When A Villain Meets A Villain - Chapter 62

After returning to her room, his voice seemed to still linger in my ears.

“Anywhere is fine, from my head to toe.”

Atalante covered her ears and gave the grand duke a kick for no reason in particular.

“I don’t need it! I won’t take it even if you give it to me!”

Atalante, who was struggling to get rid of his hazy afterimage, soon pulled the blanket above her head.

She had just left Lionel alone in the library like she was fleeing and immediately knocked on Agnes’ door.

It was to ask if there really was such a ceremony at weddings in the Grand Duchy.

Agnes, who’d appeared neatly despite the late hour, answered Atalante’s question with a nonchalant expression.

“I had planned on explaining it to you tomorrow, but His Highness was a step ahead. That’s right. Please decide on a part of the groom’s body that you’d like to have.” 

“What does that mean, have! A human body is not an object, how can there be such a terrible ceremony? Do the people of the Grand Duchy really partake in such a ceremony without any complaints?”

“Please don’t worry, as nothing will be of harm to Miss Atalante. All the bride has to do is choose.”

Just making a choice is enough to harm her mental state.

She wanted to refute it immediately, but she couldn’t do so. Agnes’ composed face was akin to a solid shield, and she obviously couldn’t get through it if she was acting impetuously.

After calming her agitation by taking deep breaths, Atalante continued with a clear voice.

“That’s not the problem…! Where do you think I’ll choose? If I said that I want the Grand Duke’s head, aren’t you going to lose your monarch!”

A complicated gleam filled Agnes’ eyes after hearing her valid argument.

The odd glee that Atalante felt from Agnes’ somewhat astonished expression only lasted momentarily, as the words from the head maid that followed caused her mouth to fall shut.

“Erm, my apologies, but Miss Atalante seems to have misunderstood the meaning of ‘offering’. It doesn’t mean that a part of the body would really be cut off or damaged.” 

“What? Then how do you offer…?”

“It’s kind of a pledge. A part of the groom’s body will belong to the bride. I heard that a special mark would often be left, but it isn’t required.” 

Atalante’s face heated up. When the word ‘offer’ is used, she’d obviously think that… she really thought that the body part would be cut off and given to her!

“As expected of Miss Atalante, your thoughts are rather straightforward. Hm, I was also like that when I got married, and usually the bride would choose that place…”

At the sight of Atalante’s embarrassed face, Agnes gave a benevolent smile like she was facing a young granddaughter.

“I think you can ask for anywhere you want, as long as it’s not the two places that’ll end the Blanc family, The Grand Duke would most definitely be willing to offer his body to his beloved Miss Atalante.”

“Wait a moment, aren’t you misunderstanding something……!”

“Often, there are many husbands that do pointless things with the bodies that have become their wives’. If the Grand Duke sets an example personally, it would be controlled in many ways, so it’s nothing short of killing two birds with one stone,” 

No, she doesn’t need it! She wouldn’t need it, even if a carriage accompanied it!

Although misunderstanding things was her mistake, isn’t it normally torn off and given to the other when words like ‘offering’ were used?

How cruel of a person was Atalante viewed as, that such a conjecture was made? Even Agnes didn’t seem to have any qualms.

“Oh, again, if you intend to take it for yourself, I’d appreciate it if you could consider excluding here and here. In the first place, the Grand Duchy’s descendants are very precious.”

After Agnes pointed to her own head and the area of her lower body, she closed the door with a dignified greeting.

It was just a slight misunderstanding, but she’d become a woman trying to get the Grand Duke’s body parts in an instant.

It was no wonder that Atalante, who went through such an incident, kept kicking her legs into the air continuously when she was in her room.

Despite the good news that members of Argo would be arriving in the Grand Duchy tomorrow, the embarrassment lingered for some reason.

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The members of Argo, which had been divided into three teams, met at the border between the Kingdom of Paille and the Grand Duchy, and moved together.

They had to gather their forces together just in case.

They wouldn’t have any problems with entering the grand duchy since they’d received a letter signed by the grand duke himself, but there was nothing wrong with being careful.

Even as the carriage was moving, Devon didn’t stop cleaning the weapons. Mia also checked on the medicines for treatment, while Jenna busied herself with grasping the current status of the organisation’s members. The only one that was in peace was Yuffie, who was napping in the afternoon sunlight.

“What the hell happened?”

Mia’s careful voice broke the tense atmosphere.

“Don’t you understand? Didn’t she tell us to flee to the Kingdom of Paille while she went underground and suddenly became a wanted criminal? Didn’t that child, who’d thought terribly of aristocrats, attend the debutante ball, and now she’s about to marry the Grand Duke?”

Devon, who spat his words out harshly and put down the gun he was repairing annoyedly.

“It must be one of the two. Either our boss has gone crazy, or it’s the grand duke who has.”

“It could also be both of them.”

For some reason, Mia agreed with Devon’s words and let out a deep sigh.

Everything was unclear, so they had to meet their boss first and listen to her explanation.

Jenna, who was listening to their conversation silently, opened her mouth with a red face.

“But about His Highness the Grand Duke…”

“Do you know something about the Grand Duke of Blanc?”

“What about the Grand Duke? Hurry up and speak, Jenna.”

