IELNDMH - Chapter 49 < With Another Guy >

IELNDMH - Chapter 49 < With Another Guy >

I Ended Up Living Up Next Door With My Ex-Husband

"I guess we've arrived, Your Highness."

It was about two hours after departure.

Mina said as she pulled back the curtains on the window.

As if what she said was right, the coachman soon came over and opened the door.

"We have arrived, Your Highness. Please get off."

As I got off with the coachman's escort, I was greeted by a dreary view of the mountains.

The maids who got off the carriage next looked even more fiercely at their surroundings.

"Are we really going to meet here?"

When I asked Mina, who was standing next to me, a small question, Mina nodded her head low.

"Yes, I think it would be better if we meet in advance and go in together. It might be dangerous."

It was still dark on the mountain in the early morning.

Of course, there were few people, and there was fog everywhere.

In the quiet surroundings, only the occasional sound of rustling leaves could be heard, and the cool mountain breeze continued to hit my cheek.

The atmosphere feels vaguely eerie...

At that time, when I was secretly slumping my shoulders, Mina quietly grabbed my hand.

She seemed to sense that I was secretly scared.

"Your Highness, are you sure you're okay? Of course, we will protect you no matter what happens, but for Your Highness to leave the Grand Duke's castle and come to such a squalid place......."

Mina seemed worried about Rebecca, who had grown like a flower in a greenhouse.

But fortunately, I was not the same Rebecca I had grown up to be.

I was just briefly overwhelmed by the unique atmosphere of the mountains in the morning.

I have five trustworthy mixed-race demon maids around me, so why should I be afraid?

I shrugged my shoulders like it was nothing.

"Mina, did you tell me about the game of whack-a-mole I played when I met the magic doll?"

"A game of whack-a-mole? What is that?"

When I remembered the scene where I was hitting the heads of the magic dolls that were running in droves, I couldn't help but chuckle.

"Yes, something like that."

It was at that time when I was having a nonsensical conversation with Mina.

Chabak-. Chabak-.

The sound of me walking on fallen leaves gradually grew closer from far away.

At the same time, the maids' faces gradually became tense with tension.

"It looks like we're here."

Mina spoke lowly, staring into the distance.

As I turned my head, I saw a man slowly walking out from between the bushes.

Finally, the man in front of me spread his shoulders and opened his mouth.

"Your Highness, you have finally come."

There was a low level of hostility towards me in the man's eyes.

He looked me up and down in silence and then nodded.

"My name is 'Thompson' and I used to be a subdeacon at the Mansion of Light."

Thompson's voice as he introduced himself was as cold as the atmosphere around him.

"Of course, I don't know if Her Highness the Noble Lord will remember me."

As Thompson spoke sarcastically, Mina glanced at me and let out an awkward laugh.

"Ha..... Haha, Thompson! Why are you being so rude to Her Highness?"

At this, I shook my head.

"No. Thompson is one of those who was harmed by me, so it's a natural reaction."

Gray Zone Village is located halfway up this mountain.

It was a place where former employees of the Twins family, who had been treated harshly by Rebecca in the past and were even fired, gathered together.

And Thompson, standing in front of me, was a resident of that village and the person who would guide me there today.

I continued speaking, slightly raising the corner of my mouth towards him.

"Thank you for coming all the way to help me, Thompson."

For a brief moment, Thompson's eyebrows rose high.

It was as if he had never thought that words of gratitude would come out of the mouth of the infamous Rebecca.

However, his face soon turned sour and he let out a long breath.

"It is not to help Your Highness. It's a request from my old friend, Mina, so I have no choice but to help."

Thompson glanced at Mina with a disapproving look and continued speaking again.

"Are you really planning to go to Gray Zone Village?"

"Yes, Thompson."

Thompson looked troubled by my firm answer.

"Like me, most people in our village will not welcome Your Highness. No, there will be people who are much more hostile than me."

".... I guess so."

"I will take Your Highness to the village as requested by Mina, but....."

Thompson's eyes suddenly became sharper.

"My favor ends there. From now on, even if the villagers harm Your Highness, I will stand by their side."

"..."

"I have absolutely no intention of helping you."

I nodded slowly toward him who spoke emphatically.

"I know, Thompson. I don't shamelessly ask for any more favors."

Thompson seemed satisfied with my answer, nodded his head, and knocked lightly on the carriage door.

"Great. Then let me guide you to the village."

***

Meanwhile, inside the Twins Grand Duke's carriage.

The Arспаuke's carriage was running, following the traces of the Grand Duchess.

Even now, he was on his way there after receiving a message from the Knights that they had found the last trace.

Bianca, who was leaning on her nanny's arm, glanced up and saw Cedric sitting across from her.

Cedric's face had become noticeably gaunt in just a few hours.

It was clearly Bianca who had made up her mind.

But every time she saw her brother's suddenly hurt face, her heart became infinitely heavier.

