The Impact Of The Villainess’ Fake Marriage On The Ending

“Your Grace.”

Melissa, who felt the seriousness of the situation from the atmosphere alone, approached Adeline.
Melissa was the only one who could protect Adeline now.
The resoluteness of protecting Adeline clung to her.

“Don’t move too fast. Let’s see where it leads first.”

Adeline tried to stay as calm as possible.
She shouldn’t be frightened or thoughtlessly optimistic beforehand. She had to understand the situation as level-headed as possible so that she could deal with anything.

“I greet Her Grace, Grand Duchess Inver.”

After going through the portal, what awaited at the end of it was a dark forest.
There were quite a few forests in the capital, so it was difficult to determine whether or not this place was in the capital.
Adeline stepped into the strange land and stared at the man who was bowing to her.

“I didn’t know the imperial palace was in such a dense forest.”

Since the emperor had issued a summons, she had to meet him, and the destination the tactician had told her about was also the imperial palace.
However, they took Adeline to a place other than her destination. There was no reason to hide hostility and displeasure in this situation.

“I apologize, Your Grace. It’s a long story, so I brought you here first. His Majesty will also be coming soon to meet Your Grace.”
“It would be great if you could tell me that long story right now. Above all, who are you? I don’t want to speak with a rude person who doesn’t know how to say their name.”

She could clearly see that the man in front of her was a knight of high status. Even if the pattern was not visible and there was no introduction, he was certainly not someone of low status.
Adeline knew better than anyone. As long as she could see through the knight, she wouldn’t lose anywhere.
But she deliberately stared at the knight with disrespect. Even if he revealed his true identity, she had no intention of being polite.

“Please forgive my rudeness. My name is Hugo Brown, Captain of the Red Knights.”

The captain lifted the cloth covering the pattern and revealed the red moon hidden underneath.

‘The Red Knights?’

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Knowing the identity of the knights surrounding her, Adeline swallowed a deep sigh.

The Red Knights were the secret knights the emperor had created for himself.
In addition to the imperial army operating out in the open, they were the knights in charge of gathering information and investigating in the shadows, at the order of the emperor.

The emperor had organized and made a group for himself from the time he was the crown prince, but because he was an idiot who gave them all kinds of authority, the nobles couldn’t handle them recklessly.

‘The situation is even worse than expected.’

Adeline bit her lips. She had to see how her opponent would behave, but it never seemed easy to handle an arrow aimed at her.

“I didn’t mean to tell you this as soon as I saw you, but the situation has become like this so it can’t be helped.”
“…”
“I am arresting Your Grace for the murder of ten nobles in the capital. Please cooperate so that we can investigate smoothly.”

Both Adeline and Melissa were stunned.
Murder? She was accused of killing ten nobles?
Adeline had expected at best to be taken hostage to threaten Kael, so she couldn’t say anything.

“What… What are you saying now…”
“I’d like to take you somewhere else and talk about it in detail. As you can see, this is a very open space.”
“Get your hands off me.”

As the knights approached to arrest Adeline, she shook their hands violently.
It was a gesture of someone who knew how to handle power.

The captain raised one eyebrow as if curiously, then lifted his hand to hold the knights back for a moment.

“I spent one month going to the north after my wedding and stayed there after that. I’ve been focusing so much on the north that I can’t even care about the capital or my hometown, the east. And you’re saying I’ve killed ten nobles?”
“There is evidence, Your Grace.”
“Then show me the evidence. I can’t help but wonder what kind of evidence you have to treat me, the Grand Duchess, like this.”
“I’ll show you when I take you there. Didn’t I say that?”
“I won’t move until you show me.”

Adeline was very determined. She had no intention of following him obediently.
It wasn’t all that convincing. How could she be accused of murdering ten people? It was so ridiculous that her jaw dropped.

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“Ah. I was expecting cooperation, but it’s already difficult. At this rate, it will only cause harm to Your Grace.”
“…”
“I can’t show you now, but should I just give you a hint?”

The captain smiled as if it was troubling and approached Adeline.

“Do you know Lady Vanessa, the daughter of Count Felix?”

Adeline’s eyes trembled when he mentioned Vanessa’s name.
She hadn’t expected to hear that name in this situation, and the moment she heard it, the weight of the false charge of committing the murders became infinitely heavier.