Jenna swallowed down the dry cough and made a determined expression.

“He’s really handsome.”

At that absent-minded response, Devon and Mia’s eyes widened, but Jenna continued chattering.

“I don’t know why, but the connector distinguished the Grand Duke as its user. So whenever I’m contacting the boss, his face would appear… Wow, it’s amazing. The sun god appearing in the flesh? That’s nonsense, he can just become the sun god.”

As Devon looked at Jenna, who kept pouring out praises about the grand duke’s beauty with a dreamy look on her face, his face twisted into an unbearably irritated expression.

‘I can’t believe she’s my only older sister.’

After shaking his head slightly, Devon focused on repairing the weapon again. Mia… she listened to Jenna with a red face while pretending she wasn’t.

In the meantime, the old carriage travelled towards the Grand Duchy steadily, and soon the members of Argo, including the executives, arrived at the gates of the Grand Duchy.

“Allow me to confirm your identities.”

A stout knight in exotic looking armour approached a carriage taken by the executives.

“Yuffie, wake up. The letter that I’d given you to hold, give that to me.”

Devon tried to wake him up with a light slap on the cheek, but Yuffie didn’t show any signs of waking up from his deep slumber.

“D*mn it, where did he put it? Hey, Yuffie! Where’s that letter?”

Yuffie, who was resilient to physical attacks, wouldn’t wake up no matter how much Devon shook him, and so he eventually had to surrender and look for the letter himself.

A firm and scarred chest was revealed through the undone front of Yuffie’s shirt. Jenna, who blushed immediately, moved her gaze away and rebuked him.

“Devon, don’t you think you’re being too casual towards a sleeping child? You’re outside.”

“So what? We need that to get in! Do you think anyone wants to frisk a guy in broad daylight?”

“No, you can just wake him up.”

“He’s not getting up! You do it if you don’t want to watch this.”

As he gave Jenna a hard time, Devon didn’t stop searching through Yuffie’s pockets. All the while thinking that he was a fool to leave something important to Yuffie.

Soon, Devon managed to find the item he was looking for in Yuffie’s pants pocket, and had a pleased look. But before he could hand the letter over, there was a strange commotion coming from outside the carriage.

“Huh? Why is it so noisy…”

Just as Devon was about to look out of the window, the carriage door opened without any warning.

“Are you Argo’s executives?”

Along with a dulcet voice, a dazzlingly handsome man appeared before them.

With silver hair that seems to have absorbed the sunlight by itself, and brilliant blue eyes, the man’s features were so perfect that his clothes didn’t enter their gaze.

“You’re t—Grand Duke, of Blanc…?”

“You must be the executive that always contacts Atalante with the connector.”

Lionel, who pretended to know Jenna, gave her a short nod instead of a greeting.

She’d already seen his face through the connector a few times and thought she was sufficiently immune to the grand duke’s handsome looks, but seeing him in the flesh is…

Not only was Jenna looking at Lionel with a look of surprise, even Mia, who doesn’t care much about appearances, looked at him with astonishment.

Lionel’s gaze brushed past the two women and reached Devon and Yuffie, who were still tightly pressed against each other.

The grand duke’s mouth curved into a satisfied arc as he watched Devon, who was above the sleeping Yuffie and holding onto his clothes like he was trying to take them off, with an odd glint in his eyes.

“You’re Devon, and the person underneath you is Yuffie?”

“T—That’s right…”

“I’ve heard many things from Atalante about you. It looks nice.”

After leaving behind incomprehensible words, Lionel turned and ordered the knights that were guarding the gate.

“Open the gates, they’re important guests.”

The tightly closed gate became wide open with his command. It happened in an instant, before it registered that the infamous grand duke came to meet them, who were lowborn.

“Follow the Grand Duchy’s knight that’s in front. I’ve arranged a separate residence for you near the castle.”

“Well, erm, thank you.”

“In the afternoon, designers will visit to make clothes for the national wedding. I hope you’ll cooperate so that there won’t be any scandals before the auspicious day comes.”

After finishing his words, the grand duke mounted his black horse immediately. The combination of him, who was all white, and the black horse, made a distinct contrast.

“Hey, wait a minute!”

Before the grand duke could vanish without any sign like how he’d made his appearance, Mia’s urgent voice stopped him.

Lionel looked at the woman that stopped him indifferently with the reins tightly in hand.

The pink pupils trembled pitifully, but she didn’t hesitate to question him.

“Are you really marrying our boss?”

Not only Mia, but Jenna and Devon were also looking at the grand duke with suspicion-filled gazes. Instead of faltering, Lionel laughed breezily.

“Can’t you read?”

“I’ve read the letter that you’ve sent! I’ve also gotten confirmation from the boss. But I’m still unconvinced. Why on earth would you… Why do you want to marry our boss?”

Marriage wasn’t all that he’s done. In fact, the grand duke showed consideration towards the members of Atalante’s organisation, who would definitely become a burden, and allowed them to stay in the Grand Duchy.

No matter how she looked at it, those actions couldn’t be understood with her common sense.

However, the grand duke was the one that made a questioning expression.

“You’re asking me something strange.”

“What?”

“I’m marrying her because I love her.”

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