That day, five years ago.
No one ever came to the place that Lucian had prepared in advance. Entering the empty house, he laughed hoarsely.
Adaline, who had insisted that only a real wound would give meaning to everything, was fatally injured.
Although she took a paralytic and painkiller in advance, this could not mitigate the depth of the wounds inflicted. The very fact that she managed to deceive him and disappear in an unknown direction in such a state caused something close to amazement.
On the verge of death, she still found the strength to escape.
But, however, from the very beginning she was a girl with incomprehensible thoughts.
“If you sleep here, you’ll freeze to death.”
"It's summer now..."
“Oh yes. Exactly."
“Get lost if you want to live.”
“I can’t. I also need to live. So accept your duty as it comes."
“...Are you threatening me now, or what?”
Her pale, thin hand with a light aroma of something rare and expensive reached out to him. Lucian quickly realized: in front of him was a daughter from a noble family, five years younger than him, completely out of place in this nook and cranny.
[If he had been healthy, he would have killed her long ago and took the jewelry. Alas, he was dying.][Whether she understood that he regretted not having the strength to finish her off is unknown.] She just smiled, said her name, position and told him to find her when he recovered. She reminded me: I must remember my duty.
Lucian lit a cigarette and took a deep drag.
[He agreed to participate in Adaline's absurd plan because he owed her his life. But, in truth, he was more interested in how far her ridiculous idea could go.]
[And he also wanted to understand why a girl who seemed to have everything, without ambition or desire for power, would seek to fake her own death.]
He even asked directly once.
Adaline, tired, with dark circles under her eyes, answered sluggishly:
"This is my role."
“Did someone force you?”
"Something like that."
Then Lucian decided that Adaline was simply running away from pressure from Shane.
[He believed that the young Duke, infatuated with the Saint, wanted to get rid of the rich bride, since breaking the engagement approved by the Emperor would be problematic.]
[But this turned out to be a lie.]
[Adaline was actually attacked. She was on the verge of death, and Lucian, disguised as a doctor, saw with his own eyes how Shane, sobbing, lost his mind.]
[If it was a game, he urgently needs to go to the theater.]
[But no. Adaline really decided to escape, risking her life.]
Lucian realized: [if something had gone wrong, instead of the previously prepared body, the real Adaline would have been in the coffin. Listening to her laughingly say that she should have used a stronger paralytic was unbearable.]
[If Lloyd hadn't been there then, he might have angrily stepped on her wounds.]
[And most likely would have killed.]
He put out his cigarette on the floor.
This place wasn't good for anything other than serving as an ashtray anyway.
[Life debt, you say? Nonsense.]
[Lusian was not one to pay bills out of nobility. In his eyes, this debt was insignificant. Consider it already paid.]
[But he still helped. Because Adaline trusted only him.]
[Lucian, help me.] - she said then.
With a face like a dead man.
[She wouldn't say this to anyone else.]
And for Lucian this became a payment.
---[The priest’s attack was unexpected and completely inconsistent with the plot of the novel. But the appearance of an ogre is a completely different matter.]
[There was already a similar episode in the book.]
[It happened at the very beginning, five years ago.]
[This was the same event when Genevieve first awakened, right after my death.]
[In the novel, Genevieve single-handedly defeated a monster that appeared at a party. It was then that she first shed the label of “false saint.”]
[Immediately after this, the attitude of those around her changed before our eyes, as if in a click. They began to praise her and treat her like a real saint. Seeing all this hypocritical change, Genevieve became disappointed, became despondent and went alone to the city square.]
[As if out of sadness she went to buy bread.] - Adaline thought then.
She could not understand: [what kind of grief could lead to a walk across the square? But the plot is the plot.]
[Sometimes, when you are sad, you really want to be alone... Perhaps the saint’s guard was also weakened that day.]
[It was there, on the square, that the main character first met the real villain.]