Because She Had A Time Limit, She Became The Villain’s Daughter-in-law - Chapter 104

Evan immediately stopped the horse after running around the road. After seeing Laria’s carriage finally vanish over the hill, he slowly turned around. Then, while gently stroking Lawrence’s cheek, where Laria’s lips had touched, he slowly brought his lips to the spot.

“Hhiiinnnggg!”

Lawrence then became very annoyed.

“Don’t get me wrong. It’s not for you.”

Saying so, Evan groaned softly.

“I think of you as just a carrier, like air not really living. I don’t even think of you as a horse now.”

“Hhiiing!”

Lawrence, too, quickly became annoyed by its owner and started running as if protesting. Laria in the fantasy shown by the scroll book was so different from the Laria in reality that he sighed. It was even the worst environment for the truth drug.

It was not a magic tower, but a tower of trials.

Thank you, Sir…

Had Laria known her whole story, she would probably have looked at him like a beast.

“That damn book…”

While the scroll book was also a book—so it had no expression or face—its patheticity was dripping from the voice.

‘You pervert, how can you say such a cheeky thing…’

That was too accurate.

To be honest, he thought the scroll book would show the fantasy of Laria dying. On the contrary, it showed a completely different fantasy, saying, “You win when you tell me to stop.” So, it was like a very wild imagination that he was forced to go into.

Evan was completely helpless in front of Laria’s fantasy that the scroll book had shown him. There was no way he could tell the scroll book to stop. He didn’t even know how five minutes had passed. To be honest, he was so disillusioned with it that it was not a waste of money.

However, Laria had seen the fantasy of his own childhood.

It was distasteful for him that she saw his most miserable and pitiful times. It was because, in a way, it was lamentable to see the woman he liked looking at him with sympathetic eyes.

Even at the masquerade, when he thought of her who frantically searched for him, remembering Ludva, he was very grateful though he was also sad at the same time. He wanted to be a nice guy she could rely on…

It was almost impossible not to like Laria.

She had been a precious object since his reason was blurred, and from that moment on, there was only desire. It was probably around the time when his puberty came. From then on, seeing Laria made his heart flutter, and his body stiffened.

An intense possessiveness, which he had from his childhood, also became more apparent.

The letter he received on his fourteenth birthday was read several times and memorized, and the children’s book almost came to mind when he closed his eyes.

He wanted to use a separate room in case he acted like a beast because of his instincts. Still, when she was staying in the Duke’s residence, he was so excited to be in the room next to her that he couldn’t sleep well.

“Would your life have changed a lot if Miss Matilda had been alive?”

“…Perhaps, it would be. But, I don’t want to talk to you about this.”

If Matilda had lived, his life would certainly have changed a lot. He would, of course, have a happy childhood and never had to go to the academy.

‘…Could I have married Laria?’

The sudden death of Laria’s parents was unavoidable, so marriage seemed inevitable.

Nonetheless, it seemed that he wouldn’t be as cautious as he was now. He wouldn’t have trembled in fear that she might die giving birth to a child because of her weak body. He could have been a little lighter and a little more selfish in expressing his feelings and desires to her.

Since they were a couple, of course, because they didn’t have a bad relationship, it was natural.

So, Evan didn’t want to talk like that with Laria. He just wanted her to keep thinking that he didn’t want to talk about having children because he didn’t like being in touch with women. He wished she lived with him now without any blame and guilt.

Because of that, he tried frantically not to tell Laria what he wanted when he saw the effects of the truth-telling drug.

Yet he…

‘Damn, you’re a real bastard…’

Evan, in self-loathing, slapped his cheek once more while riding on Lawrence. It was because he was pathetic that he was still unable to escape from the fantasy that the scroll book showed him.

Besides, on the forest road which he used to hold her in his childhood…

Frankly, if Laria had looked into his own head back then, he would have been hit for ruining her childhood memories.

