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“How can a direct descendant of the Windsor family say something so improper!”
“What do you mean by someone else’s house?! This castle belongs to the Windsor family! You said you didn’t have permission? You don’t need permission! Because this castle belongs to the Windsor family!”
“W-W-Why are you getting so angry…?”
“I reacted because what you said was unbefitting of a Windsor family! Lady Allice, your words have diminished the dignity of the Windsor family!”
Those words shocked Allice.Did I say something that was not befitting of Windsor? I’ve diminished the dignity of the Windsor family?
“Mark Kurs. Why aren’t you apologizing right now?!” Count Kurs, seemingly unwilling to speak further, averted his gaze from Allice. Then he slammed his cane on the floor with a bang. “Kneel down and apologize at once!”
Mark’s face turned beet red. He didn’t want to apologize. He couldn’t understand what he had done wrong. But before his tiger-like father, there was nothing more he could do.
“…I apologize.” Slowly, very slowly, he knelt down. A sense of humiliation seemed to break something inside his head. “I apologize. Please forgive me.”
And Count Kurs knelt down beside his son, banging his head on the ground. “I will apologize as well! Please forgive us!”
Allice stared blankly at the sight. Mark and Count Kurs were kneeling in submission. And the woman quietly watching this scene, Danae Windsor.
Count Kurs had awakened. This meant Mark Kurs had returned to his state from three months ago, just a powerless lord with nothing. No, it was even worse than before.
“When the direct lineages leave, I’ll properly discipline you.”
Upon learning of what had happened while he was unconscious, Count Kurs was filled with murderous intent.
“Lady Danae has especially forgiven you. But you will never inherit the family!”
“Fa-Father! But I’m your only child!”
“I will adopt a son to pass on the family to him.”
“You fool! How shameful for me to have a son like you!”
Mark, feeling hopeless, collapsed on his knees. Not inheriting the family means he wouldn’t inherit the castle, and he wouldn’t inherit the Windsor territory.That makes no sense! No matter how loyal you are, how can you abandon your own son!
Mark wasn’t the only one troubled.
“How could someone of Lord Carl’s lineage be so foolish.”
Allice, too, was scolded by Count Kurs.
“Instead of disciplining a subordinate who committed insubordination, you helped him! Such an action tarnishes Lord Carl’s great name!”
“I didn’t help him.” Allice was truly upset. She felt so frustrated and wronged that she thought she might go crazy. “Please listen. I just wanted to reconcile. Forcing things isn’t always the only solution, is it?”
“Reconcile? Did you just say reconcile?”Hahaha. Count Kurs laughed as if he had heard a ridiculous joke. “Reconciliation is for equals!” Then he shouted again. “The Kurs family is a vassal of the Windsor family! Subordinates! And yet you want to reconcile? How could you think so pathetically!”
“I-I just… meant well.”
“The better your intentions, the firmer you should have been!” Count Kurs was so exasperated that he didn’t even bother to listen to Allice anymore. “You should have punished him! Then, once you regained his obedience and loyalty, you could forgive him! But reconciliation?!”
“T-Things were going well! Mark was opening his heart to the Windsor family! Look, he even presented me with this necklace as a gift!”
Count Kurs looked at the diamond necklace and sighed deeply. “So, are you admitting you accepted a bribe?”
“What?” Allice, startled, protested. “B-Bribe?! It’s not like that! It was just a gift!”
“The necklace was bought with the Windsor money! Purchased with the territory management funds given by the duke!” Count Kurs looked at her as if she were the most pathetic person in the world. “And yet the Windsor lineage gladly accepted it. How is that any different from taking a bribe and condoning embezzlement?”
Allice burst into tears. She couldn’t understand what he was talking about. Embezzlement? Bribery? She didn’t know anything about that. She just accepted a gift, hoping to get along in the future. But then…
“I will report all of this in detail to the duke!”
How did things end up like this?
“I apologize once again.”
“Enough, I understand.”
After hearing almost the hundred-and-first apology, Dana was starting to get tired of it.
He was unconscious not long ago, and now he’s so lively.Perhaps because he’d been a warrior who guarded the border all his life, Count Kurs’s recovery speed was almost frightening.
“But… was I really contaminated by the rotten land?”
“That’s strange. There’s no rotten land in Windsor territory…” Count Kurs looked a little embarrassed. “In fact, I’ve spent my entire life in this land, so I’ve never actually seen rotten land. As you know, Windsor land has never decayed.”
“Land turning black and all life dying on it… That’s the phenomenon of rotten land I’ve heard.”
Dana’s expression automatically turned serious.
“Everything dies on rotten land.” Not just humans. “Every blade of grass, every passing ant, even the butterflies on the flowers. All contaminated and decayed.”
“…How terrible.”
“Yes. And you were at an early stage of contamination.”
That was exactly what was odd. A person contaminated by rotten land usually decays and dies in as little as a week, or at most, a month. But to endure for a whole three months in the early stage of contamination…
Not only that. Only Count Kurs got contaminated at the ritual ceremony. That’s strange too.
Something feels off. Very off.
Of course, I don’t know everything about rotten land.
Rotten land started appearing ten years ago. Suddenly, without warning or signs, parts of the empire’s land began to decay. The imperial family made those places off-limits so no one could approach them.
But six years ago, after Dana discovered her purification ability, those lands regained their vitality. Dana personally sought out and purified all the rotten land. After all that work, she thought all of it had disappeared…Maybe there’s rotten land in a dormant state that I haven’t discovered yet.
This was giving her a headache. It wasn’t something she could just ignore or overlook. If left unchecked, it could lead to a massive disaster. No matter how much she’d grown disillusioned with this world… she didn’t want innocent people to die.
“I need to see the guardian tree.”
The guardian tree was deep in the forest of the territory.
“It’s a sacred tree over 2,000 years old. The guardian tree that protects our territory.”
The tree was huge, showing its great age.
“Look. There are no signs of rotten land, right?”
It was true. The forest was lush and green, with no sign of black stains, which are a symptom of rotten land. Then, where did Count Kurs get contaminated?
“Kurs family performs a ceremony at the guardian tree once a year, right?”
“Was there anything different about this year? Anything different from usual?”
“I’m not sure. There was nothing special.” Count Kurs stroked his beard and thought for a moment. “I did prick my hand on one of the tree’s thorns, though.”
“Yes. But it was only enough to draw a single drop of blood. Nothing else happened.”
At that moment, a foreboding thought flashed through Dana’s mind. Could it be?
“Wait here for a moment.”
Dana immediately jumped off her horse. Count Kurs tried to follow, but she firmly stopped him.
“Do not approach the guardian tree. Wait here.”
With every step towards the tree, Dana felt a strange sense of déjà vu. When was it? She felt like this had happened before.
It was when she was Yeon Dana. Was it when I was nine years old? Or was it when she was ten? This happened when she’d been driven into a cramped attic by her relatives. Just before she opened the wardrobe because of hearing the squeaking of rats inside.Yes, it’s similar to then…
Dana slowly placed her hand on the trunk of the guardian tree. And at that moment, she was completely certain. The tree was slowly rotting from the inside.