So the Duchess Disappeared

25. Carnage

He had never used such aggressive words before.

Every word felt unfamiliar, and even the prince was quite taken aback.

No matter how urgent the situation, the duke had always observed procedures and etiquette.

What on earth had driven him to act like a lunatic?

The prince looked at him with a bewildered expression before finally mustering a breath.

“Are you really suggesting that you want to kill Rachel, even saying it out loud?”

“Yes.”

Clint’s response was concise and resolute.

“You’re willing to kill in front of me?”

The prince, too, was apprehensive about the duke’s willingness to shed blood.

However, he stood his ground, appearing as though he were unaffected.

Rachel, already drained of color, sat trembling behind the prince.

She instinctively knew. She knew that Clint truly intended to kill her.

“Please step aside. I must kill this girl here today.”

A chilly second warning.

Clint, with the sword spread out on the ground, tilted his chin towards Rachel, fixing his gaze on her.

“Rachel.”

“…”

Her audacity had completely vanished. It was replaced by the terror of impending death.

“Do you remember? The day you tried to kill me. The day you pushed me into the lake like this.”

He pretended to slowly trace the air with the hand that wasn’t holding the sword as he spoke.

The events of that night, from his youth, felt strangely vivid.

Back then, Rachel was much taller and stronger than him. Helpless and weak, Clint might have wished for a day like today.

“You made me fall. Didn’t you? Because the situation had changed and it was amusing for you.”

Clint chuckled.

The dim moonlight cast a shadow that seemed to stretch directly towards Rachel.

At that time, he had no choice but to listen to her to save his own life. But the vulnerable days of his youth were long gone.

For a while now, he had been planning to dispose of Rachel. The only reason he had kept Rachel alive until now was a single one.

He was naturally a person who liked everything he did to have a neat ending. He disliked anything that could make a mess or lead to gossip in what he had done.

So he put a lot of effort into finding the right time and the right method to deal with Rachel. Killing a person was not an easy thing, even though she was the concubine of a Duke.

But everything had already been twisted.

“…”

So now, it didn’t seem to matter to him if everyone saw him killing Rachel right in front of them.

He had concluded that she was the cause of all the problems.

Clint sneered again.

“Still, I tried to protect your honor. You’re the one who chose a miserable death.”

Clint changed the pace of his walk.

Now he was really going to kill Rachel. Although the prince tried to stop him, he seemed to see nothing. Clint stood in front of Rachel and immediately raised his sword without giving her a chance to breathe.

The end of the sword was heading towards Rachel in an instant.

“Stop, what are you doing!”

The moment the sword was about to pierce Rachel’s throat, the door opened, and the elite knights wearing purple cloaks rushed in.

Originally, it was a spacious place, but as many people poured in, it soon felt cramped.

From behind the elite knights, the Emperor himself appeared. The Emperor appeared with an extremely angry expression.

Because of all the commotion the knight caused, enough time had passed for the news to reach him.

“Duke!”

Flapping his red cloak, the Emperor appeared and headed toward Clint, addressing him.

The Emperor naturally stood in front of Clint.

This allowed Rachel to breathe a sigh of relief. Her face, which had turned pale, seemed to regain some color.

“Hello, Your Majesty.”

The Duke’s greeting upon the Emperor’s arrival was far from his usual self.

His usual polite and gentlemanly attitude was replaced by a slightly sarcastic tone. It was clear that he was mocking the person in front of him, who was clearly the Emperor.

Even though he knew the man in front of him was the Emperor, he pointed his sword at him.

The Emperor raised his hand and blocked Clint’s sword, which was aimed at his head, with the back of his hand. Clint remained vigilant, still pointing his sword at Rachel.

The Emperor stepped forward again, blocking his gaze.

“Let’s talk. Isn’t that your favorite thing to do? There’s nothing that can’t be solved with words, right? Why are you suddenly like this, Duke?”

“There are things that can’t be solved with words, Your Majesty.”

“Yeah, yeah. I understand everything. There must be a reason why the Duke, who usually speaks rationally and sensibly, is acting like this. Then talk to me!”

“…”

The Emperor stepped forward to persuade Clint. Unlike before, he approached the Duke a little closer with a gentle smile.

“If Rachel has done something wrong, I will surely give her the appropriate punishment. So you don’t have to do it yourself like this!”

“Hmm.”

Clint didn’t seem particularly interested in what the Emperor was saying.

Rachel, who had slowly stood up, turned away from the Duke with the support of the prince, and Clint, who was watching her intently, narrowed his eyebrows in annoyance.

“Duke!”

The Emperor called Clint impatiently again, who was not paying attention to his words.

“Rachel, or rather, even saying that name now feels dirty to me.”

Only then did Clint shift his gaze to the Emperor and spoke.

“You’ll probably know even without me pointing out what she did wrong, Your Majesty. But what you should be worried about is not about her.”

The Emperor also narrowed his eyes at Clint’s words.

“If Rachel’s… if Your Highness is involved in her wrongdoing, how would you handle it? Would you punish both?”

“…What!”

The Emperor exclaimed in slight confusion.

“If I had killed that girl here, Your Majesty, you might have thanked me because you wouldn’t even know about the Duke’s concubine. You’d have been buried in it.”

Although he said it with a roundabout tone, Clint’s words were quite clear in their meaning.

If there was such a mistake on the part of the prince, from the Emperor’s point of view, it was a clear threat that it could cause problems when he became Emperor later.

“You never run out of words, do you?”

“No, I certainly don’t.”

“Why on earth are you doing this? And even if Rachel did something wrong….”

The Emperor, who was well aware of the Duke’s prestige these days, didn’t show it, but he was tense inwardly. He took a deep breath for a moment and spoke again.

“It’s not your place to interfere in women’s affairs! It seems to be related to the Duke’s wife. For example, if something happened between the Duke’s wife and Rachel! You should have let the Duke’s wife handle it! Isn’t that the right thing to do?”

“…”

The Emperor’s words were not entirely wrong. Among the nobles, husbands never got involved in the problems between their wives.

But in this case, it seemed a bit awkward to put it that way. Hearing it from the Emperor’s point of view, Clint’s words were clearly meant to be a threat.

“You must not dismiss this as a simple matter of women. Because of that woman, I may have lost my successor. If my child had really died, you should know that I have no intention of excluding His Highness the Prince from the responsibility, Your Majesty.”

Perhaps due to the influence of his father, his obsession sometimes appeared a bit pathological to others.

The Emperor awkwardly smiled and spoke slowly.

“Who doesn’t know that love for one’s child is a great thing? If Rachel were in her right mind, this wouldn’t have happened. There must be a misunderstanding. I’ll take care of it.”

The Emperor, who couldn’t ignore the Duke’s status, suppressed his boiling anger to persuade him. At the same time, he hoped that his son, Crown Prince Layton Phillips, wouldn’t do anything foolish.

At this moment, the Duke’s political power was not strong enough to confront the imperial authority. He didn’t want any disturbances until the Crown Prince ascended the throne.

“No, I’ll handle my own affairs. I’ll take my leave now.”

Realizing that arguing here would be futile, the Duke gave a brief nod and turned away, maintaining the proper etiquette.