Even though the truth drug’s effect was already gone by then, he loved the little body held by him so much that he even lied to her. He didn’t have the confidence to restrain himself, so he really didn’t want to touch her fingertips. Still, he couldn’t really push her away when she came into a hug.

Now that he hugged her once, he kept thinking about it like an addiction, and the next time they met, he would definitely want more…

But, he liked it too much to regret it, and he didn’t want to go back.

* * * 

Kallaudin has been suffering from stress headaches since visiting the Imperial Palace a few days ago. He knew the Emperor well. He would certainly stir him up until the iron ore problem was resolved. However, he really didn’t want to upset the place where Matilda rested…

It wasn’t long before he realized why the Emperor was chasing him. It was because Duke Orlando had secretly pumped up that Podilin would have some iron ore reserves.

Everyone knew that Matilda’s tomb was in Podilin. This was an openly prepared trap. It was the target that Duke Orlando set to separate Kallaudin from the Emperor. And the Emperor, thinking Duke Orlando was right, was testing Kalaudin to see if he would disobey his orders just because his dead wife’s tomb was there.

Both Duke Orlando and the Emperor were conscious of Kalaudin’s influence, which had almost completely taken over the nobility.

The answer here was, of course, to start mining development…

Although he avoided a difficult situation with Laria last time, he wouldn’t be able to avoid it forever. However, after the masquerade was over, something unimaginable happened.

[ A large amount of iron ore landfill has appeared — Hanua’s reexamination. ] 

[ Hanua, an iron ore production area. ]

All kinds of newspapers were in an uproar with the scoop. Iron ore began to be supplied to the raw material market, that had come to a standstill. The price that had been skyrocketing reached an upper limit.

Above all else, the justification that the emperor could use force to develop the mines disappeared.

“I have a feeling that something good is going on with Duchy Icard.”

“What do you mean?”

“There have been times when crises that could have gotten bigger just passed smoothly. And, there are times when things can get a little more difficult, gets easily resolved.”

He didn’t know why the conversation with Evan came to mind. It certainly seemed like a crisis was approaching though there was a sense of it strangely fizzing. It was as if someone was really protecting him.

When Laria pretended to be sick and she dragged him out, he thought it was just a coincidence…

If he had been held captive for hours to the end and he continued to refuse, there would be an irreversible loss of relations with the Emperor. However, when his thoughts reached Laria, Kallaudin buried his face in his hands.

Serena, the doctor, said she was really running out of time. Laria didn’t even know herself, but from the beginning, as she said, she wasn’t going to live long anyway…

He thought he just had to let her die, so he brought her.

…But, at some point, he really cared for her.

Since she went to Borotna for treatment, they have been seeing each other from time to time, and he just didn’t think much of it because she was happy every time.

Serena also contributed to the fact that Laria’s condition apparently improved considerably. No matter how he expected her to die at any time, seeing Laria bouncing around was unrealistic. Then, time had already passed like this.

Laria was dying… like Matilda.

It was then that Kallaudin realized how terrible he had been.

If she was a child who was going to die anyway, he thought it was okay for her to die here. Was it a punishment that he easily wielded her, considering the life of a child as a tool? Was he paying the price for arbitrarily judging that it was better to just stay here than to go back and forth at her relative’s house…?

His whole body trembled at the thought of losing a loved one once more.

In the meantime, Laria was so fine, it was unbelievable. However, when he met the Emperor and heard the news that Laria had collapsed, he realized how much the sky seemed to be falling…

At that moment, it started to feel real.

And…

How the hell could he tell that to Evan? He knew best what kind of eyes the child was looking at Laria with.

‘If I turn back time, it will all disappear anyway.’

Those were the days when he ran with that thought.

‘However…’

Even so, there were still days when he had to go through Laria’s death.

…Now, the only people who knew about her illness were Serena and him. Kallaudin, unwittingly, became distant, unable to raise his face for a long time. He stood there for a while, feeling as if he had been caught in a trap he had set on himself.

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