At that same time, Andrea—who had found it increasingly strange that she could no longer contact Viscount Pelsus—was returning from an unexpected visit to the Viscount's estate.
She had gone to investigate the situation personally.
What she discovered left her reeling.
"The Viscount is missing?"
The mansion of Viscount Pelsus was in absolute disarray.
According to the flustered butler, the Viscount had announced one morning that he needed to travel north on urgent business. He'd departed immediately—and there had been no word from him since.
The butler wrung his hands nervously as he explained that despite searching everywhere, he couldn't even locate the hem of the Viscount's traveling coat, much less the man himself.
Standing beside the anxious servant was a fresh-faced young man who claimed to be a distant relative of Viscount Pelsus. The youth practically vibrated with barely suppressed excitement at the prospect of stepping into the absent Viscount's position.
It was utterly incomprehensible.
"The Viscount said he had an excellent business opportunity lined up!"
If everything had proceeded according to plan, Viscount Pelsus and Chloe should have been married by now. Immediately following the wedding, the Viscount had promised to introduce Andrea to a tremendously profitable venture involving some kind of rare mushroom cultivation.
But the wedding had been canceled.
And the business discussion had been postponed indefinitely.
Andrea had always thought Viscount Pelsus was a shallow merchant who cared for nothing beyond money and status. Yet she couldn't deny that she'd greatly admired his business acumen.
The man was entirely self-made—he'd risen from nothing to become a wealthy merchant through his own cunning and effort, eventually purchasing his way into the nobility itself.
Good ability, but pathetically greedy for titles. He was so easy to manipulate.
So why had he suddenly vanished?
What business could possibly be so urgent in the North? Unless...
Andrea's mind suddenly flashed back to a conversation she'd had with Viscount Pelsus over wine—how they'd both expressed their fervent wish that Marquis Rodrian would simply be assassinated and removed from the picture entirely.
It wasn't the Marquis of Rodrian who did this, was it?
To be honest, Andrea had deliberately pushed Viscount Pelsus in that direction. It had been entirely intentional—subtly goading the Viscount by casually mentioning that she would protect anyone who successfully assassinated the troublesome Marquis.
A gentle nudge. A hint of immunity. Just enough encouragement.
"Damn it! I told you to stab him in the back, not get yourself stabbed, you absolute fool!"
Andrea desperately hoped that wasn't what had happened.
But if that wasn't the case, why else would Viscount Pelsus have disappeared so suddenly and completely?
"ARGH!"
Fury overtook reason. Andrea stomped her feet violently against the carriage floor, causing the entire vehicle to shake with each blow.
The coachman continued driving without pause, clearly accustomed to such outbursts from his passenger.
"My business money! My fortune! All of it—gone!"
She felt as if she might go mad from the sheer waste of it all—handing Chloe over to Callius when she could have married the girl to Viscount Pelsus and reaped endless profits.
"That wretched Chloe! That useless, worthless bitch! She's never helped me! Not once! Never!"
After a prolonged fit of screaming and kicking, Andrea finally exhausted herself. She collapsed against the seat, gasping for breath, and began mentally tallying the vast fortune she did not possess—but was absolutely certain she would have acquired.
Should have acquired.
Deserved to acquire.
"If I had partnered with Viscount Pelsus and launched one business venture after another, I could have established two major trading companies per year!"
Andrea kicked the opposite seat violently, as if the physical action could somehow manifest her imaginary wealth into reality.
"Ten top-tier companies in just five years! In ten or twenty years, I would have become the wealthiest Emperor this continent has ever seen!"
Of course, this wasn't based on any actual calculation or realistic business projection.
It was a miraculous computation that existed solely in Andrea's increasingly delusional mind—where two companies per year somehow multiplied into continental dominance, and marriage contracts guaranteed infinite profit margins.
But Andrea believed in these calculations with absolute conviction.
And she resented Chloe for destroying them.
"If only that woman had moved properly! If only she'd done what she was supposed to do! Damn it all!"
The idea had taken root deep in Andrea's mind, growing like poison ivy: Chloe and Callius were thieves who had stolen her property.
Never mind that she had lost nothing tangible.
Never mind that the fortune existed only in fantasy.
In Andrea's warped perception, Chloe and Callius had taken everything from her—every imaginary trading company, every phantom profit, every delusion of grandeur.
They deserved to die for it.
"That damned Marquis of Rodrian! I won't let you get away with this! I'll make you pay! ARGH!"
Andrea conveniently refused to think about the fact that it had been Empress Kavala who had pushed so strongly for Chloe's marriage to Callius in the first place.
That uncomfortable truth didn't fit the narrative she'd constructed.
No—it was much easier to blame Chloe and Callius for everything.
They're the ones tormenting me. They're the problem. They're the enemy.
By the time Andrea's carriage arrived at the palace, she had worked herself into such a state of paranoid fury that she immediately sought out Kavala.
She needed to tell her mother about Chloe and Callius—the two villains who were mentally destroying her with their very existence.
Andrea burst into Kavala's chambers without bothering to announce herself properly, her face flushed with agitation and her hair disheveled from the journey.
"Mother! Mother, you must listen to me!"
Kavala looked up from her correspondence, one eyebrow raised at her daughter's dramatic entrance.
"It must have been Marquis Rodrian who murdered Viscount Pelsus! Out of pure spite and malice! There's no other explanation!"
The accusation hung in the air—baseless, paranoid, and utterly convinced of its own truth.
Andrea stood there trembling with self-righteous fury, awaiting her mother's validation.
Completely unaware that she had just accused the most powerful military commander in the empire of murder based on nothing more than her own wounded greed and shattered delusions.
In Andrea's mind, the world existed to serve her ambitions.
When reality refused to cooperate, she simply rewrote it.
And anyone who disrupted her fantasies became a villain in her twisted narrative.
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