Bianca, who had been keeping her small lips closed, eventually slowly opened them.

"Her Highness will be fine. And we will be able to find Her Highness charge soon...."

But Cedric just kept his eyes fixed on the outside of his window and didn't make a move.

He seemed like a person deep in a quagmire of thoughts, unable to hear or see anything.

And at that moment, Cedric's inner state was not much different from what Bianca saw.

Now, memories with Rebecca were unfolding one after another in his mind.

No, to be exact, the very day Rebecca announced the divorce.

He kept thinking about the harsh words he had said to her.

And the look on her face when she heard those words.

'Your obsession is suffocating. No, I am so sick of the woman you are now!'

He regrets accepting to marry her. No matter how much it is an arranged marriage by Manakin, this is... Something must be wrong.

He wanted to hurt her.

Because he resented her for tying him up and tormenting him with her loveless obsession.

So he spat out sharp, dagger-like words.

'Rather.....I wish you could just disappear somewhere I don't know.'

And the dagger seemed to have pierced Rebecca's heart exactly as intended.

He lowered his head and did not make even the slightest movement.

It was a while later that the small lips opened again.

' If I had been a woman from a noble family other than the defeated Kachiisu, you would have believed my heart. Then the two of us. Wouldn't it have been this much?'

As she looked at Rebecca asking that question, what did she think of herself at that time?

Ah.

He was sick of Rebecca trying to change the subject of conversation when she was at a disadvantage, as always.

Her distinctive southern accent also suddenly became irritating.

As he looked up at her, her red eyes began to seep into resentment and tears, as they always did.

She thought that soon she would start going crazy.

But that day, her reaction was a little different from usual.

'No matter how many times I turn around, as long as I am me, our ending will be the same.'

Rebecca muttered like someone resigned.

However, in her voice that followed, as always, her resentment, love, and hatred for Cedric were mixed together.

'But you will love me someday. Because you are my man chosen by heaven. And then you....'

Rebecca raised her tearful eyes towards him and spoke through gritted teeth.

She seemed like a person overcome by evil.

'You will regret this moment terribly.'

To Cedric at that time, those words were no different from a curse.

From then on, their feelings for each other became more and more intense, and eventually, it got to the point where Rebecca slapped him when she announced the divorce.

Cedric, who had been thinking about that day for a while, let out a long sigh.

'Rebecca was right in the end.'

While he was thinking over the harsh words he had said, Cedric could not help but regret it again and again.

If only he hadn't said those words if he hadn't looked at Rebecca with those eyes. If only.....

'Wouldn't Rebecca have ever disappeared without a word like this?'

No, she wouldn't have even divorced him in the first place.

Now the only excuse to blame Rebecca for being gone is his rights under the secret divorce agreement.

She took her husband's rights away with her own hands. So even if Rebecca disappeared like this, there was nothing he could do.

He was deeply resentful of himself for making her do that in the past.

But even so, he couldn't lose Rebecca like this.

If that happens, it's really...... Because he felt like he would never be able to forgive himself for being foolish back then.

'I must find Rebecca at all costs.'

At that time, Cedric was sighing nervously. The carriage slowly began to stop halfway up the mountain.

Suddenly, she looked out the window and saw that the knight commander standing outside the carriage opened the carriage door in a polite manner.

"Your Highness the Grand Duke."

In that brief moment when the knight commander bowed his head in greeting, Cedric's question came out immediately.

"Have you found any traces of the Grand Duchess? What direction? As for the man's energy... Didn't you feel together?"

Cedric asked the same question an hour ago when they met at the last place where Rebecca's energy was felt.

The fortunate answer came that there was no such thing as a man's energy at that time.

That answer was the only thing that gave Cedric relief.

But now, what came out of the knight commander's mouth was a completely different answer than before.

"The energy of the Grand Duchess charge is heading towards the top of this mountain. It's not normal, it seems to be a little higher. However..."

The knight commander hesitated for a moment and then spoke again.

"This time, I felt the man's energy."

"..."

"He's a mixed-race demon man."

Cedric's blue eyes, which were like a calm lake, caused big ripples.

"Not only me, but all the knights with tracking magic felt that way. It looks like they met here and went up there together........"

The knight commander continued to speak, but Cedric felt himself losing consciousness for a moment.

As his face turned pale in an instant, Bianca was unable to hide her worried expression.

"Your Highness, the Grand Duke...."

But at this moment, Cedric could not hear any sounds around him.

Rebecca and Adrian.

The scene of those two people meeting and whispering their love to each other came to mind one after another, and as I did so, anger as hot as lava seeped into my heart.

He immediately got off the carriage and jumped onto the black horse driven by the knight commander.

"From here, let's take the horse first." 

Cedric rode off at once, leaving only the words, 

"Follow me."

The more fierce his eyes became, the more wildly his black horse's mane fluttered in the wind.

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