiculous."

Since she married at the age of sixteen, she had never visited this place. Under the strict supervision of the imperial court and the surveillance of the officials, there was not much she could do on her own. Among these, visiting the duchy of Perez or going hunting alone with her brother were among the things she could never ask permission for.

So this is it.

Ines instinctively searched her memory and found the pond. Unlike her old memories, it was not a pond but a small swamp hidden in the bushes, but the surface was clear enough to reflect objects.

She lowered herself, her rifle tucked at her side as if in annoyance.

The water in the still forest reflected the sixteen-year-old Ines without the slightest trembling.