“I’ll just tell you that for now.”

The captain beckoned to the knights again as soon as he finished speaking, and they immediately knocked Adeline and Melissa out.
Adeline couldn’t do anything.

***

“Ugh…”
“Your Grace! Are you awake?”

Adeline frowned and opened her eyes.
As she opened her eyes with a huge headache, Melissa was staring at her with a dark look on her face.

“Melissa. Are you alright? Are you hurt?”
“I’m not hurt at all. I’m very fine. What about you? Are you hurt, Your Grace?”
“No. I’m also fine. My head hurts a little, but I think it’ll subside soon. Rather, this place…”
“I don’t know where we are. I’m sure it’s underground, but I can’t figure out where. You can’t really see any light, so it’s difficult to know what time it is.”

Melissa sighed and explained the situation.

Looking around, Adeline and Melissa were in a cramped cell in a basement.
The narrow bars made Adeline’s situation feel real.

“They must be crazy. How dare they do this to the Lady of the North… It’s clear that they’re going to war with the North.”

Melissa was genuinely angry. Treating Adeline, the grand duchess, like this was also an insult to the North.

“I think it’s been about an hour since I woke up, but I haven’t seen any guards. There is no noise outside.”

But it wasn’t something that could be solved with anger.
Melissa, who knew this well, pressed down on her rising anger and informed Adeline of what she had been observing.

“It’s impossible that no one is watching us. However, they could be doing it through a structure that can’t be checked from our side. I’m sure they’re watching even now.”
“…”
“In any case, Melissa. Do you know about the incidents that the captain talked about earlier? If ten nobles died in the capital, all sorts of articles must have poured out.”

Adeline originally checked the situation in the capital by reading the newspaper every day, but she didn’t do so after moving to the north.
She was busy adapting to the north, so she had been quite disconnected from the events of the capital.
But how could she not know about such a big incident? Adeline sighed inwardly.

“Yes. There have been articles about it in the newspapers every day for the past month. I was so surprised that I also looked into it.”
“Can you tell me in detail? I need to know what on earth is this situation.”

Melissa immediately explained the incidents.
Every two to three days in the past month, nobles lost their lives in the capital.
Some of them had nobility titles, such as counts or viscounts, and some were their esteemed sons or daughters.

“So you’re saying it’s the same culprit?”
“Yes. All the dead nobles had a black rose on their necks. There was clearly no external wound, but they were dead.”

It was difficult to find a connection if their lives had been taken without causing any trauma, but it was a different case if they all had the same mark.

“Did the person kill them and leave the same mark?”
“I think so, but there were no details. However, the newspaper was full of stories that the cycle was constant and that it was the same method and so it was seen as being done by the same person, and that the nobles of the capital were terrified these days.”

The headache that Adeline thought would soon go away pushed even harder.
She couldn’t believe she was being accused of such a big case. She was dizzy, wondering what on earth was going on.

“Did it say which families were affected?”
“I’ll write it down. I remember all of them.”

Melissa took out a small notebook and a piece of charcoal she always carried, quickly wrote down the names, and handed it to Adeline.
Adeline glanced at the paper.

‘… Huh?’

But the written names were overly familiar.
Even though some of them were big prestigious families that dominated the social world, even the noble families who were not that prestigious were familiar.

Adeline glared at the letters with a serious face. She was worried because she couldn’t figure it out.

‘Why are they familiar? Except for the count and the viscount…’

Adeline, who dwelled on it over and over again, soon found out the cause of her sense of déjà vu and turned pale.

“Dear heavens.”
“Your Grace? Are you alright?”
“Melissa. What about Lady Felix? Do you know why the captain was talking about Lady Felix earlier?”
“Ah, it was Lady Felix who almost became the eleventh victim. Fortunately, she survived, but she had the same black mark.”

Adeline’s hands trembled as she pieced together the last piece of the puzzle.

“It’s a trap. Someone has set a terrible trap.”

There was only one reason why the ten families were familiar.
They were the ten families that the four siblings, who had been thrown into the cruel world when Marquis Tien passed away in an accident, sought help from to survive.
Enoch judged that they had a strong connection with Marquis Tien when he was alive, so he chose them and asked for help with eagerness, but they turned their backs on them extremely coldly.

The people from those families were dead.
As if the grudge of the Tien family had swallowed them up.